Hobby Games: The 100 Best, a list

[womzilla]

Via agrumer, I find that someone has transcribed the table of contents of James Lowder's Hobby Games: The 100 Best.

Lowder's book is an appreciation of games for people who really love games, written by people who really love games. Basically, Lowder gathered 100 major game designers and publishers and asked them to list three of their favorite games about which they would be willing to write a 500-1000 word appreciation. He then determined the 100 top vote-getters and assigned them to the voters. The resultant list is thus not deliberately "representative", but it manages to include a wide variety of games that are historically important archetypes and recent refinements and perfections. And the enthusiasm expressed in the essays is infectious. Highly recommended if you're one of those people who really loves games, or someone who wants to understand those who do.

Of course, any such list will become what you young hepsters call "a meme".



Italic = played, bold = own, underline = have owned but no longer; † = one of my Top 25 games from my list earlier this year.

Bruce C. Shelley on Acquire †
Nicole Lindroos on Amber Diceless
Ian Livingstone on Amun-Re
Stewart Wieck on Ars Magica
Thomas M. Reid on Axis & Allies
Tracy Hickman on Battle Cry
Philip Reed on BattleTech
Justin Achilli on Blood Bowl
Mike Selinker on Bohnanza †
Tom Dalgliesh on Britannia *
Greg Stolze on Button Men
Monte Cook on Call of Cthulhu
Steven E. Schend on Carcassonne
Jeff Tidball on Car Wars
Bill Bridges on Champions
Stan! on Circus Maximus
Tom Jolly on Citadels
Steven Savile on Civilization
Bruno Faidutti on Cosmic Encounter †
Andrew Looney on Cosmic Wimpout
Skip Williams on Dawn Patrol
Alan R. Moon on Descent
Larry Harris on Diplomacy
Richard Garfield on Dungeons & Dragons
William W. Connors on Dynasty League Baseball
Christian T. Petersen on El Grande †
Alessio Cavatore on Empires in Arms
Timothy Brown on Empires of the Middle Ages
Allen Varney on The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Phil Yates on Fire and Fury
William Jones on Flames of War
Rick Loomis on Fluxx
John Kovalic on Formula Dé
Anthony J. Gallela on The Fury of Dracula
Jesse Scoble on A Game of Thrones
Lou Zocchi on Gettysburg
James Wallis on Ghostbusters
James M. Ward on The Great Khan Game
Gav Thorpe on Hammer of the Scots**
Uli Blennemann on Here I Stand
S. Craig Taylor, Jr. on A House Divided
Scott Haring on Illuminati
Dana Lombardy on Johnny Reb
Darren Watts on Junta
Greg Stafford on Kingmaker
Lester Smith on Kremlin
Wolfgang Baur on Legend of the Five Rings
Marc W. Miller on Lensman
Ted S. Raicer on London's Burning
Teeuwynn Woodruff on Lord of the Rings (this is the Knizia cooperative game)
Mike Breault on Machiavelli
Jordan Weisman on Magic: The Gathering
Steve Kenson on Marvel Super Heroes
Gary Gygax on Metamorphosis Alpha
Greg Costikyan on My Life with Master
John D. Rateliff on Mythos
Chris "Gerry" Klug on Napoleon's Last Battles
John Scott Tynes on Naval War
Erick Wujcik on Ogre
Marc Gascoigne on Once Upon a Time
Mike Bennighoff on Panzerblitz
Steve Jackson (US) on Paranoia
Shannon Appelcline on Pendragon
JD Wiker on Pirate's Cove
Richard H. Berg on Plague!
Martin Wallace on Power Grid
Tom Wham on Puerto Rico †
Joseph Miranda on Renaissance of Infantry
James Ernest on RoboRally
Paul Jaquays on RuneQuest
Richard Dansky on The Settlers of Catan
Ken St. Andre on Shadowfist
Steven S. Long on Shadowrun
Peter Corless on Shadows over Camelot
Dale Donovan on Silent Death: The Next Millennium
Matt Forbeck on Space Hulk
Ray Winninger on Squad Leader
Lewis Pulsipher on Stalingrad
Bruce Nesmith on Star Fleet Battles
Steve Winter on The Sword and the Flame
Jeff Grubb on Tales of the Arabian Nights ***
Shane Lacy Hansley on Talisman
Douglas Niles on Terrible Swift Sword
Ed Greenwood on Thurn and Taxis
Mike Fitzgerald on Ticket to Ride
Thomas Lehmann on Tigris & Euphrates †
Warren Spector on Tikal
David "Zeb" Cook on Toon
Mike Pondsmith on Traveller
Zev Shlasinger on Twilight Struggle
Kenneth Hite on Unknown Armies
Sandy Petersen on Up Front
R. Hyrum Savage on Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (this is the CCG formerly known as Jyhad)
George Vasilakos on Vampire: The Masquerade (this is the RPG)
Kevin Wilson on Vinci
R.A. Salvatore on War and Peace
Jack Emmert on Warhammer 40,000
Chris Pramas on The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Steve Jackson (UK) on The Warlord
John Wick on Wiz-War †

* I think I actually played part of one game of Britannia once while it was still in development--Lew Pulsipher was in grad school at Duke when I matriculated there--but I have never played a full game.

**I have Liberty, Crusader Rex, and Rommel in the Desert, which all have similar mechanisms to Hammer of the Scots--especially Liberty, which is essentially a straight translation of Hammer to the American Rebellion.

*** I actually contributed significantly to the second edition (available only in German) and to the forthcoming third edition. So, go me.

Comments

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

Gacked.

I can honestly say that for me there is no game on this list that is bolded or underlined that is not also in italics.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Not gacking, I'm nowhere near as much a game geek as you -- though I've been RPGing approximately weekly since 1977, I've only played 7 of the games on the list. We tend to make up our own games, mostly based loosely on D&D or GB.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

GB?

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Ghostbusters. A great system for simplicity.