2012 republican presidential nominee IV: NEEDS MORE BOOING

Enh, I like it, but it depends on the crowd playing and how boringly literal minded they are

I like that Apples to Apples is now distributed by Toys R Us & the like.

Now I'm just waiting for Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan to hit the major American toy/games distros.

― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Wednesday, March 7, 2012 11:08 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Games By James is a really cool store chain we have up here, kinda HARDCORE board game store and stuff

http://www.gamesbyjames.com/index.htm

it had tons of these v small colored paper circles in it that u were suposed to use for something

yes! i never got that game either. i now own Monsanto.

oh man GAMES BY JAMES

many many xposts: That's a good question actually! (I assume "mass produced" as in, like, you can find it at Target and Toys R Us etc.) I wonder if there's any kind of way to search that.

A few standbys:

Life: #7,814 (almost entirely luck-based, usually a no-no)
Trivial Pursuit: #7,677 (dunno why, probably just requires too much that's "external" to the game)
Risk: #6,256 (presumably these people play a lot of other more complex war games etc)
Taboo: #1,076
Apples To Apples: #956 (all game geeks like having some crowd-pleasers for the casual visitor etc)
Scrabble: #827
Bananagrams: #825 (quicker than Scrabble, more portable, easier to hook people)
Pente: #800
Big Boggle: #799 (see bananagrams)
Backgammon: #774
Euchre: #739
Cribbage: #328
Mahjong: #310
Chess: #249
Bridge: #175

and it's...

Magic: the Gathering: #134 (hahahahahha)

Candyland: not ranked, has a 3.2/10 ;_;

And, to give you an idea of the heart and soul of the place: #1 is Twilight Struggle, a three-hour, two-player card and map game where you play out the Cold War. I played this once with my brother. It was possibly the most satisfying game I've ever played and yet I don't know that I could ever play it again. Back on topic: the same makers made a very similar game for the 1960 election which I might play (ranked #54!).

lmao

mtg is better than all those games tho, it's true

risk is so bad, i hate risk

taboo is pretty fun though

also apples to apples is really fun! You have to be at the right level of drunk where people are vociferously arguing for their left-field connections, but not so drunk that nothing actually makes sense and people are just cracking themselves up throwing cards all over the place. Similar to Taboo in that sense I think.

apples to apples is really fun the first time, and slightly less fun the second time, and then horrifingly unfun by the third time

fwiw, I think BGG probably has several large, non-overlapping contingents - - - so the CCG people probably push M:TG really high, even as the people that have evenings with Settlers and various geographically-themed German games (San Juan! Thebes! Calcutta!) don't play it at all.

Also, I would like to think that this giant board game derail is actually a sophisticated commentary on how the primaries are all JUST AN ARBITRARY GAME MAAAAN

game nerds seem a lot like beer nerds, there should be an awkward party where they come together and drink and play games and there are no females

Tons of females at board game nights though! Not parity, but last few times I went with my brother in Knoxville it was like 4/10 people, 5/11, etc.

well they still won't come if they hear beer nerds will be there

Yeah, board game nights are far more gender-balanced.

"But the real question on the pundits' minds is, which candidate would female voters rather play Settlers with?"

mormons prob play a lot of board games

I love drunk Taboo so much. All other games: boooooo.

And lo! we're back on topic, which is booing.

However, MTG evenings at the large local game shop(owned & operated by a lesbian couple) are like so, so dude-heavy you can't even spot the girlfriends dragged in.

Dutch Blitz, at christianbook.com

http://g.christianbook.com/g/product/9/9400x.gif

this past weekend I got together with a bunch of college buddies and played Asshole, which was amazing until I woke up the next morning and had to sing at church

Actually Dutch blitz is really fun. Like cards but not PLAYING cards, y'see.

Also on topic: more than average number of hardcore gamer dudes/MTG types have that borderline Aspergers edge where Ron Paul support is likely

shocking

(he calmly holds up his hand, palm outward in the universally recognized symbol for "Halt!" or possibly for "Go straight to hell!" if you live in Greece, according to one rather dicey internet site)

Halt! Take it to I Love Games, boys. We political junkies are still playing our game of Point & Laugh & Furrow Our Brows in this thread.

ezra has been pushing the romney might actually be a good candidate line recently rmde http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/wonkbook-is-romney-stronger-than-he-looks/2012/03/07/gIQAvg9ewR_blog.html

its such a substance free line of reasoning, maybe hell do better than some people think, maybe hell do worse, i guess well see!

if the economy gets worse hell do better if it gets better then he do worse, huh you dont say

yeah it's this natural inclination towards 'let's make this interesting', no it prob won't be interesting

if anything I think romney's 'overrated' as a candidate even in the spheres we are talking about. there is a lot of evidence that he is an unusually bad campaigner.

luckily we have romneys unusually bad campaigning to make it interesting

Which raises the question: What kind of nominee will he be?

At the moment, I'm going to put my money on "a stronger one than seems apparent right now,"

republican washington is in a state of despair, this all seems too contextual

Stronger than he looks - he'd almost have to be?

Romney vs. Biden - that's what we should all start focussing on.

"liberals are unhappy, the economy is in the toilet, obama is toast!!"

"you know, he does have certain strengths..."

"conservatives are unhappy, the economy is getting better, romney is toast!!"

"you know, he..."

Romney vs. Biden - that's what we should all start focussing on.

― Aimless, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 12:55 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

naw bidens not the guy, romney neither

Come September and October, I predict that Biden and Romney will be elbowing one another for most-exuberantly-delivered-gaffe space on the ilx 2012 elections thread. Why wait til then?

oh i thought u were talking abt the 2016 race

they r both great 4 gaffs its true

http://arizonamun.org/mundi/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/MittRomneyIowa-300x221.jpg

VS.

http://chicagoagainstobama.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/joe_biden.jpg?w=370&h=278

i played this at summer camp:

http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/library/Class%20Struggle%20board%20game.jpg

Us deluded Obama zealots prefer Class Warfare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7pv7sO5Gng

"...maybe the first time since we had Ronald Reagan." Completely ellides the Bush dynasty.

Meanwhile in Alabama:

"I got no use for Obama, and it's not because of the color of his skin," said Leldon Thomas, a retired truck repairman chewing tobacco outside the Wal-Mart that locals blame for siphoning business from the long-established stores along Oneonta's ramshackle main street. "It's his socialist government and all the money he's throwing away."

Around here, Obama, who is Christian, is seen by many as Muslim, and not everyone believes he was born in Hawaii. "It's not that he's black," said Don Tielking, who has been cutting hair at the local barber shop for more than 40 years. "It's that he's not an American citizen."

For Tielking, who took a seat in his barber's chair to chat during a lull between customers, the problem with Romney is his Mormon faith, although he would gladly overlook it if he had to pick between him and Obama.

"Christ is the head of my church, and his was some Smith guy who claimed to be a latter-day prophet," said Tielking, referring to Joseph Smith Jr., the 19th century founder of the Latter-day Saints movement. "I'm not prejudiced against a Mormon. It's just some of their beliefs that I'm against."

Etc. etc.

pretty bummed i missed the board games/ccg segment of the thread today

Prussian Blue still going, huh?

"I got no use for Obama, and it's not because of the color of his skin," said Leldon Thomas, a retired truck repairman chewing tobacco outside the Wal-Mart that locals blame for siphoning business from the long-established stores along Oneonta's ramshackle main street. "It's his socialist government and all the money he's throwing away."

o_<

see that's one of those felicitous stylistic touches of which good reporting is made.