Tabletop Games & Board/Card Games

[home_mod]

Is there a tabletop game fandom you've been trying to get people into, a board game you're trying to get people to play with you, a card game you just love and want to recommend to others? Rec your favorite tabletop, board, and card games and discuss. (Video games, phone games, and other digital games can be recced here.)

Please make a separate comment for each game, using this format:

Title:
Type of game:
Number of players:
Description:
Comments: [what you like about the game, why you think people should play it, any notes you have]

Comments

[ghost_lingering]

Title: Ultimate Battle
Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1605435027/ultimate-battle-the-card-battle-sketching-game (includes details about how to play)
Type of game: card / illustration game
Number of players: 2+
Description: (from the rules sheet) "Using cards with keywords on them, you'll sketch out our attacks on a sheet of paper laid between all the players." There are battle cards (w/ objects for you to draw and use in creative ways) and disagreement cards (to use when people aren't sure who's defense/attack would win).
Comments: This is a great game if you're stuck at home with a bunch of elementary or middle school kids. It would also be easy to mock up a version of this at home without the official game. You just need a sheet of paper you can all draw on, some markers/pens/pencils/crayons, and to come up with some way of randomizing what objects/things people can use to draw attacks/defenses. I really like it because there's an element of creation (drawing) and there's a lot of imagination and flexibility. Please check out the link for play videos -- they describe the gameplay better than I could!

[ghost_lingering]

Title: Tales from the Loop
Link: https://www.modiphius.net/products/tales-from-the-loop-rpg-rulebook
Type of game: tabletop RPG
Number of players: flexible, but you'll need at least one person to GM
Description: Basically if you were the kids in Stranger Things
Comments: A good game if you're home with kids (or adults) who like tabletop RPGs AND it's a good tabletop game for playing over Skype. The barriers to entry are also way easier than, say D&D: the system is easy to learn; you only need D6s, which are more common than other kinds of dice; it is legit in the rules that none of the player characters can die so if you're attached to your character that's a good safety net; and because there isn't as much in the way of battle maps and the like, it's easy to play over Skype. (That's how I've been playing -- there are three of us in one location who Skype with two people in another location.)

Old School Essentials [free]

[taichara]

Title: Old School Essentials
Type of Game: tabletop rpg
Number of Players: 2+
Description: OSE is a retroclone of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, given a much easier to read and use layout and with a few bumps smoothed out. It's also available in a free online Systems Reference Document in a nice website, or to download from Drivethrurpg.
Comments: OSE doesn't have all the bells and whistles of more recent editions of D&D -- not that whipping up some homebrew adaptations isn't a thing -- but it's a nice neat system and Necrotic Gnome did a wonderful job on making the rules more intuitive. There's fancier layout + art versions (and expansions to bring in more AD&D materials) but the free SRD is all you need to get started; and, being freely accessible, anyone who wants to run a game in email or on social media or Discord can make sure everyone has the rules at hand, no strings or piratical antics attached.

Troika! [free]

[taichara]

Title: Troika!
Type of Game: tabletop rpg
Number of Players: 2+
Description: More retroclones! This time of Fighting Fantasy, a UK rpg. Troika goes its own way, though, with off the wall character backgrounds (make your own, even!) and sailing the spheres of the universe on golden barges. Troika! comes in a few different formats, but like OSE above it also has a free to download Systems Reference Document so you can just pick it up and go.
Comments: This game is delightfully off the wall and also only uses six-sided dice, if funky dice are an issue and you don't have access to a digital dice roller. Writing up new character backgrounds is a breeze (and there's guidelines), so tailoring Troika to the exact kind of game you want to play is no problem. And, again, it's a simple system that plays well as an online game via Discord, Skype, text, etc.

Boardgames you can play online through Steam

[goodbyebird]

20 games video here.

Comments: Obviously you can't get together with people and play board games face to face like you want to, but online play can be a solid option in these times =)