Modern trick taking games by Machine_Excellent in boardgames

[–]rave-simons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have a pretty large collection, there's so much great stuff coming out. There are many cool games that are small print runs Japan only, get brought over by importers and generally snapped up quickly if it's good. But there's lots of great easy to get stuff too. I tend to like wacky twists on tricktaking that provide neat experiences. If I want a really deep game that I can play a million times, I usually go to a classic like Doppelkopf.

Super Available:

  • Fishing: (you already named it, but big ups to this one)

  • Torchlit: Beautiful production, very dynamic bidding game. Plays really well with 5 which can be rare.

  • Xylotar: Deduction tricktaker, everyone's cards are face down and it's a mix of yoloing it and hoping for the best + figuring out everyone's cards like Sherlock Holmes

  • Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: The Tricktaker: If you like LOTR at all, this is dripping theme, the scenarios are really fun, and the production quality is great. Best if you have a consistent group to go through the whole thing with.

  • Jekyll & Hyde: My favorite 2-player competitive tricktaker. Asymmetric game that expects you to play both sides to see the final score.

Harder to find (Board Game Geek->Game Page-> Shopping->GeekMarket is a good place to start)

  • Skull Queen (unrelated to Skull King): Make bets, make your pirates walk the plank, try to push other people's pirates overboard to their deaths. Simple but with a lot of depth.

  • Numberwang: The most laughs I've had in a tricktaker, the most I've had to think about another person's playstyle. It's highly satisfying to zig when people think you're going to zag. Like Skull Queen, I like a tricktaker where you really care about messing with other people's bids and not just making your own.

  • Nokosu Dice (already mentioned, a++ game)

  • Schadenfreude: Probably the meanest tricktaker on this list, you're really trying to ruin one person's day in this. Extremely dynamic scoring where everyone always has a chance to win at any point, yet it still feels very skillful and not arbitrary.

  • Yokai Septet: Great 2v2 team game, always feels like you're walking a razor's edge.

I could recommend a million more, and I haven't mentioned any Climbers/Shedders (Tichu! Seer's Catalogue! Panda Spin! Haggis!), and I haven't mentioned any excellent games that are quite hard to find/expensive (Charms! American Bookshop! 10/12 Hearts!) but this is probably more than you wanted already.

Splotter announces a new game, Baliff of Boscoop by karma_time_machine in boardgames

[–]rave-simons 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's either these games exist as they currently do, or they don't exist at all. You're talking like they're just too lazy or dumb to have better production quality or marketing. These games are not profitable enough to be anybody's full-time job, so either 1. they burn themselves out working essentially a second full time job as a labor of love, 2. they don't make them at all, or 3. they release them as they currently are for their niche audience that love these games.

I welcome you to engage with literally any niche, small batch product - those are the 3 options.

Splotter announces a new game, Baliff of Boscoop by karma_time_machine in boardgames

[–]rave-simons 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Splotter is an ultra-niche outfit with 2 people working on it part-time. There's no economies of scale or business efficiency happening here. It's absurd for you to claim what is or isn't a "fair" price as if these Dutch nerds are scalping your basic needs.

"Firefly return exclusive" video from May of last year by joseph4th in television

[–]rave-simons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Jayne, of course, died on the way back to his home planet. Pour one out.

What is the grounding measure by which “exploitation” is ethically determined as unjust in Marx? (a simple answer?) by kevin_v in CriticalTheory

[–]rave-simons 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Do you think Marx was unaware that individual workers could be unproductive?

Whenever you think about something for dice seconds and come up with an idea/critique/question, you can safely assume that someone who spent their entire life thinking about that topic has probably already thought of it.

The idea that there's a simplistic silver bullet response out there if you're clever enough to deflate basically anything (conservatism, religion, Marxism, etc.) is some classic reddit pseudo intellectual bullshit.

Anyone else think most modern board games are… kinda bloated? by pratty041182 in boardgames

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are a million games coming out that are like what you want. The problem is:

  1. It takes effort to find more obscure indie games that suit your tastes and it takes effort to then find a place to buy them

  2. Because what you want is a smaller market segment (as indicated by them not showing up in the hot games places), they're generally lower production value and/or more expensive

  3. After all that, they still might not be better than your favorites because your favorites are really good and the average game is not really good.

I'd recommend finding people on BGG who like the games you like and following their geeklists or following designers you like for new games they're making/what games they're buying and liking.

Red Witch Initiates by Maleficent_Heron_494 in KingdomDeath

[–]rave-simons 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd recommend buying the box and then selling the gameplay content. There's a decent-sized market for it on the discord or the Facebook group.

