The Reddit Report: LCG vs. CCG, Cooperative vs. Competitive, New child vs. Game Night

(The Reddit Report is a weekly look at the most interesting Reddit threads & comments, published every Saturday.)

LCG vs. CCG – Which do you prefer, and why?
submitted by JoeDarts

I didn’t expect such strong debate on the subject.

On the one hand,

 CCG are essentially a marketing scheme. It is a business decision that often dilutes the quality of the game and strong-arm consumers into purchasing more than they would rather spend. But more than that, I find those who enjoy CCG to be a bit like gamblers; they are hoping to catch a rare card, make a wonderful trade, and collect something of value…

On the other hand,

…a successful CCG has much greater drawing power, meaning that more resources can be devoted to its creation and maintenance, because the publisher knows it will recoup. There are no LCG’s with the depth of play of MtG because there are no LCG’s that can afford a dedicated staff of 20 full-time experienced professionals to craft it.

Parents: How have you balanced the needs of your baby and playing board games?
submitted by oOfirestrykeOo

A lot of new parents shared their experiences of how they balanced the demands of an infant with their own desires to continue their hobby.

Here’s my favorite comment:

I also have a mommy board game group. Nursing babies are welcome, and I used to take my newborn to the group and nurse while playing games.

Now that my kids are slightly older, I have found other board game aficionados in the waiting area while they are doing some activity for an hour. It’s been interesting, but we’ve been able to play short games while we wait for the kids to be done with ballet/gymnastics/etc.

Get my hyper-competitive friend to play co-ops?
submitted by oblongtwo

The first question was, should I even bother to involve my friend in co-ops, or just avoid him at game night?

This led into a discussion of “competive co-operative” games, where most players team up against one player (the hyper-competitive friend), or of cooperative games where highest score “wins”

Among the great ideas were Battlestar: Galactica, Archipelago, Dead of Winter, Shadows over Camelot, Sherlock Holmes/Letters From Whitechapel and Legendary.

Are there any good resources that measure the amount of luck in a game?
submitted by squarerootofthree

In short, No. At least, no one submitted any resources that I could find.

Still, I learned something very important about Luck Theory. It seems there are two different types, that you I would call Pre- and Post.

There’s the randomness that comes during Setup, when a modular board is laid out, and cards are dealt out to all the players. That type of luck actually contributes to a game’s Replayability.

The other kind of luck – frustrating, irritating and unerringly untimely – is the Post-Action randomness of a die roll. It’s when you leave your fate in the hands of mechanical breakdowns, changing weather patterns, and the occasional passing dragon.

Suggestions for playing Risk with a large group?
submitted by Brocutus

OP was concerned with using Risk as a team-building exercise at work. A large number of commenters discouraged using Risk due to the great amount of downtime involved.

Instead, Diplomacy was suggested as a better team-building project, even if there was the potential for treachery. By taking a couple days between moves, it would allow for good-natured trash talk between departments.

“Oh man, those bastards in Accounting are going to try to backstab us and take the Black Sea? We’ll see about that!”

I made a free game timer app!
submitted by linkrift

It’s for iOS 7, so you’ll need an iPhone 5 or compatible Apple platform. It’s the first multi-player timer I’ve seen and it’s Free! Try it out and let the developer know how much you like it!

Are you a Redditor, too? Have I missed something interesting from Reddit that you want to share? Please let us know in the Comments!

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  • Drew is a contributor to the Board Gamers Anonymous podcast. He's a curator by nature, compulsively reading and obsessively organizing what he's read. He's also been a gamer since the age of 3, which means he's been playing board games for... let's just say more than 40 years, and leave it at that...

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