Tynam

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In The Beginning Was The d20. Daniel is a long-time computing geek who spends his days spreading this good word. Interests include painting, medieval swordsmanship, and every conceivable form of game design.

	2,684 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	2 years, 6 months
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Jan 2	comment	How can I recognize games I should avoid buying if I only play with non-hardcore gamers? A suggestion: this question is in danger of becoming 'name every complicated game', which is bad. I recommend everyone makes their answer strictly according to "what other games deceptively conceal their inner complexity"... Yes, Twilight Imperium is for the hardcore only, but it's obviously so and doesn't hide its incredible complexity. It's not an answer to this. (@Crazy: I recommend you rephrase the question to emphasise this, otherwise you'll just get a grab bag of really-complex games, whereas you want an 'avoid list' of complex games which look simple enough to teach quickly.)
Jan 2	comment	What changes to the game will the “On The Brink” Pandemic expansion offer me? Neither can I. Apparently my memory was wrong; I thought I remembered seeing that somewhere! I've revised my answer to match.
Jan 2	revised	What changes to the game will the “On The Brink” Pandemic expansion offer me? Minor correction as I can't find evidence for something I thought I remembered as official.
Dec 31	comment	What changes to the game will the “On The Brink” Pandemic expansion offer me? The Ops manager upgrade is official errata/update for the base game even if you don't have On the Brink; they added it in the FAQ and suggest it should always be played that way. (They're right; it's a huge improvement.) Basically it adds an extra travel ability, which keeps the role useful after the labs are built.
Dec 31	answered	What changes to the game will the “On The Brink” Pandemic expansion offer me?
Dec 28	comment	Do you know any rules that make Pandemic's difficulty more even? Timing and position of the first outbreak are crucial. If you don't like putting the card always at the bottom of each pile, consider always shuffling into the bottom half of each pile. This is no more work than the regular way, and keeps randomness while preventing early wipe-outs.
Dec 28	comment	Do you know any rules that make Pandemic's difficulty more even? I agree; particularly if you're choosing roles, as it provides some more flexible choices, and one good fix to an existing role. However, it's an expensive buy just for that; most of the expansion provides variants that make things harder...
Dec 26	awarded	Editor
Dec 26	revised	Hero Quest type games Fixed punctuation.
Dec 26	comment	Why are there fewer board games with a triangular grid? Concur. An absolutely perfect answer would be Brian's, with the additional observations from this answer and Richard Gadsden's added.
Dec 19	comment	Getting started with trick-taking games (whist, euchre, bridge, pinochle, etc.) Concur; great suggestion. (Also, thanks; I've been trying to remember what this game was called for days and couldn't.) Another suggested variation for beginners: Go through the trump suits/no trump in order each round (clubs / diamonds / hearts / spades / no trump) instead of drawing at random. In a ten round ascending game of 1-10 cards, this guarantees each trump option twice - very good practice for beginners, and it ensures that you'll get practice with the (very different) play of no-trumps.
Dec 14	comment	What is this game with multiplying aliens and random weapons? It's a long-standing personal favourite of mine, mostly because I really like asymmetric games. (Also, an Awful Green Thing was the first miniature I ever scratchbuilt and painted. But I never got round to making the crew.) But don't play if you hate random factors; the balance between crew and Green Things can depend heavily on the randomised starting position, and on whether the crew has a good area-effect weapon available - if the Comm Beamer or Fire Extinguisher turn out do heavily lethal or shrink damage, the crew's in a much better position than if they don't.
Dec 14	awarded	Organizer
Dec 14	revised	What is a good way to make Water Effects in Terrain? edited tags
Dec 14	comment	What is a good way to make Water Effects in Terrain? @aperkins: Thanks for asking the question; I think it does help us define the boundaries. And it's making me reconsider my views. This question seems useful and objective; it feels like it should be allowed... which opens the whole painting question again. (Also, @Kristo: While I feel you're right that 'wargaming' is too broad, this seems like exactly the question for a 'terrain' tag. I've added it. Does anyone else have a view on this?)
Dec 13	comment	Examples of board games with good/interesting rules for trading? Good point; can't believe I didn't think to mention this game. Civilization rewarded - no, demanded - aggressive trade, because trade good acquisition was a mix of all types goods, but value increased geometrically with sets of the same type of good. But you can't trade single cards - minimum sets of 3 - and some of the cards were 0-value 'booby traps' that had bad effects when received. The tension between need-to-trade-to-complete-set and fear-of-trap was a beautiful gameplay motivator.
Dec 11	awarded	Quorum
Dec 10	comment	Examples of board games with good/interesting rules for trading? I should have noted that TI is not primarily a trade game, certainly not in the sense that, say, Settlers is. Nevertheless trade is one important gameplay component.
Dec 8	answered	Examples of board games with good/interesting rules for trading?
Dec 2	comment	Games that play well with a wide range of different numbers of players It's an excellent game, but I'm not sure it's the right answer, because 3-player games are so prone to random mid-game shifts depending on who the Cylon is. While Galactica allows 3-7, it's much stronger with 4-6.