Simulated Cardboard - Click here for Quarantine Resources and Ideas

Due to current global health crises, there is a recurring theme in many places around the internet about gaming online with friends and family through the comfort of your internet and your pajamas (please wear pants!)

This is a Wiki post so that anybody can edit and contribute to


Online Boardgame Platforms - Play almost any game online

“Realtime” platforms expect you to play a single game from start to finish; “Asynchronous” also include the ability to alert you when it’s your turn.

  • 18XX.games

    A website where you can play asynchronous or real-time 18xx games. Right now only 1889 is implemented but more games in the genre have been announced. As to be expected from the 18XX community this is all function over form but handles really well. This is still being developed with regular quality-of-life updates.

  • Boardgame Arena

    A subscription service with many games available with a free account, and some only available with the premium account (only one player needs a premium account for everyone to play these games). When BGA is overloaded, it may sometimes restrict log ins to premium accounts only, but this is uncommon. Mostly seems to be realtime or close to it, but no-deadline games are possible.

    Games Available
    • 6 nimmt!
    • 7 Wonders
    • 8 Masters’ Revenge
    • Alveole
    • Amyitis
    • Apocalypse at the Zoo of Carson City
    • Armadöra
    • Assyria
    • Backgammon
    • Battle of LITS
    • Battle Sheep
    • Battleships Pencil & Paper
    • Belote
    • Blooms
    • Bombay
    • Briscola
    • Bubblee Pop
    • Buttons
    • Can’t Stop
    • Carcassonne
    • Caribbean All Fours
    • Caylus
    • Celestia
    • Checkers
    • Chess
    • China Gold
    • Cinco
    • Circle of Life
    • Clans of Caledonia
    • Color Pop
    • Coloretto
    • Colt Express
    • Coup
    • Dark Agent
    • Diam’s
    • Dice Forge
    • Djambi
    • Dragon Castle
    • Dragon Keeper: The Dungeon
    • Dragon Line
    • Dragonheart
    • Dungeon Twister
    • Elfenland
    • Eminent Domain
    • Eruption
    • Evo: The “Game no Name”
    • Expedition: Northwest Passage
    • Florenza: The Card Game
    • For Sale
    • Four Color Cards
    • French Tarot
    • Gaïa
    • Gear & Piston
    • Go
    • Gomoku
    • GORami
    • Gosu
    • Guildes
    • Gygès
    • Hack Trick
    • Haggis
    • Hanabi
    • Hawaii
    • Hearts
    • Hex
    • Hive
    • Hypnosia
    • Ice Cold Ice Hockey
    • In The Year of the Dragon
    • Incan Gold
    • Innovation
    • Isaac
    • Jaipur
    • Jump Gate
    • K2
    • Kabaleo
    • Kahuna
    • Kalah
    • Keyflower
    • Khronos
    • Kingdomino
    • Koi-Koi
    • Koryŏ
    • KQJ
    • Krosmaster Arena
    • La Granja
    • Le Dernier Peuple
    • Legendary Inventors
    • Lewis & Clark
    • Libertalia
    • Lines of Action
    • Logger
    • Lords of Xidit
    • Lost Cities
    • Love Letter
    • Machiavelli
    • Madeira
    • Mammalath
    • Metromania
    • Nautilus
    • Neutreeko
    • Niagara
    • Nile
    • Nine Men’s Morris
    • Nippon
    • Noir: Killer versus Inspector
    • Not Alone
    • NXS
    • Oh Hell!
    • Origin
    • Outlaws: Last Man Standing
    • P.I.
    • Palace
    • Penny Press
    • Perudo
    • Polis: Fight for Hegemony
    • Ponte del Diavolo
    • Puerto Rico
    • Pylos
    • Quantum
    • Quarto
    • Quoridor
    • Race for the Galaxy
    • Red7
    • Remember When
    • Reversi
    • Roll for the Galaxy
    • Russian Railroads
    • Saboteur
    • Saint Poker
    • Seasons
    • Secret Moon
    • Senet
    • Siam
    • Signorie
    • Skat
    • Sobek
    • Solo
    • Spyrium
    • Stir Fry Eighteen
    • Stone Age
    • Sushi Go!
    • Tablut
    • Takara Island
    • Takenoko
    • Taluva
    • Targi
    • Tash-Kalar
    • Terra Mystica
    • The Battle for Hill 218
    • The Boss
    • The Builders: Antiquity
    • The Builders: Middle Ages
    • The Jelly Monster Lab
    • The King’s Guild
    • The Palaces of Carrara
    • The Ruhr: A Story of Coal Trade
    • The Werewolves of Miller’s Hollow
    • Thermopyles
    • Through the Ages
    • Through the Ages: A new Story of Civilization
    • Tiki
    • Time Masters
    • Tobago
    • Tock
    • Tokaido
    • Tournay
    • Troyes
    • Twin Tin Bots
    • Tzolk’in
    • Uncle Chestnut’s Table Gype
    • United Square
    • Veggie Garden
    • Xiangqi
    • Yahtzee
  • Boardgamecore

