Board Game Breakfast: Episode 102 - Anti Hype

Tom Vasel takes a look at the news for the week, joined by a host of friends

Show Notes:
Intro
Board Game News
Q&A with Tom and Jason
Whitleypedia
The Discriminating Gamer
Dice Tower Productions
Head in the Clouds with Chaz Marler
The Game Plan
Miniatures Painting
Tom Thinks (Anti-Hype)
The Best and the Worst
Game Rooms
Board Game Apps with Suzanne
Snakes and Lattes
Closing Thoughts

[Slvers]

Ironically, Chaz' section was exactly the conversation I had with my two boys (ages 13 and 10) yesterday, Sunday. In the end, they decided to ask for the "normal" edition for Christmas and purchase another "normal" edition to donate to Toys for Tots; saving $2 and giving another family the opportunity to play board games this Holiday :-)

[garytanner]

Regarding going to conventions alone.. I'm an introvert myself, and so when I went to cons, I specifically looked for ones that had scheduled games. If I got into the games, I knew I'd have people to play with. If not, I'd wander through to see if I could find a table I felt comfortable approaching. I also always brought, or bought, a solo-able game so if I needed a break from being around tons of people, I'd retreat to my room and play a game there.

The Players Wanted signs are definitely a big help, I was glad when those first started popping up. When I created my own convention, which started this last year, scheduled games was a priority for me, because I knew what it was like to not know anyone at a convention. So even though we weren't a big con for our first year (and will take time to grow), we had 130 people attend, and 53 scheduled games/tournaments. All of those were with people running them willing to teach (several of the players in the tournaments had never played the games before). We've barely started advertising for this year (we're late), and already have 26 games/tournaments scheduled.

And also knowing what it's like to not know anyone, if anyone attending were to email me and say 'I've never been to a con and/or I'm coming by myself and don't know anyone, can you give me some tips?' Either I or my wife would volunteer to play games with them, introduce them to others, keep an eye out for spots in games for them, etc. The larger the convention, I imagine that becomes more difficult, but making people comfortable is big. One bad experience at a convention can make a person never want to attend one again, and it's a part of the hobby I think everyone should be able to experience.

Okay, I rambled a lot. Just an important topic to me after all my times alone at cons. My advice: look around at the conventions near you, see how they're structured, and see what might work for you, even reach out to the con organizer, they may be of some help.

[michaelkieffer]

I enjoy the change with cutting the week in review from this section. I have notifications turned on and can watch the once I was as they are uploaded. This change also saves me a little tim eon the list of things I watch as well. Thank you.

[DavidLandonCole]

Chaz's section is really interesting. It sounds similar to the idea of priming in nudge theory, although in this instance, it's worked the wrong way round.

[ericmatthews]

Fury of Dracula Segment from the discriminating Gamer was excellent! I usually hate those types of segments, but this one really was funny and the bit was even cut and produced well. Good job!

[dboussios]

Greetings to Snakes and Lattes from Germany and all the best for your lovely s&l family member. I lost my mother 2 months ago to cancer only to have her followed by a diagnosis for my cousin two weeks ago. Angry is not the right word to describe the rage! But my cousin is doing slowly better so stay strong and fight the nasty monster!

[IronSalamander]

I loved Head in the Clouds in this one. I think Chaz is normally humorous and interesting anyway, but this time he hit on something that a lot of us feel wholeheartedly. My 'must have at any cost!' game is someone else's 'You paid what for that?'. A game you pay 60 for but never touch or play maybe once a year is worth far less to you than a game, and we'll assume some expansions here, that you pay 300 for but play every week.

This is common to both board game and digital media. One of my favorite Steam games is AI War:Fleet Command which is not only inexpensive, even with all the expansions, but I have over 500 hours in and love to play. On the other hand I have a game that costs far more and has flashier graphics and a lot more hype but I barely touch it. At the end of the day what matters is how you feel about your purchase, only you can judge the value of your games!

[chrisdonovan]

Thanks for making a weekly review video. It's a time saver, and greatly appreciated.

[chuckm]

Huge ups for moving the reviews-summary out of this show. It was the only thing I fast-forwarded through, and now the show is back down to the optimal 35 minutes!

[ABevs]

Lol I just went through the whole black box vs regular risk debate in my head yesterday. Didn't seem like enough of an upgrade to justify the price jump.

[madifinley]

The Discriminating Gamer: Hilarious. That guy was great.Loved Jared's segment today. Awesome work.Chaz always has an interesting segment. Brilliant!

[wroot_lt]

Andrew, nice start. I've heard about Glen More a lot, but this condensed mini review made me think, maybe i should try it actually ;)

[AndAlltheNerdyFun]

i feel like everytime i watch chaz's segments im having a conversation with myself. That is precisely the same issue that ran through my mind before i hit add to cart for Star Wars risk Black edition.

[randallhunt]

When attending a convention by yourself, an easy way to get into gaming is to find someone playing a game you are interested in and ask, "Can I watch you guys play?" This will hardly ever be met with a "no, " and by the time the game is finished, you will probably be asked to join in the next game to be played.

[kyledalrymple]

Good call on Machi Koro, Nils, but once you start playing with the expansion rules where the available buildings for purchase are random and more limited, your "worst" mechanism kind of goes away. You still get the same crazy runaway leader problem though, so there's something to fill that void.

[MarthaCQ]

Okay, I am not a first time viewer but I was totally startled at 15:50. Then, for doing so I laughed at myself. Thanks Tom and mystery guest. I really needed to laugh today.

[ams]

Jared -- have you ever done a segment or thought about including MSRP in your number crunching? Some sort of "fun per dollar" or "greatness per dollar" would be interesting to hear about. Thanks for your videos!

[djfooboo]

Machi Koro:
Worst: It's a boring game
Best: It's over quick

[EclecticCamel]

I think Chaz's segment was very time appropriate given a lot of the debate lately about certain games. I think he kinda touched on it a bit last week (week before that?) with the Good Charlotte ("Good Charlotte? More like mediocre Green Day!" - Chris Rock) game segment. There seems to be this myth of the perpetually replayable game, which is what I think a lot of people are deriving their perceived value from.

[JaKamps]

I could see that Steve really cared in his S & L segment