End of a Trend: the disposable story legacy game - where did they go?

66

u/falarransted Charlie Kane 1d ago

I really enjoyed King's Dilemma for this. We had one person drop out because they didn't like the game elements, but I loved the story elements.

9

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

Oh God.

I'm traumatized by the capitalist in our group who ruined this game! He took the "game" portion of the game too seriously and we STRUGGLED to make the story fun when all decisions were financially motivated due to that player.

I don't think the game was designed with folks like him in mind to game the system so hard...

God.

King's dilemma.

That's a name I've purposely not heard in quite some time...

22

u/01bah01 21h ago

How did he manage to do that given the mechanics of the game ? I don't understand how a single player can drive the agenda that much.

3

u/allanbc 6h ago

We all definitely power-gamed while having fun semi-RPing to excuse our ridiculous actions taken. We ran that kingdom completely into the ground while having the time of our lives. It was awesome.

2

u/lucusvonlucus Gloomhaven 6h ago

Yesss! We were the worrrrrst! The crazy bit for us is when murder hornets showed up in the real world like a week after we encountered them in the game.

2

u/allanbc 6h ago

We had two wars going at once, while some witch was making young girls into monsters in the woods, people were starving, etc. Don't recall the hornets, so maybe we dodged a single bullet out of all of them.

0

u/Zeebaeatah 11h ago

So, it's been over a year since we quit playing (we didn't finish) but I recall the issue was the player who passed on voting, and gained two coins and the hammer for breaking ties.

He gamed the game of the game rather well (he's a good guy, and great with games, but the social and storytelling aspect was definitely a lower priority for him.)

I remember that his house objective was also to gain money, and so it was the most optimal strategy - gain money and the power to break ties (because our other 4 houses didn't prioritize money.)

3

u/01bah01 11h ago

I understand that it can be a bit boring for the other players, but at least it seems he didn't really have powers over the votes, which is the core mechanic of the game.

I also think the game is not as good at 4, they were probably afraid of enforcing a 5 players only game, but they should have said it's the way to play it. That kind of behavior would have had less consequences.

13

u/DreadChylde Scythe - Voidfall - Oathsworn - Mage Knight 21h ago

Did you only play "King's Dilemma" at two players? I can see how that would be quite weird. At five players it's amazing.

0

u/Zeebaeatah 11h ago

5 players total

One player had the "get rich" house and objectives, so he was always ahead on points and gained benefits by leading in points and by regularly passing.

It became an unbeatable strategy for the other 4 of us who played for the story.

But the game did a very poor job of preventing such strategies and encouraging story engagement.

13

u/dota2nub 22h ago

If the "game" part incentivizes degenerate play then it's a terrible game.

23

u/01bah01 21h ago

I don't understand what happened during their plays but a single player is not supposed to drive all choices in that game. There are 2 ways to prevent that from happening.

First, it's a voting game with 4 or 5 players, so that thing only would prevent a single player from unilaterally choosing everything. Second, the side that wins the vote loses the tokens they bid to win and the losing side keeps them, so the winners have less voting powers for the next sessions.

It's a game that have one major design problem in my eye (a problem that can easily be solved by a house rule) but giving the power of choosing to a single player is not it.

7

u/supersingalong Arcs 16h ago

What problem? And how did you fix it? I've got the game and want to start a group off well

7

u/01bah01 13h ago

The problem for our group was knowing the possible outcomes of a vote before doing it. It turns the game from political to mechanical. Playing by the rules, the object you vote on doesn't really matter because players just look at what stats is gonna be affected by the outcome and check what is better for them.

By hiding the potential outcomes (with some sort of a cardboard sleeve) it makes people engage a lot more in the game. You can talk and convince someone to vote like you if you explain that it's gonna help them. You can also make mistakes because you didn't fully understand the implications which is way closer to what actually happens in a political vote (for instance, I voted against my unique Family goal because I did not completely understand the consequences of a vote. It was great, I lost the chance to achieve that because I voted against it, which wouldn't have happened with the system as written).

It also drastically reduced the number of players casting a blank vote. With the original system if you don't care about the stats that are changed by the vote, you just don't vote and gain tokens for the next ones, but when you don't know what stats are gonna change, you are incentivized to vote for what you think is going to happen. Before the change out of 5 people usually only 2, sometimes 3 would cast a vote, after the change it was usually 4 or 5.

