What kinds of games do you like, and why?

[Reynard]

Note: this is in Geek Media because I am interested in folks' preferences beyond RPGs. This thread is about RPGs, but also board games and card games and video games and all the genres and sub genres within those media.

So what sort of games do you like? Not just medium wise, but genre and subgenre wise? What about those are appealing to you?

For example, I love deckbuilders. Not Magic or whatever, but Clank! or Slay the Spire or whatever. I really like the process of picking cards and building your deck over the course of each play. I am not interested at in "the meta" or other prep or mastery based deck games. I like the ephemeral nature of building a deck in play and making it work for you.

 

[billd91]

I like games based in history, particularly World War II. So Call of Duty: World at War was right up my alley for video games, and Advanced Squad Leader (not that I get many chances to play) for board games.
For other historical-era-oriented games I do like Call of Cthulhu, Republic of Rome, Age of Renaissance, and Advanced Civilization.

I enjoy cRPGs with substantial stories like Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. I particularly like games that are either turn-based or have extensive ability to pause and select my moves like Baldur's Gate 3 over games that rely on my reflexes and skill. I can get through various Assassin's Creed editions, but I tend to their dislike timed missions because they stress me out.

I like relatively straight-forward, low stress competitive games like Ticket to Ride more than ones with a lot of different method of scoring going on like Seven Wonders or Agricola, though I will play those if that's the way the group is leaning.

For competitive games, I like a substantial random element that helps keep expert players within reach of less expert players whether it be via randomly drawn calamity cards in Advanced Civ or randomly drawn tiles like Carcassonne.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good ones. /s

I'll try anything. I prefer games with strong themes, especially if themes are reflected well in the mechanics. Single player solitaire in a multi-player game, pasted-on-theme, and/or no meaningful choices are right out.

I do prefer fantasy and sci-fi themes to "mundane" ones. In board games my collection includes all different kinds of mechanics -- deterministic, random, deck builders, worker placement, competitive, cooperative, solo, engine builders, etc. Though my favorites are probably "dudes on a map"-style area control and wargames. Plus I play a lot of tabletop miniature skirmish games.

Used to play a lot of hex & counter wargames, but I fine now I prefer less realism and more streamlined mechanics that focus more on the decision choices.

 

[The Soloist]

Solo miniature wargames:

• Frostgrave
• Stargrave
• Five Parsecs from Home
• Five Leagues from the Borderland
• 2d Delves solo fantasy adventures (2d is 2d6, not 2 dimensions)

Solo adventure board games:

• Maladum, Battle System
• Core Space, Battle System
• D&D board games (Ashardalon, Ravenloft, Drizzt)
• Shadow of the Brimstone
• Mage Knight
• Gloomhaven
• Zombicide Dark Plague
• LOTR The Battle at the Tomb of Balin (GW)

Euro games:
- A long list of two player games, I play with my wife: Catan Rivals, Underwater cities, Ruins of Arnak just to name a few.

 

[thullgrim]

I play 40k, AoS and other miniature games regularly. Working on models, trying to clear the pile of shame, eats alot of my hobby time.

I don’t do video games, or at least haven’t for many years. When I did play them I preferred turn based isometric stuff, and Diablo. I have a very hard time with first person view. I also like some puzzle games.

Board games as a family we play a fair amount of Catan, carcassone, Ticket to Ride and other family style Euro board games. I also a ton of Dominion cards we play. It’s been a while since I got them out though.

And of course rpgs. I’m the forever GM of the group. We tend to play a lot of GURPS, PF1, Savage Worlds, and some Blades in the Dark and Shadowdark occasionally. As a group we tend towards crunchier games, with a lot of player customization option. 2026 I’ll start the year running PF1, then we are going to give Shadowrun 6e a try. After that we’ll probably go back to GURPS for a while.

Genre wise we lean heavily fantasy but I try to make sure and change things up every once in a while. 2024 I ran some Nights Black Agents in GURPS and then Savage Worlds. Best game I’ve run in 5 years at least.

 

[aco175]

I still play Tenzi once in a while with my daughter and the scouts on game nights. Mostly since the rules can be explained in 20 seconds and each game lasts only 30.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't do much with board or card games anymore, though I did when I was younger. With computer games I'm almost entirely in the Turn Based Strategy zone (I'll occasionally foray into Realtime Strategy but it has to hit just right in how its handled); I stopped doing CRPGs because I stall out on them regularly. I'm generally really poor at anything realtime so I don't enjoy them for the most part.

I've got a fairly wide taste in RPGs within the trad and quasi-trad zone. I'm probably most fond of superheroes and fantasy, but I've also run SF, post-apocalypse and urban fantasy. I tend to prefer games with a fair bit of mechanical engagement at either end of the table, probably because my tastes are a hybrid of wargaming/roleplaying in an "I want my chocolate with my peanut butter" kind of way.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ticket to Ride, Risk 2210 and Farshore. Still getting into darshore.

Videogames Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri and Stellaris.

 

[DammitVictor]

Can't stand most card or board games and it's not for lack of trying; the closer a boardgame gets to being a wargame, the better the chances I'll tolerate it. But wargames have their own problems... since I don't have the hands or the eyes or the patience for most of the craftwork behind them.

Far as RPGs, I like most anything that has magic powers of some kind, though I've got a strong preference for non "tolkienesque" settings and I strongly favor more traditional systems. Except for straight up superheroes, for which I prefer MHR.

For vidya... I'm a huge fan of roguelikes and roguelites, as long as the devs know the difference. I'm a big fan of strategic/tactical RPGs, or turn-based in general. I'm a bigger fan of fighting games than I was thirty years ago, but I also prefer thirty year old fighting games.

 

[dbm]

Boardgames are my secondary hobby, and I’ve gotten in pretty extensively over the last five years or so, building up my own collection. One of my regular gaming buddies also has an extensive board game collection (more extensive than mine).

Personally I tend to buy fantasy-themed games (with sci-fi in second place for theme) however beyond that I like a lot of different types of games. I have several adventure type games including Mage Knight and Elder Scrolls Betrayal of the Second Era. Arena combat game Black Rose Wars Rebirth. Fairly hard-core euro game Terra Mystica. A magical 4x in the form of Runewars. Some modern classics like Slay The Spire, and more besides.

I used to be into war gaming, but I also now lack the time and patience to collect, build, and paint models. For my fantasy battle itch-scratching I have BattleLore 2e, which used the Command and Colours system seen in Memoire ‘44 and a bunch of historical war games but with a fantasy theme. I can get the hit of designing an army, building out the battlefield and playing a full-length battle in under an hour and since I have collected all the expansions I have three full armies (humans, chaos, and undead) to field so all I need is one of my buddies to be up for a game in an evening to play. It’s expensive on the secondary market since it is long out of print but there is really nothing that matches it in my experience.

@The Soloist - nice collection, I am also quite into solo board games, or at least like my games to be solo-able so I can play them more often.

@Reynard - a card game to look out for might be Codex Real-Time Strategy. It’s unfortunately also out of print but some Deluxe sets come up on the secondary market (or there is a print-and-play option available). The concept is that you build your deck every round during the game, and the full Deluxe set has six factions, each with three specialisations, which you pick in-play. Its design brief was to be a Magic-like game but to be a ‘one and done’ purchase. I bought it to have an in-person Hearthstone-like card battler.