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What boardgame, or mechanic in a boardgame, do you find so clever in its simplicity? (feddit.it)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/boardgames@sopuli.xyz
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I'll start: the solo system in A Feast for Odin. You just have to control two hands/colors that block each other's worker placement. No automa, no special rules.

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[–] 11 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

Legacy games. Just the concept that results from one game carry over to the next. The first legacy game I played was Gloomhaven. The giant map with stickers is a really fun way to mark progress.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    When I played Gloomhaven with my late best friend during the pandemic (one of the reasons why the early lockdowns felt like a paradoxically idyllic period), we used blu tac to temporarily affix the stickers to the relevant cards because the stickers felt too permanent (I know there's reusable sticker sets, but we didn't have thought). Unfortunately he died in 2021 of COVID.

    Some months later, when Frosthaven finally turned up in the mail, I packaged up Gloomhaven to give to a friend. As I peeled off the blutacked stickers from cards, I realised that I regretted how our anxiety had caused us to not properly engage in the legacy component of the game. The person I was gifting this to also was close to my late best friend, so I was deeply sad when I imagined an alternative world in which they and their local friends would be seeing the marks that we had left on the game, like the enhancements on the Spellweaver and Cragheart's cards. Sure, not sticking the stickers on properly was probably better for resale value, but I tend to not sell stuff anyway, because I find it overly taxing in executive function — I prefer to gift stuff on if possible.

    That's the bitter part of the story, and the sweet part to temper the sadness is that I feel like I understand legacy games much better now, and when I get a chance to play Frosthaven (one of my local friends has a difficult to schedule around job at the moment), I will stick those bloody stickers with enthusiasm this time. I will always cherish the memories of gaming with my late friend, and I don't need to have physical artifacts to demonstrate that. However, this time, I'm not going to let a nebulous prospective future distract me from properly engaging with the game on its terms.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Sorry about your friend.

    I am not sure if gloomhaven was my first legacy game but it did feel weird to put those stickers on the cards. After awhile it started to feel natural and nice to actually leave a permanent mark on the characters and the game. It is "your game".

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I couldn’t play normal Pandemic since I started with legacy

    Ah! Why are we abandoning all those cities in South America?! We will have a hard time with getting into the continent next round!!

    Uh what do you mean? The game is over…

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I like Betrayal Legacy! It was fun! Still had some of the issues of non legacy, notably when the haunt starts the game can be wildly unbalanced towards one side or the other. I'm unsure how one would even help that.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I found Gloomhaven too punishing to get past the first few (failed) quests. I kept running out of cards and becoming exhausted.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    It's easiest with 3 people. With 2 it can be difficult to work together. With 4 the amount of enemies can become overwhelming. As for running out of cards, don't use discard cards during the first few rounds! Check out the calculator at: https://www.boardgamemath.com/boardgames/gloomhaven/gloomhavenStaminaCalculator.html

    Playing a discard on your first round means that you have 4 or 5 rounds less to play before you are exhausted. Don't forget you can always play a standard move or attack 2 action. You don't gave to play the discard action.

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