My history. 2 player, my wife <PERSON> and I. 6 games total. All losses. Tonight, I took my accumulated knowledge from BGG resolved to play better AND have fun. 2 player with expansion. We used all 4 Taoists controlling 2 each. I resolved to take my time and try some new stuff. Starting with red move-other-player (MUCH better) and blue exorcise-AND-village (also MUCH better). For the first time tonight, <PERSON> hit the board. We did not have fun.
What I love about the game. I love the theme. The art is terrific. I'm a big fan of co-operative games and I like the puzzle solving aspect. The different Taoist powers are clever, as are the villagers. I am sincerely motivated to beat it.
What I don't love about the game: see below.
Dreadful rulebook. Let’s start at the beginning. I've read bad rule books. Lots of them. Goa? Massive suckage. Mall of Horror? So bad its kind of funny. But Ghost Stories takes the cake. It is one thing to be obscure, which it is. It is another thing to leave out how to handle important situations, which it does. What puts Ghost Stories in a special category are the contradictions that significantly effect play. Is there a difference between placing buddhas in any empty space and only adjacent empty spaces? Yes. What about the difference in reduce pips to 1 and by 1? Huge. The worst part: the rules contradictions are so significant that they undermine my confidence in the forum.
Uncertainty in the forum. I love BGG. 118
When someone is having problems (like me), the community rallies and really goes above and beyond to help out. Moreso with Ghost Stories. The fans in this forum are really great about posting helpful hints all the way to full blow by blow sessions. It really is amazing. But here's my problem. Confusion in the rules leads to a lack of confidence in the forum. I've read threads where people come out and say "I kick the ass out of Ghost Stories regularly" or "Here is what you are doing wrong". Sometimes, the people confidently sharing their experience realize that they had been playing incorrectly. I just don't know if I can trust what people are writing and I don't blame anyone (except the publisher) because the rules are so misleading. Is this person using the same ruleset as I am? Are they playing it right? Am I playing it right? It's like when I tried to play Descent with 2 players. I'd say, this game doesn't work as written and here's why I think this. People would write back and say, well it’s a great game IF you select the strongest characters, or IF the overlord plays more like a friendly DM, or IF you play with our house rules IF, IF, IF... I lost faith in that forum because I had no idea whether I was playing the same game as everyone else. I really do want the help and people are so generous but I just can't shake the nagging lack of confidence that everyone is playing by the same rules. That stinks.
Difficulty is imposed on you. The initiation level is insanely difficult. There is a variant for reducing difficulty but the rules make a point of actively discouraging you from taking the help. Thanks.
The game is too long for recurring failure. Our games are taking an hour to an hour and a half to play. That is a long time in my otherwise busy life. I could be playing Guitar Hero!!! The failure and pain is constant like an hour of groin kicks on America’s "Funniest" Home Videos.
Overwhelming randomness. For a puzzle game, some randomness is essential to generate a varied experience. In GS however, the random elements are just too dominant and obtrusive. The color dice are too unreliable, the curse die can cause dramatic swings, the card order is huge, some bosses seems much tougher than others, the pattern of the village tiles matters, and even the order and powers of the Taoists seems to make a significant difference. GS is a huge teetering pile of random crap with chaos shoe-horned in at every opportunity. Too much randomness diminishes the significance of your actions and dissolves the illusion of free will.
Plans are transient and meaningless. We would generate little plans. Red will do this, ooh and then green can do this, and ah yes, then blue will then be able to finish that big four black tormentor! Yeah that'll work. The problem is that your planning is a delusion and doesn’t make any difference. 884