Top 10 Reasons to Not Buy Expansions for Board Games

Daniel here for tabletop for one and my top 10 reasons to not buy an [Music] expansion now we live in this great age of board gaming when there are kickstarters that come with these allins with so many expansions where we have living card games that you can keep expanding add in fin item and all sorts of ways to uh spend our money on the games we have but I'm going to offer you today 10 reasons not to buy an expansion for your games now it should go without saying that you should always research an expansion before you buy it and of course if you have disposable income and plenty of space some of these uh reasons will not resonate with you however I think most of you are in the same boat as me is where I have to consider a lot of things when I buy an expansion and so on to the list the number 10 reason not to back an expansion is is because it may not be designed by the same designer as the main game or let me qualify that and say it may be designed with a team of designers that includes the main designer but it may still be be very well different than the spirit of the game that it was originally designed and so the first game that comes to mind is a game called caverna now caverna has two expansions and this is the uh the Frantic fiends expansion and so the Frantic fiends expansion while I personally enjoy it myself I had to realize the fact that it's designed yes by oua Rosenberg but it's got a team of designers that put a spin on it differently than I think a lot of people expected and so it's you know one of his lowest rank expansions I think it's below a seven on Board Game Geek and a lot of people say just skip it entirely and so I think if I had done a little more research and realized that it's not designed solely by OU Rosenberg who I I highly recommend as a designer then I might have not picked up this expansion and been okay without it granted I still enjoy it it's just not what you expect when you expect an OU Rosenberg design and so this happens every now and then where a publisher will have an expansion designed by somebody else other than the main designer and and sometimes not even endorsed by the main designer and so we'll go on to number nine and number nine is you're not missing out really you're not missing out on an expansion see if you enjoy the base game and you've played the base game you may not need to expand it at all but what the uh companies will try and tell you is that you got to get this now or you're going to miss out it's got all these flashy new things it's going to give you all these extra you know characters or components or whatever it's going to expand your gameplay but you may not even have experience the game we'll talk about that later but I want to tell you don't buy into the fact that you are missing out if you don't order this expansion that nobody has ever played you know so be wary of that and one of the big companies that does that is command games now bear in mind I love command games I have bloodborne I have uh Marvel United and I have several others I love Comm on games I love the the content that they give you but what they will tell you is that you're going to miss out if you don't buy this Edition see the kickstarter edition of Marvel United X-Men came with some extra characters came with the the extra bosses and I think an extra storm character and it so if you didn't buy it or you know order it with the kickstarter you would miss out on those characters you'd still get everything else that came with the game but you would miss out on those characters and so that's what you know that's part of the exclusive content again I'll go into exclusive content more in detail but the Publishers will pray on that you know limited quantities you got to order it now or it's going to sell out this game is hot you know whatever it is they're going to try and tell you you are missing out and so don't buy into that uh you know just don't look at that don't let the Publishers tell you that that's the reason to buy the expansion because really they're just trying to get you to spend money you know it has nothing to do with whether it fulfills some sort of need or desire or you know prevents you from missing out that's that's what they're praying on but really uh they're just trying to make money so don't fall into that trap and with that let's go on to number eight now when you buy an expansion sometimes it won't fit in the box and that may be a problem especially if you have a finite amount of space in your you know your board game area I'm coming up to that point where I'm at critical mass I've had to H find space in my collection for the board games that I've received because I've run out of space and so one of the games that notoriously does that is Clinic look at all this this is Clinic expansions 1 two 3 four and five and six maybe I'm not sure I'm not sure how many I have at this point I had to condense them down but even then I've got some of the expansions in the main box some of the expansions in the first extension and some of the expansions in the second extension there's just not enough room and these boxes are full to the max like you can't press down on this lid because it's full to the lid and so unfortunately there's just so much content and we'll get to like actually being able to play all that content in another Point later but the fact that I can't fit all this in this expansion or even in the main Box means that this is taking up that much shelf space which is shelf space for other games that I could be buying instead and so you really have to take into consideration will it actually fit in the main box and I have to tell you buying a new big box from the publisher to fit everything is not a solution yes it keeps it organized it keeps it all in one place but it doesn't give you any more space and likely gives you even less space so you know do bear in mind that not all expansions fit in the box so do your research and make sure that they do but yeah Clinic is one example Marvel United is another example so is Cerna you know that conon stuff doesn't fit in the Box either and so yeah that that's a lot of space that you're not going to get back because it just takes up that much space so do