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by epsylon 4501 days ago
> The problem is that it still has too much luck (dealt hands) to appeal to the German-style crowd

Well it depends, when there are dealt hands, we usually do some kind of drafting with my group (even when it's specifically written in the rules) because it helps dealing with the randomness factor a lot, while still providing the added re-playability that cards add in a game (and other random factors, like dices - for example in Myrmes, where they determine events that are common to all the players).

Agrikola for example features a LOT of cards which add an incredible depth to the game, and drafting allows you to carefully prepare your combos and make sure that you don't get too many or too few good cards. There's randomness in the way the Agrikola board is setup as well, so overall there's a lot of replay value with that game. For me it's one of the greatest example of modern German-style games.

(I mentioned Race for the Galaxy earlier, and it's a card game only, but there's a ton of strategy within it, and drafting + using the provided starting worlds helps mitigating the randomness out of it. (A few patch to the rules can be used as well for experienced players). Sometimes you'll be a bit lucky or unlucky, but the upside is that with experienced players, games are short and luck averages out quickly.)

> I like German games a lot but I'm not a fan of the "if it has dice or cards, it's not worth playing" mentality that I sometimes see. Games have a variety of social purposes. Sometimes I want to play something like Cards Against Humanity and sometimes I want to play Tigris and Euphrates. Ain't nothing wrong with that. (I do get annoyed with the people who only want to play Texas Hold 'em, though.)

I completely agree.