    Free, four games, with Food Chain Magnate being the most popular. Asynchronous.

    Games Available
    • Antiquity
    • Food Chain Magnate
    • The Great Zimbabwe
    • Wir Sind das Volk
  • Boardgaming-online

    Free. Despite the name, this is exclusively for Through the Ages: A New Story. A slightly better option than Boardgame Arena for this one game, but not as good as the official app. Asynchronous.

  • Boite a Jeux

    Free. Asynchronous. A premium subscription allows auto-refresh for pseudo real-time play and is necessary for email notifications. (Free subscription is supposed to get 1 or 2 emails a day but I have not seen this actually work). Move timer ranges from 12 hours to 7 days.

    Games Available
    • Agricola
    • Alchemists
    • Alhambra
    • Amazones
    • Bangkok Klongs
    • Bruxelles 1893
    • Button Up
    • Card City
    • Cephalopod
    • Cities
    • Concordia
    • Deluxe Camping
    • Deus
    • Diaballik
    • Die Burgen Von Burgund
    • Dixit
    • Dorix
    • Dragon Face
    • Droles De Zebres
    • Dvonn
    • Dungeon Lords
    • Dungeon Petz
    • Dungeon Twister
    • Exxit
    • Finstere Flure
    • Ginkgopolis
    • Gipf
    • Jarnac
    • Kabaleo
    • Kamon
    • Kanban
    • Khitan
    • La Guerre Des Moutons (wooly Bully)
    • La Guerre Des Moutons 2
    • Million Club
    • Mykerinos
    • Myrmes
    • Nations: The Dice Game
    • Palmyra
    • Pax
    • Pünct
    • Rallyman
    • Romans Go Home!
    • Sarena
    • Siam
    • Splits
    • Shazamm
    • Tatoo Turtles
    • The Boss
    • Torres
    • Town Center
    • Trajan
    • Twin Tin Bots
    • Tyrus
    • Tzaar
    • Tzolk’in
    • Unanimo
    • Vanuatu
    • Yinsh
    • Yokai No Mori
    • Zertz
  • Isotropic

    Free. Innovation only. Includes expansions 1-3, unlike Boardgame Arena.

  • Jinteki.net

    Free. Android: Netrunner. Real-time.

  • Tabletop Simulator

    Steam. Costs ~£16 one off purchase, half price sales 2-3× a year, discounted four-packs if you don’t already own it. Plenty of free games in the Workshop, or some paid for games in the DLC (only one player needs to purchase a game for everyone to play these games). Realtime.

  • Tabletopia

    Many free games, some require payment

  • Vassal

    Free, with several thousand games available. Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux only, no mobile platforms. Asynchronous.

    Games Available

    A to Z:

    Until someone else compiles a comprehensive list, here are the ones made and vouched for by Benkyo:

  • Yucata

    Free. Asynchronous.

