5 ms·

Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it? Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years? I pl

Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it? Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years? I play Gloomhaven with friends. Since we live in different parts of the country, we only meet up to play twice a year to play. It will take us years to complete Gloomhaven. It's awesome. It means we can just keep playing long into our retirements (at which point we might meet and play more often!)

mrVentures 5y ago
I was personally very unhappy with gloomhaven's decision to spread the content out so wide. I think they could have structured a much stronger game experience if they just focused on a core 10 to 20 modules versus the over 100 they have. Not to say they couldn't include more modules, but when you're trying to progress a storyline it's really frustrating to have multiple sessions (most many hours long) in between you a plot development.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  Ehhhh... The plot in gloomhaven is really pretty minimal. It's a matter bones choose your own adventure stringing together episodes in a fun combat tactics game.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    The problem is that some of the retirement quests depend heavily on the plot structure - "kill 5 bosses" can be 20 scenarios or 5 scenarios depending on where you are in the campaign. Similarly for some of the monster-specific quests; some even become impossible if you get them too late and don't want to replay old scenarios. I think it would have been better as 8 starting classes, 8 unlockables, and two more compressed campaigns with some other progression compressed accordingly.
jader201 5y ago
Because time is finite, and if you want to experience other things -- or other board games -- it's hard to justify sinking this much time into a single experience. Maybe some are fine experiencing this one thing over many months/years, but most people (by far, I would guess) would prefer experiencing more of a variety in the limited time we have. Our group is playing Jaws of the Lion, but only play it about once every few months, while still playing several other games in between. But depending on how long a given campaign would take, it might take more than we want to invest in a single game -- in the example of this article, that would take a lifetime for us.
morelisp 5y ago
> Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it? "Campaign", in this case, doesn't mean something like Gloomhaven's scenario-driven design, with a single character pad and a couple card decks that need to stay in order between serial 1-4 hour play sessions. It's a single game, with huge maps and logistical tables whose state needs to be tracked for the entire duration. > Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years? "Content" in games is generally awful and the modern focus on it is destroying what makes games interesting. Most games, especially competitive games, should become more interesting with repeat plays as you explore the systems involved. Gloomhaven works because the story "content" is largely divorced from the mechanics/dynamics of the scenario so you're playing "the game" dozens of times, and those systems are interesting. Modern narrative campaign games that don't have anything interesting going on in a much smaller inner loop are trash.

mrVentures 5y ago

I was personally very unhappy with gloomhaven's decision to spread the content out so wide. I think they could have structured a much stronger game experience if they just focused on a core 10 to 20 modules versus the over 100 they have. Not to say they couldn't include more modules, but when you're trying to progress a storyline it's really frustrating to have multiple sessions (most many hours long) in between you a plot development.

sdenton4 5y ago
Ehhhh... The plot in gloomhaven is really pretty minimal. It's a matter bones choose your own adventure stringing together episodes in a fun combat tactics game.
- morelisp 5y ago
  The problem is that some of the retirement quests depend heavily on the plot structure - "kill 5 bosses" can be 20 scenarios or 5 scenarios depending on where you are in the campaign. Similarly for some of the monster-specific quests; some even become impossible if you get them too late and don't want to replay old scenarios. I think it would have been better as 8 starting classes, 8 unlockables, and two more compressed campaigns with some other progression compressed accordingly.

jader201 5y ago

Because time is finite, and if you want to experience other things -- or other board games -- it's hard to justify sinking this much time into a single experience. Maybe some are fine experiencing this one thing over many months/years, but most people (by far, I would guess) would prefer experiencing more of a variety in the limited time we have. Our group is playing Jaws of the Lion, but only play it about once every few months, while still playing several other games in between. But depending on how long a given campaign would take, it might take more than we want to invest in a single game -- in the example of this article, that would take a lifetime for us.

morelisp 5y ago

> Why would the length of the campaign deter you from playing it? "Campaign", in this case, doesn't mean something like Gloomhaven's scenario-driven design, with a single character pad and a couple card decks that need to stay in order between serial 1-4 hour play sessions. It's a single game, with huge maps and logistical tables whose state needs to be tracked for the entire duration. > Isn't it great if you know you have enough content to play the game for the next 20 years? "Content" in games is generally awful and the modern focus on it is destroying what makes games interesting. Most games, especially competitive games, should become more interesting with repeat plays as you explore the systems involved. Gloomhaven works because the story "content" is largely divorced from the mechanics/dynamics of the scenario so you're playing "the game" dozens of times, and those systems are interesting. Modern narrative campaign games that don't have anything interesting going on in a much smaller inner loop are trash.