Quote from: Christopher Brady;988788Well, they're just following the people who claim to 'not have time' to play long games anymore.  I have no idea if it's true that they don't have the time, but if you're vocal enough, you get noticed.

The Conan game is pretty nice, if full of fiddly figure-y bits.

I think it's they've found a way to sell a lot more games to the same audience. I say good on them. The board game bubble with burst when the fad dies down and they should get why the getting is good.

I sure don't feel like playing 8-hour board games anymore, at my age.

Quote from: RPGPundit;989161I sure don't feel like playing 8-hour board games anymore, at my age.

Where I work a lot of 'older' folks had that complaint about the classic boardgame 'RISK' - it would take too many hours and never seem to end.

In both "RISK : Godstorm" and "RISK 2310" there is a built in time limit of 5 big turns or 'epochs'. This time limit tends to keep the games down to about two to three hours.

There is a version of RISK called "RISK: Legacy" - which changes every time you play it because however the game ended last time is how you start the game the next time you play it At the store we had one group of regulars that used "Risk : Legacy" as the background world and timeline for an RPG campaign that they were doing.

- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;989172There is a version of RISK called "RISK: Legacy" - which changes every time you play it because however the game ended last time is how you start the game the next time you play it At the store we had one group of regulars that used "Risk : Legacy" as the background world and timeline for an RPG campaign that they were doing.

Playing through R:L with the same group was one of the best gaming experiences I've had.

Quote from: Ulairi;988791I think it's they've found a way to sell a lot more games to the same audience. I say good on them. The board game bubble with burst when the fad dies down and they should get why the getting is good.

I don't think it will burst.  It's been happening for way too long for it to be a fad, either.

Personally, I'm not sure if the flood of boardgames is a bubble that's going to burst so much as there may be a related kickstarter bubble that bursts - folks deciding that they've spent too much on kickstarter and cutting back on that, so that new boardgames funded by kickstarter become more rare, slowing down the rate of both new board and rpg games.  (And I say this as someone who's pretty much addicted to kickstarter.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;989363I don't think it will burst.  It's been happening for way too long for it to be a fad, either.

I agree (shocking, right?).  This is a metamorphosis, not a fad; what games are is changing.  Just like in model railroading; after 23 years, we can say that the shift to more expensive ready to run models is a trend and not a passing whim.

Quote from: RPGPundit;989161I sure don't feel like playing 8-hour board games anymore, at my age.

Well, true, but even "Back In The Day" we broke games into sessions.  Something like Drang Noch Osten takes several hundred hours to play.  I wonder if one thing that changed is we aren't college students any more who can simply use the dining room table in our rented house for DNO over six months and meet Sunday from 2 to 5 to play.

In one case I know the "turn" lasted a week, and the various subcommanders would make their turn at various points during the week and combat happened on one designated day.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;989600I wonder if one thing that changed is we aren't college students any more who can simply use the dining room table in our rented house for DNO over six months and meet Sunday from 2 to 5 to play.

That, and you have a lot more entertainment options these days than you had in the '70s, '80s, and even '90s.  You have about 200 more television channels, Netflix, YouTube, and video games.  Not to mention that everyone has incessantly nagging personal computers in their pockets constantly shouting "LOOK AT ME!"

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;989600Well, true, but even "Back In The Day" we broke games into sessions.  Something like Drang Noch Osten takes several hundred hours to play.  I wonder if one thing that changed is we aren't college students any more who can simply use the dining room table in our rented house for DNO over six months and meet Sunday from 2 to 5 to play.

In one case I know the "turn" lasted a week, and the various subcommanders would make their turn at various points during the week and combat happened on one designated day.

Whhhuuut??? We marathon played DNO, eight hours on both Saturday and Sunday, and if we could get in a turn on a weeknight after school we did. I don't remember playing for more than two months before one side or the other would resign or surrender because they were defeated. This includes at least two full games of DNO/Unentscheiden. Europa was one of my favorites, and at one time I owned DNO/Unentscheiden, Case White, Narvik, Marita-Merkur and Fall of France. My friend Paul had all of those as well as Their Finest Hour. We were very tempted to get Torch, The Western Desert, The Near East, and Spain & Portugal to try the full WWII Europa experience, but never had enough time or money to get that all together before he went off to college, and I went off to Korea in the Army in 1985.

We played over at Paul's House, becuase he had a game room (not in a basement, but an extra bedroom in the ranch house) big enough to setup DNO, and no pets, and all of his brothers and sisters were older and had already moved out of the house, so the game table could sit for weeks undisturbed.

Best DNO game as the Russians, had perfect armor corps deployment behind the main line east of Poland, and totally stalled the German attack of Army Group North by forcing German Infantry divisions to retreat and block the advance of the Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions. Counter-attacked in late July, and had taken ground Eastern Prussia by mid-August of 1941 and was almost close enough to unleash the Russian Artillery on Berlin. Paul resigned in disgust. Second game didn't go so well for me, as he made sure his Panzers and Panzergrenadier were leading everywhere in Army Group North. At least I still had Moscow when the mud came!

As Germans, my best game had me east of Moscow in early August with the entire 4th Panzer Army. I didn't bother to capture Moscow, I just completely surrounded it, and cut off it's supplies. The Infantry was slow to follow, but I had captured at least one of the Russian reinforcement cities where troops from the far east were being railed into, and had total air superiority over the entire Northern front from the Baltic to Kiev.

Worst game. Narvik. ...As the Germans, I was completely ejected from Norway in 1940. Remember kiddies, you can't get reinforcement by sea, if you don't capture the ports. Second worst game, Their Finest Hour, ...as the Germans. You know you are not doing well when Goering historically did better than you...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;989600Well, true, but even "Back In The Day" we broke games into sessions.  Something like Drang Noch Osten takes several hundred hours to play.  I wonder if one thing that changed is we aren't college students any more who can simply use the dining room table in our rented house for DNO over six months and meet Sunday from 2 to 5 to play.

In one case I know the "turn" lasted a week, and the various subcommanders would make their turn at various points during the week and combat happened on one designated day.

We never broke it into sessions. Usually because that involved leaving a very complicated board somewhere for a week at risk of being knocked over or inconvenient.

Anyways, I have no problem running 10 hours of Dark Albion (or any other RPG). But somehow board games that take that long just feel like too much now.

Quote from: RPGPundit;990344We never broke it into sessions. Usually because that involved leaving a very complicated board somewhere for a week at risk of being knocked over or inconvenient.

Anyways, I have no problem running 10 hours of Dark Albion (or any other RPG). But somehow board games that take that long just feel like too much now.

Gamemastering at Gen Con for ten hours straight would have melted my vocal cords.  For the room I was in, I had to stand the whole time and belt everything out at the players.  Playing a ten-hour board game would have been a lot easier on my throat.  But I have to admit that there aren't that many board games I'd like to play for that long at a time at Gen Con.  Maybe Forbidden Stars or Imperial Assault.

fwiw LotFP just had its best month ever in retail stores, post-Ennies.