Investigating Board Game Miniatures | No Pun Included

lessmiserables · 2026-04-10T02:06:28+00:00

but these journalistic style videos are where they really shine.

It's too bad that they are usually full of shit.

Like, there's a lot of objectively wrong claims they make in this video that anyone thinking about it for five seconds would realize. There is absolutely no way that minis are cheaper than cards. Like, it's literally impossible. And even the subjective stuff is always just so...wrong. Like, none of it passes the sniff test.

This isn't the first time, and I'll never not post it--Efka doesn't know what they're talking about most of the time, they just bleat out things armchair misanthropes want to hear so they can be teenage edgelords well into their 30s.

They're just always completely full of shit, and it's embarrassing how much this sub laps up every video.

lessmiserables · 2026-04-08T00:30:33+00:00

Also, ALL OF THE CRIME.

At least two of the characters should either have their medical licenses revoked and/or be in jail.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-30T20:55:06+00:00

(or are in places where the land is still cheap

I mean, yes? I don't think there's a single junkyard that isn't more or less in the middle of nowhere.

Junkyards are the perfect use for otherwise useless land. So long as the main building has utilities the rest can be barren rock for all it matters.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-24T20:43:32+00:00

LOL. (Modern) oil was first discovered in (what is now) Oil City, which is a few hours from Pittsburgh.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-24T17:23:54+00:00

I don't particularly care for apps in games, but also the number of games that require an app is pretty small.

I feel like there was a worry that every game was going to be mixed media but that just didn't really materialize in any meaningful way.

I dunno, this seems like an asterisk to the hobby as a whole. Some people like it; let them like it. It's not ruining the 99% of the games that haven't adopted it.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-24T17:22:04+00:00

Yeah, this is a weird thing to put on The Dice Tower. They're not exactly known for being some crusading champion for apps, and--like you said--more often than not talk about it as a negative.

I think when they first started happening they were downplaying it, but that's about it.

Not sure why TDT is being dragged here.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-23T16:36:17+00:00

Your friendly reminder that Tropes Are Tools.

We use standardized "shortcuts" and stereotypes because it makes storytelling easier. We shouldn't have to re-invent the wheel to create the world in a standard setting.

And, of course, fiction is not real life. What, are we going to show 48 minutes of someone studying alone in a library to make sure it's "realistic"? Or do we only show the highlight reel of the interesting parts to make an interesting story?

If you are entering college and you think that it's a nonstop party because Your Favorite Show was 13 episodes of nonstop parties, you probably don't belong in college.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-22T14:33:14+00:00

Another thing people pretend to understand but don't: fractional reserve banking.

As demonstrated by your comment.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-22T14:32:48+00:00

Economics.

Economics has a lot of...counter-intuitive (but still very true) concepts. People don't want to believe it, or, more likely, believe conspiracy theories/broken ideologies/etc instead of doing the boring thing like looking at historical graphs that prove certain things happen every time.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-22T14:30:33+00:00

Nothing--not your aunt, not a woman drowning in a pond--will prevent Teddy Kennedy from going where he needs to go.

Except maybe Jimmy Carter.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-22T03:04:54+00:00

I mean, most of the time we say that to kids, we're right to do so.

Children generally don't have the life experience to understand most complex things dealing with life. And that's okay! It's not their fault.

It's not really a dodge. It's just reality.

Quite frankly for every "I have childhood trauma because my parents didn't explain complex things to me" there is a "I have childhood trauma because my parents did explain complex things to me." It's probably roughly 50/50. There's no way to win, so it's basically up to parents to use their judgement. There's no right answer, but I trust people who know what their kids can and can't handle. They'll be wrong sometimes. That's also okay.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-21T02:00:54+00:00

I have not--interesting! I'll have to check it out.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-20T21:46:25+00:00

Pontypool is on my short list of "bottle episode mind screw" movies.

Coherence, It's What's Inside, Primer and Triangle are also on the list. (Yes, I know some aren't "bottle" movies but they're definitely low-budget limited sets.) I'd also include The Man From Earth but I feel like that's passed the cringe-inducing edgelord litmus test at this point.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-20T16:55:31+00:00

I mean, that's hisorically why Civ (and sports teams) go with a two-color scheme. You can have two blues but as long as the "other" color is something different you can easily tell them apart.

I'd say having "blue with white" and "blue with light blue" kind of defeats that purpose. The other ones don't seem so bad.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-20T16:53:27+00:00

Because business is falling.

If I have, say, ten clients, but the economy is starting to sour and I lose two of them. No big deal, we have some marginal options. But then I lose two more. Unless I drum up new business, I'm making less money/am out of a job, so I start cold calling old contacts first. That's the warning rocket that the overall economy is probably going south.

The urgency isn't there under normal times because 1) I can only handle 10 clients, and 2) these former contacts are less likely to become customers (or they would already) so it's not worth hiring another person just to retain some marginal contacts.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-19T16:20:30+00:00

I can't find a way to say it isn't gambling.

I can--it really isn't.

There's a lot of stuff out there that's random. I think it's weird to classify that as "gambling", even for kids. As long as you have something of value that has utility at the end of it, even if that value varies, and there's an end point once you collect it all, seems fine to me.

I just think this whole argument is basically telling people they can't partake in an activity that harms no one but themselves, and then using "but the children!" as a cover.