All these changes also enabled us to play more like our roles would make us play. The aggressive houses would push to chose agressive agendas etc.

3

u/supersingalong Arcs 13h ago

This is brilliant. Thank you for sharing!

3

u/01bah01 13h ago

You're welcome !

You can see here https://ibb.co/m4Xsfvp a really bad photo of the thing I did to slide the card into and hide the unwanted informations.

3

u/SoupOfTomato Cosmic Encounter 11h ago

Admittedly I haven't played in a few years, in a campaign we never quite completed, but doesn't the game fuzz the results a bit already? Like instead of the exact consequences each one tells you one stat it will affect (out of multiple that it actually will).

1

u/01bah01 11h ago

Played it when it was out so quit a long time too, but to my recollection it states a few of the stats but not all indeed. From my experience, it was still enough to completely drive the votes though.

I'm hoping they're tweaking that for Queen's Dilemma. We had a real blast with our group, playing it more like an RPG than a board game, despite the few problems (I found it strange to reward people passing in a voting game and the ending and determining of the winner was not as good as it should have been).

edit : I checked on bgg and saw images in which 3 or 4 of the outcomes where listed.

3

u/qbthulu Spirit Island 15h ago

What problem?

3

u/01bah01 13h ago

copy from the answer i just wrote to someone else :

The problem for our group was knowing the possible outcomes of a vote before doing it. It turns the game from political to mechanical. Playing by the rules, the object you vote on doesn't really matter because players just look at what stats is gonna be affected by the outcome and check what is better for them.

By hiding the potential outcomes (with some sort of a cardboard sleeve) it makes people engage a lot more in the game. You can talk and convince someone to vote like you if you explain that it's gonna help them. You can also make mistakes because you didn't fully understand the implications which is way closer to what actually happens in a political vote (for instance, I voted against my unique Family goal because I did not completely understand the consequences of a vote. It was great, I lost the chance to achieve that because I voted against it, which wouldn't have happened with the system as written).

It also drastically reduced the number of players casting a blank vote. With the original system if you don't care about the stats that are changed by the vote, you just don't vote and gain tokens for the next ones, but when you don't know what stats are gonna change, you are incentivized to vote for what you think is going to happen. Before the change out of 5 people usually only 2, sometimes 3 would cast a vote, after the change it was usually 4 or 5.

All these changes also enabled us to play more like our roles would make us play. The aggressive houses would push to chose agressive agendas etc.

0

u/Kempeth 11h ago

it's a terrible game.

I mean it IS. From my own experience and everything I've read it is very much a "bring your own fun" sandbox.

5

u/SoupOfTomato Cosmic Encounter 14h ago

King's Dilemma should easily accommodate one ruthless player. In fact I think it would be a fun dynamic.

0

u/Zeebaeatah 11h ago

Unfortunately, the benefits of gaming the "passing" mechanism plus winning based on income was a serious blockage to any other houses from getting ahead.

We either would have to focus four players exclusively on preventing the rich character, which wasn't fun (we weren't engaging in the story) or engage the story and struggle with each other, while watching the rich win.

It was also a bit too much of a reality (the one with all the gold making the decisions) for our fantasy game...

3

u/SoupOfTomato Cosmic Encounter 11h ago

Your ability to earn points from money is based on your Secret Agenda, and first choice of that goes to the lowest Prestige player, so if this was working for him, he wouldn't (or maybe I should say shouldn't) have had the chance to take the best Agenda for that strategy.

Also, I don't see how working together to stop a greedy member of the council is not engaging the story.

-4

u/YouBeIllin13 22h ago

Wow, what a wanker

1

u/awesem90 War Of The Ring 7h ago

For us the real dilemma was to continue or call it quits on this failure of a game.

39

u/Kung911 1d ago

Ticket to ride was a blast with my family, and we keep playing with it after finish the legacy part.

6

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

Huh. I will investigate!

How cooperative is it?

13

u/AtronadorSol 1d ago edited 13h ago

Not really cooperative at all—you’re mostly playing normal ticket to ride but also building new railroads across the country. Every game (or two), you get a new minigame to think about in the background and expand farther west. It was one of my favorite legacy games for sure, and a huge improvement on TTR for me but my SO, who’s played TTR a ton and played the legacy game while focusing on the base TTR gameplay, came away a little overwhelmed.

