Stronghold Games to publish "504" by Friedman Friese

It might be fun to use the kit to create a game, then theme it up. Are there any AT themes left at this point that haven't been kickstartered to oblivion.

Interesting, although I've never seen any multiple games in one box games turn out to be particularly good.

*Ahem* Best of Dragon Magazine Games?

Okay fine, it drops off pretty quickly after Emperor's treasure

JonJacob wrote: This game is tailor made to piss off this site. In any case I am very intrigued by this concept, I've been following this game for months now, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy this as soon as it's available. I kind of like Euro's but I see them as abstract strategy games more than story games and as such this idea is pretty brilliant. A part of me is seeing this as a kind of designers tools box where some of the idea's I'm having might get a kick in the rear by playing through a few of these games in here. Everything I've read about the individual games has been really positive.

I like the idea that I could have the ultimate new game at home and any time I get that urge to play something new or just learn a new system there's a box tailor made to create that experience hundreds of times.

This is what the BGG game should have been. An ultimate cult of the new title. A game about games, about designing games even. A game about learning new games and choosing a game to play. There's a lot going on just in the concept alone and it's certainly something I've never seen before. I've played games that tried a couple of different things here and there but nothing even close to this ambitious. I've had a good time with most of FF's previous games, or at least good enough that I trust he could do something really fascinating here.

Generally speaking, game designs that start with mechanics instead of themes end up with pasted-on themes that easily peel off. When a designer starts with a theme (or setting, whatever you want to call it), he will tend to think about how to express that theme, which can often lead to very thematic expressions of that theme. But even a generic euro can at least give the appearance of theme with artwork. This 504 is unlikely to deliver in theme, because the whole concept is extremely focused on mechanics instead of theme, and the components will need to be very generic to support so many different games.

That said, I might pick up a copy at some point if the price is right, because this game could be a nice toolbox for designing other games.

SuperflyTNT wrote:
With all due respect, and you know I respect you, this sounds so hypocritical. This is Emperor's New Clothes V2.0, in my estimation. It's experimental, yes, but when a guy takes a shitload of unrelated mechanics, no theme, stuffs it in a box, calls it a game, and sells it on Kickstarter, you don't call him experimental and audacious, you call him a cunt, more or less. This guy does it, and he's bold.

What the fuck, Jack?

You aren't looking at it correctly. There is definitely theme. There is not a setting. The theme is interoperable, interchangeable components creating unique worlds with different worlds, it is the "multiverse" concept. The game is about executing this concept, not about creating a cohesive, innovative game. If you look at the list of "worlds", they all correspond to modern mechanics that other games use interchangeably all the time. He's just putting it in bold face.

Friese was tinkering with this same concept when he designed Stich-Meister, a trick-taking game where the players determine the rules before each round. It was a neat idea but ultimately not real memorable for our group:

1) Each player would select a rule and then all would simultaneously reveal. It was easy for rules to overrwrite each other which led to disappointment.
2) It lacked any particular set of drama...from round to round your hand would either completely suck or be awesome depending on the rules that got put out. The chaos was neat for awhile but we found ourselves wanting more coherency.
3) Of the rules that were available only a few were particularly interesting or innovative. In fairness we've played a lot of trick-taking games but I'd hoped for more cleverness here. You'd think the interactions would lead to interesting rounds, and that happened once or twice, but more often it was just meh. It's possible a more interesting set of base rules would solve this, but we weren't up to designing them. I think this is the point that I would be most concerned about for 504.

Michael Barnes wrote: You aren't looking at it correctly. There is definitely theme. There is not a setting. The theme is interoperable, interchangeable components creating unique worlds with different worlds, it is the "multiverse" concept. The game is about executing this concept, not about creating a cohesive, innovative game. If you look at the list of "worlds", they all correspond to modern mechanics that other games use interchangeably all the time. He's just putting it in bold face.

That's such a stretch that you may actually qualify to replace Reed Richards. There are micro-themes, and that's even dubious. Putting 3 modules together to create a racing game with area control and stock purchasing is not a theme. It's a series of mechanics stitched together. It's a purely mechanical game system, which is fine, but it is wholly without setting, narrative, and, I'd argue (and am) any coherent theme. Each module has a theme, but it's so abstract that it can't be said to contain much theme with a straight face.

