It's reasonably nasty. I cannot play this game with my 8 YO daughter, who hates any sort of 'take that'. If you are thinking about getting this for people who don't like 'take that', I would at the very least borrow a friend's copy or demo it at a game store before you bought it.

Nastier than the boardgame and not nearly as fun.

It is nastier, only in the fact that the "train robbing" aspect is more direct and in your face. When my wife, family and I play the board game, any blocking of routes seem to happen by accident, mainly because we tend to be concentrating more on our own routes than on the others. But in the card game, even though you may be intending to only go after your route, when you "train rob" another player, it does seem like you did it only to do a "Take That!" to them.

Hmm... thank you guys a ton for the feedback. I must admit I'm a little bummed; oh well... the base game is still a heck of a lotta fun.

I disagree. I find the board game nastier.

Having someone block your route can make it permanent that you do NOT get to the destination. However, the card game, you shouldn't play a huge stack of cards. And you'll always have another chance to get a color you want with rainbows. It's recoverable, while blocking in the board game is permanent. With that said, I'd say the card game has more conflicts of less damage, while the board game has blocks that are permanently damaging.

Hmmm... now you have me scratching my head again.

How frequent is the screwage? How targeted is it: that is, does it necessarily have to be intentional?

In the board game, you might be going for a route of a color, so you would collect colors of that route. However, someone could take that route, before you get all of the colors. So you have to go around. But it might take longer and more tickets.

In the card game, you might lose some cards, but since there are no fixed "routes", you always have a chance to complete destinations. Your reds might be bombed this time, but you can always recover them later on.

How frequent is the screwage? Well, it becomes more and more frequent the more players you have. Obviously it's more crowded and there's less colors to divide between everyone.

Does it have to be intentional? Well, if you don't want to bomb, you can always draw cards. My friend who throws cards all over when he loses at Magic the Gathering can stand this game however.

So again, you'll see a lot of screwage in this game, but it's fairly light and quick and frequent, so it's just a common thing. The worst people will say is, "shucks." However in TTR the board game, people can be vicious by blocking routes, etc. While screwage isn't as frequent, it's PERMANENT.

So a bunch of little pokes or a few hard jabs to the face. Take your pick.