It Came From the Tabletop! - Sanctum

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You guys mention Sagrada. You HAVE to tell me how you got past the whole solitaire game played as a group, non-interaction, general blah-fest I found this game. PLEASE tell me it is the 5/6 player expansion. If Machi Koro taught me anything it is not to throw money at expansions in hopes of making a game enjoyable but I was so disappointed in Sagrada I am tempted to get the expansion in hopes it would make it enjoyable for me. It's not awful, per se, it's just blah. (So Blah I have never even been tempted to write a review of it).

WadeMonnig wrote: I was so disappointed in Sagrada I am tempted to get the expansion in hopes it would make it enjoyable for me. It's not awful, per se, it's just blah. (So Blah I have never even been tempted to write a review of it).

Man I had the same experience with Sagrada. My wife and I finished our single game of it and just kinda shrugged and said well let's never play that again. Just a dead zone of a game.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to listening to this one. I'm pretty interested in Sanctum.

I’m okay with multiplayer solitaire where it makes sense. I think I’m just a able to recognize that messing with people wouldn’t benefit a design and enjoy it. Like I say in the episode, if the puzzle is enjoyable and I have to have other people at the table in order to enjoy it and shoot the breeze along the way, I don’t see anything wrong with multiplayer solitaire.

Al and I are talking about just the base game, so if you didn’t like it, you didn’t like it.

A few updates about the show:

- Yeah, the release schedule has been erratic and slow. That isn’t going to change. At least for now we’re going to be doing one episode a month. This is to keep our sanity as well as get back to playing games to enjoy them instead of playing games to podcast.

-Sanctum is the first and last game we’ll be accepting to review.

-We started a Patreon a few weeks back but I took it down because it didn’t feel right. I tried modeling it after what other podcasts were doing, but I think it would have been more than handle and the show would have suffered. However, WE’VE GOT A BRAND NEW PATREON PAGE!!! Two tiers, $1 and $3, no gimmicky promises of bonus content (okay, so the $3 has articles, but no big deal). We’re not looking to earn anything from it, only reasons we’re doing Patreon is to help cover hosting costs, make some small upgrades and to maybe pick a game up so that we can talk about it every once in awhile. Have at it and thank you so much if you decide to help support the show!

It Came From the Tabletop Patreon

Hey Josh, would be interested to hear why you're planning on stepping away from review copies if you don't mind me asking.

I can think of several reasons but curious what yours is.

Thanks for the reply Josh, I value your opinion, that's why i asked. I thought maybe I was just missing... something.

As always, you and Al move me closer to getting a game (assuming I don't have it as our tastes somewhat similar). However, in this case, I think I have moved into the "would try" category and not in the "buy this" category.

Not surprising, though -- I enjoyed Diablo (the first one) but not enough to feel compelled to play the second or third in the series.

charlest wrote: Hey Josh, would be interested to hear why you're planning on stepping away from review copies if you don't mind me asking.

I can think of several reasons but curious what yours is.

It’s definitely for several reasons.

-We never wanted to be a “review show,” so accepting review copies feels like we’re betraying ourselves and our audience. Early on, someone said that it didn’t feel like we were just moving down the list of new reviews and checking them off as we go. That really stuck with me and I’m proud of it.

-The show becomes about what publishers want us to talk about and not what WE want to play. The pressure to review something is exhausting after awhile, I know that from experience.

-I’m kind of guessing here, but I think our listeners like that we’re generally positive. We play games that we’re enthusiastic about and I’m guessing that our enthusiasm helps us stand out. Cowboy Bebop is the most middle of the road we’ve been (which I played again recently and if I had to do that game again that would not be the case...It’s NOT a good game). On one side of this, I got out of the business of using my platform to tear apart other people’s work to instead make the games I want to play (which I’m doing!) On the other hand, I feel like our integrity could be called into question after awhile. While we genuinely enjoyed Sanctum someone down the road might say, “Well, they like everything, so...”

^I think this is the dilemma every podcast or youtube show faces. Anybody who considers deep dives as their brand... is going to preclude covering bad games. Who is going to go deep on a shitty game they don't like? I think this is a good choice for a certain type of pod.

Gary Sax wrote: ^I think this is the dilemma every podcast or youtube show faces. Anybody who considers deep dives as their brand... is going to preclude covering bad games. Who is going to go deep on a shitty game they don't like? I think this is a good choice for a certain type of pod.

On top of that, if a game is truly bad, then really there isn't much of a point on going too deep. How do you pull the "good" out of the context of bad since it is all interwoven? Nobody probably wants to hear too much about a game that is good except for this issue or this laundry list of issues.

There is a difference between some little things that can be irritating or maybe done a bit differently to be better versus glaring problems that informs the entire game -- no need to spend 40 minutes talking about the latter.

Exactly. This is especially true for this show because we talk about older games, which already have established fanbases and detractors. Never once during one of my many tirades on Arkham Horror or some other game I’m notorious for not liking has anyone ever said, “Alright, Josh, I see your point and I’ve changed my mind. This game really is terrible.” While there is useful information to be gleaned from unfavorable opinions, you’re not going to change anyone’s mind with negative perspectives. It would be an entirely unproductive endeavor for me to do so on these older games. What is productive is instead really digging in and explaining to folks why we like these games, what individual parts generate the most fun and how that makes us, not only as gamers but as people, feel. That’s the kind of talk that brings people on one side to that halfway point where they might eventually be brought over. And regardless of whether someone likes a game we talk about or not, we’re putting out the kind of talk that we want to have about games. I’m not going to get that kind of fulfillment out of doing reviews, where I can deep dive as much as I want, doesn’t change the fact that my job is to tell you whether or not you should buy a game. When you guys join in on these discussions on the episodes, doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the games featured or not, we love it and I feel like I’m doing the right thing.