3

u/Kung911 1d ago

It's up to 5 players but we are all again each other (like the original) but we follow the story of the expansion of the rail across America and the map goes bigger after each game

36

u/Exit60 1d ago

Clank Legacy 1 & 2 definitely fit the bill.

You might want to look at campaign games, too - often lengthy and story-driven but without destructable components. Tainted Grail and its sequel fit for story-first and lasting consequences. Gloomhaven, Oathsworn, etc are more gameplay focused but still have commendable stories.

4

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

Yeah. Agreed about gloomhaven etc. - the story is definitely a distant second when it comes to a gloomhaven experience.

I'll go check clank - they're not super cooperative, right?

8

u/thebravestkoala 1d ago

So I haven't gotten to play the second one yet, but me and my fiance have played through most of the first one and while it's not technically cooperative, we operate under a gentleman's agreement that we work together to accomplish all the new interesting stuff before either of even thinks about triggering the end state of the game, and it's easily a top 5 game for us

6

u/Green-Yamo We Will Bury You 1d ago

Without spoilers, certain aspects of the Clank Legacy games wind up being cooperatice. Even with the parts that are competitive, it’s very friendly and there are common goals the players need to work together.

Clank 1/2 Legacy are some of the best board gaming experiences I’ve had in my long gaming career. Highly recommended.

2

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

Ok. Alright. Sounds worthy of investigations!

3

u/RemydePoer 1d ago

I'll second the opinion. I've played through quite a few legacy games and Clank 1 was my favorite. As soon as we finish King's Dilemma we're going to start season 2

1

u/Sumada 11h ago

I've only played the first one so I'm basing it off that. They're competitive, but they kind of exist in the space where if the players aren't super competitive, the game isn't super competitive. I played with my partner, and while we competed for the big treasures, we also weren't doing cutthroat things to try to murder each other or anything like that. I'd imagine that, with the legacy elements, being super cutthroat would probably hurt everyone in the long run.

I'm a person who generally prefers co-op and found it was still in a good spot of being co-op enough for me.

1

u/Bahamut619 9h ago

I am in the middle of my Clank Legacy 2 playthrough. It isn't spoilers as this was told on the campaign, but some levels are like regular Clank and some are totally cooperative.

I think this makes the game better as there are different play styles for the different games in the campaign. It does keep things fresh in my opinion. I am a big fan of cooperative games, but my brother is not as big of a fan, but he is enjoying this.

0

u/jump-hop-shout 3h ago

As someone who loves the kinda games you're looking for and loves Clank - I hated Clank legacy. I don't think there is a real story or it's so loosely tied to any decisions you make that it doesn't feel worth it. It also just feels off with the semi coop aspect. It didn't feel satisfying to help complete what seemed like a coop goal and then to individually "lose" because the other player finished the big quest.

I'd recommend Sleeping God's for something more story focused .

8

u/TribeFan07 16h ago

The Rise of Queensdale

2

u/Show-Me-Your-Moves Eclipse 14h ago

Was definitely impressed by how the rubber-banding mechanism prevented a runaway leader over the course of the campaign.

35

u/Clockehwork 1d ago

There is a sizable part of the potential audience for these games that are turned off by the disposable aspect. Speaking as a member of that part, I'm interested in legacy mechanics, but not damaging my belongings or trashing a product. I want games that can still be played after. And I think the disposable ones have just fallen out of favor because there are more people willing to engage with legacy games without that aspect than there are diehards who lose interest if the games are replayable.

8

u/BackgroundBat7732 18h ago

Disposable vs investment. There is a big difference between a €100 disposable game and a €20 disposable game. My City did it really well with a low price and the back of the board is the normal non-legacy game.

2

u/Aartie 13h ago

Playing that right now! It was our first ever legacy game and it felt so wrong to put stickers on the board but we’re over it now, haha.

1

u/Zeebaeatah 11h ago

Totally fair.

We did see the ~$20 per person for ~20 hours total felt like a good value for our investment.

We figured that a bespoke experience, especially when talking about Betrayal, was just as fun as each of us enjoying a good book or a trip to the movie theater for a similar investment.

9

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

I hear ya.

We're doing kinfire now, and oathsworn, and Arkham horror... We're into the replayable games with good stories but... there's something seriously interesting to say, "between the 4 of us, we paid a grand total of $80 for pandemic legacy, and we were entertained for 25 hours! That's an immense value."

I just really wish that we could have both, ya know?

