Mr Skeletor’s Mailbag, 14th May

We will just skip over the fact that this thing is late (real world get’s in the way sometimes) and get straight in…

Dennis “139 lines that distill down to “theme good.”" Ugolini writes:


My article entitled "The Art of the Lie" is included below.

And for what it's worth, I'm not trying to be a dick. My posts are motivated by two things:

1. I think the whole "BGG are closed-minded jerks out to get us" focus is limiting how good your site could be.

2. The problem with setting up shop away from the people who disagree with you is that you stop questioning each other, for fear of being labeled "one of them" and cast out. Looking for holes in each other's arguments can be a healthy thing. Nearly all of the blog comments right now are "great read", whether it's a great read (which some are) or not. I'd like to see more "yeah, but what about this?", because that's how interesting discussion starts.

Anyway, that's my deal. I hope you like the article.

- Dennis Ugolini

I’ll post Dennis’ article in a separate post so that it can get its own conversation thread going.

Gary “I watch your microbadges” Sax writes:

Mr Skeletor:

One thing that always strikes me when I look at many of the more
"elite" gamers in the BGG scene is that many (most?) of them seem to
be evangelical Christians, Mormons, etc. Tom Vasel, for example, IIRC
is doing missionary work in Korea. Does this have a big effect on the
themes and moral constraints of the games that get discussed in the
overall discourse of BGG? You could also broaden the question to
boardgamers in general. Many of the game groups I see being discussed
and played at on BGG are being played at churches and church groups.
Could this be part of the reason we're constantly playing games themed
to trading resources and moving camels across deserts? Many AT themes
and mechanics would not fit well with a group of good Christian
gamers.

I'm not sure if I'm bothered by this, but it occurs to me that I don't
see as much of a slant, say, in wargames, which I play a lot--most of
the people who play wargames don't seem to be advertising themselves
as Christians or evangelicals and often discuss drinking beer all day
during a game and whatnot.

One might be able to do some interesting analysis looking at the
Christian microbadge and who holds it and what games they tend to be
fans of and rate highly, etc. That may reveal whether this feeling on
my part is more empirical trend or just my own spurious observation.

-Gary Sax

This trend has been noted by more than a few people. What you have to remember is that unlike other forms of gaming such as videogames or gambling, boardgames are viewed as a wholesome family oriented activity which therefore attracts the Sunday Church crowd. On the other hand plastic space ships and big titted Amazonian women tend to attract the Kevin Smith style ‘nerd’ crowd into boardgaming, which are basically us. One group are all about niceties, sharing experiences and spreading the word of boardgames, the other wants to cuss, be obnoxious and bitch about which Star Wars movie sucked the most.

Euros tend to have more wholesome themes and less direct conflict, so it’s natural that they will tend to appeal more towards the Churchies. On the other hand, the geeky themes and boisterous violent game play of AmeriTrash is more likely to appeal to the nerds as Wargames will appeal mainly to history buffs. While most people will say they ‘love all games’ which to a degree is true, I think deep down everyone has a subtype that appeals to them above the others.

If someone did do the study you suggest, I think the safe money would be on most outspoken Christians preferring Euro games, ‘cept for Jesus of course who was a big Titan fan.

The question is who out there is up for doing this analysis?


Thaadd “Shorts with back stockings is the new look” Powell writes:

Dear Mr. Skeletor,

What's your take on collaborative Ameritrash games - can you be 'trashy' without elimination? What would you consider the best of that variety? We know you like Descent - how about Arkham? Are there other ones that are less well known?

/A Trash Fan

(Might not be a problem to use my name, but I don't want to look like a company shill, and I know half the company reads Fortress now... /Thaadd)

Don’t worry Trash Fan, you’re identity is safe with me.

I am quite a fan of Collaborative games - arguably most dungeon crawls, which are my forte, are collaborative to some degree, which is a topic I may write an article about. Collaborative games also tend to be very story driven, which is something I enjoy. Also they are easy to solo, for those of us who don’t have wives to game with.

As a young lad I was a real gamebook freak, and still have an entire collection of the old ‘fighting fantasy’ series sitting on my second to bottom shelf. . These things were essentially solo games, were you the player ‘took on’ the book - I may write an article about these things one day. Anyway collaborative games are pretty much the same thing, except that instead of taking on a book you’re taking on a boardgame, and the experience can be shared by many players rather than just yourself.

I’m a huge Arkham Horror fan, I have it rated at BGG as an 8 though it should be a 10 considering I played in 4 times in one weekend not too long ago. I’m scared to up my rating though as Nate will tease me.
Lord off the Rings is a game I originally didn’t like but have recently done a 180 on and now really enjoy. Shadows over Camelot is a game I really enjoyed but now am not so sure if it’s that good – without the traitor the game would be really bland I feel. Warhammer Quest still stands as the essential dungeon masterless dungeon crawl, though it does have a few problems (hmm, I smell another article.) I automated the Night King’s role in Runebound’s Midnight expansion which turned that into a pretty cool co-op (if only it wasn’t so freaking impossible) and normally play World of Warcraft in a co-op mode when teaching new people.

Can’t think of any more co-op games I have played, so I’ll have to throw the floor open to the masses to let me know which ones are worth checking out.

If you have any mail for this segment that you would like to send in address it to fortressat@gmail.com with [mailbag] in the header.