OK everyone, I'd like to introduce our new GotW. He's someone who is a significant content contributor to the site, as well as maintaining his own gaming blog: Chris Farrell.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/cfarrell

Chris's gaming biography, which he provided to me earlier today:



OK, some questions to kick us off:

1. First of all, two truths and a lie about yourself, please.

2. You have a broad interest in lots of different types of games. If you could mandate a single new game be developed (including specifying designer, publisher, topic, ideal length, etc.), what would it be?

3. How often do you successfully trade away the Civil War card in Civilization if you get dealt it?

4. A lot of people have commented about the sheer NUMBER of games you play. How many gaming sessions do you have per month, by length and type of game? Would you add more gaming to your life if you could?

5. What game has most disappointed you in the last 5 years?

6. If you could change one rule to one game, what would it be?

Thanks for being GotW and I'm looking forward to imposing on your good nature several more times this week!

1. I once performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto on-stage with a live orchestra.
2. I once worked on the air on a classical radio show.
3. Secretly, I really love Munchkin.



Interesting question. I'd like to see Reiner Knizia design a role-playing or wargame, or see Monte Cook publish a boardgame under his Malhavoc label, perhaps set in his Arcana Evolved universe. Knizia could design that one too, or maybe he could get Mark Simonitch to do a wargame of the war between the Giants and Dramojh. I'd also like to see a game set in the universe of Stephen R. Donaldson's The Land, or Knizia or Teuber do a big-box Star Wars game.



Ah, you reveal your antipathy for Civilization. Never - Civil War is untradeable. I always trade away calamities in Civ, though. Why sit on them? It's wasting a resource



Kim an I usually game twice a week. We have two regular board game groups, although neither meets quite every week. Our Arcana Unearthed and Lord of the Rings miniatures games are usually instead of one of these two sessions. I occasionally go on gaming binges we're I'll play a ton of games on a weekend or at a con, but that's comparatively infrequent. I'll also throw in a wargame session maybe once a month on a weekend, or an occasional extra weekday game if the stars align.

I would not add any more gaming. I could if I wanted to - there are other good local groups that I could play with (there is a group that meets at Yahoo! that I've always enjoyed gaming with when I get a chance), but twice a week on average, plus keeping up with my blog, plus painting Lord of the Rings minis, is pretty much gaming saturation for me.



Either Shadows over Camelot, Empire of the Sun, or War of the Ring.



I'd delete the Spiked Chain in Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 & 3.5. Sorry that's slightly obscure for the average boardgamer, but it's very rare for me to find a boardgame that is one tweak away from being something I'll like. I'm sure there is one, but I can't think of anything.

Maybe Dune? The +1 seitch per extra player in an alliance to claim victory? But that's become pretty standard, I think. If you play with The Duel, we always played that the Bene Gesserit and Atriedes couldn't ally after the Kwisatz Haderach was out, which helped a lot.

I'd like to add a rule to Paths of Glory to make the Russian Capituation Sequence less impossible, but I don't know what it would be.

Oh yeah, here we go: I'd delete the +5 Influence for being temporary Rome Consul on the first turn of Republic of Rome.



Thanks!

First, I have to say that your blog and lists have probably been the most helpful thing on the geek for me as a (relatively) new boardgamer. Keep up the good work. I don't always agree 100%, but you always provide sound reasoning for all your comments. So thanks!

And can you go into a bit more depth about just why you hate the spiked chain so much? I'm sure enough of us play D&D that it wouldn't be too obscure to go into.

Also, in the D&D subject area, care to weigh in on the following argument:

Would a thief with +7d6 sneak attack, quick draw, two handed fighting, rapid reload etc who dual wielded hand crossbows and could make four attacks a round and thus potentially get 30d6 damage every other round (assuming he was able to bluff to hide inbetween) be considered "munchkining"?

Heh, inquiring minds want to know.

Thanks!



Because it is uniquely a reach weapon that can also attack adjacent targets, you can see some really gruesome stuff with Cleave, Whirlwind Attack, and Enlarge (only a 2nd-level spell!). Because the Spiked Chain is also a 2-handed weapon, the new 3.5 version of Power Attack means you're regularly insane levels of damage.

The most grotesque I've seen was actually a Cleric with Divine Power and Righteous Might, plus Power Attack, but any Fighter can pretty easily mini-max the spiked chain, which is easily better than any other available weapon, exotic or otherwise.



Nah. Your BAB probably isn't high enough and your AC probably sucks. In a hack-fest, you probably aren't keeping up with the Fighters, so you made the critical mini-maxing error of not playing a Fighter or Cleric. Also, I'm not sure the Bluff/Hide combo is always available. As a GM, I'd have a hard time allowing you to do that constantly in most situations. A true munchkin doesn't leave the GM enough room to legitimately rein him in.

It's a good try, though. I wouldn't let you play it in my game

Shoot, I was afraid of that. I just wanted a ranged sneak attack character that shot hand crossbows old west style. Of course once I realized how many attacks I could get off and went crazy on hide it made some situations too easy. I asked because we have one guy who yells "HOW ARE YOU ROLLING THAT MANY DICE????" every time I manage to get four hits at the beginning of a battle.


How about an easy one:

What game is your avatar from, and why that counter?

It was a slightly obscure joke. I was in the middle of a, ah, heated discussion of Civ vs. Advanced Civ on my "overrated" list. So I selected this, a flame-throwing tank from Guderian's Blitzkrieg II, as a bit of a joke.

