This is kind of old drama but I was looking for potential father's day & birthday gifts for family & friends and stumbled across this board game called "Secret Hitler"

This 2 and a half year old game has a 4.9 star average across over 13,000 reviews on Amazon and sold 3,000+ copies in the last month alone. As far as I can tell, it's second only to Ticket To Ride as a board game that's both well-reviewed and selling well.

The game is sort of like Mafia, where one player is "Hitler" and a team of hidden "fascists" try to use deceit to install "Hitler" into power in the face of a "liberal" majority that's trying to stop them.

The game's PC way of explaining the Hitler theme is that essentially it's an interactive way to learn how paranoia and distrust empowers fascism, how liberal temptation to use state power to prevent fascism can actually aid it, etc. The game's online rule explanation is even narrated by gigalib Will Weaton

The rules aren't necessary for this thread but if you're curious they're here

So how is a 4.9 star game about Hitler dramatic? Well, about half of the 1% of people who left 1 star reviews are absolutely seething, and people are mad across the spectrum.

First, some chuds can't face the fact that Hitler was the chudmaster supreme and that normal people think Hitler is bad

The immediate appeal to military patriotism isn't helping you beat the fascism allegations Steph...

Some libs are mad because Hitler and the fascists are happy when they win, when really they should apologize for winning and be sad. This game is promoting fascism!

Jewish people with holocaust relatives understandably find this to be a sensitive subject

The sole survivor?

Finally, some 'centrist' equivacators arrive to remind us that both sides are bad

Erm, actually Hitler saved Germany from the communist street fighters, and they're called national socialists not nazis. It was complicated OK?

The main enemy, of course, is other homeless people. How do you survive wiith the police having all quit and moved to the suburbs, the Ivory Towers and gated communities protected against the rampaging hordes of drugged-out lunatics high on drugs that give you superpowers, the churches and synagogues having all closed down because West Coast city is now 99% atheist, government services being a scam, and most remaining ethic enclaves patrolled by armed psychotic neighborhood watch? Can you survive and maybe even go home?

it's fine i didn't actually want to play yu-gi-oh pic.twitter.com/7smmaxGYS4

— yuuko from nichijou (@headfallsoff) May 20, 2024

some of you can learn from this tbh

idk i skimmed it something about a judge making a ruling that disqualified a woman's opponent and she felt responsible for it and started crying

CONTEXT!

Modern Yugioh cardgame is a shitshow and imbalanced to such a degree that that every concurrent generation of cards overpowers the previous generation so decisively that even playing with 5 year old cards is completely unviable in non-casual settings, both in person and online games.

Unlike card games like Hearthstone or Pokemon or Magic the Wokening, there isn't a resource or mana system, which hard-caps and limits the amount of stuff you can do per turn.

If you fulfil the requirements on the Yu-gi-oh card text, then you have the ability to activate that card immediately at no special cost other than the card itself, which means that Yugioh has the capacity to activate an almost theoretical infinite amount of cards per turn,

capped only by certain ingame hardcoded rules such as the limitation of only being able to perform one normal summon of a monster per turn, having your monster or magic zones be finite and so on.

Because of this unique aberration from other cardgames in the world, Yu-gi-oh has developed a multitude of decks which abuse the various mechanics of the game to do really wacky shit, like deck themselves out and burning all of the opponent's 8000 life points all within the FIRST TURN, before they even have a chance to react!

The turbo neurodivergents have studied the blade I mean studied the over 15 000 cards existing in the game and have created combinations and configurations of the game so batshit insane over the years, that the level of play has become an impossible barrier of entry for newcomers and even old Yigioh boomers of yesteryear, who will find to their dismay their old deck of 2005 which kicked butt in Highschool will get OTK's - namely One-Turn-Killed - as easily taking candy from a baby and raping the mother.

The powerscaling is just that perverse, and the commonality of seeing players shit out half of their deck onto the field in one turn, with combinations making turns LITERALLY WITHOUT EXAGERATION more than 10 minutes is grotesquely common, at least in any competitive.

In 2010 games would take average 15-20 turns, now they barely last 3-4 turns, as the right combination or absence of your key cards in your hands can fricking decide the game in the first turn - not joking.

TLDR: go play Pokemon or Magic the Wokening instead.

Compared to other more balanced games like Magic the Wokening, which has various powerscaling formats which permits only certain card types and from certain eras, like the famous Commander format, Yugioh doesn't have an equivalent system.

Some differences between Yugioh and Magic the Wokening videos:

Some fun videos where Yugioh players try to guess what Magic cards are good/bad and vice versa:

Oh and the biggest complaints of the Magic card player is that the fricking Yugioh cards are all novels with tiny text!!

