Ravings of a Textual Deviant

Fishing for ideas this week…

Recommend three non-RPG games for RPGers. Why do you recommend these three?

1. You can’t go wrong with Cheapass Games. Various cousins of mine are crazy for Unexploded Cow, Lord of the Fries, Captain Park’s Imaginary Polar Expedition, the Devil Bunny games, and Witch Hunt. (Note: Attorneys should only play Witch Hunt with other attorneys, while everyone else sits around and watches.) Anyone with a sick or twisted sense of humor should enjoy all of these. High comedy factor!

2. Munchkin is a good compromise game for the mixed gamer/non-gamer group. Cheating is encouraged (it says so in the rules), it’s easy to learn, and a good gateway game for those you wish to convert to gaming. Puns are sufficiently bad that you don’t need to explain the in-jokes.

3. Fluxx appeals to my inner absurdist. The entire point of the game is that the rules change. Also, you only need two players, which is nice for the happily child-free.

Honorable mention #1 goes to Settlers of Catan and its many expansion packs. My aunt’s non-gaming family is wild about this one. Personally, since the KODT “I have wood for sheep” strip, I can’t think of this one without laughing, but it does seem to be quite the crowd pleaser.

Honorable mention #2 goes to Magnetic Poetry. There are a couple of suggestions listed in the package insert, or invent your own. (There’s a Japanese game played with haiku–the name escapes me–in which the players write a chain of related poems. I seem to remember it’s mentioned in The Tale of Genji, but I could be wrong.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2003 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Games & Gaming, Gaming Memes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.