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A comment on Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned from computer games. Parent comment

Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by klmr on Friday December 01, 2017 @05:37AM (#15823084)
Dominion’s problem as a beginners’ game is that an even somewhat experienced player has a huge edge over a complete novice: even a passing familiarity with the cards will open up strategic combinations. In addition, they’ll have a hunch for when in the game they need to start accumulating victory points rather than expanding their monetary assets. That said, I love the game, and I think that it’s fairly easy to get into it.
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Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by graphitezepp on Friday December 01, 2017 @07:33AM (#15823434)
How is that ever avoided though? I can not imagine a game where any amount of experience is not an advantage, where the game also has sufficient depth to be interesting.
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Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by klmr on Friday December 01, 2017 @09:48AM (#15824094)
Good point: unless it’s completely random it’s never entirely avoidable — there’s an element of skill. And I still think that Dominion can be very fun with beginners (that’s my experience at least).

That said, there are games that level the playing field without yielding entirely to chance; such as Dixit, where advantages are rather gained from knowing the other players.

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Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by skybrian on Friday December 01, 2017 @07:37PM (#15829184)
Games can have strategic depth that is only mildly helpful in improving the odds of winning. Arguably Carcassonne is like this.
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Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by b0rsuk on Friday December 01, 2017 @10:57AM (#15824565)
In games with higher interaction newbies can effectively gang up on the experienced leader. It has its issues, but it works.
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Re:Board games are back, thanks to lessons designers learned... by lmm on Friday December 01, 2017 @12:50PM (#15825679)
I find Tanto Cuore makes a nice sweet spot - it's mostly as parallel as Dominion, but adds just enough interaction. Normally I'll get about 3/4 of the way through a game with newbies and then they'll go a couple of rounds of all buying me bad habits, and I'll smile because they've got it, and end up on a negative score.
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