    Games Available
    • 7 Steps
    • A Few Acres of Snow
    • Alchemist
    • Antike Duellum
    • Argo
    • Arkadia
    • Arktia
    • Aronda
    • Atacama
    • Atlantida
    • Atoll
    • Atta Ants
    • At the Gates of Loyang
    • Attika
    • Automobiles
    • Awale
    • Balloon Cup
    • Bangkok Klongs
    • Black Friday
    • Bruges
    • Cacao
    • Call To Glory
    • Campaign Manager 2008
    • Can’t Stop
    • Capt’n W. Kidd
    • Carcassonne H&G
    • Carcassonne South Seas
    • Carolus Magnus
    • Carpe Diem
    • Carson City
    • Carson City Cards
    • Castle Rampage
    • Chakra
    • Chinagold
    • City Blocks
    • Claim It
    • ConHex
    • Down Under
    • Dragonheart
    • Drako
    • Egizia
    • El Grande
    • Era of Inventions
    • Famiglia
    • Fantasy Dice Battles
    • Fearsome Floors
    • Finca
    • Firenze
    • First Class
    • Forum Trajanum
    • Founding Fathers
    • Four in a row
    • Glen More
    • Gobang & Gomoku
    • Ground Floor
    • Guildhall
    • Hacienda
    • Hadara
    • Hawaii
    • Helios
    • Hellas
    • Hexxagon
    • Hey, that’s my fish
    • Hunters and Scouts
    • Imhotep
    • Imhotep-Duel
    • Industrial Waste
    • Jaipur
    • Just 4 Fun
    • Just 4 Fun Colours
    • Kahuna
    • Kamisado
    • Kanaloa
    • Kashgar
    • King of Siam
    • La Granja
    • La Isla
    • Las Vegas
    • Lemminge
    • Lords of War
    • Luna
    • Macao
    • Machi Koro
    • Maori
    • Masons
    • Morris
    • Mount Drago
    • Mystic Vale
    • Nations: The Dice Game
    • Nauticus
    • Navegador
    • One-Eye
    • Oracle of Delphi
    • Oregon
    • Othello
    • Packet Row
    • Pandoria
    • Pax Porfiriana
    • Pergamon
    • Polis
    • Pompeii
    • Ponte del Diavolo
    • Port Royal
    • Puerto Rico (Cards)
    • QANGO
    • Race
    • Rajas of the Ganges
    • Rapa Nui
    • Rattus
    • R-Eco
    • Red7
    • Richelieu
    • Roll through the Ages
    • Rose King
    • Russian RailroadsBETA
    • Saint Petersburg
    • Santa Cruz
    • Santiago de Cuba
    • Schweinebande
    • Sekigahara
    • Shanghaien
    • Six
    • Skyline
    • Snowdonia
    • Sobek
    • Space Mission
    • Spexxx
    • Steamrollers
    • Sticky Fingers
    • Stone Age
    • Storm
    • Sudoku Moyo
    • Tally Ho!
    • Targi
    • Terra Mystica
    • The Castles of Burgundy
    • The Castles of Burgundy (Cards)
    • The Great City of Rome
    • The Hanging Gardens
    • The Palaces of Carrara
    • The Speicherstadt
    • The Voyages of Marco Polo
    • Thunderstone
    • Thurn and Taxis
    • To Court the King
    • Torres
    • TransatlanticBETA
    • Trias
    • Twin Tin Bots
    • Two by Two
    • Tyrus
    • Ulm
    • Valletta
    • Vikings
    • Vinci
    • VOLT
    • Völuspá
    • War Chest
    • Way of the Dragon
    • Yspahan
    • Yucata
    • Zooloretto the dice game

Boardgame Apps with Remote Play

Search for these in the app store or on steam. Requires purchase for each player.

Games Available
  • 1775: Rebellion - Steam
  • 1812: the Invasion of Canada - Steam
  • Abalone - Steam
  • A Brief History of the World - Apple
  • Among the Stars - Apple/Android
  • Antihero - Apple/Android/Steam - This isn’t technically a boardgame, as it’s only available as an app, but it plays just like one!
  • Ascension - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Blood Bowl - Steam
  • Brass - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Castles of Burgundy - Android
  • Castles of Mad King Ludwig - Android
  • Cthulu Realms - Steam
  • Galaxy Trucker - Android/Steam
  • Hive - Steam
  • Jaipur - Apple/Android
  • Le Havre - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Maquis - Android
  • Medici - Apple
  • Mystic Vale - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Onirim - Android
  • Pandemic - Android
  • Patchwork - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Potion Explosion - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Ra - Apple
  • Race for the Galaxy - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Sentinels of the Multiverse - Steam
  • Small World - Steam
  • Space Hulk - Steam
  • Star Realms - Android/Apple/Steam
  • Suburbia - Android
  • Terraforming Mars - Steam
  • Through the Ages - Apple/Android/Steam
  • Tigris & Euphrates - Apple
  • Tikal - Apple
  • Twilight Struggle - Apple/Android/Steam

Remote Play - Doesn’t require owning the game to play

Remote Play - requires one player to own the game

  • Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

    This includes all the resources except the scenario book, allowing all players to access everything they need to play along. The owner will have to read out some text.

  • Welcome to your perfect home

    This app acts as an alternative to the paper needed for the ‘write’ element of the game, which also helps calculate the scores. One player is required to have the cards.

