Why Eurorails instead of Monopoly?

Eurorails - If you get a few people together to play a game, and you want them all to have fun until the game ends, Eurorails is a much better game for that goal than Monopoly. Why? In Monopoly, in order to get ahead, you have to make other people get behind. That's certainly a valid way to design a game. There are a lot of games like that, and I play them, too. But, there are times when it's simply more enjoyable to have every player continuously working towards his or her own goal. It's true, each of them is essentially racing the others to fulfilling the victory conditions, but in large part there is no politics involved. Lots of planning, lots of time for conversing while others plan, but no messing with others for the sake of being mean, and no need to have your opponents lose something so you can gain. In that respect, it seems far more like you are playing "with" your opponents rather than "against" them.


Magic: the Gathering. Speaking of "with vs. against" I remember a particular time when Paul and I were planning to get together to play Magic and I said something about playing "against" him. Paul pointed out that he really feels like we play the game "with" each other, rather than against each other, because the winning and losing doesn't seem as important as showing each other the decks we've designed, discussing how things work (or don't) together, enjoying the new cards and card mechanics and so on. This is true, actually. Oh, certainly, someone has to win and someone has to lose each individual M:tG game, but when he and I play, it's far more about the experience than the wins or losses.

Speaking of Magic, I bought something this weekend that I thought didn't exist anymore -- a theme deck. I guess this shows that I have really been out of the loop on the Wizards of the Coast product portfolio. Oh, sure, I know a new core set is just a couple of weeks away, but I almost missed my opportunity to pre-order that, and I was completely unaware that there are "pre-con" decks for the core sets. I guess I had better see if they exist for the Expert sets, too. I used to buy every pre-constructed (theme) deck that came out, so friends (like Mike) who play the game but don't buy the cards would have something to play when they came over to game without feeling a need to play really old cards.

This deck surprised me by having more rare cards than previous pre-cons would. Oh, there is still only one of any given rare, but I think I counted four or five rares. I might have to order the M11 theme decks, too, if they are this good. Too bad they don't come with a deck box, but I can deal with that.

Wow, this got longer than I expected it to. Once I start talking about game, my friends....