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

Congrats on being named Geek of the Week. I'll confess that if it weren't for your praise of Beowulf - The Legend, I'd never have checked it out, and it wouldn't have risen to #9 of my Top 10. Do you think Knizia's whole trilogy was overlooked last year (Palazzo, Beowulf, Tower of Babel)? I do.

Cheers!

While I think it seems powerful in theory, I personally prefer the x3 crit mod of the guisarme and no need for a feat. Whirlwind got hit with the nerf bat pretty hard in 3.5 - it doesn't work with feats that give you extra attacks and reach weapons have cover issues as well.

What I want to know, is why should someone always attack someone named Jeff?

Andy

Well, you bring me an abusive Guisarme character, I'll be happy to suggest that be banned as well.

Whirlwind did get whacked in 3.5, but the new Power Attack more than made up for it. I forgot also, another combo that works well with the Spiked Chain is Combat Reflexes. Especially when coupled with Enlarge.

Again, though, what I think really differentiates the Spiked Chain is the very large threatened zone.



Obviously, that's just good policy. Especially if you have a Spiked Chain

Congrats, Chris.

Do you still get Knizia's Lord of the Rings to the table? What combination of options (including expansions) do you gravitate towards? And are you excitedly anticipating the Battlefront expansion as I am?

Oh...one more...any chance we'll see you at BGG.Con? Either this coming one or any future one?

-MMM

First, let me say that I really enjoy reading your blog, particularly the wargame-related entries, as good sources for discussion of wargames seem to be in shortage. (ConSimWorld, I've found somewhat clumsy... there is lots of information there, but it can be very difficult to find.) Keep up the interesting writing - I always like it when I check your blog and see that it has been updated.

Now, for some questions:

Knowing that you have played many of the OCS games, and rate them highly, which (preferably one-map) scenario would you recommend for somebody wanting to learn the system (assuming game availability wasn't an issue)?

What's your favourite Richard Berg game?

Which are your three favourite wargame designers? (... I bet Mark Simonitch will be one of them.)

Which are your three favourite eurogame designers? (I'm sure Knizia will make an appearance here... probably along with Teuber. That still leaves a third one though.)

I've gathered from your writings that you're not as mad about Age of Steam as the die-hard fans are (neither am I) - but I have never managed to get all that good a picture of what you think its problems are. Could you summarize?

That fixes the Italian issue, but in my view the problem with the Russian Capitulation track is the Tsar Takes Command card. If you don't get it at the right time, you end up holding it forever, seriously crimping your hand, or not playing it during Limited War, which is fatal (as far as this is concerned, anyway). The 8-card hand in the historical variant might help here, though.

I like the WW2:B2B idea, of allowing the Allies to take one Blitzkrieg card into their hand when they go to Total War, which might work for the CP in PoG too.

You know, I think it's been 6 months or since I played. It tends to go in spurts, we'll play it a bunch, then it'll sit around for a while. Kim has played more recently, though; a few months back she got to play a 6-player, all-expansions game, and reported that it worked surprisingly well.

That's one thing I like about Lord of the Rings - I'll get some idea in my mind about what works best. Like that Sauron is ideal with 6, or that the black tiles are too complicated, or that all the expansions would be insane, or whatever. Then I'll play a game in something other than a configuration that I nominally prefer, and it'll work out great.

I think the conventional wisdom of starting Sauron on 10, 12 with 1 expansion, and 15 with 2, is sound. If you're not playing the base game with Sauron on 10, you're not playing the "real" game. Also, if you play Friends and Foes, you really, really need the Black Gate. Other than that, whatever. I do really like the Sauron expansion, though.



That depends ... how excited are you? For me, the answer would be "a lot" ... but ... it depends on who's designing it. I assume it's a Knizia, but there is a possibility that it's not (Knizia didn't do the new characters in the LotR:tC Deluxe for example, or the new monsters in Colossal Arena, or - I have to imagine - anything about Galaxy: The Arena). The wording on FFG's site leaves open the possibility that it's just something they did up to expand LotR. Somebody more plugged in will clarify, I'm sure.



It's certainly a possibility. Maybe not this year, but I'd definitely like to come sometime in the not-too-distant future. For the moment, ConsimWorld Expo and Origins are my conventions, but I'd really like to find the time to make it to Texas as well.

I actually have a list for that (although in my list, I assume availability is an issue, and avaiability has changed since I wrote it). I like Burma a lot, so I'd sign up for the reprint, and I think many of the scenarios can be played on one map. Korea is also a great game to learn with, as it's fairly low-density early on and has bunches of scenarios, but it's a two-mapper. Third choice would be DAK, which also has a ton of scenarios.

Tunisia is a greak game, but somehow it doesn't speak to me as much as the others, and it doesn't have as many good, small scenarios. Guderian's Blitzkrieg, Enemy at the Gates, and Hube's Pocket should be avoided. I like Sicily, but I think Burma is the better learning game. At the end of the day, I think it's going to be which theatre - desert (DAK), pacific (Burma), or the Korean War - appeals to you.



