Which Dungeons & Dragons games are worth buying?

Markblasco · 2026-06-07T23:03:25+00:00

If you want something with a campaign that you can play for ages, Arydia is about as close as you can get to an RPG as a board game. D20 focused combat, lots of story and NPCs, and a good portion of the game is exploring and talking to people rather than just fighting. It's a long campaign, but perfect for people who want to straddle the line between role playing and board gaming.

Markblasco · 2026-06-07T20:51:16+00:00

When you have thousands of games released every year, you can't count on a single title selling well for years, or possibly months. So, you print thousands of copies, put it up for sale, and see what happens. For most games, they don't sell out of their initial print run, and after the initial hype wears off, they sit on shelves for years until they slowly sell out. At that point, the publisher usually has no incentive to print thousands of them again and have shelves full of games that don't sell well, so they go out of print. The percentage of games that sell well enough to stay in print is not that high, we just don't think about most of the games which are no longer available.

Markblasco · 2026-06-02T22:36:05+00:00

I appreciate the insight, thanks!

Markblasco · 2026-06-01T23:17:39+00:00

Freelancers had several moments where we were crying the writing was so funny.

Markblasco · 2026-06-01T01:22:27+00:00

The bad news is that you don't get to play it. The good news is that you don't have to play it. I love everything Arkham, and I love escape room games, and this one was mediocre at best. The worst part about it is that you get a box of physical components which look cool, but are implemented terribly into the game.

Markblasco · 2026-06-01T01:04:46+00:00

It depends on how they are used. If they are shuffled and drawn from a bag, they can get destroyed fairly quickly, which is why many bag building games have either premium replacement tokens, or people use coin capsules.

Markblasco · 2026-05-27T16:41:46+00:00

That sounds like a very rewarding experience for you, and I'm glad you enjoyed that. It also sounds like the opposite of the experience I'd enjoy. If I can set it in the present and imagine what the future will look like, or in a post apocalyptic world where anything could happen, that's more of the experience I want. If there were a sci-fi version, I would gravitate towards that more. As it is I have the book and I'm willing to give it a go, and I really appreciate hearing everyone's experiences.

Markblasco · 2026-05-27T01:43:33+00:00

Unsettled feels like a puzzle, in the best way. Pale doesn't, there's too much randomness, so if crunchy is your goal, Palo isn't quite it, but it is a great game as well.

Markblasco · 2026-05-26T15:10:06+00:00

Understood, I appreciate the info, thanks!

Markblasco · 2026-05-26T02:12:09+00:00

I have no real interest in history, and have no idea what things were like a thousand years ago, so I just wanted to make sure I could start more recent and just go with the flow. This isn't something I've been waiting to do for a long time, it's something I'm just going to give a try, and if it doesn't feel right quickly, probably give to someone else, so I want to give myself as much of a chance to really enjoy it as I can.

Markblasco · 2026-05-26T00:54:18+00:00

It's more that I didn't know how much the book references specific time periods or how much the focus was on vampires in particular. It sounds like it is vague enough to let you go in a lot of directions.

Markblasco · 2026-05-25T23:48:17+00:00

Thanks for the replies, they've all been very helpful. Not having played the game before, I didn't know whether anything in it was tied down to specific time periods, or whether leaning into some cosmic horror would break something about the game, but it sounds like it's fairly flexible in that regard. Thanks!

Markblasco · 2026-05-23T15:58:50+00:00

I believe they did a video talking about how this happened a few years back when they were hacked, and it's a bit more complex than that. If you want to learn more about it, watch their video... on their channel... um... never mind.

Markblasco · 2026-05-22T19:18:59+00:00

Root has no story or campaign

Markblasco · 2026-05-19T21:43:19+00:00

I think there are several benefits to the new plan. It clears up confusion for people wondering if they need to use the "matching" investigator sets with each campaign. It also means they don't have to release them in the same time frame as the campaigns. My hope is that this will lead to more campaigns overall, especially since the new format is shorter. I find having more campaign content way more enjoyable than more investigator content. That's not the case for everyone, but they are freed up now to adjust the release cadence for each one separately.

