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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 13:48:03
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Calculating Commissar
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Kilkrazy wrote:The more I think about it, the key points are the board and the miniatures
Board games can't be played off their board without a lot of adaptation, and don't need miniatures. (I don't count pawns or Meeples as miniatures.)
Miniature games can't be played without their miniatures without a lot of adaptation, and don't need a board.
There are some games that lie in both camps. Space Hulk, for instance, needs its board and its miniatures, so does Twlight Imperium III. If we want to classify these games specifically, we can call them board games because they come complete on one box, and require minimal assembly, or we can call them miniature board games as opposed to tabletop games.
Hence a Venn diagram, as various people have already proposed, is a possible solution.
You can play any miniatures game (except ones require TLOS) with paper tokens.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 13:57:41
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Huge Hierodule
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Herzlos wrote: Kilkrazy wrote:The more I think about it, the key points are the board and the miniatures
Board games can't be played off their board without a lot of adaptation, and don't need miniatures. (I don't count pawns or Meeples as miniatures.)
Miniature games can't be played without their miniatures without a lot of adaptation, and don't need a board.
There are some games that lie in both camps. Space Hulk, for instance, needs its board and its miniatures, so does Twlight Imperium III. If we want to classify these games specifically, we can call them board games because they come complete on one box, and require minimal assembly, or we can call them miniature board games as opposed to tabletop games.
Hence a Venn diagram, as various people have already proposed, is a possible solution.
You can play any miniatures game (except ones require TLOS) with paper tokens.
And you can play chess without a board or figures. It's still a board game.
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Q: What do you call a Dinosaur Handpuppet?
A: A Maniraptor |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 14:16:25
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Wicked Warp Spider
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Board games have no expansions or have modular expansions. By modular expansion, I mean as an example: Hero Quest, and it expansion "Wizards of Morcar" (Zargon for the Yanks). In both boxes, the models are the same and the mission and framework prepared by the designers is fixed.
In a miniature game, albeit missions do exist, the way the mission is played is variable. There can be a deployment zone, but you are generally not forced to place precisely the model X in the exact position Y.
Furthermore, in miniature games, the expansion is not modular. I can Buy a start collecting box from GW or PP and then build from that with whatever model of that army. There are not pre-set expansion package, every model or unit is an expansion with variable combinations. Moreover, I am not even forced to buy the starter set, more often than not. I can just buy what the army list or whatever plan as a possible "army" or group of units/teams.
Painting or not painting is sold as an essential part (and for my personal tastes it is) in many miniature games, but is collateral to how the two kind of games are classified. You can paint and model Hero Quest models, too.
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This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2016/04/19 16:46:07
Generic characters disappearing? Elite units of your army losing options and customizations? No longer finding that motivation to convert?
Your army could suffer Post-Chapterhouse Stress Disorder (PCSD)! If you think that your army is suffering one or more of the aforementioned symptoms, call us at 789-666-1982 for a quick diagnosis! |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 14:40:53
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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Herzlos wrote: Kilkrazy wrote:The more I think about it, the key points are the board and the miniatures
Board games can't be played off their board without a lot of adaptation, and don't need miniatures. (I don't count pawns or Meeples as miniatures.)
Miniature games can't be played without their miniatures without a lot of adaptation, and don't need a board.
There are some games that lie in both camps. Space Hulk, for instance, needs its board and its miniatures, so does Twlight Imperium III. If we want to classify these games specifically, we can call them board games because they come complete on one box, and require minimal assembly, or we can call them miniature board games as opposed to tabletop games.
Hence a Venn diagram, as various people have already proposed, is a possible solution.
You can play any miniatures game (except ones require TLOS) with paper tokens.
Indeed you can, but why would you? People play miniatures games to enjoy their wonderful armies of miniature soldiers. Otherwise people probably would choose a board wargame using a hex map and counters.
@Sqorgar, I've never thought of Carcassone as a card game or a board game. I've always thought of it as a tile-laying game. Though equally, when I suggest to my family or visitors that we play a boad game, Carcassone is one of the boxes I take out.
Ticket to Ride uses a board and cards. It's more about cards than Carcassone, because you have to collect suits and melds to build your railway. In Carcassone, the tiles could be represented by cards, but they don't form suits or melds, they are simply a method of displaying certain geographical information.
Warmachine or Infinity could be played with card circles bearing the facing and stats of the figure represented, but as I replied ot Herzlos,, what is the point? People play Infinity for the figures.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 15:45:25
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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Kilkrazy wrote:
@Sqorgar, I've never thought of Carcassone as a card game or a board game. I've always thought of it as a tile-laying game. Though equally, when I suggest to my family or visitors that we play a boad game, Carcassone is one of the boxes I take out.
Ticket to Ride uses a board and cards. It's more about cards than Carcassone, because you have to collect suits and melds to build your railway. In Carcassone, the tiles could be represented by cards, but they don't form suits or melds, they are simply a method of displaying certain geographical information.
The tiles are effectively stiff cards. You collect them into decks that you shuffle and draw from the top of. Not sure that suits or melds matter much, as there's a bunch of playing card games that ignore the suits altogether and have no set taking. Though the tiles are then used to create a board that you place meeples on. So it's one of those annoying hybrids that I think squeeks into the board category just by virtue of tiles being ever so slightly different from cards that it isn't a card game.
