[Question] Board Game Night?

So I came across this program called Vassal, which is sort of a universal table-top program. Some folks use it for pen and paper stuff, but it's mostly used for BOARD GAMES. Yes, it can simulate board games online so we could all play it online. So I'm putting feelers out there for people interested in maybe trying it...

Right now, the two games I'm looking at are...

Betrayal at House on the Hill



This game is a unique Board Game published in 2004 by Avalon Hill. Three to six players take the roles of various character archetypes, such as a Jock, a Final Girl, a Professor, a Fortune Teller, a seemingly sweet little girl or a curious young boy... Each miniature has two different 'characters' attached to it, such as the Scientist doubling as a Preacher Man. Whatever their role, the cast find themselves trapped inside a haunted mansion and set out to explore, with players drawing and setting out floor tiles with each new room they enter.

However, sooner or later, somebody's going to trigger the Haunt, revealing the Mansion's terrible secret — and one of the heroes turns on the rest. A wide variety of scenarios are included with the game — players can end up facing Giant Spiders, Vampires, Werewolves and other monsters, or find themselves playing Chess with Death, suddenly shrinking, or dealing with the house flooding or collapsing into a Black Hole. And since the house is built anew during the exploration phase, every game is a different adventure.

This game is a lot of fun when it goes right, but some of the Haunts aren't as balanced as others and it the game play itself takes a bit of explaining. But once things are going, this game is all about knifing your friends and cursing their name.

Dead of Winter



A survival/horror cooperative tabletop game set in the dead of winter during a Zombie Apocalypse, where players must achieve personal goals and keep the community of survivors alive until spring. Designed by Isaac Vega and Jon Gilmour in 2014 for Plaid Hat Games, it is the first of a planned series of games that uses the Crossroads system.

Can be ordered via the official website or found in your local gaming store. Plaid Hat Games has also put a PDF of the rules on their website.

2-5 players select a Main Objective the group must achieve before the game is over, as well as Once Per Round Crisis Card to resolve before the round is finished. Players select 2 or more Survivors to control on the board, moving them from the relative safety of the Colony and venturing out to forage and fight in the dangerous locations of the town. However, players also have a Secret Objective for themselves to achieve by the end of the game, which could be as harmless as collecting lots of tools, or as malicious as seeking to destroy the colony from within. Food is running short, trash is piling up at the Colony, characters are getting frostbite, and worse, the zombies are massing at the doors and smashing through your barricades. The goal is survival, but not everyone can make it until spring.

This is sort of the same idea, but teamwork is more of the focus... even if you have a betrayal goal, it's in your best interest to work together until you can get away with it.

Ideally, I'd want at least 4 of us before we try this. I'm also up to suggestions of other games (and I'll try to find the module to play it) but let's keep it to games at least one of us is familiar with. I own and have played both of these so I can explain most of the issues (but it's been awhile for both).

DOWNLOADS:

Vassal Client
Betrayal at House on the Hill module (Includes Manual)
Dead of Winter module
Dead of Winter Instruction Manual


And this is the module library, in case you guys want to browse for possible stuff in the future to play.
 
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This sounds like fun, if my comiter can do it. And I'd need to make a Valve account, I think.
No, you wouldn't. Vassal is a stand-alone program, not part of Steam. We'd be using Vent for voice. Also, I need to add links to the program to the main post, don't I?

Alright, we got enough people then... what day is good for everyone? I know Gas and Anna are good most nights around 9pm EST.
 
Most nights after 8 pm EST are good for me. This Friday isn't good and I don't know about Saturday because we have a wedding on Sunday. It's a weird weekend, but after that I'm good.
 
Some of them are always drinking. I've only done such a thing once or twice (and only once where I was REALLY drunk)
 

Dave

Staff member
Am I too late?

I'd play. I'd be down pretty much any night except this Saturday as I'm emptying my mom's house to get it sold.
 
We can have up to 6 for Betrayal but only 5 for Dead of Winter. So if @Dave is in, we're doing Betrayal. But we still need to hear from @MindDetective.

I'd shoot for Sunday (Oct. 11th) at the earliest.
 
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Psht, how come you can't have no life like the rest of us, Keltsy? You and your jetsetting and running around and carrying on with people in real life and things.
Yeah seriously, I can't even have a D&D night without some kind of guilt trip! :p
 
... which would be like 11pm EST. So it really depends on if the folks who have work Monday need to sleep early. I'm not entirely sure how long a 5 man game of ether of these would go and we already can't do Friday and Saturday of this week and I can't do late on Monday because I have a test on Tuesday. So it's ether wait until Wednesday or do a game without everyone and try to get everyone next week for that game.

So I'm thinking I'll do a test game with @Dave, @GasBandit, @Dei, and I on Sunday night at 9 EST (or 11pm if they can stay up late so we can do it with @MindDetective) to see if everything runs smoothly using Vassal (because I'll have to explain how it works) and then we can do a 5-6 person game on Wednesday at 11pm EST with @Celt Z?
 
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