It’s such a slippery slope.
Young and casual gamers like smaller games with digestible rules, and fun, snappy outcomes.
Grizzled veteran lifestyle gamers want complexity, depth, and advanced mechanics.
So how much game is too much?
For me, the test is: how often do I forget a step?
In Mice and Mystics, we always forget to advance the ridiculous clock mechanism. So we don’t even mess with it anymore. It’s a fun game, but we spend so much time floundering with bad rolls we’d be facing continuous penalties. That is if we ever remembered to advance it.
There are exceptions though. In Cursed City and Blackstone Fortress we often forget to roll for Inspiration Points. But that’s just like forgetting to draw a treasure card after an event. There’s no mechanic behind it.
There’s definitely a point in the rules where I go: uggh, oh boy, this is too much.
I want heroes, hostiles, defined movement, and interesting terrain.
– Me
I feel like the complexity level keeps getting pushed higher and higher to satisfy voracious gamers who have mastered dozens of games. They need more and more to be satisfied.
The more cute little painted euro abstractions a game has, the less I’m into it.
Nope. Not for me.
I think this is what growing up with HeroQuest has done to me. I want heroes, hostiles, defined movement, and interesting terrain.
And I get it. After I fully wrapped my head around Warhammer Quest 1995 (which any wargamer worth their salt will tell you is dirt simple, but took me years to work up to), I have had a hard time going back to HeroQuest. I’m just so far behind the curve that it’s flat back here.
I plan to stick to the WHQ games. They’re at my level. There’s enough there to satisfy my need for straightforwardness and complexity. Call them boardgames if you will, it’s not disparaging.
