Gloomhaven is only $85 on Amazon right now

[elbobo]

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I have not played it but I know it is universally reviewed as one of the best board games ever and this is the lowest it has been.

[TheLeon]

I’m intrigued yet intimidated by this game. Also I don’t know who I would actually play it with. 
 

Seeing it in stock and on sale makes me really want to buy it though.

[johnny]

I'd like to play this but I dont think my friends would be into something so time consuming 

[TheLeon]

Fuck it, bought. I may end up playing it solo, oh well.

[Slug]

18 hours ago, TheLeon said:

I’m intrigued yet intimidated by this game. Also I don’t know who I would actually play it with. 

 

You should be intimidated.  It's a behemoth.  There's a lot to track.  But so satisfying if you can get your arms around it.  You can also play it as a single player RPG so yay.

 

FWIW I recommend watching one of the dev "how to play" videos on youtube before you play.  Also there's a couple real good android/ios apps that help you track everything while playing which makes everything sooo much easier.

 

But scope and fiddly-ness aside, if you get a handle on it, it really is a terrific game.  It's like playing a good difficult D&D dungeon crawl. 

[Kal-El814]

1 hour ago, Slug said:

 

You should be intimidated.  It's a behemoth.  There's a lot to track.  But so satisfying if you can get your arms around it.  You can also play it as a single player RPG so yay.

 

FWIW I recommend watching one of the dev "how to play" videos on youtube before you play.  Also there's a couple real good android/ios apps that help you track everything while playing which makes everything sooo much easier.

 

But scope and fiddly-ness aside, if you get a handle on it, it really is a terrific game.  It's like playing a good difficult D&D dungeon crawl. 

 

100% this. If you don’t like bookkeeping, there’s a significant amount of drag you’re going to find in the game. The apps really help there. The digital version is quite good, too, and the full campaign is coming there sometime next year. The bookkeeping is basically an analog version of a game anyway, with achievements to track, classes to unlock, etc.

 

I can recommend some iOS apps if people want them, just lemme know.

 

Also invest heavily in baggies or prepare to spend a bunch of dough on a box inset to assemble. I cannot imagine playing the game without the insert from The Broken Token but that’s another near $100 right there.

[Slug]

I love Broken Token stuff so much. 

[Kal-El814]

53 minutes ago, Slug said:

I love Broken Token stuff so much. 

 

I’m a huge mark for box inserts in general. I like Go7Gaming a lot, along with Meeple Realty. I’ll usually get theirs if they have one for a specific game. Broken Token’s one for Gloomhaven is, IMHO, the best of the lot. The little monster cassette tape box things are so good.

[TheLeon]

Mine got delivered today. When I picked up the box, I couldn't stop laughing. Holy shit, that's a lotta game! 

 

I mean, you hear "it's a really big and complex game", but to me that never translated to "20 pound box the size of your torso" 

[Slug]

7 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Mine got delivered today. When I picked up the box, I couldn't stop laughing. Holy shit, that's a lotta game! 

 

I mean, you hear "it's a really big and complex game", but to me that never translated to "20 pound box the size of your torso" 

 

Haha, yup.  I remember one year at GenCon a buddy of mine made the mistake of buying it on the vendor floor like first thing in the morning because he was so excited to pick it up.  He didn't considering having to lug that damn box around the convention all day.  He only lasted a couple hours before he took a Lyft back to the hotel to drop it off in the room then come back. :P

[Kal-El814]

9 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Mine got delivered today. When I picked up the box, I couldn't stop laughing. Holy shit, that's a lotta game! 

 

I mean, you hear "it's a really big and complex game", but to me that never translated to "20 pound box the size of your torso" 

 

Gloomhaven is a beefy boy, it’s true. I dunno how many TT games you play, but there are a ton of great resources for Gloomhaven on boardgamegeek. I’d especially recommend getting PDF versions of the character and party sheets, the ones in the box are kinda tiny a bit hard to write on mission after mission. If you use a campaign tracker app, that’s less necessary. I also find the campaign workflow diagram super useful, as one of the hardest things to track is what you’ve done, what you’ve unlocked, and what you’ve locked out.

