Editor in Chief Bill | 01 Dec 2016 12:17 a.m. PST |
Please take some time to browse the Fantasy section of the Rules Directory, and rate (from 1 to 10) the rulesets you have experience with. TMP link Out of 377 rulesets, only 89 of them have been rated by anyone. As more people rate the rulesets, the compiled ratings will increase in usefulness. The current Top 10 Fantasy Rulesets: 1. A Game of Fire and Ice 2. Battlesystem Skirmishes 3. Red Sand, Black Moon 4. Chronopia 5. Warrior Heroes: Legends 6. 2 Hour Dungeon Crawl 7. Rally Round the King 8. ShadowSea 9. Chaos in Carpathia 10. Chaos in Cairo |
Green Tiger | 01 Dec 2016 2:44 a.m. PST |
Never heard of any of them … does that help? |
fantasque | 01 Dec 2016 3:56 a.m. PST |
If that is the Top 10 then the list has more fundamental problems than a lack of ratings. I too have not heard of any of them |
Editor in Chief Bill | 01 Dec 2016 5:39 a.m. PST |
Never heard of any of them … does that help? Any of the 377? Wow, you need to get out more! If that is the Top 10 then the list has more fundamental problems than a lack of ratings.
On the contrary, I think we're seeing some useful information already. Battlesystem Skirmishes – four votes, 9.50 rating, the people who rate it, love it! A Game of Fire and Ice has fallen to #4 since I posted, but that's on two votes now, a 9.0 rating is respectable. Two Hour Wargames/Rebel Minis has several titles on the list – Red Sand, Black Moon; Warrior Heroes: Legends; 2 Hour Dungeon Crawl; Rally Round the King. If you haven't heard of their titles, maybe you should look! Chronopia is 9.2 on five votes, very strong. ShadowSea is at 1 vote, could use some more ratings… Chaos in Carpathia and Chaos in Cairo are doing well, showing there is some love for that game system from Four Color. I too have not heard of any of them Which rules have you heard of, and why do you think they should be in the Top Ten? |
Weasel | 01 Dec 2016 7:56 a.m. PST |
There's sort of an inherent problem with this in that if 300 people rate a game, you are likely to see a spread of scores. Lets say it evens out to 8.9 or something. Most people liked it, a few didn't. What you'd expect. If a game is obscure enough that only one person who posts here ever played it, but that guy loved it, it'll be a 10. |
skippy0001 | 01 Dec 2016 8:22 a.m. PST |
I rated some below 5. Older games did better for me. |
fantasque | 01 Dec 2016 8:38 a.m. PST |
Which rules have you heard of, and why do you think they should be in the Top Ten? Well, I am not a huge fantasy player but based on what I see at my club I would say the most played games are - Warhammer Fantasy Battle - nobody plays Age of Sigmar at my club but it should definitely be on a top 10 list - Warmachine / Hordes - Frostgrave - Infinity - Mordheim Weasel is spot on about the drawbacks of a simple average ranking system. Low numbers of votes are misleading and easily 'gamed'. The excellent Board Game Geek site have put a lot of thought into their ranking system and its not simple. The fact that the top ten rules are obscure to say the least suggests to me that it is not a list that would be useful to me. |
Andrew Walters | 01 Dec 2016 9:52 a.m. PST |
Directories like this are only useful when they have lots of votes. I've never heard of any of the top ten, either, but I went through the database and voted on all the sets I've played, or at least read. I didn't vote on the ones I designed. Everyone should give five minutes to going through one of the categories each week until every game has a few dozen votes. Then this will be a great resource. It would be even better if we can attach comments, but that's a lot of code… |
Sgt Slag | 01 Dec 2016 11:30 a.m. PST |
BattleSystems Skirmish is long OOP. It was published in 1989-90. It was re-released as a PDF, for a few years, back around 2008(?), but currently, it is not available. It was a mini's game, with a veneer of RPG on top -- a predecessor of D&D 4e. It grossly simplified the RPG's combat system, with a strict focus on 3D terrain, and mini's; the book included a basic painting guide, as well as basic instructions on making 3D terrain pieces. Cannot speak on the others in the Top 10 listing. |
Weasel | 01 Dec 2016 12:03 p.m. PST |
There also needs to be a defined scale. Is 5 "okay" or is it 7 like for video games? is 10 "I love this game" or "literally the best thing ever printed" ? What score do I give a game if it was fun with a few flaws? What if it was uninspiring but workhorse? I'd be happy to take a stab at writing a definition for each rating but that'd just be my own take (and as an author i really don't want to get into the business of rating other peoples games) |
Editor in Chief Bill | 01 Dec 2016 1:50 p.m. PST |
Well, I am not a huge fantasy player but based on what I see at my club I would say the most played games are - Warhammer Fantasy Battle - nobody plays Age of Sigmar at my club but it should definitely be on a top 10 list We don't have a separate listing for Warhammer Fantasy Battle yet, but Age of Sigmar is listed, and it has a mediocre score of 4.75 based on 12 voters. - Warmachine / Hordes Warmachine only has a score of 6.0 with three votes. Nobody has rated Hordes yet. - Frostgrave Doing very well, it's in the Top 30 with a score of 8.37 on 8 votes. - Infinity Not really fantasy, is it? - Mordheim Only has a score of 6.5 on 4 votes. It seems that the games most played at your club are not the most popular with TMP readers. Weasel is spot on about the drawbacks of a simple average ranking system. Low numbers of votes are misleading and easily 'gamed'. The excellent Board Game Geek site have put a lot of thought into their ranking system and its not simple. It is easy to add alternative rating systems. What would you like to see? The fact that the top ten rules are obscure to say the least suggests to me that it is not a list that would be useful to me. Just because these rules are unfamiliar to you does not make them obscure. Perhaps you should give them a chance? |
Editor in Chief Bill | 01 Dec 2016 1:51 p.m. PST |
It would be even better if we can attach comments, but that's a lot of code… Use the Rules Forum, making comments is easy. |
djbthesecond | 01 Dec 2016 6:29 p.m. PST |
|
Ed Mohrmann | 02 Dec 2016 12:36 p.m. PST |
I went through all 19 pages and found FOUR sets that I have played – of those, only TWO that I'd played more than twice. Those, I rated. The others I did not, since I felt that the lack of experience with the rules (by choice) is itself a vote, but perhaps not fair. |
grtbrt | 03 Dec 2016 7:53 p.m. PST |
I have heard of 2 of the top 10 and played those 2 . Neither of them would make my top 100 . a survey like this is like a poorly done Yelp review . Unless you know the inclinations of the raters it is worthless. and like yelp you always have to worry about the neutrality of the reviewers. |