[NortySpock]

You're getting some downvotes for this recommendation it looks like.

My personal observations about BSG:

As a traitor-mechanic game it suffers severely if the traitor doesn't know how to play well or if someone gets bored and isn't paying attention.

Again in particular with coop-with-traitor-mechanic games, it is very vulnerable to loud alpha-gamer quarterbacking ("Hey! Everyone needs to support this plan because it's clearly The Best Plan, and if you don't you're clearly the traitor because you're playing sub-optimally.")

It takes a long time, 2 hours minimum and I've been subjected to 4 hour games.

Put simply, it is generally not fun for a rookie gamer.

Recommendation:If this game of cooperative play with traitor mechanic sounds interesting to you, I recommend the game "The Resistance: Avalon", which has similar mechanics but plays in 20 minutes optimally and 50 minutes for a slow game. Compare with 120 minutes to 240 minutes in my experience for BSG.

Disclaimer:I've played BSG twice (same group), I've hated it twice, and I refuse to play it anymore. I do not consider myself a rookie, and I personally prefer shorter (120 minutes or less), simpler games.

[caf]

Saboteur is another simpler traitor-mechanic game with a quick play time.

[tialaramex]

I've played New Angeles which is the replacement for Battlestar Galactica using the Android setting instead of a licensed setting.

I hate traitor mechanics, and I'm not a big fan of the Android setting (Android itself I find not much fun) - but I found the mechanism in New Angeles acceptable. One player did indeed screw everybody else over, and it wasn't the most fun I've had in that amount of time, but I'd do it again some weekend I think.

The popular game I refuse to play is "Firefly: The Game". The friend who owns it says "Well it's flawed but it really captures the TV show". I hadn't enjoyed our first game of Firefly and hadn't seen the TV show, though I had seen the movie, so I watched the TV show. The next time I explained to him that he'd been correct. It exactly captures the TV show, in that the TV show's writer clearly doesn't understand that he's writing a story about the bad guys. Stories about bad guys can be fun. There don't even need to be good guys, there arguably aren't any good guys in "The Wire" for example - but the writer does need to be aware they're telling a story about bad guys. Firefly thinks these people are heroes. And so does the terrible board game.

[dmurray]

That's a very hot take on Firefly. What did you think of Star Wars, a story about jihadi terrorists?

[tialaramex]

Star Wars is the story about Space Wizards right? It's like a Western, except it has Space Wizards for some reason and also the main hero wants to fuck his sister? Some of them were pretty OK, I liked the one where Indiana Jones is captured by Space Nazis. I didn't watch all of them, there are lots and it seems like the quality is very variable.

[eru]

'Secret Hitler' is another interesting variation on Avalon.

I played both a lot, and like 'Secret Hitler' because they pared down the number of game mechanics a lot, and still left a meatier game.