Print & Play - May require printer

PnP games can use a lot of paper & ink, and thus become quite expensive. Please always remember to check the files for how much is required prior to printing, and consider the amount of paper/ink/cutting time you will need. For convenience, we’ve tried to restrict this list to PnP games that only require a modest amount of printing and cutting.

Megagames - Go big AND stay home

Solo Games

Other Related Conversations


Please feel free to edit this post to add below if you’d like to find a player or a group:

Find a Player

Find a Group

pillbox - US Central Time (UTC-5)

I’m interested in playing in the US evenings. Typically I’m available between 9-midnight US Central (0200 - 0500 UTC)
Prefer Discord voicechat or similar.
I own TTS. Willing to play on on Yucata, BGA, Boite a Jeux as well.

Contact: direct message me here on the forums and we can coordinate other communication from there.

Games of interest right now (not exhaustive):

  • Quacks of Quedlinburg (TTS or other)
  • Root (TTS)
  • The Voyages of Marco Polo (TTS or Yucata)
  • El Grande (TTS or Yucata)
  • Chicago Express (TTS)
  • Summoner Wars (TTS)
  • Rallyman GT (TTS)
  • Lord of Vegas (TTS)
  • Fleet (TTS)
  • BattleCON (TTS)

RogerBW - UK time (UTC+0/+1)

Interested in playing in UK daytimes and evenings - daytimes have to fit round work, evenings may have other games in them. Generally 1700-2200 is good (1800-2100 UTC in northern summer).
I can do chat via a private Jitsi server (if your machine is reasonably powerful to run that and TTS at the same time) or Teamspeak. Not a Discord fan.
I know TTS reasonably well and I’m happy to take you through the basics of using it.

Always up for trying something new. Some games I know pretty well on TTS:
Rallyman
Rallyman GT
Augustus
Baseball Highlights 2045
Firefly
Leaving Earth
Pirate 21
Renegade
Talon
Xenon Profiteer

and that pretty much matches my taste in games, usually medium weight and dripping with theme. See Firedrake on BGG for more.


mr.ister - CEST time (UTC+2)

I’m mainly interested in asynchronous play on platforms like Yucata/BGA/18xx.games/Vassal without too much time pressure. I’m usually able to take my turn several times a day during (European) daylight hours and evenings. It’s not that relevant to async play, but since I am a bit self-conscious about my proficiency in spoken English, I prefer text to voice chat.

I am really excited to get into 18XX games and am familiar with the rules of 1889 but have never played an actual game. I tinkered around with 18xx.games in the (multi-handed solo) hotseat mode and it seems to do its job pretty well, so I would love to try that! Also itching to try Food Chain Magnate on Boardgamecore or Pax Pamir 2nd Edition, Pax Renaissance and Root which are all available on Vassal.

However, I’m also pretty much open for anything asynchronous, so please feel free to hit me up via direct message!


2 Likes

Tabletop Simulator Recommendations

Yashima's Recommendations

I also own several of the DLCs:

  • Zombicide: we’ve played this one more than any other game on TTS, it is not a hard game, the scripting for the setup is done well and the minis are fun to handle.
  • Bloodrage: works really well, it took me a while to learn the rules because none of us actually own the physical game
  • Wingspan (looks really beautiful but haven’t played yet, scripting looks really good)

I have a few more DLCs due to sales but haven’t even had time to look at Viticulture, Cosmic Encounter, Xia and The Captain is Dead.

My personal favorite of all these games on TTS is Spirit Island. The scripting of that module is great, just the right amount of support to setup a game and do your turns. I’ve played this a bunch solo but also as 2 player game. There is a module that adds the first addon and way back when there were already test versions of the new spirits of the Jagged Earth addon that should be out this year…

Malkav11's Reccommendations Part 1

So, here are some recommendations from me for Tabletop Simulator mods.
First off, I recommend the unofficial utility TTS Backup: https://www.nexusmods.com/tabletopsimulator/mods/263
TTS has kind of a weird structure for mods where the actual mod is in significant part a bunch of pointers to files that are hosted elsewhere and pulled in just-in-time fashion when needed. (They are then cached if you have caching turned on.) This has a few implications. One is that it can take a little while to first load mods and stuff in bags in mods, especially if either the host or your connection is slow or overloaded. Another is that just because the mod exists and is still hosted on the workshop does not necessarily mean that all the files it uses are still present, and you won’t necessarily become aware of missing files just loading the mod initially. Thirdly, it is possible that you can use and enjoy a mod that is intact to start with and have that situation change. TTS Backup will look at all mods in your TTS mods folder and identify every file they use along with URLs, etc and then you can either individually download those files to the appropriate spot or one-click download the lot, which is highly useful to make sure you have everything before you play, and continue to have them going forward. It can also create backups of said mods as a single file with all images etc in one spot for things like passing to friends or archival, that kind of thing. But mostly I like to preload all the mod content.

