The Others: Better than the others

I’m not a tremendous fan of “many vs one” games....

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Great stuff. Keep it coming Marc!

Thanks! Wasn't sure how much traction it would get here, given that this game seems to be on the list of things dismissed as "CMON minis explosions", but I think it's quite solid, if not for something genuinely innovative, but more for how the whole package works together. I was kind of looking around for something else to work on (uba and I have been talking about a couple things that are a bit more esoteric and I'm in the middle of one of them now) and realized that I hadn't done anything on a game that I've played quite a few times in recent years. Also, it's an Eric Lang design and I'm an unabashed fan.

I totally sympathize with both the cost issue and with the glut of production these days. I'm interested in a lot of stuff that gets discussed here (like, recently, Lifeform and Nemesis) but I just don't get stuff played often enough already, such that I've essentially reduced myself to four channels:

1. Eric Lang
2. Cole Wehrle
3. Scott Almes
4. Michal Oracz

I'll look at everything those guys do, but I won't necessarily buy all of it (like, say, Portal's latest Kickstarter.) Everything else is in the "nice, but I can't afford it, money- or time-wise." Maybe I'll get a chance to play someone else's copy.

As for the cost of The Others, it was in the winter sale bin in a big way this past Christmas, on either CMON's site or Miniature Market, if not both. I was fortunate enough (like usual) to trade for a lot of what I needed and didn't have. But, again, with so much stuff out there, I'm sure it got overlooked in favor of whatever the new thing was that had to be owned.

Thanks for the article! After seeing praise for this one here, I remember looking at it but shying away after seeing that's one vs. many. I already have DOOM and a friend has TMNT. And as the would-be game owner, I know I'd always be the "one."

As someone who feels they are always The One (even if it's not an all vs one game) I'm sorely tempted to pick thier up.

I sympathize, because I'm almost always "the one", also. I think in all the years I owned Descent 1st Ed., I was NOT the Ovelord... twice? Out of dozens of games? I was always the DM in our old RPG groups, too; not least because I have a lot of stories to tell (as you've, uh, seen here...)

Howevah, I think the game is still worth having, even alongside Doom and TMNT (obvsly), if only because it plays so rapidly. A couple of games with friends who will also glom onto the rules quickly and it won't be that hard to convince someone else to play a Sin in the next scenario, especially if you pick up one of the expansions and it's a Sin you've never played before.

I sometimes think that my people didn't want to be the Overlord since they knew I'd have "inside knowledge" of the dungeons just from owning the game. I specifically didn't look ahead in Descent's quest book for that very reason. I wanted to play them straight. In this case, there's no advantage to having the inside knowledge, since there's no exploration to speak of. Everything is in front of you. Playing a different Sin, though, might have enough of a surprise factor for someone to give it a try.

Come to think of it, I wasnt the one in our debut game of Jaws. My wife was the shark and ate everyone.

ubarose wrote: Honestly, this one was outside my channel because I didn't find it aesthetically pleasing. Which for me, is as good a criteria as any for narrowing down what I want to be playing.

That's totally fair. I'm going to be commenting a bit more on the art style in the next two segments. I know Tom Vasel also mentioned that he liked the game, mechanically, but didn't find the visual style appealing at all. And, just like food presentation, you gotta like what you're looking at if you're going to be spending hours with it, so I get that.

For my part, this is totally in my wheelhouse from an aesthetic perspective, because I'm just disturbing like that.

Jackwraith wrote:

ubarose wrote: I know Tom Vasel also mentioned that he liked the game, mechanically, but didn't find the visual style appealing at all. And, just like food presentation, you gotta like what you're looking at if you're going to be spending hours with it, so I get that.

For my part, this is totally in my wheelhouse from an aesthetic perspective, because I'm just disturbing like that.

Tom totally wrote off Chaos in the Old World because of the "Human Skin" board, so....

WadeMonnig wrote: Tom totally wrote off Chaos in the Old World because of the "Human Skin" board, so....

I know! That's one of the best parts of the whole design. I'm still convinced that Andrew Navaro ended up as president of FFG solely based on that moment of inspiration.