Warmachine or Infinity could be played with card circles bearing the facing and stats of the figure represented, but as I replied ot Herzlos,, what is the point? People play Infinity for the figures.
Actually, both Warmachine and Infinity use volumes, so circles won't do (except when the height of the volume is implied and can be calculated). For instance, Warmachine has rules for seeing larger based volumes over smaller based ones, but in the cases of 3D terrain, like walls, knowing the height of the wall and how it compares to the height of the volume is fundamental. Warmachine has enough standardization in sizes (like linear obstacles, base sizes) that in many cases, the 3D elements are abstracted out - but they are still there. The only way to play WMH in 2D would be to further abstract out the terrain (all walls are infinitely tall, hills are flat and thus don't affect range, models can't overlap bases on the XY plane even if they are on different vertical planes, etc)
A more accurate thing to say is that you could play a subset of Warmachine using card circles, but in my opinion, that would fundamentally shift Warmachine into a board game, not unlike Warhammer DiskWars. But the fact that Warmachine has already gone to such extensive lengths, making the creation of this subset almost trivial, I argue that (in my opinion) Warmachine is already just a tiny step above a board game, and a significant step down from a miniature game.
Infinity is considerably more 3D than other miniature games and it would be impossible to play a 2D version of that game without going to great lengths to rewrite the rules and abstract away the 3D qualities of the game. Truth be told, I'm not even sure it is possible to create an Infinity 2D version that has the same flavor and tactics as the 3D one.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 15:58:04
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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I think if you asked 100 random Board Game Geek game players if Carcassone is a card game, you would not find many who agree with you. You are taking things backwards, I feel.
The characteristic of cards is that all the different traditional packs have suits, even the Japanese hanafuda cards. Cards are a convenient way to display this information, which is used in nearly all mainstream card games. Even hobby type card games like Nuclear War and Up Front have a limited suit and meld mechanism.
There may well be some card games that don't use suits,, but that doesn't mean a game that doesn't have suits and could be played with some kind of rectangular piece of thin board is a card game.
Is Mah Jong a card game? It's surprisingly similar to Canasta.
Statis Pro Football is a card game because it's played with cards. Carcassone isn't played with cards. You could transfer the Statis Pro data from the cards on to carved granite slabs. Do we then need to invent a category of granite slab games? Automatically Appended Next Post: I think Infinity could fairly easily be adapted to counters by assigning all units to size classes, for instance size 1 is small zonds and robots, size 2 is normal human sized figure, size 3 is bikes, size 4 is large mechs.
I don't see why people would want to or why this possibility would mean it isn't a miniatures game.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/19 16:23:29
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 17:19:43
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Thermo-Optical Spekter
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Carcassone is a tile laying game.
Wargames are games depicting or simulating, warfare of some short fictional or historical.
Wargames can be of any short and use as many different mechanics as it is imaginable, boardgames, tabletop games, cardgames, tile laying games, abstract or heavy themed.
Miniatures are 3D game tokens, their volume may or may not play part in the game, their appeal is mostly aesthetically.
As it has been mentioned above there is a preconception on what a genre of game is by a checklist that has been shaped by the shared consciousness of the community, this is rarely distilled to one single thing (for example for elite I would say permadeath, but would rightfully shot down because you cannot distill the "elite experience" in just one conditional game mechanic).
The difference between boardgames and tabletop games is more a feel than a clear distinction, there are boardgames that are marketed more like tabletop games and tabletop games that have a more boardgame style business model and of course there are many hybrids that do not have a clear definition.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 17:24:07
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[SWAP SHOP MOD]
Yvan eht nioj
In my Austin Ambassador Y Reg
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It also occurred to me reading this thread, why do you feel the distinction important? Does it matter if a game is a board game or a miniatures game? Do you feel that there is a need to pigeon hole? Do you feel one is superior to the other?
The take away for me is you can argue for days about the distinction and still never reach a consensus which ultimately makes it all a bit of a futile process.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/19 17:24:38
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 17:37:51
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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Kilkrazy wrote:I think if you asked 100 random Board Game Geek game players if Carcassone is a card game, you would not find many who agree with you. You are taking things backwards, I feel.
Exactly. It is functionally a card game, but because it uses tiles instead of cards, it quietly slips past that classification. As a programmer, if I can use the same class to represent two different things without modification, they are the same thing.
The characteristic of cards is that all the different traditional packs have suits, even the Japanese hanafuda cards. Cards are a convenient way to display this information, which is used in nearly all mainstream card games. Even hobby type card games like Nuclear War and Up Front have a limited suit and meld mechanism.
Functionally, cards have physical properties. They can be stacked in a deck, shuffled, dealt, flipped, rotated, and occasionally, stuck to one's forehead. Each card contains data which is activated depending on the card's state (inactive in a deck, hidden when flipped over, known but inactive when in hand, and active when face up and visible to all players). The suit functions essentially as a keyword, but even then, not all games care about it. Blackjack doesn't care about the suit at all and Solitaire only cares if the suit is red or black. And games like Magic the Gathering or other CCGs have much more complicated data on the cards, to the point that describing any of it as a suit would be a gross simplification of the nature and duty of the keywords.