bear that in mind keep it into consideration when you're buying an expansion and you know maybe it's just not worth it to buy that expansion because it won't fit all right and so we're moving on to number seven and number seven is be aware that some expansions add complexity to the game now Teo to your walking the expansion for it it fits in the box so thankfully actually multiple expansions will will fit in this box but fitting in the box is not the issue it's whether it extends the complexity of the game makes it more complicated makes it take more time to play the game and that may be an issue for you it often is an issue for me I don't like it when expansions make games more complex it it just often means like I said it takes more time to play the game it means additional rules that you have to cover sometimes it's just too much and so you know there have been times where I bought an expansion because I didn't do the research to find out that it adds complexity only to not play with that expansion just because it yeah it just adds too much to it while an expansion may sound cool may sound fun it has more content it may just take up too much of your extra brain power to play the game and you may lose enjoyment of the game all right so for number six we're going to talk about how expansions are more of the same and that can be good or bad so you do have to keep in mind that a lot of expansions only extend the content but really the content is adjacent content meaning that it's similar content to what you already have is it enough is it more than enough to be different that you enjoy it more that it expands your replayability or is it replayability for the sake of replayability and so a big one on that is uh sleeping Gods you know sleeping Gods is a great game I I love this game I've I've played it quite a bit I play it solo so I operate all nine characters I know some people don't like operating all nine characters but I do I I enjoy this game and there's a lot of content in the main box and but I did get it with the expansions see there's an expansion for the Dungeons and look it's still in shrink you know why because it's more of the same yes it's a little kind of different way to do the uh you know the content because you're in dungeons instead of the Overworld kind of thing thing and there's little dungeon maps that you use uh to uh explore and everything sorry knocking everything over populu needs to do his job here all right so do bear in mind that yes it is different content in some ways but it's still more the same you're still going for the totems there's still enemies you fight and and keywords you find and that sort of thing so I haven't yet open this because you know it's just more of the same and I'm still exploring that already and sleeping Gods I haven't got all the totems in the original box and I could add this in and just have it as an alternate way to grab totems but again that's more content of the same now do I love sleeping gods and do I want more content of the same yes that is true and thankfully this wasn't too expensive of an expansion but that may not be for you and you have to keep that in mind is more of the same good for you or not just bear in mind that some expansions that's what they are more of the same so you really have to weigh those options so again doing your research here is going to help all right and so we're halfway through and so the next one I want to talk about is expansions can cost as much as a new game and so you have have to weigh that decision because maybe expanding a game whether you love it or not it may not be worth expanding it because of the cost and you might as well buy a new game if you're looking for a different experience and so one of the games that's you know a big offender in that is Marvel Champions you see you can buy character packs and I own everything of Marvel Champions up to this point except the latest uh Deadpool character expansion so I need to order that one uh but Marvel Champions I don't know if you can see the price tags here but this is from my local game shop that I picked these up because I like to support my local game shop uh Gabby's Olympic card and Comics is such a fantastic shop just putting a shout out there Gabby's a wonderful person a pillar of the community she provides an inclusive space and it's it's just an excellent place to be so I don't mind paying the premium to support her every now and then and uh the premium on this is $17 a pack right now two together that's $34 you could buy a game for that he really could and so yeah this is a bit of a you know bit of a cost here to buy two characters now how many characters do I have I have all of them which means I have dozens of characters and have I played them all no I have well obviously I haven't even opened these so I haven't played all these characters and so you know you have to realize is it worth spending that money to just have it sit there and you know maybe get to it eventually now now Gambit's one of my favorite X-Men so I mean I'm going to play Gambit but it's been sitting there for a month or so and it hasn't been played could I have bought a a different game and maybe you know use that instead of course maybe that would go go unplayed as well but just realize that if you're wanting a different experience then maybe buying a different game is the answer to that instead of adding more of the same so a lot of these points kind of run together you know but just just be aware that you could have the option of buying a whole another game all right so with this next point I'm going to ruffle some feathers here so the next Point here is number four the expansion is not essential okay people will tell you something sometimes then an expansion is essential and the biggest offender of that is terraforming Mars see people will tell you that you should not buy this game unless you get the Prelude expansion with it all right so there's a couple things I'm going to say to that I don't think that Prelude is essential I rarely use Prelude I own it and I rarely use it I bought it because people said it was essential it jumps starts the game but I enjoy that process of building my engine so I don't use it I I think I've used it probably 5% of my total plays and