Now Yugioh does actually have a really fun entry level format called Speed Dual! Which is a fantastic and (mostly) balanced format which explcitly calls back to the original series with nostalgia and special duelist cards to activate powerful bonus abilities! All the most powerful cards are excluded and only creative spells and traps are included which kept the format very fun and easy to understand.

The only problem?? Fricking KONAMI, the owners of Yugishit, DOESN'T FRICKING ADVERTISE THE GAME meaning only a smaaaaaaaal minority of peeps are aware of Speed Dual (named explicitly so to make the game faster and easier to learn)

KONAMI's wall of silence is painful when it comes to communicating with the playerbase.

Few gaymestores evenfricking sell Speed Dual products, so peeps don't ever play it.....

Meaning that for the majority of there is basically only one practical format: competitive and casual. Meaning you get r*ped by anyone with even a basic modern Structure deck bough out of the box VS your casual 2015 deck,

or you get baby's 1st vagin@ adventures with its own imbalance issues.

And to to demonstrate how r-slurred KONAMI is in regulating its fanbase, Magic the Wokening has demonstarted it CAN have various powerscaling formats for different eras and so on.

Additionally players have done their own personal formats, where they state only cards before a certain period like 2014 can be used, or create their own special dedicated format like the most famous GOAT-format.

https://www.goatformat.com/

with specific cards banned to create the minimal balance and so on.

Unfortunately these often only work in large dedicated GameShops or boardgame-centers in big cities, and often only in 1st World countries, where a big enough group of people congregate to make the record-keeping of which cards are appropriate for the new experimental format worth it if enough people willingly participate by limiting themselves to cards of previous generations and a local banning-list of problem cards.

As you guys can imagine this completely blocks new people from enjoying the game. Even as far back as 2012, Yugioh players had complained about the new Card-mechanics beco ming more difficult and overpowered.

Now the core of Yugioh revolves around its monsters, and every generation KONAMI would introduce a cool new more powerful summoning mechanic. Now the previous generations of summoning monsters onto your field were quirky but not always optimal and overpowered. But they still increased with power and ease of summoning with each concurrent generation.

The breaking point for many peeps who would become Yugioh boomers, were the introduction of Pendulum Monsters which enabled the summoning of 5 fricking monsters easily in one turn! Additionally this mechanic was very very complex compared to previous monster types, and required actually dueling to understand how WTF they worked, compared to previous monster types which were easily understood when explaining to your friends the game for the 1st time, and from this era on Yugioh would positively bleed newcomers, and the playerbase perpetually divided into experienced players and noobs bouncing off

Now these new powerful Pendulums did have limitations, but even if the Pendulums were restricted, it heralded an era where the game became faster and faster and faster rapidly. It meant that previous generations of monsters which were considered balanced, like the XYZ monsters and Synchro monsters, would become more powerful and faster and easier to summon to fricking keep up with the fricking Pendulums, which further alienated older players which preferred a slower playing style and format.

A lot of people aware of Yugioh exclaim that it was Link-monsters which ruined yugioh into a speeddemon format where autismos shat out half their decks at the speed of greased lightning, all in one turn, which ruined the game.

But it's my personal opinion that Pendulums started the downward spiral from 2013- onwards. 2014 was basically the last time I could keep up and also my university studies became to sternuous to keep up with this new Link shit.

In the online scene the newest Yugitard gayme is called Dualmasters

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1449850/YuGiOh_Master_Duel/

And it fricking sux! The metagame was fun in the 1st year, but like most online multiplayer games, it eventually developed an overpowering Meta against newcomers. Released in 2022, it's now 2 years old and various habits have been developing between plays, and has caused slapfights in yugitard forums over what behaviour is acceptable.

The crux of the slapfight is that people are quitting or surrendering the game more frequent than ever, which is causing annoyance. Yet the nature of modern Yugioh is that power decks and strategies mean that you will sit like a cuck while your opponent builds an unbreakable board, which you have no chance of a snowball in heck of breaking,

Making going 1st perpetually more powerful in the game. Casuals hate this state of the game and tryhards hate the pre-emptive quitting epidemic.

Which brings us to the story of today: Popular Yugituber TeamAPS constantly shares his opinion on various topics in the game and is often met with positive feedback.

But not today!!! This has got to be the most controversial video of TeamAPS or any other yugituber video in memory. And the yugioh community is generally family friendly and non-toxic despite all the fights vs Yugi-Boomers and veteran pro-players, so this video is especially an aberration of controversy!