It's similar to dice. It doesn't matter what is on each face, or even how many faces it has, just that it is something you can roll that will land with only one face showing and active. You can create games which use dice in very non-dice ways, but they are still dice.
Is Mah Jong a card game? It's surprisingly similar to Canasta.
I would stop just short of calling it a card game directly, but the best way to describe it to new players would to relate it to card games that they might be familiar with. I would also not describe Carcassonne as a card game to players, but in a conversation about game design, its functional similarities to card games becomes more relevant.
I think Infinity could fairly easily be adapted to counters by assigning all units to size classes, for instance size 1 is small zonds and robots, size 2 is normal human sized figure, size 3 is bikes, size 4 is large mechs.
I don't see why people would want to or why this possibility would mean it isn't a miniatures game.
Infinity already does that with the various silhouette volumes that it employs, but again, these volumes have three dimensions. Even if the counters don't show the third dimension (like playing Warmachine as bases) doesn't mean that it is not functionally important to the game. It's important because of rules like cover, which require 2/3rds of the volume to be obscured. If you created a subset of Infinity that was just on a 2D plane, you'd end up throwing away half the rules and changing the other half pretty heavily because of how important a 3D environment is to the game (even AOEs attack in three dimensional volumes)
And I think that at the point you do create Infinity 2D, you've created a board game. For several reasons. The first is that you would now have a board that the game is played on. There's no third dimension to make miniatures anything more than glorified counters, and you'd lose pretty much the entire hobby aspect. And given how much more you can put in a box when dealing with 2D cardboard cut outs, you would undoubtedly be creating a more complete, self contained experience (nobody is going to pay for a separate expansion of one cardboard token). By pretty much any standard we've discussed in this thread, Infinity 2D is a board game while Infinity 3D is a miniatures game.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 17:40:44
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Thermo-Optical Spekter
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Labeling is important for consumers and publishers because it specifies and shapes expectations.
At the moment I can name Nakamura tower, Shadows of Brimstone and KDM, all are boardgames but the have miniatures than need assembly, somethign the boardgames community does not accept, KDM is a special case, Shadows got massive flack for this and Nakamura is something I wait to see if it will manage to survive, because it is both unassembled and metal.
Some people indeed feel the need to have their preferred genre as superior to the other, but that is not really what I care about.
The interesting part of the discussion here is indeed how murky the checklist for what each genre consists of is.
And how the least important part of the whole thing, that is unassembled models, is the "clearer" distinction between the two. Automatically Appended Next Post: Sqorgar wrote:By pretty much any standard we've discussed in this thread, Infinity 2D is a board game while Infinity 3D is a miniatures game.
Think about this, WH40k 4th edition with the rules about terrain and model size, witch has still a lot of supporters was essentially a 2D game, I do not think a lot of people considered it a boardgame.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/19 17:44:17
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 17:58:58
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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filbert wrote:It also occurred to me reading this thread, why do you feel the distinction important? Does it matter if a game is a board game or a miniatures game? Do you feel that there is a need to pigeon hole? Do you feel one is superior to the other?
I don't think the distinction is important. I'm just curious. I come here to talk about some games, I go to board game geek to talk about others. Hell, I have about four or five gaming communities that I regularly visit to discuss various different types of games, and I've always wondered why. Why can't I talk to miniature gamers about MMORPGs, for example? Why don't video gamers play board games? To me, they are all games, and thus all interesting, but there are these arbitrary borders built between them and I find that interesting.
For instance, the website that I linked in the last post is mine. It's called "Three Hundred Mechanics" and it is essentially just 300 game ideas (well, 210 game ideas... so far), and I take inspiration from all over. Video games, board games, card games, miniature games, online games, party games - even things like game books and Tomogatchi virtual pets. When there's a new concept to write up, I sometimes have to choose the best format to represent the idea. There've been times when I chose physical board game over video game because idea was something that players were expected to pay attention to, and video games tend to automate gameplay rather than express it as part of the choices you make. And there's been ideas where turn based tactics as best played out as video games because of information hiding or gameplay evolution that necessarily must be automated.
But the gaming part is what I love and I see all these various facets of gaming as independent ways to express gaming. And I find it interesting how these communities have grown separately, but also influence each other. I mean, video gamers and board gamers don't tend to overlap much in the Venn diagram of gaming communities, and yet there's about to be a Dark Souls board game going up on Kickstarter. And it's interesting to see how the competitive environments of Magic the Gathering have influenced gaming with eSports and MOBAs. It's all exceedingly fascinating, and by understanding it better, I can appreciate it more. I can create, more.
The take away for me is you can argue for days about the distinction and still never reach a consensus which ultimately makes it all a bit of a futile process.
It's not really about reaching a consensus. It is because we disagree that the discussion is worth having. I'm forced to think about my own positions better as I explain and defend them. As contradictions arise, I must reevaluate what I believe. At the end of the discussion, I've seen things I never saw before, thought things I never thought before, and reconsidered things I never reconsidered before. It's what makes learning fun.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 18:08:15
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
Maryland
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Sqorgar wrote:I don't think the distinction is important. I'm just curious. I come here to talk about some games, I go to board game geek to talk about others. Hell, I have about four or five gaming communities that I regularly visit to discuss various different types of games, and I've always wondered why. Why can't I talk to miniature gamers about MMORPGs, for example? Why don't video gamers play board games? To me, they are all games, and thus all interesting, but there are these arbitrary borders built between them and I find that interesting.