 

Lemme know if you have any questions about what missions you can do when, there’s a LOT that’s not super intuitive, like finishing a mission that’s linked to the next one but being able to walk away to do other missions, while that big event that seemed inevitable is content to just wait for you to come back to it, unlocking an area you can’t access without specific achievements, etc.

 

Also, if memory serves, expect to get fucking waxed on your first attempt of the first mission... unless the mechanics are super obvious to you right from jump, it’s really easy to stretch yourself right from the beginning and get dunked on pretty savagely. First time on one of my campaigns, two players died in the first room.  It’s not HARD, but it’s not obvious how aggressive is too aggressive, how conservative is too conservative, etc., until you actually play.

[CitizenVectron]

Also I highly recommend playing it on Tabletop Simulator on Steam. My friends and I have been doing this since March, since we haven't seen each other due to the pandemic. It works very well, and is much easier than playing the actual game (since it auto-sets up scenarios, tracks stuff, gives out coins, etc). Very cool.

[Mark]

Great game.. granted, I've only ever played it solo. Definitely had to put in a little time learning it from the start.

 

Frosthaven next year!

[CitizenVectron]

On 11/27/2020 at 2:04 PM, Mark said:

Great game.. granted, I've only ever played it solo. Definitely had to put in a little time learning it from the start.

 

Frosthaven next year!

 

After playing Gloomhaven mod on Tabletop Simulator...I can't go back to the physical game. The TTS version is scripted to handle all of the horrible stuff (placing the map, monster setup, drawing modifier cards, etc). I really hope they allow the same people to make a Frosthaven mod. Hell, I'll pay for it!

[EternallDarkness]

On 11/18/2020 at 10:30 AM, Kal-El814 said:

 

I’m a huge mark for box inserts in general. I like Go7Gaming a lot, along with Meeple Realty. I’ll usually get theirs if they have one for a specific game. Broken Token’s one for Gloomhaven is, IMHO, the best of the lot. The little monster cassette tape box things are so good.

 

 

so my aunt bought this game for my nephew along with the Go7Gamng thingie....my sister and I spent 6 and half hours last week assembling those freaking boxes! The kid better enjoy his freaking game.

[Mercury33]

@Kal-El814 finally taking the dive and asking for this for Christmas. Can you recommend some of the apps you mentioned?

 

also is this a game that people can drop in and out of? Or if you start with 3 people you need to keep going with those 3?

[Kal-El814]

2 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

@Kal-El814 finally taking the dive and asking for this for Christmas. Can you recommend some of the apps you mentioned?

 

also is this a game that people can drop in and out of? Or if you start with 3 people you need to keep going with those 3?

 

I’m on iOS but I think most of the apps I use have android equivalents if you roll that way. 
 

We use Gloomhaven Scenario Viewer, not for bookkeeping, but because it lets us keep monsters and traps in unexplored rooms hidden, which keeps us from “gaming” the scenarios. But that’s probably only really useful once you get the hang of it. I will say it’s nice in that you can tell the app how many players are in session and it adjusts the number / eliteness of monsters automatically which is helpful even if you don’t hide info. 
 

Gloomhaven Campaign Tracker is useful to keep… track of your campaign.  It helps with achievements, reputation, chests, xp, gold, etc. 

 

If you really want app assist, everyone playing with Gloomhaven Helper running in their device is handy. 
 

Honestly none of this is necessary; if you’re the type of board gamer for whom the bookkeeping and bit management is part of the appeal, the game is perfectly manageable with the sheets that come with it. Personally I do all my bookkeeping at this point on pdfs of the paper sheets.

