JotCast | Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat

Ben Clemens FanGraphs Chat - 6/22/20

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Ben Clemens

2:41

I own a copy of The Stadium Game, which I highly recommend

I don't know why it's only intermittently covered. Sometimes people are all over it, but certainly nowhere near always.

Some of it is that stadium funding is, by its very nature, intermittent.

2:42

It's not an acute crisis like if a sewer line in town breaks

But yes, I'd love to see more written about it.

@RationalMLBfan

2:42

Do you have a preference for physical board games or online board games? And are there any physical board games that translate particularly well to an online format?

Ben Clemens

2:42

Oh my goodness physical by far

2:43

My favorite thing about board games is strategizing and the feeling of having made a good plan

Whether it works or not

But my second favorite thing is often the components

My wife and I took a weekend trip to a house out in the country and brought a game we Kickstarted called Vindication

2:44

And the game is pretty fun, area control kinda deal I suppose and plays quickly, but the highlight is that the game just feels luxurious.

The pieces are cool, there are some metal tokens for important indicators, the cardstock is glossy

It's just great

and really well illustrated

I'm a sucker for stuff like that

As for games that play well online, I actually think Seven Wonders translates well online because tooltips make that game flow much better

2:45

It's otherwise somewhat complex -- there are just a lot of options every turn -- but seeing them written out is nice.

Shout out to Six Nimmt, which is a fun game you can play on boardgamearena that plays well in person but a lot better when the computer automates card placement

In the game you place cards based on a rule, but you have to apply that rule every time and it's a bit tedious

Online it's just like, hey, done

Trent Hauser

2:46

Btw just to be clear I don't consider FanGraphs mainstream yet I don't think....I just think it's nuts that we are talking billions in taxpayer dollars

Ben Clemens

2:46

Oh yeah, I think it's fair to say we aren't mainstream.

If we were, I wouldn't feel a thrill when one of my stories is a link in an espn article, or whatever

I think that within the baseball community we are mainstream

If that makes sense

2:47

But definitely not to the world as a whole.