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Hold on....is WotC becoming Fantasy Flight Games????

It's a smart move for Wizards' and these kind of board games are always a great thing to pull out when the whole group can't make it to game.
 

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As an ardent fan of 4th Edition, and one who has been running it since 2009 and hasn't stopped yet... I actually wouldn't mind if WotC became Fantasy Flight Games.

I didn't really love love the Shadowfell box, but getting groups and DMs started with pre-built encounters, monster tokens that are compatible with other products to form one larger 'D&D experience' is something I definitely favor.

Simply put, I wouldn't mind if the entire D&D consumer purchasing experience was made up of boxes that can 'volt in' together, all unified by the core rulebooks as a central purchase, rather than a series of splatbooks that form an incestuous product web.
 

The advantages of board games:

1) They have wider appeal.

2) They don't tend to get pirated.

3) Many new board games tend to be played only a few times, but the price point is often higher than a typical RPG book. Potential to sell even more new board games due to play turnover.

4) Less creative (but perhaps more mechanics) effort for a better return.

5) Less time commitment necessary than an RPG campaign (see 1).

5) Specific to WotC, they can leverage the D&D name.

I like board games, but personally I don't find them as much fun as roleplaying games.
 

WotC has put out some quality D&D board games over the past year, and under the Avalon Hill brand has been putting out quality board games for quite some time.

However, if they could only match the production quality of Fantasy Flight's board games, it would be a fantastic thing. I find the production quality of the recent D&D games lacking, even if the gameplay itself is very good.

I like pretty games.
 


Nope.

WotC tends to have folks who understand game theory and probability designing its products. I've never really seen an indication that FFG does.

A good understanding of game theory might actually be MORE important than for a traditional RPG, since a good DM can make a bad game shine, and vice versa. With a board game, it either stands on its own or doesn't.
 

Nope.

WotC tends to have folks who understand game theory and probability designing its products. I've never really seen an indication that FFG does.

A good understanding of game theory might actually be MORE important than for a traditional RPG, since a good DM can make a bad game shine, and vice versa. With a board game, it either stands on its own or doesn't.

o_0

What FFG games do you find so terrible?

(and to say nothing of the fact that FFG and WotC both publish games designed by a variety of people, so making a blanket statement like that is fairly silly)
 

o_0

What FFG games do you find so terrible?

(and to say nothing of the fact that FFG and WotC both publish games designed by a variety of people, so making a blanket statement like that is fairly silly)

The one I hate the most is the WoW boardgame, but Descent suffers from the same problem - the mechanics are buried underneath layers of tokens and special dice.
 

The one I hate the most is the WoW boardgame, but Descent suffers from the same problem - the mechanics are buried underneath layers of tokens and special dice.

I happen to think both games have some very clever mechanics in them. I love the combat system in the WoW boardgame (assuming you're talking about World of Warcraft: The Board Game, and not World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game, the latter of which I don't own and have never played).

Descent's use of dice is also very clever, in that it allows things to have very different statistics without requiring any arcane calculations. You roll the dice matching the colors you're supposed to roll, and look at the symbols.

I also find it interesting that your two examples are of their older coffin box games. Might I suggest you try Runewars if you're more interested in a wargame or Chaos in the Old World for a well-balanced asymmetric area control game that plays very much like a euro although it drips with theme.
 

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