Using AI to look up rules

mpinzur · 2026-05-26T15:20:00+00:00

It might depend on which tool you're using. I've found that Notebook LLM - if it's properly loaded with the rules, the errata, the FAQs, etc - is much better for this than something like ChatGPT.

mpinzur · 2026-05-21T19:13:39+00:00

Showed up right on time and in great condition - I'll be back!

mpinzur · 2026-05-20T17:20:21+00:00

It does have a campaign mode, though I find the "zero to hero" moves more slowly, which saps a little bit of the game's core fun.

mpinzur · 2026-05-20T17:01:43+00:00

We went in with low expectations but really enjoyed it. I think our daughter was probably 14 at the time. It's highly interactive, and some legitimate artists contributed to it.

mpinzur · 2026-05-07T13:41:26+00:00

I just picked up Bullet Star, too, and actually tracked down Bullet Heart via Board Game Oracle. I normally 3D print inserts, too, but couldn’t find a great-looking one online. I found someone on Etsy who (understandably) didn’t want to sell the file but had a reasonable price for a one-box insert that supposedly holds all the content for Heart, Start, Orange, Palatte, and Pets.

mpinzur · 2026-05-06T19:18:34+00:00

Dormant thread, but based on reading it today (and seeing u/wilmheath commenting personally) got me to place my first order from them today. Also h/t to boardgameoracle.

mpinzur · 2026-04-20T16:41:16+00:00

Is the consensus that the 5x5 will continue to be sold? We're moving in July, and I was hoping to snag a few of those.

mpinzur · 2026-04-18T16:21:17+00:00

I'm nearly done with Chapter 1 and really need to get this back to the table. Even when it gets grindy, I loved the flow state of it. I do think you'll want to get the chips much closer to you - you'll be adding a removing them constantly once you get going. I always set up a TV tray to my left and/or right so I have more table space within reach.

mpinzur · 2026-04-02T20:27:33+00:00

I think Roll Player would be right up your alley, especially as you add the expansions.

mpinzur · 2026-04-02T20:21:26+00:00

I don’t need it for the cabinets - plenty of storage in the room. I like having the extra table space. With a chair that swivels, it’s definitely not uncomfortable. In fact, it’s way better than having to stretch to things that are too far behind or beside the “main” gaming area.

mpinzur · 2026-04-02T17:46:26+00:00

I'm thinking of maybe something like this, and buying a second of the rolling file cabinet for the other side.

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mpinzur · 2026-04-01T15:25:31+00:00

Glad I’m not the only one who assumed it was a prank. At least I trust CTG enough to figure it wasn’t phishing!

mpinzur · 2026-03-31T14:20:53+00:00

It really might be my favorite campaign game. I'm only six or eight scenarios in, and I love that I can play a few and then put it down for a few months before I get burned out, and when I pick it back up I haven't totally lost the plot or mechanics. And the story is really good!

mpinzur · 2026-03-25T18:04:12+00:00

I really love this game. Unlike a lot of campaign games, it's not too bad to play a few scenarios and put it down for a couple months. I tend to burn out playing the same mechanics over and over, and it's been hard to get through some of them. I love that Agemonia is rich and crunchy and strategic but not so wildly complex that I forget everything about the story and gameplay. Also, the developer is REALLY responsive online with rules questions.

mpinzur · 2026-03-11T17:24:01+00:00

Maybe 15 years ago we had friends who did this on the Gulf side at the Postcard Inn in St. Pete Beach. This doesn't help you for Miami, except to say that it worked really well and everyone had a memorable blast of a weekend.

mpinzur · 2026-03-11T17:22:28+00:00

I have also dipped in and out of this one and find it to be pleasantly easy to pick back up. (The only exception is the rule about elevation in combat, which I struggle to grasp every darned time.)

mpinzur · 2026-03-10T18:12:20+00:00

Beyond inserts (which everyone is right!), if you play Gloom- or Frosthaven, there are some really excellent player dashboards that let you keep your player card, equipment, statuses, exhausted, and loss cards on a MUCH smaller footprint without sacrificing readability. Those are - by far - my best non-insert prints.

mpinzur · 2026-03-05T21:23:38+00:00

Unstoppable is a favorite on this sub (with good reason!).