Maybe because "games" encompasses a wide swathe of very, very different activities, and those borders aren't arbitrary? And because, as each person is an individual, they'll have varying interests in different kinds of games? Why talk to the people who play chess in the park about an MMO? Why talk about Munchkin to your raid group? Why talk about a role-playing game to a board game club? Why does being a "gamer" mean that you have to play, or be interested in all games? Would you find it odd that a football player has no interest in golf? Or that a historian might have no interest in art?
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/19 18:08:28
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/19 19:03:19
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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infinite_array wrote:Maybe because "games" encompasses a wide swathe of very, very different activities, and those borders aren't arbitrary? And because, as each person is an individual, they'll have varying interests in different kinds of games? Why talk to the people who play chess in the park about an MMO? Why talk about Munchkin to your raid group? Why talk about a role-playing game to a board game club?
Those are very small groups though. We're talking about communities with literally thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of members that have little to no overlap. As a statistically significant group, why don't they share interests as a whole? I mean, miniature games are distinguishable from board game only in minor ways (usually cost), so why don't they mingle as a rule?
Why does being a "gamer" mean that you have to play, or be interested in all games?
Would you find it odd that a football player has no interest in golf? Or that a historian might have no interest in art?
It's more like, would you expect ESPN to cover golf and football? If you do, it's either because ESPN has an audience of sports fans who are interested in both, or ESPN's stated goal of covering "sports" includes all recognizable and popular sports and not just a dedicated sub-selection of sports. I don't expect one historian to be interested in everything historical, but I expect the subject of history to cover every thing historical.
Why do I have to go to 6 different websites to get my gaming news about video games, board games, MMOs, miniature games, collectible card games, and mobile games? I rather enjoy Japanese cultural products and there's multiple sites that cover manga, anime, music, and light novels. There's sites where I can read about comic book news that also includes books, movies, and tv shows. But why is gaming so segmented? Why doesn't Mogo socialize?
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 00:06:39
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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Sqorgar wrote:Actually, both Warmachine and Infinity use volumes, so circles won't do (except when the height of the volume is implied and can be calculated). For instance, Warmachine has rules for seeing larger based volumes over smaller based ones, but in the cases of 3D terrain, like walls, knowing the height of the wall and how it compares to the height of the volume is fundamental. Warmachine has enough standardization in sizes (like linear obstacles, base sizes) that in many cases, the 3D elements are abstracted out - but they are still there. The only way to play WMH in 2D would be to further abstract out the terrain (all walls are infinitely tall, hills are flat and thus don't affect range, models can't overlap bases on the XY plane even if they are on different vertical planes, etc)
Couldn't you play with circles and height would just be another stat? In games without an explicit height stats it's usually somehow implied via the model (be it base size related to a cylinder/volume or directly to miniature height). That stat is just not fixed on your cards or stats line but on the miniature (and you can bend it a bit if it's directly related to the miniature like it was/is in 40k). If you have a wall with varying height you would just have a flat 2d template (to represent the wall) with different heights marked as needed (to mark the difference in height at certain points) or make compound walls (or any terrain) out or many infinitesimal small wall (or terrain) elements that each have the needed height indicated through colour codes, greyscale values, icons, or anything that works.
3D is just an illusion (albeit a fun one), it's just another dimension that you can integrate into your mechanics to whatever degree your game mechanics need it. It would also qualify under your As a programmer, if I can use the same class to represent two different things without modification, they are the same thing.
criterium. It just depends on the granularity and how much work you want your game to be. If you include that criterium then it all becomes even more blurred because a program is much better at bookkeeping very many details than a human (that's why tabletop games have certain limits to bookkeeping and interactions. One could probably play an exact MOBA replica (or Starcraft) on a tabletop (with a lot of work; a very, very big lot) but it wouldn't be fun for anyone (I think).
I am not saying that playing flat Warmachine would be easy or fun but that it would be a possibility which in turn would blur the distinction you set up between board and miniature games. The need of 3D miniatures and terrain in a miniature game can be abstracted away to create a 2D (board) game. Which part of a miniature being 3D is the part that pushes it into the miniature game category? Stats can be pushed onto the miniature/terrain or back onto the cards and books depending on a game's needs and if you want you can push games into a more board-y or a more wargame-y persona if you are willing to make the lives of players miserable.
To which degree does playability count for this classification? Tiny hexes (like a millimeter in diameter) could be used to create a grid and then you could have a miniature wargame on a board with a grid with all the flexibility of freeform ruler based movement. You just need to count very carefully: if your Space Marine moves 6 ruler based inches he just moves about 152 hexes on that grid without losing any of the flexibility. While a computer could handle that calculation easily it would drive your players mad if they had to do that on a table with a magnifying glass.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 01:05:20
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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Mario wrote:Couldn't you play with circles and height would just be another stat?
