Discussion: Board Games

[mathgrant]

Sleet will kill me if I don't post on this forum, so I'm going to post about a recent passion of mine: board games!

BrettSpielWelt is a German gaming server that offers online board games like Ingenious (known as Einfach Genial in German), Settlers of Catan, and Pandemic. These are not likely to be board game you've heard of if you're not a board gamer, but they're pretty good games nonetheless (at least the ones I've tried). There are several games that I've ended up getting physical copies of as a result of having encountered them on BSW (Ingenious being my absolute favorite).

If anyone wants to play Ingenious, Numeri, or Pandemic with me on BSW, posting here might help make that happen! Or. . . you could discuss other board games, even inferior ones like Monopoly.

[Sleet]

Must... Resist... David Morgan-Mar's Monopoly rant...

I have a friend who really likes board games and she introduced me and several of our other friends to Settlers of Catan, which is pretty awesome. Apparently Germany has all sorts of games like that but that was the only one to really make it in the US.

As for wonderful, excellent games like Monopoly, Monopoly can only really be enjoyed under the perfect conditions, with the perfect people. I have also come to the conclusion that I am not related to or friends with any of "the perfect people." So really Monopoly tends to be a bad idea with the people I know. My favorite "traditional" board game is definitely Risk, but few people I know have the same amount of patience as I do, so there are only a handful of people I can play it with satisfactorily.

[Dissension]

Axis & Allies takes forever. I don't think I've finished an entire game before.

[Sleet]

I have that game, but I never played it. I have the patience to learn how to play, but no one else I know does and I'd rather not go through the trouble learning how to play until I know that I'll be playing the game after.

The most complicated board game I ever played was one based on Civilization. That took a while, as you can no doubt imagine.

[CaptainPea]

The most complicated board game I ever played was one based on Civilization. That took a while, as you can no doubt imagine.

There's a board game based off of Civilization?

I'm a fan of Scrabble because it has extended my vocabulary so as to include linguistically useless but Scrabbulously essential words such as "Qat" and "Aa".

[Sleet]

Wait, is Civilization really based on a board game?

It's very possible it actually is a recursive adaptation, still.

[CaptainPea]

Wait, is Civilization really based on a board game?

The game was originally inspired by a Board Game, and has since spawned two others.

Looks like it, depending on how broad you define being "based on" something.

[mathgrant]

I'm a fan of Scrabble because it has extended my vocabulary so as to include linguistically useless but Scrabbulously essential words such as "Qat" and "Aa".

Don't forget QI. OSPD4 added the word QI, making the pesky Q even easier to score with.

[CaptainPea]

I'm a fan of Scrabble because it has extended my vocabulary so as to include linguistically useless but Scrabbulously essential words such as "Qat" and "Aa".

Don't forget QI. OSPD4 added the word QI, making the pesky Q even easier to score with.

"Attaboy" is in the scrabble dictionary now, and yet "Zen" still isn't.

ATTABOY [12 pts]
--used to express encouragement or approval

[Sleet]

I actually knew the word "aa" for over a decade.

And I've scored with "qi" before. 31 points. I was so proud.

[Blue Braixen]

I dominate my parents in pretty much every board game we play. Especially in Scrabble (and its iPhone/iPod Touch equivalent, Words With Friends) and Trivial Pursuit.

[Cwitt]

My mom destroyed me in Trivial Pursuit. Granted it was like 5 years ago, but still.....

[Sleet]

I'm not a fan of trivia games. Usually I don't know enough to really get much out of it, and if it's based on specialized knowledge that I happen to be good at, I destroy everyone and there isn't even a challenge.

[Cwitt]

I have fond memories of when my older brother, older sister and I would play Risk for hours in the basement.

[Blue Braixen]

I only have one and a half other people to play board games with me.

[Dissension]

Sleet's the half.

[Blue Braixen]

Sleet's the half.

The one is my mom and the half is my dad because he only plays certain (see: un-fun) ones.

[mathgrant]

I'm a fan of Scrabble because it has extended my vocabulary so as to include linguistically useless but Scrabbulously essential words such as "Qat" and "Aa".

Don't forget QI. OSPD4 added the word QI, making the pesky Q even easier to score with.

"Attaboy" is in the scrabble dictionary now, and yet "Zen" still isn't.

ATTABOY [12 pts]
--used to express encouragement or approval

Zen's a proper noun. Proper nouns aren't allowed (unless they also have meanings as uncapitalized words; see RICK, GRIFFIN, JOHN, JIMMY. . .).

I wish I knew where that Scrabble game I once had was where you could save your games and have Maven analyze them for you ("your lack of knowledge of two-letter words cost you 100 points. . ."); it'd help me improve my game so I could take the game more seriously and maybe kick Scrabble players' butts at it and not merely normal people's butts. The game's from the OSPD3 era, though, so any plays that use QI won't be shown to me.

[Sleet]

Sleet's the half.

The one is my mom and the half is my dad because he only plays certain (see: un-fun) ones.