I played this game a 100 times so yeah I just don't use it but on top of that if an expansion is essential you have to ask the question why wasn't it included in the game you know it should be included in the base game if it's essential to make the game work or if a game is broken not terraformers is not broken but if a game is broken and requires an expansion to fix it so is it worth giving them more money to fix a game that should have already been you know ready to go with the base game and I'm telling you no don't do it just stay away from it because you don't need to get the publisher more money if their game isn't already self-contained good to go it shouldn't have an essential expansion but in the case of terraforming Mars I'm sorry Prelude is not essential if it was it should have been included and if it is like if you can objectively say it is you shouldn't even buy this game then if because it should be included with the game you shouldn't be giving more money to the publisher to make their game work so definitely be aware of people saying that expansions are essential to a game then avoid the game you know don't buy the game I I say that as terraforming Mars is my number four favorite game of all time if you think that Prelude is essential for it then don't buy this game because I I don't think that you should spend extra money on it to make it work all right so for number three we're going back to the kicks starter idea of exclusive content See on Kickstarter there's tons of exclusive content sometimes at convention there's exclusive content that you can get and a big offender again for that is Comm on games and I'm bringing up Marvel United once again now this is the stretch goals all right this is the stretch goal box it contains I don't know I I don't know how many Miniatures just look at the back of this box here there's that many Miniatures in it okay this is this is all exclusive content exclusive stretch schal stuff that you can only get if you had back the game or you buy it in secondary Market which I'll come to in a minute now here's the thing if it's exclusive then it's not essential and if it's not essential then you don't need it now do I like this yes I very much like having this content but the cost of it is huge now if you don't know Kaman they have a Kickstarter going on right now for uh DC zombicide the deceased is what it's called and I'm not backing it right now I'm not backing any kickstarters right now but deceased is $130 for the base game and it's going to be almost $100 to ship the game do you know why it's because well yes shipping costs have gone up but comman charges you for their stretch goal stuff in the shipping cost now they don't say that but I'm telling you there's no other reason for the shipping cost to be as high as it is because they give you a big box like this of extra content that's stretch goals that's exclusive that they're going to charge you for it and so it doubles the cost of the Pledge basically so instead of $130 you're going to pay paying over $200 for the base pledge to get all these stretch goals and like I said it might be worth it but just be aware that this stuff isn't essential and it shouldn't be it really shouldn't be what you get with the base game should be enough to enjoy the whole experience so if it's exclusive it's not essential if it's not essential don't get it and don't fear missing out really if you want it later you can always buy it in the secondary Market it might cost a little extra but it'll be better to have played the game to know if you want that and we'll talk about you whether you've played the game later on so yeah I I don't recommend going down this road of buying exclusive content just because it's it's exclusive all right we're at number two and this one's going to be different see I'm going to tell you make your own expansion content for your game games you'll be like no I I can't do that yeah you can you can make your own content one of the easiest ways is to make scenarios for your games just make special goals that you have to accomplish during your game that will change every time you play the game and that'll provide a challenging experience you know there are plenty of times that Publishers will publish scenarios in some sort of expansion box that you have to buy in order to get them one of those is empires of the north they published in an expansion you know campaign mode turns out I hear it wasn't that great but they published one that you had to buy to get that expansion here's the thing make your own you can make your own scenarios but one big one that you can do is you can make your own for Tess now bear in mind this is a review copy of the game all right so bear in mind my opinion of this game which is very high is biased by the fact that I received a review copy but in tesseract I talked about in my first impressions that you should expand this game or the publisher should expand this game however you can do it on your own see the way I talked about making an expansion for Tes RCT is you change the containment Cube board to a different layout maybe have some priorities or change what numbers are going to be used for containment maybe it's not one through six of every color maybe it's you've got to go through this path of containment in order to contain the cubes you can't you have to contain them in a specific order rather than a free form order you could make that on Google Sheets on a Excel spreadsheet it doesn't even have to be you know any fancy Graphics you could just make a bunch of cubes in a grid order however you want on Excel and put numbers in them to indicate what number value of the cubes to accomplish and do it that way it's free it really is it's just going to be the cost of your time which shouldn't be much and the cost of printing it out and assuming you have a printer that's not going to cost much or if you have to go to local printer and we're talking 25 cents you know that is a way to not only save money but be able to do it yourself and it's very creative on top of that it's something to be proud of and then you can publish it on BGG and share it with the community because you know our community is a community of great people who contribute to the community you know there's