Yes, but at some point it becomes mentally expensive to make those calculations. This wall is a half inch tall and this figure is two inches tall, but the figure behind is only one inch tall, which means that I can see the tall figure behind the short wall, but not the short figure behind the tall figure - all things that could be seen at a glance when actual 3D models are used. That's why miniatures aren't just glorified counters (most of the time). They can make complicated gameplay trivial. It's like how our brains allow us to catch a football without having to do parabolic math.
It's also what makes varied terrain possible. In a miniature game where you make the table using whatever you have around the house, the fact that the miniature has a 3D volume is what allows gameplay to encompass the use of cans, books, shoes, or sleeping cats. With the game designer losing control over the experience, it would be impossible to create gameplay rules that represented any concept of 3D without having to do math (my model is three inches tall, on top of a book that is an inch and a half tall, aiming at a figure on a lower plane x inches away - distance formula is... a^2 + b^2 = c^2... let's see, what's the square root of 12?)
3D is just an illusion (albeit a fun one), it's just another dimension that you can integrate into your mechanics to whatever degree your game mechanics need it. It would also qualify under your As a programmer, if I can use the same class to represent two different things without modification, they are the same thing.
criterium. It just depends on the granularity and how much work you want your game to be. If you include that criterium then it all becomes even more blurred because a program is much better at bookkeeping very many details than a human (that's why tabletop games have certain limits to bookkeeping and interactions. One could probably play an exact MOBA replica (or Starcraft) on a tabletop (with a lot of work; a very, very big lot) but it wouldn't be fun for anyone (I think).
Pretty sure Rum and Bones is a tabletop MOBA. And yeah, you can abstract anything however you like. That's why there are board games about running nuclear power plants that involve moving colored wooden cubes around. But miniatures give the unique physical experience of 3D gameplay that is very common in miniature games and so rare in other physical games that it might as well be a unicorn.
And I do think that the physical 3Dness is one of the major selling points of miniature games. People love LEGO sets and model train sets. Some people are very spatially excitable, and I think miniature games have an intense appeal to those types of gamers.
Whoops, must go now. I'll address the rest of your post later.
EDIT: And I'm back:
I am not saying that playing flat Warmachine would be easy or fun but that it would be a possibility which in turn would blur the distinction you set up between board and miniature games. The need of 3D miniatures and terrain in a miniature game can be abstracted away to create a 2D (board) game. Which part of a miniature being 3D is the part that pushes it into the miniature game category? Stats can be pushed onto the miniature/terrain or back onto the cards and books depending on a game's needs and if you want you can push games into a more board-y or a more wargame-y persona if you are willing to make the lives of players miserable.
I don't think you can abstract out the 3D aspect completely. I think we can say that one difference between a miniature game and a board game is that the miniatures matter. In what ways do the miniatures matter? They occupy a 3D space and have a hobby element to them, and I don't think there are any clearly miniature games that don't feature these two aspects to some degree - even Warmachine. It's why I'm more likely to describe Deadzone/Mars Attacks as miniature games but Imperial Assault and Hero Clix as board games. The miniatures in those two games are aesthetic, while the previous two games seek to create a 3D diorama through gameplay.
To which degree does playability count for this classification? Tiny hexes (like a millimeter in diameter) could be used to create a grid and then you could have a miniature wargame on a board with a grid with all the flexibility of freeform ruler based movement. You just need to count very carefully: if your Space Marine moves 6 ruler based inches he just moves about 152 hexes on that grid without losing any of the flexibility. While a computer could handle that calculation easily it would drive your players mad if they had to do that on a table with a magnifying glass.
I think for this we need to look no further than HeroScape, with its extremely 3D hex-based terrain. Models move by hexes, range is by hexes, height is by counting planes. It has true line of sight, and for all intents and gameplay purposes, it is a miniature game. The miniatures are 3D and that is important to the gameplay. Even more, it has figure expansions and customizable gameplay that some here have suggested is fundamental to miniature games.
What keeps HeroScape from being clearly a miniature game is that there is no hobby element, but I think for all other intents and purposes, HeroScape is a miniature game. So I don't think granularity really plays into it. If you call HeroScape a board game, that's marketing speaking. It was made by a board game company and sold in the board game aisle, but it is far more a miniature game than not.
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This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/20 02:38:16
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 05:57:54
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Fixture of Dakka
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PsychoticStorm wrote:Not really, take for example Infinity and warmahordes the miniature is just a game piece, one could play both with cylinder tokens.
For me if the model is actively affecting the game rules (it can be modeled for advantage) then the rules are poorly written.
On the other hand the play surface been separated with squares, hexes or some other fashion makes the game more tight and more like a boardgame.
That is just a strawman i could play any wargame, boardgame, chess game or igo with just nuts and bolts.
In recent years the representation of your game tokens on the board games has become more important but in miniature and war gaming it was always a focal point.
IMHO opinion wargamers are more "emotional" invested in their army as they are the general or leader of said army/squad, only in character driven boardgames
you can have this, but normal boardgames i don't care if i lose tokens as i am not invested in to lore as with miniature games.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 07:58:45
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Thermo-Optical Spekter
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Jehan-reznor wrote:
That is just a strawman i could play any wargame, boardgame, chess game or igo with just nuts and bolts.
In recent years the representation of your game tokens on the board games has become more important but in miniature and war gaming it was always a focal point.