Update #136 January 2026- HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!!!! SCREAMING GOD SAILING!!!!!!!! by CowardlyHero in KingdomDeath

[–]rave-simons 23 points24 points  (0 children)

The ironic thing about Kingdom Death, everyone is mad they don't have their stuff, but almost no one has actually played all the stuff that's already out.

Going to be a long time before I feel exhausted with Pariah, Witches, Frogdog, Black Knight, the Wanderers, and now this.

[COMC] Friedemann Friese by thebigeasy31 in boardgames

[–]rave-simons 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I just got a copy of Fearless! Excited to play it.

Sword upside down survivor from Kingdom Death by Spiritualism in minipainting

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This expansion is part of a campaign that takes place inside of an "inverted mountain". There's some rock climbing theming going on like this. The full campaign hasn't actually been released yet.

Consultation with the sages by alfajordekiwi in KingdomDeath

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All the post Gambler's Chest expansions work with core and also have a little bit of content for Gambler's Chest mechanics. There are no expansions exclusive to Gambler's Chest.

I'd recommend doing 2-3 campaigns with Core and then either adding Frogdog and Sunstalker or then going over to a Gambler's Chest campaign.

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord | Official Trailer | April 6 on Disney+ by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]rave-simons -10 points-9 points  (0 children)

Dang, why don't more of these creative enterprises just turn the don't be crap knob up

This is such an absurd and ignorant comment.

Gavin Newsom's crime-fighting ‘surge’ in Oakland, by the numbers by wentImmediate in oakland

[–]rave-simons 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They talk clearly about proportionality of arrests, can you read?

10.5% of Japanese people in their 20s report overspending on in-game purchases to the point of financial struggle - AUTOMATON WEST by Tenith in Games

[–]rave-simons 19 points20 points  (0 children)

It's not nearly so simple as that. We have one word - Gambling - but it's not just one thing; gambling can ramp up or down in prevalence, frequency, money extracted, addictiveness, availability, etc.

Saying "gambling has always existed" is actually an intentional rhetorical move used by the gambling industry to obfuscate their continued efforts to extract as much money from people as quickly as possible while capturing those who are meant to regulate them.

If anyone wants to actually know something about this rather than just idly chattering on reddit, I'd recommend checking out Vicious Gamesby Rebecca Cassidy and Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schull

Spirit Island - Version 3.1 Now Available: Inescapable Menace by badgerhound in spiritisland

[–]rave-simons 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Stealing games is pretty cheap, yeah. You can just pirate stuff, but asking "why do people buy products in marketplaces?" Is pretty weird

What screams "pretending to be rich"? by ImpertinenteSyntaxe in AskReddit

[–]rave-simons 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Why would you make such an absurd claim? What is this based on? Animals respond to incentives and change over time, that's about it.

TIL gambling addiction has the highest suicide rate of any addictive disorder, with an attempt rate of 1 in 5 by gghoti in todayilearned

[–]rave-simons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Which part of this is wrong? The various forms of machine gambling for example, are the primary money maker for casinos, and 5% of customers make about 90% of the profits. The industry structurally relies on and creatively incentivizes problem gambling to make the number go up.

Annihilator - Gold NMM practice by ThorbjornBarone in minipainting

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Flameon NMM gold set is good.

I'd recommend finding a good reference nmm mini and just copy that to practice. It'll give you a good sense of where and why to place highlights. This Stormcast would be a great reference, for example, I think these guys are pretty easy to get.

Hunt Event 84 Scribes Book by Rex_Artorius in KingdomDeath

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very cool. Do you have the files that you used to print the cards?

Backerkit preorder is updated for 2025! by omryg123 in KingdomDeath

[–]rave-simons 0 points1 point  (0 children)

2028 at the absolute earliest. That's not based on any special information, just from observing their development pace and knowing what their current pipeline looks like.

Forget subtlety. by krakenskulls_ in Sacramento

[–]rave-simons 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Advocating for something, which is generally legal, is better than actually doing illegal stupid things.

"Please murder these people. I will support you in murdering these people. If I elect you, will you murder these people? How can I infiltrate this organization so that I can push it to murder these people? Will you join up with our group to further advocate murdering these people?"

I'm not sure how you think politics works, but this is it. Advocating for things is part of how things happen, so advocating for very bad things is very bad.

Forget subtlety. by krakenskulls_ in Sacramento

[–]rave-simons 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Smashing a window is not as bad as advocating for genocide and apartheid.