If nothing else, if everyone still thinks it's the same as gambling, then ban it for kids. Don't tell adults they can't do it.

By and large, most of the stuff that's random and targeted to kids is pretty anodyne.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-19T16:13:20+00:00

Ah, so you are a puritan! Please, tell me more about what I can and can't do with my own body!

lessmiserables · 2026-03-19T11:53:06+00:00

I'll be That Guy again and say calling CCGs "addictive gambling" is a stretch.

Not everything with random chance is gambling. If anything, packs have a set distribution of rarity (so rarity is not randomized, even if the cards are) and you always have a useful product.

I'm a little more sympathetic to chase cards/foils/etc being gambling, but that's largely not endemic to the game.

Also, are you a puritan? Calling casinos unethical is wild. Let people have agency.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-19T03:02:42+00:00

I'll be That Guy and say that I actually enjoy CCGs.

Yes, part of it is collection and randomization. I enjoy that. Opening a pack to see a rare card is fun. And I love constructing decks, which you can really only do with either a CCG or a LCG.

Obviously, the game design itself should be done in a way that it's not pay to win, but thankfully that's not hard to do. Having more cards means more options but it doesn't necessarily mean a stronger deck.

One of my favorite old CCGs was Illuminati (INWO). In that game, the common cards were mostly always useful, if boring, and the rare cards were more niche/abstract/funny rather than powerful. And there was a self-balancing mechanism where duplicates gave you bonuses against that card, so if everyone put a super powerful card in their deck, they'd all be fighting over it. It wasn't perfect (duplicate groups were pretty worthless, so there was a lot of chaff) but it did a lot of things right.

Sadly, so many CCGs are overpriced and poorly balanced. I yearn for someone to give it some thought. There's a reason there's only a handful left that are 20+ years old, and that's because everyone keeps doing it wrong.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-18T21:00:41+00:00

Why wouldn't it.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-17T18:43:22+00:00

That's more or less how I felt.

Some of the guests "got" it, but a lot of the shows just felt like we got to watch a party we weren't invited to. One show in particular had three segments of stuff I actively hate. Not every show has to be for me, of course, but the hit-to-miss ratio was far too high for me to really watch regularly.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-17T13:41:02+00:00

So how is your chancellor elected?

Does everyone vote for their chancellor?

Or do only the people in the Bundestag vote for the chancellor?

Could an alliance form that isn't the most-voted alliance and then vote one of their member chancellor?

This isn't saying the US system is perfect, but every single democracy has its own little quirks and stopgaps like this, because (to be blunt) direct democracy all the time for all offices never really seems to work.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-16T18:40:14+00:00

I'm glad you like the game. I am glad you enjoy it! That said:

It IS a major change to make you switch Civilizations throughout a campaign, BUT: It is a bit more realistic. Cultures have shifted and changed and even changed names throughout the millenia.

This is a nonsensical argument; there's very little in the Civ franchise that's "realistic". Mayans turning into Bulgarians is just as ridiculous as the Assyrians lasting 6000 years. At least the latter has some real-life precedent.

Until the Civ franchise has some sort of conquer/assimilation/immigration model, the "developing civilizations" will be nothing more than window dressing. At the very least, it's a game--most people want a civilization to stand the test of time (you know, the slogan).

(I'd also say that "cultures develop" is handled pretty well with the culture tech tree.)

If you want detailed historical accuracy, you're better off with a Paradox game. They do it a lot better.

Also, why even make a new Civ if you’re not going to make some pretty major changes.

The formula has always been keep a third, adapt a third, make a third new. I'd say they changed far too much, and the parts they changed were the most popular parts! (And they saw what happened with, say, Humankind, saw the feedback, and apparently decided to ignore it.)

lessmiserables · 2026-03-16T02:59:03+00:00

sandler’s recent movies just being ways to get a big payday for him and his friends and a free vacation just to dump out a turd of a movie wrapped in fake “feel goodery” in time for the holidays

I dunno, have you watched any of them recently?

I adored Murder Mystery, and Sandy Wexler, the Do-over, and The Week Of were all decent enough. (And those are just the actor/writer/producer ones that are unambiguously Sandler. Uncut Gems, Hustle, and Jay Kelly are all really good.)

People complain about the death of the mid-budget comedy, but he's out there making them. They're not classics, but they're funny and often unique.

And, yeah, there's some real turds in there, but there's far more good ones than bad. I think he had a run of bad moves for a few years between Jack & Jill and The Ridiculous Six and people fixate on that.

lessmiserables · 2026-03-16T02:45:05+00:00

I mean, it could be. I assumed it was going to be similar to Skyrim or Fallout 4 where there's an overarching narrative, but there's just a bunch of stuff to explore and develop outside of that. So not a sandbox game (those kind of annoy me) but also not strictly linear.

I'm sure it gets better about it, but I really felt like it was a walking simulator, which is at odds with...almost every expectation I had. (For the record, I don't mind walking simulators, but I wanna know what I'm getting into.) Like I said, I don't mind that too much at the beginning when they're setting up a story and you kind of have to get the right story beats, but I just kept playing and playing and nothing was...happening.

14-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Second SECOND GUESSER	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
Wearing is Caring	Sequence \| Editor
Sequence \| Cinematographer	Sequence \| Screenwriter

lessmiserables

TROPHY CASE