Fun Tabletop Games?

Mr. Ghost asks: "My friends and I have recently been in the market for a good new boardgame or other tabletop game. We have worked through the gamut of games like Axis & Allies, Supremacy, and War! Age of Imperialism. More recently we have been playing tile based games like Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan. I am looking for some suggestions on some new games we could get into."

Re:Warhammer

[seeken]

if by commitment, you mean set up your direct deposit to go to Games Workshop's bank acount rather than your own.

If you live anywhere near Lancaster, PA, you can get your game on at Cold Wars [coldwars.org] from April 8-10. Run by the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society, but there is also fansasy/sci-fi gaming.

Ogre and G.E.V.

[orcrist]

I don't know if you can still get them, but they were among the best, and very portable too; I don't know how many lunch breaks I spent playing those at school. Ah, memories...

-chris

Re:Modern Art

[Fjornir]

From Steve Jackson both Illuminati and Hacker.

Avalon Hill publishes a game called Diplomacy which I highly recommend -- it's rather like Risk, but without the dice. It is a rather long play though. They've got another interesting game called Wizard's Quest but I'm not sure how hard it is to find a copy these days.

Illuminati, Ticket To Ride...

[otis wildflower]

.. Totally different games in style and theme, but both are tons of fun.

And, TTR won the 2004 Spiel Des Jahres!

Puerto Rico + The Castle

[kootsoop]

Of multi-player (>2) games Puerto Rico and Settlers are the best IMHO. Elfenland, another Game of the Year winner from Germany, like Settlers, is OK but not up on the other two. For two-player, I recommend The Castle --- a two-player version of Carcassone.

Re:Betrayal at House on the Hill

[hibiki_r]

Without the game's 36 page FAQ, IMO the game is forribly unplayable. It seems that NOBODY playtested most of the scenarios, and it shows.

I've played that game a dozen times, but I can't really recommend it. It's 20-40 minutes of almost random movement, followed by 5 minutes of reading incomplete special scenario rules, and then 1 or 2 turns of completely imbalanced gaming. There are two 'sides' and by the time everyone read the part of the rules that they are allowed to read, It's pretty clear who is winning that one. I was pretty much 'forced' into playing after the 3rd time. The game can be balanced and fun, but that only happens 1 out of 8 games, because of horribly balanced rules. To me, that's not worth playing, but YMMV.

For a horror boardgame, I'd just wait and see if the new release of Arkham Horror is any good.

Re:Fluxx

[Monte]

I'd throw in a caveat on Fluxx. Don't get me wrong, it's a cute little game, it's strong point is it's simplicity. You can teach non-gamer friends how to play it in about ten minutes. Given an hour, you could probably teach your cat how to play it.

The downside is it's simplicity - there's little (if any) skill involved in winning, and I've heard it referred to as a pointless excercise in card drawing.

Some will like it, some won't. In any case I think it's long-term replay value is limited. "Oh look, you played Death and Taxes, I win. Another game?" (yeah, games end about that quickly)

Acquire

[Bastian]

My family and I used to play a game called Acquire, which was centered on the idea of hotel chains growing and merging, and trading in stock on them. (Sadly, there were only mergers, no spinoffs or going out of business allowed.)

Still, it was great fun, far better than Monopoly, and we would play it maybe twice a month for years.

One I used to see folks having a great deal of fun with at a coffee shop I used to frequent is Cults Across America. (For reference, these same folks loved to play the stuff put out by Cheapass Games.)

Crimson Skies!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't get it new anymore, so that might be a barrier, but the original Crimson Skies boardgame (not to be confused with the new game with the weird clicky bases that cost to much money) is lots of fun. Some friends and I played a lot of it in college and it doesn't seem to get old. You can play long campaigns with the same pilots (as long as they survive, that is) and create your own planes, so it has a lot of replay value.

Re:Fluxx

[TheRaven64]

I disagree that there is no skill in Fluxx. It is quite possible to collect sets of cards that allow you to win when all played at once, and then modify the rules to allow you to play them. Similarly, rule and action cards can be used to remove winning card combinations from other players. I find the replay value of Fluxx to be significant, since there is no winning strategy, but there are a number of ways of increasing the odds of wining.

Re:Might I suggest Dominoes?

[Destoo]

Dominoes are still strong in the carribeans and in Haiti. Even with the kids.

A few years ago, my family used to play Romoli every weekend. Plastic tiles, make straights and triples to get rid of your hand. There's probably other names for the game.

One game I'd like to play live is Mahjong.
It's fun, but it's noisy.