I'm OK with people wanting it and buying it. Whatever floats your boat. All I'm saying is that this is a series of microgames that fit together to create configurable metagames, none of them with any narrative or theme. It's highly experimental in a visceral way, and my initial point is that I find it interesting that if a game like this was made by some unknown schlep and Kickstarted, you would be first in line to leaving a steaming pool of 7-Layer Burrito diarrhea all over it.

<EDIT>
The funny thing is that this is not really that novel, although on its face it is. FLUXX is essentially a game that does much of what this does, but in a different way. Instead of changing on the fly like Fluxx, each game you play is different, from the get-go, based on the modules you choose. I don't see this as that different from the 10,000 foot level.

I wish it, and him, the best, but I just can't see this being more than the one-size-fits-all microgame that has increasingly been the bane of the hobby game industry for the last 2-3 years. It's as if variety and short game time are the new goal rather than deep, interesting, fulfilling game play. It's really kind of sad that it's gotten to the point that the hobby is in a race to the bottom.

I can't wait to hear that the classic card game, "War", is making a comeback, complete with Warhammer 40K art and a tacked on story about how the Emperor of Mankind and Warmaster Horus were at a bar, deciding the fate of the universe, which ended up setting of the Heresy.

I don't see why 504 can't create narrative. Mechanics and game dynamics can create narrative.

I am skeptical on this project, but several people that I really respect (not Stronghold-related) have played several of the combinations and have said that shockingly it does seem to work.

If it really works I think it will be an impressive achievement.

I'm extremely interested in 504 just for the nutty audacity of it. The vast, vast, VAST majority of the "hot new shit" hobby games I play are so unoriginal, so conservative, so terrified of taking chances that they make video games look like a wellspring of invention (this is absolutely true in the case of PC games, where there is an overwhelming amount of innovation taking place). 504 is a neat, left-field idea, and we could use a few more left-field ideas in an increasingly homogenized post-hybridization era.

JonJacob wrote: A part of me is seeing this as a kind of designers tools box where some of the idea's I'm having might get a kick in the rear by playing through a few of these games in here.

This is an excellent point. For designers, 504 could also be viewed as a nifty experiment in lateral thinking. I mean, let's not fucking kid ourselves: I play a LOT of new games, and 99% of them are just re-calibrations of existing mechanics, usually with some dippy generic theme slapped on. 504 could lead designers to, you know, come up with weirder combinations of tried-and-true mechanics. Then if those designers really feel compelled to whip up some super-derivative fantasy or sci-fi setting or paste on a zombie theme onto their bizarre new racing/area control/auction wargame, then more power to them. I'll be more interested in entertaining some schlubby wannabe designer's sad attempt at hackneyed world-building if--at least--the subcutaneous combination of mechanics powering the gameplay is, like, interesting, man.

Or, fuck, failing all of that, just view 504 as a kind of subtly artful commentary on how a LOT of board games are grab-bags of existing ideas. I don't know. Whatever. This shit is cool, though.

I just don't see how this game can rise beyond random combinations of game mechanics and victory conditions. If there is going to be some actual theme/setting for each game, how will it be expressed? A paragraph of flavor text? That would be 504 paragraphs in the rule book. And I doubt that the components are going to deliver any flavor, since they need to remain flexible enough to address 504 games. More likely that players will need to imagine the context for a given game on their own. Maybe some players will like that, and many won't care. But I usually don't enjoy games unless there is some kind of context for the gameplay. I want my actions in the game to have some meaning, ideally creating at least the appearance of a story.

Shellhead wrote: I just don't see how this game can rise beyond random combinations of game mechanics and victory conditions. If there is going to be some actual theme/setting for each game, how will it be expressed? A paragraph of flavor text? That would be 504 paragraphs in the rule book. And I doubt that the components are going to deliver any flavor, since they need to remain flexible enough to address 504 games. More likely that players will need to imagine the context for a given game on their own. Maybe some players will like that, and many won't care. But I usually don't enjoy games unless there is some kind of context for the gameplay. I want my actions in the game to have some meaning, ideally creating at least the appearance of a story.

Easy, you come up with one. Since when do we *have to* be feed narrative/story/setting by designers? Individual components and mechanism may not convey theme/setting, but I believe when worked right, combinations of those would.

I don't think it's about *have to* but more about preference.