IMHO opinion wargamers are more "emotional" invested in their army as they are the general or leader of said army/squad, only in character driven boardgames
you can have this, but normal boardgames i don't care if i lose tokens as i am not invested in to lore as with miniature games.
It is not, from a game designer perspective if the models physical pose affects gameplay then the rules are poorly written (lets remember 40k and the modeling for advantage discussions) if the models volume is abstracted to a geometric from then a game system can have a balanced system and the manufacturer produce models that are more free and not stuck in a pose fore gameplay reasons.
There are quite a few boardgames that invest in lore and create emotional bonds between the players and the personas they play, in the same way wargames and RPG do, if you slot all boardgames in the same category I am sorry but this is wrong, boardgames are diverse, there are true abstract and mechanical boardgames, but there are also thematic that invest the player with their game pieces and these are usually the ones to relate with the tabletop games.
Boardgame wargames can be as detailed or even more than many tabletop wargames and definitely can be quite heavier ( ASL?).
Miniature games are just that games that have miniatures, they can be boardgames, tabletop games, RPG, something else? but they do have miniatures the 3D aspect of the miniatures does not always coincide with 3D game design and 3D game design does not always coincide with a 3D map (but usually it does).
I again maintain that what separates a boardgame and tabletop game is the feel more than a coherent arbitrary set of design elements.
A side note on Heroscape/ the new magic thing krosmasters ectr, they are branded as boardgames and the consensus is they are boardgames and not tabletop games, not because of marketing, but because this is the feeling they give out.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 09:00:40
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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Actually, lots of gamers do play more than one type of game. They don’t have to like all different types of games just because they like some of them.
Gamers don’t like all the games in one genre, any more than Japanese pop culture fans like all of the manga books on the market.
The big difference between games and pop culture is that games are things people do actively in groups, while pop culture is something people passively consume individually. (Obviously there are also solo games, and manga fans enjoy discussion of books, but the basic point is valid.)
To play a game you have to buy it, learn the rules, and find some people to play with. You have to persuade them it will be fun, then you have to teach them the game, and play a few games with open hands to make sure everyone gets the hang of things before you get serious.
All this is time consuming for everyone. People like to get some idea of what’s going to be involved, before they even decide to start. Categories of games (card game, board game, war game, etc.) are a reasonably understandable shorthand that gives people some key ideas about what a new game will be like.
Card games usually have the easiest set up. War games are the worst. Board games are in the middle. Video games require possession of the correct model of console, but are quick to start. These factors derive from the physical equipment needed to play.
There often are shared mechanics within genres, that tend not to be found in other genres. Card games typically involve concepts of shuffling, drawing, discarding, suits, and card matching that aren’t found in board games. Board games often involve rolling a die to move your pawn around a track, with possible activities found in different squares you enter. Hex war games involve counters showing the unit stats, with movement and firing controlled by counting hex distances. And so on.
Within each genre there is of course a huge variation of themes, concepts and complexity. Monopoly and Kingmaker board games both have the same objective, to be last man standing or to own all the stuff. They share some concepts like taking turns individually, and possession of areas, but overall they are very different games in theme and mechanics and will appeal to different kinds of people.
Compare this with Japanese pop culture. There are different genres of manga, but they all involve a a story told by drawn artwork and you buy and read it. You only need to decide if you like the story and the artwork. Apart from the artist’s style, it’s either going to be mono or colour. You flip through it, you like it, you buy it, you read it.
Manga fans also apply genre labels, such as 4-panel, shoujou, slice of life, harem, and so on, that if you know the code tell you quickly the typical content of a book before you even see it.
In summary, my view is that if there are barriers between different genres of games it is because there are differences between genres that appeal to people based on factors like difficulty to learn, time to set up and play, and shared mechanics. Identifying these quickly by some simple classifications is a good way to help people select games they are likely to enjoy.
The reason why game sites tend to concentrate on one genre, is because getting seriously interested in any type of game is very involving and time consuming. But even DakkaDakka has several sub-forums devoted to different types of games, and BoardGameGeek covers miniature games and war games was well as board games.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 09:20:48
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Calculating Commissar
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Jehan-reznor wrote:
In recent years the representation of your game tokens on the board games has become more important but in miniature and war gaming it was always a focal point.
I think that's mostly it; Board games are about the game, and wargames tend to be about the hobby.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 09:37:31
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Thermo-Optical Spekter
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I am not sure, that excludes a big part of wargamers who do not assemble or paint their models but hire others to do so or do not bother.
Tabletop wargames are a combination of 3 hobbies, model assembly and painting, historical research (real or fictional) and playing the game, not all participants care equally about all 3 aspects of it and many are gravitating more on one side than the other two.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 10:31:27
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Dogged Kum
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Where is this question leading? I think it should be clear that there is no definite answer, since all language is referential.
Both "board games" and "miniature games" have a meaning of necessary (must have all of these) and or sufficient (can have some of these) conditions of description.
As soon as some of these descriptors are met by both games/game types, the game belongs rightly to both groups.
There is a reason why the term "miniature board game" was coined.