Now Paul the Yugituber understandably doesn't like his games interrupted and having to go back to online matchmaking, only for half your games being interrupted by the opponent just fricking off midgame,

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND so many peeps are just sick of the literal, LITERAL 10 minute turns opponents take to decimate their opponents.

"I could literally get up, make myself a sandwich and get a bottle of water while I'm waiting for them to finish their 15 minute turn and still wonder why haven't I just surrendered at this point."

Many people, including avid veteran Yugioh players are pretty upset of the state of the game, or at least the state of the Meta and format of the Online Duelmaster videogame.

And I say veteran yugioh players, because you have to be a literal neurodivergent to fricking watch a guy on Youtube ramble on about a Childern's Trading Card Game

They complain that KONAMI takes little action compared to other companies to break this late-stage stagnation as they view it.

"Maybe yugioh shouldn't be a game where people feel like they want to surrender on turn 1"

"The fact that people want to surrender so much in the first place is fundamental proof that Yu-Gi-Oh! is a broken game."

"One step away from Solitaire"

"it already is bruh, the only reason people don't is because those sweaty butt nerds want someone to watch them play with themselves for 20min "

Lmoa. In CounterStrike we blame lag, in Yugioh we blame scripted bots

Virgin sitting like a cuck for 15 minutes waiting to lose, VS Chad pulling out the fricking ethernet cord lmoa

"I love how this whole comment section is mostly in disagreement. Sorry Paul, you're not winning this one." (Paul is the Yutiber)

And that's the problem, Paul is a literal 20 year veteran of the game and has large insight and experience into the mechanics and meta of the game, how to get rid of problem cards, and how to build your deck in preparation for dangerous opponents.

Casual players and even veterans like me, who DON'T keep up with the latest week by week meta get our bussies abssolutely sandblasted if we are even 1 year of meta out of date. The extreme speed and nature of the game has raised the ceiling of difficulty to painful and unfun levels for those even attempting more fun casual decks and strategies.

This divorces the playerbase into the sweaty tryhards and more casuals, or even lukewarm veterans who return to yugioh to constantly find the gamestate unrecognizable.

So what ends up happening is people just instantly surrender when they find their opponents playing the latest hardcore Meta deck monsters, often 3 times in a row if they have to, until they find a more clear casual rogue deck. This has become a frequent happening,

especially in the 2nd year of Masterdual Videogame as the gaymer playerbase became more and more experience and the difficulty ceiling raise in response. I have a friend who player Rainbow 6 and states that in the 1st year where nobody knew what the frick they were doing ,and consequently experiented with diverse and fun strategies, but by the 2nd year as the playerbase matured and the optimal meta was discovered, the game became monotone and stale.

"As long as the one-turn-win is the meta, no, I will not stop surrendering. I like PLAYING the game, Paul, not watching someone else jack off their deck for ten minutes before one-shotting me."

"That's typically my response too, if I lose because I got outmaneuvered then GG take the win. But if I have no options to defend and you're still throwing combos out when you already have the win, then screw you I'm out."

In the 2012-2014 era games could on average still go on for 15-20 turns, with the tides and momentum of the match swinging constantly in the favor of the opponent if even one timely Trap was activated. In 2024 in competative yugioh, the game is so excruciatingly one sided, that games are decided in opening hands. This isn't every single game, and yugoh players can overstate the frequency of these infamous FTK (First-Turn-Kill) matches, but you need to lose only once with your full hand unplayed, to sour over the state of the game

"I couldn't agree more on this statement, if the meta is otk, then no, I won't stop surrendering when they just stroke their own ego for 15 minutes by doing bullshit combos."

"Nah I work 11 hours a day I'm not gonna waste my few free hours at home waiting for someone to stop comboing"

"I'm not wasting my time sitting through a longass combo for a "chance" to counter it. Better off just surrendering and finding a new match. I only get 1-2 hours a day to play."

"This is one of the main problems that drove me away from Yugioh. People scoop? No, it's what makes people scoop ON TURN ONE, no engine, no one card combo, no handtraps, no board breaker. How many card games that you can already tell that you already lose with first hand. You feel like I'd rather GG next game, than trying to fight and see the outcome that predictable. Blame the state of the game not people."

And so the comments and complaints go on and on. You guys get the idea.

The bitching and slapfights in the comments are few, and most are throwing tantrums about how modern Yugioh sux, and how KONAMI doesn't do nay effort to promote lower tier formats, and how they are going to continue surrendering because they belong to the sore loser club!