Like which ones?

[Cwitt]

Sleet's the half.

The one is my mom and the half is my dad because he only plays certain (see: un-fun) ones.

There are unfun board games?
Last month I played Life with my siblings. Thye all had there boyfriends and girlfriends with them. I felt lonely

[Kylar]

My favorite board game is the original Jumanji, then Risk and Mouse Trap.
I don't play all those smarty word games y'all be playin'.

[jopencjusz]

I used to play a lot of board games when I was young, now we don't have time for them. My favourite game is monopoly

[Sleet]

Sleet's the half.

The one is my mom and the half is my dad because he only plays certain (see: un-fun) ones.

There are unfun board games?
Last month I played Life with my siblings. Thye all had there boyfriends and girlfriends with them. I felt lonely

There definitely are unfun board games. My mom does not have the best judgment when it comes to buying games. I keep telling her, "next time you see a game and think 'this might be fun,' don't buy it and instead buy Settlers of Catan."

[Ian the Gecko]

I'm a fan of Scrabble because it has extended my vocabulary so as to include linguistically useless but Scrabbulously essential words such as "Qat" and "Aa".

Don't forget QI. OSPD4 added the word QI, making the pesky Q even easier to score with.

I didn't even know "ZA" was a slang term for "pizza" until Scrabble! ^^;

[exranio]

Sence some one mentioned scrabble. You don't actually have to play a real word. As long as the other players don't notice and no one calls you on it your good. Just like you don't have to call UNO in UNO. Its only a problem if someone else notices.

[RandomGeekNamedBrent]

Sence some one mentioned scrabble. You don't actually have to play a real word. As long as the other players don't notice and no one calls you on it your good. Just like you don't have to call UNO in UNO. Its only a problem if someone else notices.

that's why I always play "Kwyjibo" (not really, I don't usually play scrabble)

[CaptainPea]

Sence some one mentioned scrabble. You don't actually have to play a real word. As long as the other players don't notice and no one calls you on it your good. Just like you don't have to call UNO in UNO. Its only a problem if someone else notices.

Unfortunately, some versions of electronic Scrabble automatically cross-check your words against the dictionary and won't let you play invalid words. This removes that specific strategic angle.

[Dylan]

Sence some one mentioned scrabble. You don't actually have to play a real word. As long as the other players don't notice and no one calls you on it your good. Just like you don't have to call UNO in UNO. Its only a problem if someone else notices.

Unfortunately, some versions of electronic Scrabble automatically cross-check your words against the dictionary and won't let you play invalid words. This removes that specific strategic angle.

I know a few online versions that do not autocheck words and leaves it to the player to challenge the word...THEN it will check. I thought that was pretty neat when I first played scrabble, which i'm terrible at anyway. Since then I've gotten better at it...slightly. (goes back on track now) Anyway, its a great strategy if you can do it.

[mathgrant]

In the Scrabble community, such words are termed "phonies". :3

[Sleet]

I'm not sure if I think the game is better with or without them, kupo!

[Goforit]

It's fun playing scrabble in different languages! Mostly because your vocabulary is severely reduced... which should make it less fun, but it doesn't...

Just don't play with a native speaker! (I guess...)

[Dylan]

It's fun playing scrabble in different languages! Mostly because your vocabulary is severely reduced... which should make it less fun, but it doesn't...

Just don't play with a native speaker! (I guess...)

Actually, that would make it more fun if you are learning a language with your partner.

[Sleet]

It gets weird with languages with lots of accents, though. I remembered Spanish scrabble from high school and it was bizarre, kupo!

[CaptainPea]

It gets weird with languages with lots of accents, though. I remembered Spanish scrabble from high school and it was bizarre, kupo!

Were accented letters printed on different tiles than their non-accented counterparts?

[Sleet]

I don't remember, kupo, so I looked it up, and apparently accents are ignored. I also found out that the letters K and W are not allowed, and there is an Ñ tile. Even more interesting, there are CH, LL and RR tiles, and constructing those from single letter tiles is not allowed. So "CH-I-C-O" is legal, but "C-H-I-C-O" is not, kupo. The more you know!

[mathgrant]

I also found out that the letters K and W are not allowed. . .

Because they're not part of the native Spanish alphabet, just like how Ñ isn't allowed in English Scrabble. K and W only appear in foreign words like Wikipedia and Washington.

[Sleet]

I think it's interesting, though, that they aren't even allowed as blanks. So they can't spell "karate" any more than we can spell "jalapeño", kupo.

[mathgrant]

I think it's interesting, though, that they aren't even allowed as blanks. So they can't spell "karate" any more than we can spell "jalapeño", kupo.

I think it's interesting, too. I just thought I'd point out why, since many people might not know that the Spanish alphabet doesn't have K and W.

By the way, JALAPENO and PINATA are both legal in English Scrabble; Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 11th Edition, one of the dictionaries on which the Official Scrabble Player's Dictionary is based, lists an alternate spelling of each word with an n rather than an ñ.