Tabletop Simulator is a physics-based sandbox that lets you play various board and card games, up to and including the part where you get mad and flip the table, sending all the pieces flying away.
It's not immediately obvious looking at the store page just what this game is capable of. By default it's mostly a silly physics sandbox where you can play chess or backgammon and throw the pieces around, it's also fully moddable. You can replicate almost any board game in TTS with a little creativity and lua-fu. Risk? Check. Cards Against Humanity? Check. Catan? Duh. Secret Hitler? Only about fifty god damn servers of it. And many more! Games that are out of print, or hard to find, or crazy expensive. A few minutes in steam workshop and you'll have a virtual shelf that'd cost you thousands of dollars in the real world if you could even find half the games. The potential value of this game is outrageous. Copyright issues abound but maybe due to the niche market of a lot of more serious board games only a few companies have actually taken any kind of action.
Given all that, it seems like this would be right up Bay12's alley and I'm interested in finding out if anybody would be interested in a Bay12 game night some time. I'd be willing to create a steam group for it (Maybe I already did? I dont' remember) if there's interest. I also have a friend, and possibly that friend's wife, who'd be up for something. I'll list the games I have or know down below, organized roughly by complexity. What are you guys up for?
Guillotine:This is one my friend showed me, a simple card game. You play as executioners during the French Revolution. Twelve nobles line up and at the end of each player's turn the noble at the front of the line is beheaded and added to your score pile. Use action cards to manipulate the line and maximize your score or force the other players to behead martyrs and heroes of the people and lower their score. A pretty fun party game that moves fast and only takes a minute to learn. Also good for learning the TTS controls.
Epic Spell Wars:Basically
Be Aggressive in card game form. A group of wizards explode the shit out of each other with modular spells. Combine three component cards to form a spell and resolve each of their effects in turn, claim the tower for extra points, be the last wizard standing to get a token, get two tokens to win. Silly and a lot of fun, great art style. 2-6 players, best with at least 3.
BattleCON: I've sort of played this and can teach the basic rules. A card-based fighting game with pretty fun mechanics. Combine basic moves like punch and dash with character-specific modifiers to create your attack for the turn and reveal them simultaneously to see what happens. A few dozen characters with lots of unique mechanics and a ton of variant rules. 2-4 players but I don't know the 3+ rules so I can't teach them.
Betrayal at House on the Hill:A group of teenagers decides to spend the night in a haunted house and all hell breaks loose. Explore the house and gather supplies by laying down tiles to build the game map. When the Haunt is triggered one of fifty spooky events is selected and one player becomes a traitor of some sort with a set of secret goals, while the other players have to find a way to stop them. Haunts range from evil cultists, serial killers, flaming bats, and weirder shit. A lot of fun, really chaotic and unpredictable. 3+ players but only really comes into its own with at least 4.
Pandemic:A co-op game where you try to cure four simultaneous disease epidemics before they overwhelm the world. The disease mechanics are pretty neat, disease spawn via city cards and when the pandemic intensifies the city discard pile is shuffled back onto the top of the deck so the disease tends to spread naturally instead of appearing at random all over. Actual gameplay is weird and abstract and mostly consists of shuffling cards around to make flushes. Somehow it works and ends up being really tense and fun. Also lots of expansions that add additional difficulty and content but I haven't played them yet. 2-4 players.
Fury of Dracula:A hidden movement game, similar in some aspects to Arkham and Eldritch Horror. Dracula moves through Europe in secret, leaving monsters and vampire spawn in his wake. Vampire spawn mature over time and eventually escape to terrorize the countryside and advance the doom counter. Vampire Hunters have to find Dracula's trail and clear his hideouts, gathering supplies to find the big guy and put him down for good. Hidden movement mechanics are done well and add a nice logical aspect to it. Dracula was in this city three turns ago and he was moving west. Which cities could he be in and how can we arrange our hunters to box him in? 2-4 players vs 1 Dracula.
Arkham Horror: The original Cthulhu board game. One of the elder evils is trying to return by opening portals around Arkham. Investigators have to make their way through the increasingly monster-infested city to gather supplies, close portals, and stop the old one's plan before it's too late. This one's kind of showing its age. The goals are pretty limited, you want to get clues and then close portals when you have enough clues to seal them. Gameplay is very random and while characters are specialized to be good at certain things there's no real way to focus on those things. If you play an old professor expect to get attacked by a shoggoth. If you play a meathead gangster expect to have to solve the sphynx's riddle. Etc. 2+ players
Eldritch Horror:An updated version of Arkham Horror. Now the entire world's in play. There's a lot more to do in this version. Winning is via mysteries, which are unique to each old one and vary a lot. Characters are more distinct and with more things to do it's easier to focus on what you're good at. Also, my favorite feature, this one has double-sided cards. Cast a spell, then flip the card over to see what consequences your sorcery has wrought. You found a mysterious relic in a tomb, who knows what'll happen when it reactivates? Still very difficult, still occasionally frustrating, but overall a much better game than Arkham Horror. 2+
Mage Knight:Technically a deckbuilder but you wouldn't notice if you weren't paying attention. A group of extraplanar demigods invade a fantasy kingdom and have to take it over in three days. Move across a modular map, fight monsters, and influence the natives by playing cards in a weird deckbuildery system, recruit an army, gather treasure, spells, and new techniques, and finally attack the heavily fortified cities. Players can work together, stick to themselves, or directly attack each other as they see fit. That dragon would be easier with some help but only one player can win at the end. 2-4 players. WizKids isn't happy about this being on TTS so all the publicly available mods are broken. I know a workaround though.
Kingdom Death - Monster: Dark Souls-flavored Monster Hunter set in
the eclipse from Berserk. Hunt pseudo-AI controlled monsters to take their body parts and use them to craft gear and improve your makeshift settlement. 1-4 player co-op, no GM. Plays surprisingly fast for a game this huge, lots of bookkeeping though. Campaign-based but there's little need for the same players each session, and characters and gear are a shared pool. Also kind of gross. Tries for the uncomfortable sexuality of Giger/Aliens and doesn't always pull it off.
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Topic: Tabletop Simulator - How About A B12 Board Game Night? (Read 12539 times)