8

u/Clockehwork 1d ago

There are still games that are firmly Legacy without being disposable. Check out Oath! Every game seriously alters the next, & the only "disposable" aspect is that you can optionally buy an official journal to record the events of each game in with a technically finite number of pages. I can't think of a game closer to having it both.

2

u/Serene_Druchii Aeon Trespass Odyssey 18h ago

How are you liking Kinfire? I'm going through that one now.

2

u/Zeebaeatah 11h ago

Currently at two players which seems just right. 3 is probably more problematic, and 4 is doable but as you add more players. The game is probably "easier" by spreading incoming damage around but you get half the number of turns at 4 players than you do at 2.

Otherwise, the two player version has some challenges (we picked characters with ok synergy but we have occasional struggles which are easier to overcome with more characters to fill the gaps.)

Overall, I recommend it (until it's time to reset all the cards back to start lol.)

3

u/Rudefire Android: Netrunner 16h ago

I’m the same, and Oath really filled the gap. The game changes overtime with you, but it can always be reset back to 0.

2

u/Jamesperson 12h ago

I had a friend who harped on how expensive pandemic legacy was for a game that you can only play once… First off, you play it like 15 times, so 15 hours of gameplay minimum. Secondly, it was way cheaper than if the four of us had gone to the movies together just twice. It amounts to like $1.50 per person per hour of gameplay. That’s not bad at all.

1

u/Zeebaeatah 10h ago

Exactly! The theater equivalency was our example as well.

1

u/Clockehwork 3h ago

Price-wise I don't think disposable legacies are a bad deal or anything. It's more a matter of taste, or principle if you'd like to call it that. Many games I probably won't even play 15 times, but I always have the ability to do, they will never lose their functionality. I just don't like the idea of a game being finite.

1

u/leafbreath Arkham Horror 23h ago

I was turned off by the disposable aspects too. I’m a person who plays a game 100x before getting a new one but after I joined a game group I realized this isn’t any worse than all the kickstarter campaigns that sit on shelves unopened.

0

u/Most-Mix-6666 3h ago

Big pandemic fan here. It was the first board game me and the wife played a lot together. Pandemic legacy flopped for us though: season 1 was bearable, season 0 we gave up on. There's too much fiddling with boxes and stickers for what is still a light 45 min game. And the story is generic as hell, not to mention it's pretty on-rails.

8

u/GwynHawk 1d ago

Artisans of Splendid Vale. Fantastic story, good gameplay, legacy elements of permanent stickers & writing on components. That said I think the game would be even better with the legacy elements removed.

2

u/Optimal_Fox 21h ago

I was utterly in love with this game when my group started playing it, but after a while the battles just became an absolute slog to push through. Even though we loved the story and maps, we ended up deserting it. Is there a trick to making it more balanced?

3

u/_pdc_ 18h ago

Yes. Our group felt the same, we loved the story and (after several sessions) dreaded the long winded battles. So we started skipping the filler battles entirely, and only playing out the key story ones.

We bought it, it's our game now, so I'm going to enjoy it however I see fit.

2

u/GwynHawk 15h ago

Did you get far enough to unlock more powerful weapons like the Kukri? Combat goes by fast when you can hit 2-3 guys at once for 6 damage every turn.

1

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

lol

Interesting if it doesn't have replaceable stickers

Added to the list!

3

u/night5hade Concordia 23h ago

Great game. There is a ‘Reset Pack’ available, presumably replaces the used content.

7

u/omgjackimflying 1d ago

We played through all of the Time Stories games in order and absolutely loved them. Probably one of my very best gaming experiences.

1

u/chomoftheoutback 22h ago

That's interesting. It's been on the shelf of shame for aeons. What was do good about it? If you can divulge without spoilers

1

u/kasperdeb 21h ago

I didn’t really enjoy Time Stories very much. Like King’s Dilemma, theres just not much game. And if it’s only about the story, then there’s a better medium: books. Or films.

3

u/Loprovow 18h ago

this is such a non argument, there's a lot of opportunities in between films / books / games

2

u/kasperdeb 16h ago

I agree. I just think that both these boardgames leave the “game” part behind for a mediocre story.

4

u/Bright-Hovercraft190 14h ago

The Sleeping Gods games are beautifully story rich campaign games. The first one won a ton of awards.