Mods I have personally enjoyed :
Darkest Night (DLC) : https://store.steampowered.com/app/433520/Tabletop_Simulator__Darkest_Night/
An excellent and complete implementation of the first edition of Victory Point Games’ amazing cooperative/solo game of fantasy guerrilla warfare against a tyrannical necromancer. It’s long enough that you might prefer to play it solo, but you should definitely play it. And use all the expansions. Every one enriches the experience and works seamlessly with the rest of the content.
Also, use the following mod, which requires DLC ownership: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1319050327
This updates the mod to include all the content that the second edition added, if not the improved art.

Eldritch Horror : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=841979405
Most people seem to agree Eldritch Horror is essentially the ur-version of the classic Fantasy Flight Arkham Horror pulpy Lovecraftian adventuring gaming model (though there are certainly Arkham Horror 2.0 mods as well). This mod includes all 8 official expansions and a bunch of (initially separated) fan content. There’s scripting to set up a specific Ancient One or randomly select one, and each investigator sheet has a button to grab all their associated gear, standee, etc. (Though these break if you load a save, seemingly.) There are also some nice touches like dice that can be swapped to blessed or cursed versions to make it easy to read what results are successes while zoomed out. This is probably not your mod if you’d rather play the game with just one or two of the expansions, though, as all the official content is included by default. (Personally, I don’t think this is an issue - the main problem in real play is investigator-relevant decks being so enormous they’re difficult to work with. Not a problem here.) This is a pretty chunky mod and you may have some trouble loading all the images etc. See above re: TTS Backup.

Legendary Encounters: Alien : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2035047404
Upper Deck’s (semi)coop deckbuilder, with expansion content, including some basic setup scripting (though, annoyingly, it triggers on mod load instead of being attached to a button) to automate the scenarios. You’ll need to either download the rulebook separately or set up a tablet object in the mod to load it. Still, nice atmosphere and a really solid game. And playing virtually removes one of my top complaints about the physical game - the cards being remarkably cheap quality material. (There are also mods for Predator, Firefly, and X-Files Encounters available from various modders, but this is the only one I’ve personally played on TTS.)

Sentinels of the Multiverse : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=768617500
Greater Than Games’ classic superhero coop card game plays very well in the confines of Tabletop Simulator. If you’re looking to play the official content, I highly recommend the official dedicated application: https://store.steampowered.com/app/337150/Sentinels_of_the_Multiverse/
which is fully rules-enforced and automated, has great music and cool effects, and, you know, is actually licensed. The two selling points of going this route are 1) playing with people you can’t talk into the app and have TTS, and 2) the really quite strong (and extensive) fan expansion The Cauldron, which is fully implemented in this mod (but on the other side of the table so there’s no confusion). You could also potentially grab other fan content elsewhere on the Workshop, but I can’t vouch for any of that. Edit: This mod doesn’t come with the actual Sentinels rules, but there’s some references. If you’ve never played before you’ll want to find those. If you’ve played as much as me, there’s enough to get by.

To Be Continued w/ mods for games I can vouch for, but whose mods I’ve just poked at and look cool.

Malkav11's Recommendations Part 2

Games I’ve Played But Not on TTS
Kemet - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126656464
Matagot’s classic area control game of feuding Egyptian gods, well loved by SU&SD in base form. The above mod includes the expansion Ta-Seti which adds black power tiles, some new cards of each type, new rules about turn order, and a Ta-Seti board where you advance priests for various rewards (possibly at least one other thing I’m forgetting), all modular, as well as the Cyclades-Kemet crossover monster tiles and some promos. Despite the title of the mod, it does not include newer expansion Seth. None of the other mods on the workshop include expansions at all, though. Personally, I don’t know that every module brings that much to the table, but it’s a nice option. (I did technically use a similar module to run a play by forum game elsewhere but it doesn’t appear to be on the workshop anymore.) You can also find modules for Matagot’s other related games Cyclades and Inis, but I have neither played those games nor their mods.

