Do you think my wife would like M:TG?

[clvrmonkey]

not a bad idea...

I don't think Magic is necessarily a bad idea. You seem to have the interest in it, and for $10 you can find out if she does. The starter packs are actually quite cool for new players. It comes with 2 pre-selected dual color decks of 30 cards each, a "gold" deck and a "silver" deck. Each deck also has it's own tutorial manual. Basically, you are walked through the first dozen or so turns, playing as the manual tells you to, just to get the rules down, then you play out the rest of the game. After that, if she is still interested she can read the rule book for more advanced rules and whatnot.

Alternately, the starter pack also comes with a cd that has a walkthrough type game against the computer as well as more advanced game options. I believe you can download that software from wizards for free.

The starter packs don't seem to be the easiest thing to get ahold of anymore, but a quick google search remedied that for me.

 

[Number47]

Get Milk Money. Vaguely disturbing. If your wife is like mine, do NOT get any game that favors complex strategy. If I play to win, I am accused of being too mean. Sulking usually follows. My suggestion is Yahtzee. You get to roll dice and aren't really playing each other.

 

[der_kluge]

Hey, Yahtzee's not a bad idea. It's pretty non-competetive as you suggest, plus I can get my dice fix at the same time. "Come on 6's - Baby needs a new pair of shoes!"

 

[Utrecht]

I also highly recommend Carcassone - this is a great - easy to learn game.

Sumamry of the Game:

Carcassonne is a tile-laying game where the players create a landscape of roads, walled mediaeval Cities, Roads, cloistered Monasteries and Farms. Carcassonne is a simple and well thought out game, which looks good, plays well, normally takes less than an hour and is relatively inexpensive. These factors certainly helped in sweep up plenty of awards in 2001.

The Components
The box contains:

72 tiles, each features one or more of the main four landscape elements: pasture, roads, cities and monasteries.
40 wooden "followers" 8 in each colour
1 scoreboard.
The rules.
The Game

Each player takes it in turn to draw a tile, this tile is shown to all and must now be played. Played tiles must touch a tile already played, except for the very first tile obviously and all relevant elements must connect (so roads must continue an existing road etc.).

Next the player may place on or more of his followers onto the tile that was just played. Now the follow can be placed on any of the landscape elements, however you cannot place a follower on an element that already has an opponents follower on a connected like element. It possible to place a follower on an isolated element and later on connect it to an element already occupied by an opponent, and hence have for example two thieves on the same road. Some times this tactic can score very nicely, and can allow a player to effectively rob another players score. Now depending on which element your new follower is placed on will determine his trade, and hence what score he will generate.

Followers on roads are Thieves, followers in pastures are Farmers, followers in cities are Knights and followers in Monasteries are monks. This is important as each trade scores differently. Knights Thieves and Monks are scored at the end of the turn if they can. All followers are then removed from the scored City, Road or Monastery. This makes them available to be used to score again. In fact a player can lay a tile, place a follower and score that follower ad get him back all in one go.

The game proceeds until the last tile is laid

 

[Hoju]

I also highly recommend Carcassone - this is a great - easy to learn game.

I assume this can be played by 3 or 4 players also? Does the company have a website or are they only distributed through game stores? (though I don't expect you to know this).

As to the original topic, I tried to get my wife into magic and she hated it, the rules were to structered for her and I got a lot of why can't I do that? Now she plays D&D and can do whatever she pleases, though she may not live. Such as the time she allowed herself to be engulfed by Dungie in Rappan Athuk (bad move)in order to retrive her sword.

Since I'm jumping all over the place another game we enjoy as a group (more than 2) is Steve Jackson's Munchkin card game, simply and fun, we play it when taking a night off from D&D.

 

[nopantsyet]

It worked with my wife who, as a PhD of high literature, scorns all of my pulp fantasy. But she has begrudgingly admitted to enjoying MtG.

Next step, Settlers. If I succeed at that I just might be able to get her into dnd before she knows what happened.

 

[Darkness]

Do you already know Magic yourself, BTW? It should be fun for you, too, after all.

 

[Utrecht]

Hoju,

Carcassone was designed and released in Germany by Hans Im Glück and released in the US/Canada by Rio Grande Games - try www.riograndgames.com - you can order it directly from them or through your local game shop - either works.

It won the prestigious Spiel des Jhares ("Game of the Year") award in Germany for 2001

And yes, it is playable for up to 5 people - further, they are releaseing an expansion pack to add additional tiles and a 6th player.

 

[Wild Karrde]

Get Milk Money. Vaguely disturbing. If your wife is like mine, do NOT get any game that favors complex strategy. If I play to win, I am accused of being too mean. Sulking usually follows. My suggestion is Yahtzee. You get to roll dice and aren't really playing each other.

Milk Money...are you mad? j/k

That's a great game but I don't know if you should be playing a trash talking fight game with your wife, lol.

 

[Terraism]

We have Scrabble, too. I picked up the Deluxe addition with a swiveling board, and wooden tile trays. Pretty nice. We've played it a few times. She has to use the dictionary to help her along, though. My Scrabble claim to fame was placing the word "Horny".

My claim was using a five-letter word for prostitute in 5th-grade English, without actually knowing what it meant. I think I managed somewhere near seventy points for it, too!

Back to the poster's subject (I don't want to hijack the thread, or anything! ) I'm definitely not married, so I can't chime in there, but I know a lot of people who enjoy games of the Uno sort that couldn't stand Magic back when I was still 'actively recruiting' for the game. My, but that was a long time ago...