this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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Played the first couple scenarios of Gloomhaven jaws of the lion with my partner, which amount to most of the tutorial lol. Last time I spent over a week on a game's tutorial was Persona 5. It's been a bit confusing, slow but also exciting so far.
I think I like the game but I'm frustrated by how the rules sometimes discourage discussion. Really looking forward to finishing the tutorial and doing this side quest my partner just unlocked.
The rules don't discourage discussion. They discourage highly detailed planning. The idea is that you discuss priorities, make a rough plan and then go. I don't know if jotl also has the battle goals and retirement goals but these together with the "don't say the initiative number you're playing" rule, the distinct player decks, and the unknown monster initiatives supress quarterbacking and analysis paralysis.
But yeah. GH is a beast to learn. I think we played half a dozen session before we had the rules more or less down. JotL is supposedly easier in that regard but you shouldn't feel bad if it still takes you a while.
We're a few sessions in now, we know the rules but still often forget things. I'm still finding it difficult to evaluate my cards, both for making my deck and for playing them.
I'm finding the 'discourage discussion' part more of a miscommunication issue. The guide stressed about not discussing details and selecting cards at the same time, and with me having no idea about the gameplay at the time, it just sounded like forcing a specific type of scenario in game theory.
Now that we're more or less familiar with the rules, it feels much more natural. Occasionally we do break the discussion rules though, because we really enjoy highly detailed planning, and there's no Gloomhaven police here to confiscate the game.
Btw JotL has battle goals. Not sure about retirement goals, we each have a pack of cards that we're not supposed to open or read about till level 5.
Considering JotL only has 4? characters it's entirely possible that there is no retirement. IDK
Yep only 4 characters