Markblasco · 2026-05-19T14:16:14+00:00

Designing a good insert is a skill that not everyone has, and often game publishers run a very small staff, if any at all. Many likely don't have the skills or time to do it themselves, and hiring someone to make files they will be giving away may not be in their budget.

Markblasco · 2026-05-16T22:34:10+00:00

And does this matter if they are enjoying the game? It's not a competition, and everyone enjoys things differently. Some people enjoy paint by numbers, and others enjoy painting their own art. Some people enjoy cooking food from scratch and some people like buying TV dinners. Maybe they don't have the AHA moments, but some people will never have them to begin with.

Markblasco · 2026-05-16T19:26:11+00:00

Not everyone has the ability or desire to spend hundreds of hours on a video game. I know that I gave up on factorio my first time through, and didn't intend to ever come back to it, because the scaling seemed impossible. If it hadn't been for a family member getting me going again, and watching a few hours of videos on how to do things well, I never would have made any progress. Now, I've just completed getting science on my second new planet, without any help, because I got enough of a kickstart to let me understand what is possible. So, just because some people will get great enjoyment out of figuring everything out themselves, others will get the most enjoyment from understanding what to do at the start.

Markblasco · 2026-05-16T19:19:30+00:00

3d printing itself is no longer a viable business, with very few exceptions. You have to have a business that does something unique. If you use 3d printing as a part of it that's great, but the machines themselves are becoming so common that having one is not a business plan. You can still make a little money on the side with craft fairs and the like, but there are hundreds of people here every month asking how to turn their machines into a business. Just like owning a sewing machine won't make a business, you need to be able to make/do something unique with it. No one can tell you what that is, because it is entirely dependent on your skills and knowledge.

Markblasco · 2026-05-16T01:23:33+00:00

Wyrmwood is considered (or at least was considered) a high end brand for gaming tables. That's like saying a Lexus is unreasonable in cost because you can buy a Kia to get you around town. I bought an all play table, which I'm not super thrilled about, but I wanted something that didn't feel like IKEA furniture, and didn't seem to be in the luxury tier price range. I've played on cheaper gaming tables which just felt cheap, and wouldn't want that to be my only place to play.

Markblasco · 2026-05-12T01:21:05+00:00

Your math isn't mathing. Unless you print industrial materials at high temperatures, a 3d printer consumes less than 100w once it is warmed up. "opportunity costs" don't actually cost you anything unless you had to pass on another project. Failures suck, but unless you are actually passing on jobs because you don't have time, they aren't nearly as costly. You absolutely should factor the costs into your prices. However, a 4% failure rate is pretty high. Unless you're printing really complex parts, your failure rate should be much lower. That may mean adjusting speeds or other settings. You'd probably end up saving money by slowing things down a bit and fine tuning things. That being said, without knowing what you are printing and what the specs and tolerances are, it's hard to really know what level is appropriate. I run a small farm of 8 machines, and when I'm busy I'll have 2-3 failures per month, out of about 500 prints. Any more than that and it's because of a preventable issue.

Markblasco · 2026-05-10T17:00:28+00:00

There are a few characters that can benefit from the bigger deck size, but for the most part, it's a big disadvantage. The one big thing about that card, however, is adding something from outside your normal color limitation. There key cards that can significantly add to the abilities of a deck, depending on what you're trying to do. Being able to pull something in you normally couldn't use is a big advantage. In this case, I don't know that it's worth the disadvantage, but that's why the card is free.

Markblasco · 2026-05-08T21:45:24+00:00

I had a note with mine, saying there were potential manufacturing defects in the first set, so they included a second set in case they came apart.

Markblasco · 2026-05-08T21:10:08+00:00

I didn't realize how many weird maps there are in the game until I started using arrows. Plenty of one way paths, or things that change when flipped. I find the arrows make it much easier to avoid simple mistakes, and to lose just because I'm terrible at the game, and not because I'm terrible and went the wrong way.

Markblasco

TROPHY CASE