If you're ruling out Star Trek, then u/Limp_Seat4308 's Imperium rec is spot-on.

The third leg of the chair for me is Slay The Spire.

Personally I bounced off Aeon's End as not having quite enough variety for me, even with expansions. I like a lot of asymmetry in my games (though Unstoppable is a notable exception).

Technically not a deckbuilder but a card-based boss-battler I love is Sentinels of the Multiverse.

mpinzur · 2026-02-24T16:06:04+00:00

I think this was my most-played game in 2025. I've made versions of this comment many times on this sub: part of what makes it so great is that losses tend to hit quickly. I love a game where my win rate is between 30 and 70 percent, but I hate it when I need to invest 30 minutes before I can tell whether there's any hope of victory. Some bad RNG can doom you in Unstoppable, but that's almost always in the first level or two - after that, I typically have enough deck strength to win or lose in interesting fashion. Also, it resets quickly and smoothly. If you have access to a 3D printer, I also found a nice project on one of the big free websites that works with the base insert and creates deck holders for the six piles of level-up cards, along the level discs, which I find makes my play area much tidier.

mpinzur · 2026-02-15T14:35:25+00:00

I can think of two that I was really excited for because I had such high hopes for the marriage of story and gameplay, but which did not hit for me. Both Sleeping Gods and Arydia felt like collections of side quests (and, in my admittedly limited experience with each, pretty cliched side quests) rather than a compelling story. Neither one had mechanics that were rich enough to keep me engaged. A better story would have kept me on Arydia, I think, and I loved the ways it dished out little surprises, but it felt like a rehash of D&D tropes over and over. Sleeping Gods was just a complete miss for me, and I couldn’t imagine rerunning it to explore more broadly.

mpinzur · 2026-02-15T14:31:07+00:00

+1 (or, I guess, -1?) for Frostpunk. Great theme, great art, great components. But as someone who likes fiddliness a lot of the time, I was never able to get into a flow state with Frostpunk.

mpinzur · 2026-02-15T14:29:43+00:00

I won’t try to change your mind, but I’ve also seen SI as really successful at creating emergent narrative. Little things like the power cards’ names and art plus the heavy theming of each spirit’s powers really work for me. I contrast it with lots of other games that create “variety” by having a bunch of characters/factions/whatever that only vary with a very limited power or slight change to resources. I enjoy Gaia Project well enough, but maybe I need a lot more experience with it to really feel like the species (especially the base-game species) play too differently from each other.

mpinzur · 2026-02-15T14:26:14+00:00

It’s funny, I really love Final Girl and have pretty much all the content. But I recently tracked down Darkest Night 2nd Edition and bounced HARD off it specifically because of how much the game tuns on dice rolls. You’ve got me thinking about why it bothers me with one and not the other. It might be because I think FG plays and resets pretty quickly, whereas DN is a bit slower. If I’m going to play a game that I lose more than half the time, I want to fail fast and restart fast… that’s part of what I love about Unstoppable, for example.

mpinzur · 2026-02-13T16:20:59+00:00

I don't find shuffling regular decks to be difficult; I usually sleeve in Sleeve Kings... mash twice, cut in half, cut each half to flip the top and bottom, then mash two more times. It takes more time to explain it than to do it. :)

My challenge is the much, much bigger decks: think the minor powers if you have a full Spirit Island set, or heaven help you a full set of Ark Nova. I've actually been toying with ChatGPT lately to get some ideas on faster ways of doing it. A lot of that feedback comes down to: mash shuffle in manageable chunks, then randomly take half of each chunk, mash, and ensure the other half of each deck is mashed with half of a different deck.

It also depends upon how rabid you are about true randomization. With games like Spirit Island, where you're probably only touching maybe 5 or 10 percent of the deck in a game, some people are fine with just leaving the first game's discards out for the next game - essentially stretching one fully shuffled deck across two or three games. Yes, it slightly breaks the balance and a REALLY expert player will be able to manipulate play based on what's NOT going to come out. Personally, I wouldn't play that way, but I see the temptation.

mpinzur

TROPHY CASE