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Currently playing: Infinity, SW Legion |
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 11:25:09
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Dakka Veteran
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I couldn't do more than skim the surface of most comments here, but since I've had a conversation, on the nature of miniature games, not so long ago, I'd like to add my two cents (it most probably have already been touched on by someone else on this thread - if so, then I'm doing it just to bump my post count  ).
So if I had to point one thing that defines miniature games for me that would be how the actual miniatures are used (duh bruh, you're so deep  ). In a "true" or idealized miniature game atleast part of the gameplay would revolve around the actual miniatures themselves - their size, their pose, their direction, height, volume, setting representation, actual weapons and gear on the miniature etc. In short - the True Line of Sight, What You See Is What You Get and Forge the Narrative. So let me touch on some examples ( AoS and 40k related):
First, let's take a look at Archaon - it is a very tall miniature and the sword of Archaon himself (which is positioned quite high) has a range of itself. Does it seem appropriate for him to wave with his sword only at miniatures that are at his height level? In a "true" miniature game, IMO, it would. If you want to attack the lowly scum at the feet of his mount then let Dhorgar himself do the work. The same thing could apply for flying monsters that are out of reach of most melee weapons - in my "true" miniature game they could be attacked from the ground mostly by means of shooting (incidentally AoS has a rule for the Terradons which let your opponent treat them as if they were on the ground if they do a certain thing - I wonder what this is for??). The same logic can be applied to shooting - if a tall enemy(a stormcast for example) is engaged with a particularly short enemy (skaven) wouldn't it seem appropriate to attack him with shooting weapons with no modifiers at all? Unit screening would be done via models with the appropriate height etc.
An in-game effect that would come from the miniature's backstory would be, for example, "Red 'uns go fasta!". In the 40k setting ork vehicles that are painted red are actually faster than those painted in blue (which are more lucky). An in-game representation would be that a vehicle actually painted red would have a higher movement value than one that is not. Blue painted ones would be more lucky - re-rolling dice etc. Point values may or may not be use represent this - the important thing is that the vehicle should be painted in the appropriate colour if you want the desired effect to kick in.
Maybe out there is a "boardgame" that implements the above features, but I can't think of one right now.
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This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/04/20 11:52:18
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 11:49:10
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Thermo-Optical Spekter
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Indeed we had the discussion on how bad game design this is and how frequent GW games are known for modeling for advantage a bit above.
Yes, models can indicate units and their equipment and can also have spacial elements in their design like size this is common in both boardgames and tabletop games.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 11:56:05
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Dakka Veteran
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Yes, boardgames could have spatial elements included but they would be classified and quantified. A height would be 1 2 or 3 instead of the actual model height. As for if it is a bad game design - it depends what game design you're comparing it to and what do you want from the game itself. I pretty much know now what disgruntled people want from 40k and AoS - they don't want them to be 40k and AoS as they're now. Anyway I'm stopping here - if the topic has been already covered there's no use in re-iterating all of this again. My apologies.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 13:07:50
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Longtime Dakkanaut
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Kilkrazy wrote:Gamers don’t like all the games in one genre, any more than Japanese pop culture fans like all of the manga books on the market.
And yet, manga fan sites cover all manga on the market, but game fan sites do not.
The big difference between games and pop culture is that games are things people do actively in groups, while pop culture is something people passively consume individually. (Obviously there are also solo games, and manga fans enjoy discussion of books, but the basic point is valid.)
To play a game you have to buy it, learn the rules, and find some people to play with. You have to persuade them it will be fun, then you have to teach them the game, and play a few games with open hands to make sure everyone gets the hang of things before you get serious.
This is a fair point, but I've seen people with hundreds of board games. Obviously, the average person isn't going to have a library that numbers in the hundreds (or even thousands) of any game type, but those types of gamers exist. So the time and intellectual commitment isn't a deal breaker towards having a large library. And I find that it doesn't take significantly longer to keep abreast of all gaming news, so even if you don't buy every type of game available, you can be somewhat aware of each industry's trajectory and output.
Like take Dark Souls (the board game kickstarter). It's really popular with video gamers. I mean, Dark Souls is like catnip to the hardcore video gamer, so it shouldn't be surprising... except it kind of is. I never see video gamers discuss board games, and yet from this kickstarter, it is obvious that they aren't indifferent to board games. They like them. See potential in them. They just don't play them except when they are about Dark Souls. And you see the same thing with Star Wars. X-Wing Miniatures worked as a gateway where nothing else did precisely because many of the people who started playing it weren't miniature gamers, but they weren't averse to being miniature gamers. They just needed Star Wars to push them over.
But I think the reason that happens is because the crossover IPs cause the news to crossover as well. Video gamers may be potential board game customers, but they just don't hear about them otherwise. But video gamers are hearing about the Dark Souls kickstarter because now, a board game is relevant to a video game news website and gets covered.
treslibras wrote:Where is this question leading?
Wherever the wind may take us!
PsychoticStorm wrote:It is not, from a game designer perspective if the models physical pose affects gameplay then the rules are poorly written (lets remember 40k and the modeling for advantage discussions) if the models volume is abstracted to a geometric from then a game system can have a balanced system and the manufacturer produce models that are more free and not stuck in a pose fore gameplay reasons.
