100 Best Games Meme

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

Recently, a book came out where famous game designers talk about their favorite game (that they didn't have a hand in creating). So, of course, there's now:

Hobby Games: the 100 Best meme.



You know the drill - Copy the following list, and mark them up as follows:
Boldface if "I own this game".
Italics is "I have played this game".
Italic and Bold are "I both own and have played this game"

Bruce C. Shelley on Acquire
Nicole Lindroos on Amber Diceless
Ian Livingstone on Amun-Re
Stewart Wieck on Ars Magica
Thomas M. Reid on Axis & Allies
Tracy Hickman on Battle Cry
Philip Reed on BattleTech
Justin Achilli on Blood Bowl
Mike Selinker on Bohnanza
Tom Dalgliesh on Britannia
Greg Stolze on Button Men
Monte Cook on Call of Cthulhu
Steven E. Schend on Carcassonne
Jeff Tidball on Car Wars
Bill Bridges on Champions
Stan! on Circus Maximus
Tom Jolly on Citadels
Steven Savile on Civilization
Bruno Faidutti on Cosmic Encounter
Andrew Looney on Cosmic Wimpout
Skip Williams on Dawn Patrol
Alan R. Moon on Descent
Larry Harris on Diplomacy
Richard Garfield on Dungeons & Dragons
William W. Connors on Dynasty League Baseball
Christian T. Petersen on El Grande
Alessio Cavatore on Empires in Arms
Timothy Brown on Empires of the Middle Ages
Allen Varney on The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Phil Yates on Fire and Fury
William Jones on Flames of War
Rick Loomis on Fluxx
John Kovalic on Formula Dé
Anthony J. Gallela on The Fury of Dracula
Jesse Scoble on A Game of Thrones
Lou Zocchi on Gettysburg
James Wallis on Ghostbusters
James M. Ward on The Great Khan Game
Gav Thorpe on Hammer of the Scots
Uli Blennemann on Here I Stand
S. Craig Taylor, Jr. on A House Divided
Scott Haring on Illuminati
Dana Lombardy on Johnny Reb
Darren Watts on Junta
Greg Stafford on Kingmaker
Lester Smith on Kremlin
Wolfgang Baur on Legend of the Five Rings
Marc W. Miller on Lensman
Ted S. Raicer on London's Burning
Teeuwynn Woodruff on Lord of the Rings
Mike Breault on Machiavelli
Jordan Weisman on Magic: The Gathering
Steve Kenson on Marvel Super Heroes
Gary Gygax on Metamorphosis Alpha
Greg Costikyan on My Life with Master
John D. Rateliff on Mythos
Chris "Gerry" Klug on Napoleon's Last Battles
John Scott Tynes on Naval War
Erick Wujcik on Ogre
Marc Gascoigne on Once Upon a Time
Mike Bennighof on PanzerBlitz
Steve Jackson on Paranoia
Shannon Appelcline on Pendragon
JD Wiker on Pirate's Cove
Richard H. Berg on Plague!
Martin Wallace on Power Grid
Tom Wham on Puerto Rico
Joseph Miranda on Renaissance of Infantry
James Ernest on RoboRally
Paul Jaquays on RuneQuest
Richard Dansky on The Settlers of Catan
Ken St. Andre on Shadowfist
Steven S. Long on Shadowrun
Peter Corless on Shadows over Camelot
Dale Donovan on Silent Death: The Next Millennium
Matt Forbeck on Space Hulk
Ray Winninger on Squad Leader
Lewis Pulsipher on Stalingrad
Bruce Nesmith on Star Fleet Battles
Steve Winter on The Sword and the Flame
Jeff Grubb on Tales of the Arabian Nights
Shane Lacy Hensley on Talisman
Douglas Niles on Terrible Swift Sword
Ed Greenwood on Thurn and Taxis
Mike Fitzgerald on Ticket to Ride
Thomas Lehmann on Tigris & Euphrates
Warren Spector on Tikal
David "Zeb" Cook on Toon
Mike Pondsmith on Traveller
Zev Shlasinger on Twilight Struggle
Kenneth Hite on Unknown Armies
Sandy Petersen on Up Front
R. Hyrum Savage on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
George Vasilakos on Vampire: The Masquerade
Kevin Wilson on Vinci
R.A. Salvatore on War and Peace
Jack Emmert on Warhammer 40,000
Chris Pramas on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Steve Jackson on The Warlord
John Wick on Wiz-War



Not too bad...although I am missing out on a bunch of the more recent boardgames and (of course) the very early old-skool wargames.