Arkham Horror LCG : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1516223037
SU&SD top game Arkham Horror LCG in a ludicrously gorgeous, well thought out and content rich mod, featuring every official FFG release as well as dozens of fan-created scenarios, all packaged sensibly and with tons of cosmetic touches none of the other mods I’ve recommended so far have gone to the trouble of. Scripting. An excellent clean deck-building setup. It’s even got a function to import decks from ArkhamDB. I have seen few TTS mods this impressive. (Go figure, it’s from a professional graphic designer.)

Mansions of Madness 2E - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1845500233
The first of Fantasy Flight’s “dungeon crawlers” to convert entirely to app-driven coop. A much more focused, narrative-oriented, “house scale” take on Lovecraftian adventuring. There are a bunch of Mansions of Madness mods in the workshop, but the above is the only one to include all current expansion content and is reasonably well set up and has the necessary rulebooks. Note that the die roller needs to be clicked a number of times in rapid succession equal to the number of dice you are trying to roll (this confused me greatly at first). Note that you will need the official app, either on a mobile device or via Steam. (You can share the app screen with other players via something like Discord if you so care to, if you do it on Steam.) This fan-made app will use the official app assets to let you run fan-made scenarios: https://github.com/NPBruce/valkyrie/wiki
If for some reason you want to run the questionably balanced one-versus-many first edition, you can find a mod for that here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1447150782
but I have no idea how intact or usable it is. You won’t need it for the 2E mod as all the content that was made compatible with 2E is already in that mod.

Descent 2E - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1443783034
The campaign-oriented second edition of Fantasy Flight’s well loved fantasy dungeon crawler. This is where things start getting complicated. There are a ton of Descent 2E (and a couple of 1E) mods, separated into two basic camps. I think camp one, which focuses exclusively on the app-driven coop Road to Legend mode, is best represented by the above linked mod, which is sensibly laid out, nearly content complete (it’s not quite got Lost Legends but it’s being actively maintained and that is on the development roadmap), and has some fancy scripting features to support Road to Legend play. Personally, this is the way I would recommend playing. Then there’s camp two, who would like to play the game as originally conceived, with an Overlord player versus one to four hero players. Since the game continues to come with Overlord materials and the app merely draws from published expansion tiles/monsters/etc to work, camp two modules are still compatible with Road to Legend, but they haven’t been set up to optimize it, instead sporting features like hidden Overlord play areas, prebuilt quest maps, and cheat sheets of what monsters have what stats and abilities for monster selection. From what I can tell, this mod: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1371901280
seems like the best bet for this style of play. It appears to be fully content complete and sports many of the niceties I just mentioned, including some really impressive 3D models and terrain features, and, unlike most camp two mods, it has quest guides for all expansions. (Which are, you know, kind of required.) One potential downside is that the setup isn’t immediately intuitive. It looks like if push comes to shove you can probably just ignore the (apparently fairly extensive) scripting and manually set things up, but I wasn’t 100% clear on what, for example, toggling expansions as “selected” did.

Imperial Assault - …gosh.
The improved, Star Warsy take on Descent. This is even more complicated, and I honestly can’t decide on a single recommended mod. We have the split again between coop app-oriented (or if you want, Redjak’s Automated Imperial, in most of them) mods and ones designed for playing with an Imperial player, plus of course Imperial Assault has the fully PvP skirmish mode which has entirely separate mods. (here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2058709108 . I have never played skirmish, but have at it.). The trouble is, there are three mods I’d potentially recommend, none of which cover all bases. 1) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2053535831 an attractively laid out, helpfully structured coop mod with both LOTA and Redjak support, but minimal scripting. 2) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1595192931 a similar coop mod with heavy scripting but a few less niceties in other regards. 3) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2031812602 an Imperial player focused mod with a good setup and scripting but no quest guides (these are present in both of the above mods and can be grabbed, saved, and dropped in, though.).

Gloomhaven - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1301493206
Gloomhaven really needs no introduction at this point. This is a heavily scripted module based on the updated printing with the expansion etc, officially permitted by Isaac himself.

