Yesterday I attended a board gaming meetup, where I played Battlestar Galactica, and Mansions of Madness. While I enjoyed playing both of these games, the most ‘epic’ game being played at the event was a seven player game of Arkham Horror with all the expansion packs; this took up a sizable amount of space and time just to set-up.
Once the game was over I talked with some of the players about what they liked and didn’t like about the game. Interestingly one comment appeared as both a like and dislike, the game's high difficulty. Some players found it frustrating that their lack of knowledge about what exactly they would be facing meant that they would sometimes be given a skill test with no way to pass, while others found that it added to the flavour and suspenseful horror feel of the game.
This discussion reminded me of Talisman, where again the game is at times just unfair. Personally this is what I love about this game and I always play with The Reaper expansion to maximise the chance of an unfair death! Talisman also has the added fun of both PvP combat and griefing being a serious strategy. I believe that where these games get into trouble is when a player doesn't know what they're getting into. Also sometimes players develop an attachment to their character or equipment making them disappointed when they die, even though plenty of Talisman games are won by replacement characters.
As a final note, while I often hear people telling stories about the time they just managed to win one of these against all odds type games, I almost never hear stories about the ‘fairer’ games.
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