I Need To Admit I’m Never Going To Play My Giant Board Games
I Need To Admit I’m Never Going To Play My Giant Board Games
CW: article contains swears
Each one of these items and tokens and sheets is important. Each one of these pieces have been carefully considered by brilliant designers. Their role is clear. If I looked right now, I’m sure every token is explained somewhere in a game manual that unfortunately reads like a VCR repair guide that’s been run through Google Translate eight times. ‘Remember to put the second deck over the initial deck so the last piece from the regular meeples pool does not cross into the irregular meeples pool before the dice rolls a zero’. That’s not an actual line in the manual; I’m too lazy to dig through a board game box that’s larger than the ones I use to move furniture. Someone will get mad at me about this and, honestly, they are right.
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I completed Gloomhaven. It was a MONUMENTAL undertaking, required diligent organization and a dedicated table that was never used for anything else. You also need a bachelor's degree in the rulebook (or just get comfortable with house rules that fill in)
I'm 15% of the way through the expansion (Frosthaven) and am utterly exhausted. There's so much to do and so many opportunities to put something back wrong and now my draw pile somehow has the discards in it. Fuck.
But it was a glorious journey. Gloomhaven added a welcome interface layer that classic DnD was missing for me. And the combat system is so colorful! That said, the game basically demands a companion app for tracking health. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but immensely rewarding.
Yeah Gloomhaven left me exhausted, too.
Plus, I'll be honest: the main card selection system is brilliant. Unlocking characters was fun. The rest was... there was something else?! It was that forgettable and flat. The story barely exists and is at its best very thin window dressing. The interactions are nonsensical due to the random nature. The game is grindy as fuck.
I dunno. Fun once. I have zero intention of playing any more of it or any successor, ever. Done way more than enough Gloomhaven for my life.
Amen.
I am not into board games. What you describe sounds like Gamification, but in reverse. Do you people not have exhausting, tedious day jobs to fill that space? Why even attempt something like this? Honestly curious.
I have a theory that people seek what they’re missing in their lives through their hobbies.
Specifically, in my own life I’ve noticed that the times I’ve gone deep into rich, complicated, and demanding hobbies, are the times when I’ve felt understimulated at school or work.
Conversely, at times when I’ve felt overstimulated at school or work I only want to watch TV or play simple party games to unwind or destress.
I am curious if other people feel this way.
That's a really interesting thought. Makes sense to me. I don't feel understimulated at work, so maybe that's just not something for me then.
Because it's fun! The actual gameplay of managing your incredibly flavorful class hand that evolves as you choose when leveling up is immensely satisfying. Bring along some friends, and you can drop entire weekends into this game over many months.
Easily my favorite board game.
But I'm also tired of the depth of complexity lol. Very similar to raiding in WoW - Fun. Exhausting.
Playing solo, I’ve been close to completing Gloomhaven for weeks/months now after a year/2 year-long hiatus. I had gotten about half-way through, but then put it down bc of everything else I had still waiting. I picked it back up a bit ago and have been methodically going through each branch of the “storyline” and unlocking what I can of it. I’ve just about unlocked every class I can, but everytime I turn around there’s something else to do, some new scenario that needs completing, I just don’t want to put it back down again bc I know it will be another year or two before I pick it back up again and by that point I’ll have forgotten how to play and I’ll be too far along to try to relearn it again. I want to at least finish out the last of the classes and the actual storyline before taking a break from it.
My biggest dislike of the system is how ridiculous some of the puzzles have been. I like the tactical puzzle and hand management aspects, but some of the secret envelopes with puzzles are just batshit insane. I took one look at one in particular, spent 10 minutes trying to figure it out, then gave up and looked online. I realized there was no way in hell I would’ve ever figured that one out on my own.