Shitty board games and Cards Against Humanities Bickering

[shiznitz]

I had not heard of this game before Christmas when my brother gave it to his kids. His kids played it with my kids.  The parents played as well.

http://www.worldofmuchkin.com/game

It is a simple, well-designed RPG-ish card game that pokes fun at many nerd/geek tropes, memes and characters from D&D through Trek. There are many different themed sets available but they are are all cross compatible.

Anyway, if you have kids that like card games, I expect they will enjoy this and you will too.

[schild]

Anyway, if you have kids that like card games, I expect they will enjoy this and you will too.

Threw up a little in my mouth. Munchkin is basically the most universally hated game on the market.

[Rendakor]

One of my D&D players has this; it's alright, but I think it's funnier than it is fun.

Also this probably belongs in the Boardgame thread.

[schild]

I thought about merging it, but I don't want to poison a thread that's currently commenting on real games.

[Thrawn]

My list of games I will flat out refuse to play even if the other people I'm gaming with are playing it is pretty short, but Munchkin tops it for sure.

It must have its niche since it's so popular and has been for fifteen years, but personally I can't think of a single situation or group where a better recommendation than Munchkin doesn't exist.

[Azuredream]

I have good memories of playing it with family. I definitely agree with Rendakor that it's funnier than it is fun. Every game boils down to who fights a monster after everyone's used their potions/various other fuck-with-people cards.

Not really sure what about it merits hate, though. I mean.. I'd always rather play Dominion or Agricola rather than Munchkin but it's not Satan in card game form.

[Yegolev]

True story: fifth-grade nerds like Munchkin.  The wife, not so much.

[Mazakiel]

I have good memories of playing it with family. I definitely agree with Rendakor that it's funnier than it is fun. Every game boils down to who fights a monster after everyone's used their potions/various other fuck-with-people cards.

Not really sure what about it merits hate, though. I mean.. I'd always rather play Dominion or Agricola rather than Munchkin but it's not Satan in card game form.

While I'm not sure my dislike reaches levels of hate like it does for many others, the intense dislike I now hold for the game is due to the fact that in the gaming groups I've played it in, no one wants to try any of the better games out there because it's simple and the nerdy 'I get you' humor seems to trump the dull gameplay. 

For me, it's in the same grouping of games as something like Cards Against Humanity.  It was amusing the first time or two, but no one ever wants to move on, and they're not games that merit tons of replay. 

[Rendakor]

That might be why I don't hate it; I've only played it 3 or 4 times when we didn't have our full D&D group. The player who owns it doesn't play with us anymore so it doesn't come up anymore and never got old.

[Hawkbit]

I'm not a super-geek with boardgames, but we couldn't complete a game of Munchkin.  Not even sure why, other than everyone was completely uninterested.  Also, the wife and I were complaining earlier today about CAH, how our friends have to play it every time we have a get together.  I'm so over CAH; mildly fun the first time but by the second play we were getting repeats.  Someone needs to make a deckbuilder with CAH humor so I can actually have some fun.

The most fun we had with a lite board game was Castle Panic.  If your group (with kids) likes Munchkin, grab Castle Panic and the expansion.  I know the hardcore folks will laugh at my suggestion, but it was one of the few games that me, my wife and my then 7yo daughter could all play and have fun.

[shiznitz]

This game has been out for 15 years? Jesus. I am so sorry for mentioning it then.  

Still, my kids find it fun and I like the humor.

[lamaros]

My list of games I will flat out refuse to play even if the other people I'm gaming with are playing it is pretty short, but Munchkin tops it for sure.

You must never have played Cards Against Humanity.

[Rendakor]

I think CAH is hilarious the first few times you play it. Once you start getting repeats, it gets boring pretty quickly but until then it's a blast. Of course, a tolerance for fucked up humor is a prerequisite.

[jgsugden]

It has a certain appeal to a select group - but the big problem is that the 'target audience' groups are likely to have 1 or more people in it that hate the game with a passion - sort of like Killer Bunnies.

If you really like it and you encounter these people, just get them really drunk first.  It is tolerable to most when they're really drunk. 

[Rendakor]

The only people I've seen dislike CAH are those with dyslexia or other problems reading.

[Ingmar]

I'm on the list of people that hate CAH, for reasons that would be better homed in a Politics thread.

[angry.bob]

The only people I've seen dislike CAH are those with dyslexia or other problems reading.

Social Justice Warriors autohate it by name. Short version of why is the guy who made it when he was in college a dozen years ago lived in the dorms. The girl in the next door room and him were some sort of friends with benefits. The thing reached it's end after a while and both moved on. Fast forward to the guy releasing CAH and the girl makes a vague, nonspecific accusation that he was a rapist, had raped her, and then refused to go into any details other than he a raping rapist who raped her in college. The SJW community went apeshhit about it, the guy wrote an open letter, she ignored it because "rape", and Zoe fucking Quinn of all people moved in like a foul vulture of Hades and told him she could fix it with the community if he would agree to help fund her "all-female developer video game jam" that never did and never will exist.  He gave her a ton of money, which of course disappeared, and then Zoe went around knife-fucking him in the back and making it worse. True story.

So once again, feminists and social justice warriors prove they will shit up anything they touch over wild accusations with no proof just for something to do.

Also explains why Lamerass dislikes it so much since he/she appears to be the earthly avatar of Social Justices Movement's worst qualities. [edit] Also Ingmar.

I also enjoy Munchin in limited qualities, bu only with people who can handle the fact that to win usually requires fucking over the other players.

