Reply To: How Many Game Systems Is Too Many?

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As a boardgamer and RPG’er, I nowadays look for “revolution not evolution” in the sense that I’m looking for new game mechanics, not variations of the same one. For example, the last dungeoncrawler I bought just for the game system was Gloomhaven, with its diceless hand management. Compare this to pretty much every dungeoncrawler since HeroQuest, which was some variant of throwing dice and beating a target number. The last miniatures skirmish game I bought just for the game system was Kobolds and Cobblestones, because I was curious about its poker-based card system. Compare this to almost every wargame that rolls a die to hit and/or take damage (or uses a CRT). My favorite RPG is One Shot World, a rules-light RPG based on Dungeon World, which has a “mechanic” where the game master asks the players to flesh out the world, and Cheat Your Own Adventure, a storytelling game reminiscent of CYOA books. CCGs I made an effort to collect were Mythos and Doomtown, both of which have noticeably different mechanics and themes from MtG. I’m not into Eurogames, but my two favorites are Dominion, which popularized the deckbuilder mechanic, and Race for the Galaxy, a hand management game (that plays very differently from Gloomhaven).

That doesn’t mean I haven’t bought a ton of games for the miniatures, inexpensive games under $20, or deeply discounted games that have had some buzz. That’s already enough to fill two rooms in the house unplayed. Don’t need more.