a lot of people who make fan-made OTAs there's some people who make fan-made content uh one of them is andw Platt he makes player aids for a lot of the games and I think he's done one for nucleum some of the other games like Taiwan tenyu maybe I'm not sure but he's done some for a lot of the games where he does these solo player AIDs that are very helpful to the solo Community you could be that kind of person that does that and I I highly encourage you to do so save your money on buying expansions make your own expansions and sure with everybody else so everybody can enjoy in that and we all shareing enjoyment together all right so I I kind of went off on a rabbit Trail there let's come on back to buying an expansion or not buying an expansion all right so now we're going to talk about the number one reason not to buy an expansion you haven't played the base game or you haven't played it enough see I have War fighter Warf fighter World War II let's see where I can put it here I'm running out of room here all right I have Warf fighter World War II here and I did a tutorial solo playthrough for it but here's the thing I haven't even touched the majority of the EXP expansions see look at all these expansions these are decks of cards all right of locations missions objectives soldiers items equipment all sorts of things that I have not touched I have even more of these that are still wrapped up that are used for this war fighter and for the Mediterranean War fighter and I just haven't touched them I haven't had the time and here's the fact that like this is just money sitting there not not being used will I get to them yes but here's the fact did I need to buy them ahead of time probably not because I haven't played the base game enough to even cover all the base game content and so I have expansions here that I'm not using that's just taking up space they won't even fit in the main box for goodness sake you need this big old Warf fighter chest box to fit all the stuff together and so you're talking about taking up even more space for Content that you may not get to in a very long time and that warrier World War II is my number two favorite game of all time and I should be playing it more often but the fact is is I do this time for this Channel and I spend a lot of time on the Channel that I don't play the games I want to play all the time so you know just be wary of buying expansions for games you haven't played yet or played through enough and that goes for kickstarters because kickstarters want you to go with the Allin they want you to buy the expansions they want you to buy the kickstarter exclusives they want you to get all this extra stuff they want you to spend $400 or even $1,000 I saw there was a $1,000 pledge for something I even think that the uh the new tener adventurers pledge which I didn't back the latest tars by the way you know I I decided to skip the extra content and the new rule books and all that stuff I I skipped it even though 's Adventures is my number one favorite Dungeon Crawler so you know I just realized that I have enough stuff I have enough content I don't need to add more to it but yeah that tener's Adventures the Allin is $1,000 goodness gracious $1,000 you don't need to spend that money on it really buy the gameplay version you know I'm going to be talking about stars of aarius later this week because I've been previewing it on tabletop simulator and I'm going to recommend that you just buy the gameplay version of it it's looks and plays like a absolutely fun game but if you don't you know if you haven't played play the base game then only buy the base game gameplay version of it not even the Miniatures just go with the base level because you don't need all that extra content I don't need all that extra content sorry I'm not trying to tell you what to do I'm just trying to be you know help you be aware of falling into that trap of buying expansions for games you haven't played and don't even know if you like you know just wait take your time there's other time to get it yes sometimes things go out of print but there's always a secondary market and if you look hard you can find other ways to buy it now some of you who do live in other countries that may not be an option and I get it and you you just have to make that decision for yourself you know of course weighing the options and weighing the scarcity of it because I know that sometimes it's not easy to get board games where you live but for the rest of us who have those opportunities to buy them in at any time take that time make sure you enjoy the base game make sure that it's something you want to invest in make sure that you really want to spend extra time extra space extra money extra everything to get those extra expansions especially since you may not play them and so there you go that was my top 10 reasons not to buy an expansion again I'm not trying to tell you what to do you do whatever you'd like to do with your money in your time and space I just hope that I gave you some good ideas of different ways to think about when you buy an expansion and whether or not it's a good idea I'm not a good example of that I've bought expansions that I have not played that sit on the shelf for months and I don't know when I'm to get to them so I'm not a good example of that and I I really should play the the games more often or buy less expansions that's just the way I should and that's kind of why I stopped backing kickstarters I'm going to talk about that in a later video but I'm not backing kickstarters anymore there's just too much that I have coming in and I have too many games to play and not enough time but that's for a video for another time let me know in the comments below how wrong I am about buying expansions uh let me know so glad you joined me tonight and I thank you very much for watching tabletop for one and have a great [Music] night

Channel: Tabletop For One

Views: 4,404

Keywords: Solo Gaming, Tabletop Gaming, Board Gaming, Solitaire, AI, Automa, Let's Play, Unboxing, KS, Kickstarter, Gamefound, Preview, Review, Top10, Top 10, Best, Thematic, Abstract, Strategy, Action, Miniatures, Dice, How to Play, Teach, Tutorial, Board Game

Id: 795CWHQNxNA

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023