 

Also worth noting that if you play a scenario or two it won’t take long to catch any of the tracker apps up to your campaign, so it may be worth waiting to see how you feel. I will say that a box insert IS super useful but they make an expensive game more expensive. 
 

In terms of friends dropping in and out, it’s very easy to swap players between sessions, so long as whoever is managing the campaign is always playing. You could have two people who know how to manage the campaign playing and taking turns with that… but that could be annoying. 
 

Worth noting that if you play stuff super straight / rules as written… the shop has limited items for sale. For some there are enough that 4 or 2 people can each have one, so it only becomes a problem if your clique has more rotating players who want an item than there are copies of it. You can get cute with this easily enough with house rules but it could be weird if 3 people who all bought an item there’s only two of show up. 
 

 

[Mercury33]

@Kal-El814 got it for Christmas and have just been staring at it too intimidated to take out the card board till I get an organizer. Do you prefer thr YASS type organization or Broken Token?

[Kal-El814]

6 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

@Kal-El814 got it for Christmas and have just been staring at it too intimidated to take out the card board till I get an organizer. Do you prefer thr YASS type organization or Broken Token?

 

I have the one from The Broken Token. It's great, but the owner of TBT has been outed by former employees as a harasser / manipulator... I don't know if that factors into your calculus at all. If it doesn't, the functionality itself is really good.

 

The other company whose organizers I use pretty regularly is Go7Gaming. I have not seen / used his Gloomhaven organizer specifically, but his offerings for Mansion of Madness 2nd Edition are some of the best organizers I've used in any game, for whatever that's worth.

 

If you're going to be one of those people who would want to reset Gloomhaven when you're done, you could also look into the reusable sticker set.

 

 

[Mercury33]

I went the cheap route and I’m gonna do the YASS to start. If my wife and I really sink our teeth into I’ll probably upgrade at some point. 
 

I won’t lie, the idea of having to glue the thing together myself pushed me over the edge away from it haha

[Kal-El814]

15 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

I went the cheap route and I’m gonna do the YASS to start. If my wife and I really sink our teeth into I’ll probably upgrade at some point. 
 

I won’t lie, the idea of having to glue the thing together myself pushed me over the edge away from it haha

 

Nothing wrong with going cheap; the game is expensive and some of there storage solutions are as much if not more than you paid for the game.

[Mercury33]

I did spend $15 to get the game narration on Foreteller though because that’s cool as fuck 😂

[Mercury33]

@Kal-El814 ok one last question(probably not) I’m mostly going to be playing with my wife or by myself. I know in the single player campaign you control two characters. So when my wife plays should I just keep playing with both those characters and make it a 3 player game? Or just let her swap her character in and keep it a two player game. Not sure which would be easier/make the most sense. 

[Kal-El814]

20 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

@Kal-El814 ok one last question(probably not) I’m mostly going to be playing with my wife or by myself. I know in the single player campaign you control two characters. So when my wife plays should I just keep playing with both those characters and make it a 3 player game? Or just let her swap her character in and keep it a two player game. Not sure which would be easier/make the most sense. 

 

I don't think one way is inherently easier or makes more sense.

 

If you're playing with 2 people, RAW you don't communicate what you're doing explicitly. You can say stuff like, "I'm going quickly and will try to attack this guy," but you wouldn't say, "I'm playing a card with initiative 11, and it's Skewer, and then the bottom card I'm playing will let me move 4 and jump." So if you're playing with 2 people / 3 characters and you're playing RAW, you'll be in a much better position to coordinate stuff with your 2 characters than your wife will be since she won't have perfect knowledge of what your plans are. There's also the practical issue that you'll be "playing" 2/3 of the characters, she'll have a lot more idle time, and it'll probably feel like you're quarterbacking a lot of what's going on. Some players prefer that, some people really get rubbed the wrong way, so I can't help with a recommendation there, but I think it'd be hard to avoid it with a 2 player / 3 character scenario.