@Losercel

I sacced a creture, you lose three life, a creature and i untap all my lands

My dear commenters, this is an r-slured concept but its pretty fun. You have been given a scenario and you must achieve your quest of getting marsey a birthday present . I will be the neutral arbiter who will help or hinder you in achieving your goal.

You awaken in your room with pj's on. In the fever dream of a nightmare you had last night, a glimmer of truth was revealed to you; you didn't get your beloved cat, Marsey, a birthday present! How foolish of you! You must get your present before the party starts at noon. You also must get a birthday cake, party decorations, and a clown.

Post your replies in a single comment chain, branching paths will be converged into a single path. Post your comments and I'll maintain continuity as they're posted. If it ends up being too much of a clusterfrick I'll just ignore some comments.

!ttrpg

The story so far...

You started the day by drinking some water from the sink. It was salty. You attempted to whip out your monster peepee, but to no avail. You checked your pockets and found a few items (inventory will be listed at the bottom). You asked your mother to drive you and she said she would for 2 bpp (big person points) which you accepted. You put on your gear and washed your face and go downstairs to get a poptart. While mommy is cooking that, you stole her wallet and hid it in your nonbinary anus before getting into the car and driving to the Gigaplex (a mall downtown). You've entered the Gigaplex and looked around. What you saw was as follows: CLOWN WORLD, Freddy Fazbear's freddy fazbear, Greasy's Breadburger Joint, Shopaholic DX, Mark's Mann's Firing Range, Delicious Doggy, Party City, Hot Topic, a pretty big guy, the food court, and a whole bunch of hylics. [You Are Here]

inventory:

[Mildly C*m-Stained Marvel T-Shirt] - a terribly drawn depiction of you and black panther making out

[Grey Sweatpants] - nothing of note about these, thankfully

[Panama Hat] - This hat kind of looks like a fedora so you wear it

[Camo Crocs] - You forgot to put these on. Wait, no they're on. Frick.

[Morbius Backpack] - You HATE this backpck, but the batman one is missing

[Wallet] - Its one of those privacy wallets with the lock and chain, you got it when you were 12 and its barely holding on with a great deal of duct tape

[Bent Fork] - idk maybe you could use this as a weapon or something

[Flip phone] - also obtained when you were 12, only contacts are your mother and your significant other who's off in china probably screwing massive black bulls

[Marsey Meese Membership Card] - its like chuck e cheese if rdrama invented it, you probably have some free pizzas on this thing or something so its worth keeping around

[Mommy's Wallet] - you cleverly stole this from your mommy and hid it in your gunt. This is probably going to be your main source of cash so good thinking

If you don't know how to give more weight to your argument just hit them with the "I'm neurodivergent and one of my neurodivergent traits is that my opinions are more virtuous than yours" card

2k Points, Dark Angels Inner Circle Task Force

• Azrael [Warlord]

• Terminator Ancient w/ Eye of the Unseen

• Chaplain in Termie armor+Storm Shield w/ Deathwing Assault

• Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon

Infantry

• Deathwing Knights

• 10 man block of Deathwing Terminators

• 5 man block of Deathwing Terminators

• 10 man block of Sternguard

Vehicles

• Land Raider Crusader

• Redemptor Dread

• Stormraven Gunship

Comes in at an even 2k points. Super telegraphed about what I'm about to do aka alpha strike the piss out of you with my Stormraven with Azzy+Lieutenant+Sternguard+Redemptor, 10 man block of Termies+Chaplain w/ Deathwing Assault, and yeet that Land Raider with Ancient+Deathwing Knights with 1 unit of Termies sitting back and plinking with the Cyclone.

I kinda want to drop the Lieutenant for something, but I would have to drop Eye of the Unseen on my Ancient for maybe a Terminator Librarian (for the sustained hits) and either stick him with the 10man block or the Knights and move the Chaplain around to be with the other unit. This seems the fastest way to play as many games as I can in the least amount of time with basically a coin-flip win chance with the least mental load.

Thoughts?

There is nothing within the lore of 40k that would justify the existence of the Imperium on the basis of the fact that the Imperium is inherently genocidal, and in the wise words of the best Star Trek character: pic.twitter.com/k832f8XAuy

— Salamander, The Slayer of Somerton (@Sallymander40k) May 14, 2024

Exactly. There's a point where I feel like if you play the Imperium you need to be willing to just lean in to the fact that you're knowingly playing as the faction that's on the wrong side of history instead of trying to contort yourself into a pretzel trying to justify them.

right now he's also doing a worst board games ever bracket

@sneedman

!chuds !nooticers