[Ingmar]

I don't think I've ever heard that story. My objection is about the content.

[lamaros]

I think CAH is hilarious the first few times you play it. Once you start getting repeats, it gets boring pretty quickly but until then it's a blast. Of course, a tolerance for fucked up humor is a prerequisite.

Unless you have a very smart group there is always at least one person who thinks just being offensive passes for humor.

Apples to Apples is a genuinely funnier game. CAH is an excuse for fuckwits to act like fuckwits and call it 'joking'.

[lamaros]

I don't think I've ever heard that story. My objection is about the content.

Never heard that either, not sure what it has to do with anything other than bob wanting to shit up yet another discussion with his own personal issues.

Mine is a little of the content and a lot about what people say and do when playing it. As a game itself I just think it is boring and unimaginative, with certain people it just becomes really offensive.

[Goldenmean]

Interestingly, I hate Cards Against Humanity for pretty much the exact same reason I hate Munchkin. All of the amusement you can derive from either of them could also be derived by just sitting alone in a room with them and reading the cards (or in CAH's case, tossing two cards together randomly and then reading the results). There's no actual reason to *play* them.

[schild]

What could possibly be wrong with cards against humanity? Seriously.

[angry.bob]

Eh, here's something about it on Jezebel: http://jezebel.com/cards-against-humanity-creator-faces-sexual-assault-acc-1604695328

Not having heard about it before is just more proof that a segment of you just argue a bullshit position via bullshit without ever actually reading that might contradict what you want to believe because it was brought up in both the Zoe Quinn and Men's Right/Feminists are Terrible People threads.

[DeathInABottle]

I like 'em both, and not for lack of exposure: I've bought all of the CAH expansions, and I've played it a bunch with different groups.  Group composition is key, though.  If you're with people who will just award a point to "A midget shitting in a bucket" because HAHASOGROSSMIDGETSHA then you're going to have a bad night.  Clever plays are almost never about obscenity.

[Ingmar]

I don't think I've ever heard that story. My objection is about the content.

Never heard that either, not sure what it has to do with anything other than bob wanting to shit up yet another discussion with his own personal issues.

Mine is a little of the content and a lot about what people say and do when playing it. As a game itself I just think it is boring and unimaginative, with certain people it just becomes really offensive.

Well, right. What I mean is the content enables that. It's an excuse for people to say a bunch of really shitty racist stuff, laugh about it, then hide behind 'those were the cards the game gave me' as a defense.

[schild]

Not sure what to tell you. CaH isn't funny if you're playing with unfunny people.

If there's a TARDIS keychain in the room, this is not the game for you.

[Nevermore]

So once again, feminists and social justice warriors prove they will shit up anything they touch over wild accusations with no proof just for something to do.

Kind of like how you shit up every single thread you can with your same tired agenda.

[MahrinSkel]

Apples to Apples just has far more replay value even if you like CAH, and just as much potential for "Did you really go there?" moments with the deniability of "I was just dumping a card" to defuse any potential drama.

Bob, let the other thing go. Nobody was talking about it as a problem until you brought it up, and it's pure   here.

--Dave

[Samwise]

Quinns of Shut Up & Sit Down did a great anti-review of Munchkin within a review of another similar game:

Have you heard of Munchkin? It might be the most popular standalone card game in our hobby. You all play Dungeons & Dragons-type heroes racing to reach level 10, alternately working together and wrenching one another backwards. It's a grinning figurehead for table gaming. And I hate it.

I hate that in parodying D&D so focusedly it erects walls around gaming as a whole, its 20 year-old injokes acting like barbed wire. I hate that it goes on for 30 minutes longer than anyone wants. I hate how the game is entirely based around attacking the lead player, rendering the entire first 60 minutes almost pointless. But most of all, I hate how it gets everywhere.

I'll be at the pub, explaining SU&SD to some friend or stranger or travelling pervert, and they'll say "Oh! Yeah, I've played Munchkin. It was OK!" And with that, all the icecubes will disappear from my drink, a new wrinkle will appear on my body and all the babies within two miles of us will start crying.

[Rendakor]

I don't think we've ever had a "Did you really go there?" moment in my group, but we're pretty tolerent/fucked up (choose one) when it comes to sense of humor.

[eldaec]

I've never come across a time when CAH has been particularly funny.

But Balderdash, Apples to Apples, or Dixit, all good and basically the same mechanic.

[eldaec]

On a similar note, if you think you like Munchkin, you should be playing Cosmic Encounter. Has the same appeal of piling up absurd rules combos and shifting alliances to stop the leader, but the abilities are infinitely more interesting and amusing to play and the game design wasn't slapped together on the back of an envelope in less time than I've spent on this post.

[lamaros]

Agree about that. With the point that if you really don't like Munchkin you might not like Cosmic Encounter that much either.

Also it's a much bigger package to lug around.

[eldaec]

If logistics are really a concern you can get all the alien sheets on a smart phone app. You only have to carry around the deck of cards and a small ziploc of counters etc for each player.

[Thrawn]

My list of games I will flat out refuse to play even if the other people I'm gaming with are playing it is pretty short, but Munchkin tops it for sure.

You must never have played Cards Against Humanity.

You must never have a played a three hour game of Munchkin that wouldn't end because it was just someone getting the lead and then being knocked down over and over and over and over and over and over.  That was the game that for me took Munchkin from "I would rather not play this." to "Fuck off, I'm not playing Munchkin."

CaH I can still get some enjoyment out of with people I know that haven't played it before even if all the jokes are old to me now.