That's a no-brainer ... Successors. I've also been taken with Carthage recently, but it's definitely no Successors.

I enjoy reading the scenario notes in SPQR and the expansions.



Mark Simonitch, Vance vonBorries, Craig Besinque. There are quite a few other designers who have done tremendous games ... but these are the only folks for whom if saw their name attached to a project, I would sign up for a preorder no questions asked.



Knizia, Teuber, Dorn. Rudiger Dorn hasn't done a lot of games, but the ones he's done (Goa, Traders of Genoa, Jambo, Louis XIV) have been great and he hasn't done any real klunkers. Obviously, there are many talented euro designers, though - Andreas Seyfarth, Friedmann Friese, Andrea Meyer, and Wolfgang Kramer are all reliable "buys" for me.



Check out my comments for the game, which should clarify, I hope. I try to keep all my comments here fleshed-out and up-to-date, even when I don't have time or energy to write a whole blog entry (and as some eagle-eyed readers have noticed I'm sure, the comments are often rough drafts for blog entries). I don't like the bidding, which I find unbalanced, the endgame is really wonky because cash isn't worth anything at the end, and I find the roles uninspiring. I also find it to be gratuitously hard - there is really very little reason to make you take out all your loans at the beginning of the turn other than to make the game more difficult than it needs to be.

I still think the game is OK. But it's well into my second tier of games.

They have certainly been overlooked by BGG, I think. Tower of Babel at 7.1, ranked 202; Beowulf at 6.8 and ranked 427; Palazzo at 6.9 and 319. Meanwhile Caylus is in the #2 spot? I'm glad to see Tower of Babel is on the uptick from where it was, but these ratings certainly seem to say that BGGers are missing out on these wonderful games. I don't know if they should be in the top 10, but they should certainly be in the top 100.

Chris, where do you come down on HTI (Hidden Trackable Information). Awhile ago there was a thread debating the topic in which the position was taken that any conceivable HTI in a game should be played with that information open (this would include resources in Settlers and money in Modern Art for example).

The thread is here but I don't actually recommend reading it all the way to the end lest your head explode.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/110984/page/1

Second question, what is your preference for playing speed? I guess another way of phrasing the question would be what is your tolerance for analysis paralysis?

I think this is hugely overblown by a small number of people who don't like remembering things, or who want every game to be Caylus. I can't think of a game that I've played where the rules have specified it one way (open or closed), and it plays better the other. I'm sure there is one (at least), but the point is, for me anyway it doesn't happen a lot. Variety is good.

Memory is a skill. I generally don't try to re-write the rules to games to emphasize skills I prefer to use. Most games clearly specify when a resource should be hidden; presumably the game designer had a reason. Especially if we're talking Knizia or Teuber, you have to suspect he knew what he was doing.

The odd game out is Acquire, in which the disposition of shares (hidden or open) is unspecified in the current edition, and it is specifically left to the player to decide. In Acquire, I prefer open holdings, as I think it speeds the game up and makes it a bit more skillful without encouraging analysis paralysis. But I would not play some games that have been criticised on this count - Samurai, Reef Encounter - with open hands. They would be totally different games. I once played Tigris & Euphrates with open scoring, and it turned a nice 45 minute game into a 3-hour torture session.



Most eurogames should be played at a good pace, in my opinion. These are social games, and I think the goal is to have fun, and that means not waiting around while people analyze the situation to death.

A simpler answer, though, is that if it is abundantly clear that you are the slowest person at the table - you need to play faster. In general.

Grats!

So a few questions:

What is your favorite animal?

If you could only keep one company's games which would you pick?

How do you feel about luxury?

What song would you like to have played at your funeral?

What suggestions would you like to give Fantasy Flight?

What AH game do you think you will still be playing 10 years from now?

SPI?

GMT?

Do you believe there is power in sacrafice?

Are any of the American Heritage games going to hit the table again?

Hi Chris,

I try to remember to ask each Geek of the Week these gaming related questions so to start with, here's the ever so slightly modified GeekSpeak BoardGameSpeak Hook questions for you:
Favourite game for players
Favourite game for players
Favourite game for players
Favourite game for players
Favourite game for players
Favourite game for or more players (and you may choose a Party Game here although I wouldn't - my other confession is that I would be hard pressed to list just one game for most of the above)

Also Word Association Football , I will list a word and you list a game or games that you associate with it. If you like you can expand and tell us if you like it/them or hate it/them and possibly why. Mostly, if not exactly, the same list as before.

Space ships
Witches
Trains
Transport (may include trains)
Workers (paid or otherwise)
Trading
Building
Pink
Theme
Ships
Money
Purple
Government
Vampires
Infrastructure
Dice
Dinosaurs
Gemstones
Dragons
Beer
Wands

And last but not least, what are the last five games that you have played?

Hi Chris

First let me thank you for some of the very best writing and analysis on games in the hobby today. It is appreciated.

Secondly, thanks for going GotW just as I leave on two weeks hard earned vacation. I guess I will read it when I get back.

Off to practice my Glaive-Guisarme skills.