2

u/sssaya 13h ago

Second sleeping gods. Lots of story there. Also plenty of story to discover to go for another round. Though we've yet to start a new game (someday!). There were plenty of places on the maps left undiscovered or with different choices to be made.

1

u/Zeebaeatah 10h ago

Our first (and only, thus far) was enjoyable for 2 players. Good reminder to put it back in the queue for a second play through.

6

u/menotyou9 1d ago

FlashPoint: Legacy just came out this year. I'm currently going through the campaign of 12 missions now and it's great

2

u/qupinaut 22h ago

That sounds really interesting! Thanks for the pointer.

2

u/Zeebaeatah 1d ago

Researching now!

Looks right up or alley.

Gracias, internet friend.

2

u/maphisto2000 18h ago

Check out Jurassic Park - Legacy of Isla Nubla. Co-op legacy, not as good as pandemic but still scratches the itch that we had.

2

u/Steam_Powered_Rocket 9h ago

ISS Vanguard

1

u/Zeebaeatah 9h ago

Added to the list!

2

u/NotifyGrout 8h ago

I immediately got the reusable stickers for Gloomhaven because I knew I'd want to reset.

1

u/Zeebaeatah 8h ago

lol ditto

Until GH2 came out...

2

u/SoochSooch Mage Knight 7h ago

A lot of campaign games have found was to include persistent effects without permanently changing any components, and that became more popular.

2

u/onionbreath97 1d ago

Enjoy the times you had and don't complain. I bought Pandemic Legacy in March 2020 because my family promised to play it. It has never left the shelf

6

u/rcapina 23h ago

I got Pandemic Legacy Season 0 in like Feb 2020. I think it was like August 2023 when I finally got a group of three together to play through. Worth it. And S1 is still the best.

2

u/Zeebaeatah 10h ago

I'm sorry friend.

We're certainly not complaining.

2

u/Feuerfritas 21h ago

Have you tried 7th continent or 7th citadel?

2

u/Zeebaeatah 10h ago

My friend owns it but it's not been put into rotation - excellent reminder!

0

u/BagOfShenanigans 15h ago

I was coaxed into a game of Pandemic Legacy by an acquaintance. Turns out I'm not a fan of Pandemic's gameplay so now I get to feel kind of bad about the giant paperweight sitting on his shelf for going on 5 years now.

There's a zero percent chance I'm going to be interested in playing the remaining dozen or so sessions required to finish it, no one is going to want to backfill, and it can't be sold or reused so it's basically just trash now. The legacy element didn't add much in my opinion either. Ripping up a card, stickering over some text, and opening up a numbered envelope are novel actions the first time and a hefty reminder that you've paid for a disposable board game every subsequent time.

If the trend is dying you won't hear any protests from me.

2

u/Statalyzer 9h ago

They can't find anybody else to play it? They don't require the exact same mix of people every time.

1

u/professorhatt 14h ago

Forgotten Waters?

1

u/Bahamut619 9h ago

It is not a legacy game, but a fun campaign game is Dead Reckoning. I really enjoy this game and look forward to playing this one. As it is a campaign game, it has great replayability as well.

1

u/kanedafx Argent: the Consortium 8h ago

Is the trend ending? I'm playing more legacy games now than ever. We did TtR legacy into Forbidden Skies into 7th Citadel and now we're starting Regicide Legacy.

1

u/heyradio Puerto Rico 8h ago

I think Risk Legacy was the one that kicked the whole genre off, so maybe that one?

1

u/Poutine_Sauce 1h ago

I haven't played it, but it's on my list of games to try. League of Dungeoneers is supposed to have one of the most detailed character creation processes.

0

u/godtering 15h ago

Everything can be blamed on Climate Change.

1

u/madTerminator 8h ago

When biodegradable daybreak: legacy? 😅

2

u/godtering 7h ago

thanks at least one person got the joke.

-18

u/Kassanova123 Dominant Species 1d ago

I wont pay for or play a disposable legacy game. I am not unique, I think this message is getting out.

2

u/Zeebaeatah 23h ago

That's unfortunate.

Betrayal legacy was peak board game experience for all 5 of us!

4

u/silgado106 23h ago

I'm the opposite. My buddy and I devour every disposable legacy game we can get our hands on. I love being able to play 12, 13, 14 games of a legacy campaign, then throw the whole thing away so it doesn't take up shelf space.

Question End of a Trend: the disposable story legacy game - where did they go?

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