Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Dominion Board Game?

My 10 year old has asked for the Dominion 2nd edition board game after playing it in his board game club at school last year. Can anyone comment as to whether your child has played this game, if he/she liked it, and if there is any "thought provoking" strategy involved or if it's just a matter of luck?

Also: what board games does your gifted son/daughter love to play?

Thanks for the input!

TripleB

It is definitely not a luck-only game - I have played it hundreds if not thousands of times (counting online play against "bots"). If my 10-year-old wanted to play it, I would be on that like a trout jumping to a fly.

My almost-10-year-old's current favorites are

Dragonwood
Exploding Kittens
Santorini
Snake Oil
Monopoly (sigh)

Of these, I enjoy Dragonwood and Santorini, and will play Exploding Kittens and Snake Oil under duress. I played Monopoly with him once the day he got it, insisting on playing with the correct rules (no money for Free Parking and auction unbought properties immediately), totally smoked him, and he hasn't asked me to play it again.

ETA: If he likes Dominion, you might want to also try Star Realms with him. It and Dragonwood have the virtue of being pretty cheap, too.

Taking notes - we love games and are always on the lookout for new ones. I don't have experience with most of the ones above except Exploding Kittens and Monopoly.

Top games in our house with our 9 and 11 year olds -
Exploding Kittens - I don't mind it but it isn't my all time favourite, can result in conflict depending on the group playing but my kids have become better losers through the experience
Qwirkle (we have the travel edition and it is cheap and portable)
Trionimos
Blokus
Code Names

I'll also mention Scotland Yard which is fun but more time consuming so it doesn't get out as much as it might otherwise.

Now off to google some of the above suggestions. Thanks!

9 y/o and 7 y/o

Board Games:
Ticket to Ride
Pandemic
Santorini

Strategy Games:
Star Wars Imperial Assault
Gloomheaven (might be mature theme, fantasy world killing monsters and such).

Trading Card Game:
Magic The Gathering

RPG:
Starfinder - space fantasy RPG based on the dungeons and dragons system. I picked this to minimize fantasy violence.
No Thank You Evil - children theme entry level RPG. Rules are simple enough that the average parent or even older children can run the game as game master.

Out of all these, I think RPG is the best, since children’s imagination are not really bound by rules and can run wild. In starfinder his character is currently a mechanic with a battle drone, that is also the starship’s engineer and science officer. You need to find a local gaming group that’s willing to take younger kids. We were lucky to find a group that welcomed my son with open arms.

Otherwise, I highly recommend no thank you evil. It’s not hard for the parent to pick up and run the game.

No Thank You Evil is great for younger kids, but I suspect that a 10-year-old who enjoys Dominion could jump straight into "real" role-playing games if he is inclined that way. My eldest started playing D&D at 11, I think, and routinely plays with adults and with other teens now.

I remembered a couple more that are big hits in our house - Ricochet Robots and Micro Robots. We have had quite a few big family showdowns with these, including multiple 4-way ties in Ricochet Robots (possible when the last chip drawn can't be played because it has too easy a solution). Ricochet Robots, in particular, has a nice "leveling" mechanism that keeps it from being too much of a runaway victory when people are reasonably close in skill, but not equal.

When I was growing up D&D was all the rage! I never really got into it ...tried it once and those I played with knew so much more about it than I did and were hitting me with all this information that my feeble brain couldn't comprehend.

Love the fact that Dragonwood is only $15. Would you say it and Dominion are different enough that both are enjoyable in their own right? Which do you prefer and why?

Thanks for all the input!

TripleB

Oh, good heavens, yes, you can definitely enjoy both - Dragonwood and Dominion's only real relation to one another is that they are both mostly card games. Dragonwood is a rummy-style game about going into the forest to kill/capture cartoonish creatures. You determine a number of dice to roll for an "attack" by how many cards you play, and a type of attack by whether the played cards are a straight, a flush, or a number of a kind. So it requires some probability counting, some identifying when to hold onto your cards and draw vs. spend them, and some intelligence about what to go after when you do try to capture a monster. Dominion is a mostly themeless deck-building game, where you are trying to buy better cards in your deck and then convert them to points by the end of the game.

If I was at a game night with other adults, I would be more likely to pull out Dominion than Dragonwood, but I could see us playing either. Dominion is a richer experience that you can play many more times without it getting old, especially if you start getting the expansions. (My favorite is Prosperity.) Dragonwood is more accessible to kids. My DS9 is able to teach it to his friends without my help, and I'm sure he couldn't do that with Dominion.

If you like that price point, also take a look at Micro Robots.

My son is too young for these sorts of board games but I LOVE Dominion. This genre of game is called 'deck-building' if you want to read up on it and there's definitely a lot of strategy involved. You guys and your son might also enjoy one called Splendor or another called Star Realms (2 players only).

A couple of games that have had surprising longevity in our house are Labyrinth and Apples to Apples, both of which my kids started on the Jr versions way back (and still use at 11 and 13), but also like the adult versions. Rush Hour is one with longevity and still makes the occasional appearance, too. (3D Hogwarts puzzles are our current new love, though!)

DS also fell in love with Munchkin at a D&D club several years ago (but screen for your tolerance for language, gore and general obnoxiousness). More recently, he's found Space Hulk at his school's games club.

However, his ultimate favourite remains Go.

Space Hulk is a classic! Great game. Very strategic.