I've actually not been particularly keen on the avatar for quite some time (not least because it's a German unit). But I've had it for so long now, and it's such a crisp, clean, and recognizable icon, and I haven't been able to come up with something better. So I still have it.

---

EDIT: Not anymore! As of 8/2006, my avatar has finally been changed to one of Kim's pieces of gaming-related artwork.

Congrats on being GotW, I can't believe it took this long!!

I'm one of many who feels that you are an indispensable part of the BGG community: your comments and analyses are always well thought out and supported by sound reasoning even if perhaps I don't always agree with the tastes that dictate your premises (although often I do). But perhaps most importantly you are a gamer of broad tastes who puts the time and effort into offering us that expansive perspective in your detailed reviews and commentary on your blog and elsewhere. Thank you very much!!

I was just recently musing on how I've come to lower my opinion of Caylus, and remembered your views on the game which I can now better understand and relate to (at the time I was a little vexed by your point of view).

My question is a pretty general one:

What type of game will the "next Puerto Rico" (or "next Settlers" if you'd prefer) be? It seems that the same audience that relished these two games (the middle-to-heavyweight Euro audience, if you will) needs to be bombarded with some fresh ideas and approaches in order to not start feeling that all these games are too similar in feel. Is this possible?

Thanks for your kind words.

I prefer to avoid trying to stare into the crystal ball to discern future trends. We all know what happened to Denethor. But, that said: Settlers was, IMHO, a real genre-busting game that was substantially different from what had gone before: it combined German design sensibilities with American empire-building and competition. Puerto Rico wasn't in my opinion a genre-buster, really, it was just exceptionally well-crafted.

The next Puerto Rico will, I think, be another euro-style Civilization-themed game with which we are basically familiar, but that has one interesting, unique idea, and more importantly it will be crafted with attention to detail and precision.

More generally, if you had asked me about boargaming trends 5 years ago, I would have pointed to Knizia's Lord of the Rings and said that while that might not be the direction gaming in general was going, that there was a game that should open up a whole new genre. Maybe a sparsely-populated genre, but there were great follow-ups to be made there. But there has been nothing, really, except the disappointing Shadows over Camelot. Now, I'd point to Beowulf - a game that combines euro-style mechanics with great theming.

But following Knizia is, apparently, hard.

As for what the next genre-busting game will be ... if I knew that, I'd design it. Instead, I'll just review it when it comes out.

Congrats, Chris. I am also annoyed that it took this long for one of BGG's most underrated heroes to receive the recognition. I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for directing me to some really good stuff, as well as to steer me clear of some bad things that I had wandered dangerously near.

My questions for you are, first, how are you able to have fun when you play games? From reading some of your work, it seems that often after one play, you're capable of an extremely detailed analysis of a game, almost as if you had a sixth sense for what works and what doens't work. This might be possible for something simple like Carcassonne, but I can't imagine how you're able to do it with wargames and the heavy Euros, games which often have complex and interlocking mechanics. Tell us the secret to your capabilities.

Second, you are more often than not rather harsh on games, even some extremely well-liked ones. When you're the only one to point out the flaws with Caylus or Puerto Rico, do you ever fear some sort of backlash from the gmae's designer and/or ardent supporters?

Finally, and this is a bit selfish of me, you're quite the expert on a number of complex wargames that I am trying to introduce to my non-grognard friends, many of whom are simply too intimidated by the complexity. How willing are you to come up to the East Bay and edumacate them on the joys of wargaming?

Keep up the good work, Chris. Thanks for all you've done for the community.

Really, it's not that big a deal. I've just played a ton of games for many years, which gives one a certain sense of perspective. And I play games with many smart people, in many cases people who have been gaming longer than I have. I do get frustrated playing lousy games, which is tough - I'd like to be able to enjoy some of the new games as much as some of the newer gamers I game with do - but most of the people I play with are similarly experienced/jaded (pick one). Most games are fine to play once. But playing one game and realizing it really doesn't work is not great value, so I pass the savings on to you. Or so the theory goes.



Now, don't get me wrong on Puerto Rico. I rate it a 9. And most people who read my blog and my lists are very reasonable - they may disagree with me, but they don't get unpleasant. Which is as things should be. I think the only exception was Twilight Struggle, oddly - I got an email from a fan who thought I was nuts for my review, which really wasn't negative.

Designers are another matter. I've gotten some fairly nasty email from smaller designers. I don't appreciate it, but in my heart of hearts I am not unsypmathetic, given the difficult lot of the micro-press, and I can live with it. The War of the Rings folks seemed a little obsessed with me, though, given my lack of a measurable impact on a game of that scale.

It is tough sometimes. Wray Farrell is a great guy, for example, and I feel awkward running into him at MonsterCon, given that I didn't give Sword of Rome a great review. It can be a painfully small world.

But I am who I am, and I am happy to say that a bad review by me is unlikely to make enough difference by itself to make it worth spending the electrons to flame me.



Well, if you're willing to come down to Bay Area Gamesday sometime (http://davekohr.best.vwh.net/gamesday/), I'm willing to teach. Just drop me a line to arrange something in advance.

Have you tried Ted Raicer's Official historical paths of glory varient? (I haven't played PoG mayself, just wondering if you know whether this varient fixes things.) http://www.boardgamegeek.com/fileinfo.php?fileid=8296