 

You could also do a thing where you have 2 characters you play, and when you and your wife play, you both play 2 characters that are different from when you play solo. More bookkeeping, but not a ton more, and it'll let you experience more classes, which is fun. Only downside is if you have >2 characters that want some of the items there are only 2 of, but you could house rule that if you want to. 

 

The only thematic downside to playing with 2 separate "parties" is that if you play alone you can unlock some abilities / plot things without the other person present, or sometimes it breaks the theme a little... Character A and B could open a portal to some weird dimension, then if your next game is with Characters C and D, they can just leave and do something else while whatever hellspawn is in the portal waits patiently.

 

Long winded way of saying... gameplay wise I think it'll be easier to play 1 character per person when you and your wife are playing, and it'll keep her from being bored while 66% of the player actions and decisions are made by you. In terms of using the same or different classes when you play solo vs. w/your wife...honestly I think do whatever sounds more interesting or you think will keep your wife most engaged. If it's going to chafe for her to realize you picked perks / items / cards she wouldn't have or took the decision making away from her, keep her character separate. But if she has no problems being QB'd, I'd say do whatever is most interesting to you across the board.

[Mercury33]

17 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

I don't think one way is inherently easier or makes more sense.

 

If you're playing with 2 people, RAW you don't communicate what you're doing explicitly. You can say stuff like, "I'm going quickly and will try to attack this guy," but you wouldn't say, "I'm playing a card with initiative 11, and it's Skewer, and then the bottom card I'm playing will let me move 4 and jump." So if you're playing with 2 people / 3 characters and you're playing RAW, you'll be in a much better position to coordinate stuff with your 2 characters than your wife will be since she won't have perfect knowledge of what your plans are. There's also the practical issue that you'll be "playing" 2/3 of the characters, she'll have a lot more idle time, and it'll probably feel like you're quarterbacking a lot of what's going on. Some players prefer that, some people really get rubbed the wrong way, so I can't help with a recommendation there, but I think it'd be hard to avoid it with a 2 player / 3 character scenario.

 

You could also do a thing where you have 2 characters you play, and when you and your wife play, you both play 2 characters that are different from when you play solo. More bookkeeping, but not a ton more, and it'll let you experience more classes, which is fun. Only downside is if you have >2 characters that want some of the items there are only 2 of, but you could house rule that if you want to. 

 

The only thematic downside to playing with 2 separate "parties" is that if you play alone you can unlock some abilities / plot things without the other person present, or sometimes it breaks the theme a little... Character A and B could open a portal to some weird dimension, then if your next game is with Characters C and D, they can just leave and do something else while whatever hellspawn is in the portal waits patiently.

 

Long winded way of saying... gameplay wise I think it'll be easier to play 1 character per person when you and your wife are playing, and it'll keep her from being bored while 66% of the player actions and decisions are made by you. In terms of using the same or different classes when you play solo vs. w/your wife...honestly I think do whatever sounds more interesting or you think will keep your wife most engaged. If it's going to chafe for her to realize you picked perks / items / cards she wouldn't have or took the decision making away from her, keep her character separate. But if she has no problems being QB'd, I'd say do whatever is most interesting to you cross the board.

awesome thanks man! Appreciate all the advice! Starting it today, so excited!!

[Kal-El814]

55 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

awesome thanks man! Appreciate all the advice! Starting it today, so excited!!

 

Good luck! If your first play of the first level is anything like a lot of people, you'll get rinsed really quickly until you figure out the game's cadence.

[Mercury33]

21 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

Good luck! If your first play of the first level is anything like a lot of people, you'll get rinsed really quickly until you figure out the game's cadence.

Oh man we barely made it through. Crag heart and Mind Thief. Mind Thief made it through the last door and ran out of cards. I got crazy lucky with my modifiers on some high damage cards I’d saved and cleared the room with only one turn of cards left. The first room def almost sank us as we were trying to figure out what to do haha.