I wouldn't describe it as bad design. It's just a little messier. Age of Sigmar uses true line of sight and measuring from a model's weapon to anywhere on another model, and when it first came out, there were all sorts of discussions about how it would lead to people modeling for advantage (making flying units higher up so other units can attack it, pointing your lizardmen away so their tails are closer) and stuff like that - but it proved to be largely theoretical. The game has been out for a year and it has become largely a non-issue. This is partly because of the cooperative competitiveness of the game, where players are expected to work together to resolve issues rather than hiding behind the rulebook, but I think it's just gamers sometimes get too concerned about edge cases and miss the forest for the trees.
For instance, the Rail Raiders kickstarter going on right now, I've seen dozens, possibly hundreds, of posts about the dice mechanic and how 4 of a kind beats a straight, but should be the other way around. I'm not sure anybody actually got the math right (there are jokers which throws off the simple calculations), but most estimates come out to a few dice rolls (out of a hundred) difference. Because these are contested rolls, and the only time that difference would matter is when it is a 4 of a kind versus a straight, the number of times that players would actually be screwed by the math is maybe once every dozen games or more. Probably far less than that, as there are various abilities that affect/change dice rolls differently depending on what characters are playing and what loot they have equipped. And yet the hysteria surrounding this sinking the kickstarter for a lot of people because they think the game is fundamentally flawed - in a beer and pretzels dice chucking game.
The older I get, the more I realize that bad design isn't something that is unclear. It is something that is unplayable. And there are a bunch of games out there with very clear, concise, and air tight rules that are extremely unplayable, and there are games with loose, vague, and unfair rules that are the most fun you can have.
A side note on Heroscape/ the new magic thing krosmasters ectr, they are branded as boardgames and the consensus is they are boardgames and not tabletop games, not because of marketing, but because this is the feeling they give out.
I think they are board games to the average player who just buys the one box and leaves it at that. But the guys who have two dozen sets of the game with giant, elaborate tables and know the names of the various factions - those guys see it as a miniature game. Maybe the difference between the two is simply the level of involvement?
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 13:25:42
Subject: Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[MOD]
Madrak Ironhide
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nkelsch wrote: Sqorgar wrote:[. Ninja All Stars has factional expansions and I believe that there are expectations that players will provide their own teams.
If I want to play NAS with 'Boardgamers', I would provide the game, and all the minis. This would probably be at someone's house or a meetup. We would probably play it once and next week someone else brings a different game. If people like it, it becomes part of the rotation.
If I want to play NAS with 'Miniature Gamers', everyone would own their own clan and a copy of the game. This would probably be at a FLGS. There would probably be a full league for a few weeks so everyone gets their moneys worth out of their minis.
That is how a game which appeals to both camps will probably break down. It is different mindsets out of what people want from a game.
I think this is it. We look at miniature games and board games as separate
when we ask the question "Where is our investment?"
We invest in Miniature games by assembling our own teams, even our own
miniatures. Assembling our own teams includes things like painting our army
(Warmachine and 40k), collecting our miniatures via blind buy (Heroclix), or
just drawing out up our own statistics and backstory (Dungeons and Dragons
and Pathfinder).
We invest in board games by buying a board, its rules, and its tokens (miniature
or otherwise). Instead of assembling our teams we are assembling groups of
people around the game itself.
Just something I've been thinking. Interesting thread.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 14:29:55
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer
Somewhere in south-central England.
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Sqorgar wrote:Kilkrazy wrote:Gamers don’t like all the games in one genre, any more than Japanese pop culture fans like all of the manga books on the market.
And yet, manga fan sites cover all manga on the market, but game fan sites do not.
...
A manga book is a manga book. You pick it up. You read it. You put it down and reach for the next one in the series.
You can be told everything you need to know about it in two sentences. It's non-interactive, and there isn't much to say about it except what you like or dislike. Obviously people do this at length, but it's not the same as gamers talking about games.
Readers can't involve themselves in the comic, asking for and giving advice on how best to get to the next page, or build a new type of cover, or what new characters they should introduce in their next reading. It's just a completely different kind of experience playing games.
With games, there is an awful lot more to be said about them. And people say it. This leads to the situation we face on DakkaDakka that the forum becomes too diffuse and unwieldy for people to find anything, and we have to trim the number of sub-forums.
BoardgameGeek actually does a fair job of at least listing nearly all hobby games, including war game rules, with information like genre and key mechanisms. You have to search for them, though. The main forum areas are a lot more like DakkaDakka forum areas.
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![[Post New]](/s/i/i.gif) 2016/04/20 16:43:53
Subject: Re:Difference between a miniature game and a board game?
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Fixture of Dakka
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For me it's simple. A board game requires the use of a board.
Unfortunately it's not that clean a distinction going the other way; most miniature games can be played perfectly well (if less visually interesting) with tokens instead of minis. I draw the line at 'you're expected by other players to use appropriate miniatures (even if converted or scratch-built) instead of tokens unless there's a clear agreement to the contrary.
There is quite a bit of overlap between the two, of course. There are several games I'm aware of that MUST be played on some form of board (HeroClix, Descent, HeroQuest, Talisman) that you expect to use miniatures in. I'm sure there's even more games of that type I'm not aware of.
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CHAOS! PANIC! DISORDER!
My job here is done. |
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