I am now adding to the meme:

What's the 101st game that you would've added to this list?

I think I'd add the 18xx series of railroad games. They have a very dedicated following (there are usually lots of dedicated slots for railroad games at conventions) and they've been around for a number of years.

I'm vaguely curious to read the book this list came from now...
Tom

Comments

Ticket to Ride...

[avivasedai.livejournal.com]

zzbottom just taught me how to play Ticket to Ride and it's a fun game - a bit less Machiavellian than Catan, with slight similarities. It takes longer to learn than to play. I would recommend this game.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

101: Cyberpunk
102: Pax Britannica
103: Twilight 2000
104: Nuclear War (the original 'naval war'-esque version, not the perverted new 'magic: the gathering'-esque collector-card game)
105: Rolemaster
106: Third Reich

[bluegargantua]

Hey, you only get to add one.

later
Tom

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

Well, lessee - Pax Britannica and Third Reich are too much of a pain in the ass, and I don't know anybody who lives around here who has that kind of free time, so we'll lose those. Rolemaster? I can't afford all those fucking books, so that one can probably go too. Twilight 2000? eh, it was cool every once in a while, but it's not a regular campaign type thing, so scratch that.

What's left? Nuclear War and Cyberpunk?

...nope, sorry: gotta have both of those. Cyberpunk was Paranoia without the irony and Shadowrun without the stupid, and Nuclear War was the pinnacle of 1980s college-student drinking games. They're both awesome, and they both belong on a list of the top 100. NEENER NEENER.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

Warlock of Firetop Mountain?

[katatonic-state.livejournal.com]

One of our favorites is St. Petersburg. It's just as fun for two players as it is for four. It's just that it's a very different game (but no less interesting) depending on the number of players you have. I'd add this as my #101.

Of course, now that I think about it, I could add at least a couple more to the list easily.... :)

[katkt.livejournal.com]

What's with the "so-and-so on game" format here?

Toon is worth a try, IMO.

For an RPG, I'd add "DragonQuest". Not the best omission, but distinctive.
For a board game, I'd add "Wizard's Quest", which is a bit primitive but has a fond place in my heart.

[bluegargantua]

In the book, 100 authors talk about their favorite game. So Steve Jackson wrote about Paranoia.

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

Hey, Steve Jackson has two favorite games!

[bluegargantua]

He's Steve Jackson, you tell him he can't have two favorite games. :)

later
Tom

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

There are at least two Steve Jacksons in the industry. (The other one wrote the 'Lone Wolf' solo adventure book things.) One of the authors could be that one.

There is a strong anti-Railroad-game bias in the list, isn't there? I'd add Eurorails to correct it rather than one of the 18xxes myself, though.

(Other notable absences I can see include Kill Doctor Lucky, anything in the Indy RPG category, and Risk [If Acquire and Axis and Allies get in, there's no 'too mainstream' rule that can keep that out out.])

[bluegargantua]

I do feel that the selections should have a bit of staying power (or have contributed something essential to follow-on games) and anything in the last five years probably isn't going to cut it as one of the "all-time greats".

But thinking about it. I'd put in Icehouse or Zendo as "recent classics". Risk should certainly get in though and Monopoly probably should too.

In the Indie-RPG category I suspect that Sorcerer should make it in, mainly because it (and Ron) kicked off a wave of indie-game design. I'd say that Dogs or Burning Wheel would probably be a good second choice for games that made something really great out of the indie-aesthetic.

later
Tom

[pawo.livejournal.com]

It looks like I own 19 of those, and have played another 10. That's a pretty good percentage, especially considering that I've never more than dipped my toes into war gaming & tabletop RPGs.

Sporting this icon, I guess I'd have to add Zendo to the list.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

"Warlock of Firetop Mountain?" Ha! That was a British game-book thing, kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure, except with stats and dice and the occasional "You are now fighting a [critter]." I think I cheated like crazy to find out what was going on, because starting over every time you lose a fight is dumb.