Mage Knight - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1721301081
Vlaada Chvatil’s intense, extraordinary solo/coop/PvP fantasy exploration and conquering game based on WizKids’ universe for their collectible minis games. Just short of Gloomhaven as one of my favorite games of all time. I highly recommend playing it either solo or coop, as the PvP play may feel a bit unfair at times but it is an incredible journey with friends on your side. This module is one of the most heavily scripted and customized I have seen on the workshop, even going as far as having menus. It also features all official content as well as some fan authored cards, scenarios and a new Mage Knight. If you’d prefer a more hand-operated take, there’s always https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1816385224
It still has some scripting, but much less so by design. And it should be much easier to put other custom content into if you so desire.

Glorantha: The Gods’ War - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2044788517
Sandy Petersen’s followup to Cthulhu Wars, which Quinns recommended in his review on the site. It’s a little more involved, a little more thematic, and of course draws on the long running Glorantha setting’s mythology rather than Lovecraft and his imitators. This mod is not as complete as I would like - it’s just the base box currently - but at least it’s out there. (note that there is also a similar Tabletopia version). And the creator does want to add the expansions once he has access to that content.

Chaos in the Old World - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409275067
Eric Lang’s classic asymmetric area control game of the horrific chaos gods of Warhammer Fantasy competing to destroy the world. I don’t have that much to say about the mod, apart from appreciating the models, but given how thoroughly out of print this one is, it’s nice that people can play it on TTS.

Dice Throne - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=908560170
I really love this dicey game of dueling fantasy champions. This is the official, scripted mod from the creators. Unfortunately, they’ve only seen fit to include a partial roster of the heroes and have requested that people not upload a full set, but maybe there’ll be a paid DLC someday or something. (You may see mods occasionally that have more heroes. I leave to your own conscience whether you snag them.)

Bargain Quest - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1878525829
Jonathan Ying’s excellent game of competing selling gear to fantasy adventurers to deal with the problems plaguing your town. This module supposedly has all expansion content and some light scripting.

Apocrypha - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1916595575
Lone Shark Games’ amazing urban fantasy card questing/deckbuilding game (with a spot of dice manipulation). This module appears to be content complete but is primarily set up for solo play. It looks like if you want to do larger groups you’d probably have to export the actual game content to a new setup. (You bought this in Lone Shark’s stay at home sale, right? You really should have.)

Forbidden Stars - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=721126012
FFG’s sadly defunct Warhammer 40K naval-scale strategy game, loosely based on their old Starcraft boardgame (which you can also find for TTS). This is a remastered setup that appears to stick to the official content, but you can also find fan races elsewhere. (Since Forbidden Stars sadly never got expanded.)

Tash-Kalar - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1436880205
Vlaada Chvatil’s brain-burning arena conflict game, weirdly both abstract and thematic fantasy at once. This mod includes all three expansion factions and quick setup for the three play variants.

Valeria: Card Kingdoms - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1535392983
If you’re familiar with Machi Koro (or, originally, Settlers of Catan), Valeria: Card Kingdoms is a deeper, more varied take on similar gameplay concepts. (I like it much better.) This module has the first two boxed expansions and 6 small card packs. There’s been at least one expansion since with a few more card packs and it’s not clear to me if this module will be updated to include them or future content, but I also don’t think there’s a more complete mod currently.

Bonus - mods that appear to be well made for games I want to try but can’t vouch for yet:
Middara - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2016593204
Officially endorsed, in beta. Looks really well done.
Aeon Trespass: Odyssey - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1957681721
Official playtest mod. This game looks incredible and I can’t wait for it to ship.
Kingdom Death: Monster :
I can’t imagine playing this game in real life, but there are several really elaborate, heavily scripted mods. Not sure which is best but here’s a couple I’m looking at - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1284555889
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1652286924
Manuals that might be needed? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1695200466
Mechs vs Minions - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=824380831
Always wanted to try this. Scripted.
The King’s Dilemma - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2016229325
Quinns really made me want to play this but my IRL group is 3 tops. TTS, I should be able to swing more.

Too Many Bones - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2034841043
(This appears to be the most complete mod so far.) I have this on the way from Kickstarter…sometime. In the meantime, TTS seems to be a fairly robust way to try things out.

IssiNoho's Recommendations

If you’re finding yourself trying to coerce some friends and family into using TTS, here’s my list of well-made mods that’ll help you teach some more gateway stuff. The faff of trying to move the bits where you want them to go is one of the biggest barriers I’ve found, so good scripting, and good layouts really help.

Dominion - Definitive Script - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1736622841
It’s so easy to teach, a great intro to deckbuilders, and this mod has awesome scripting. Click on the decks you want to play, click start and everything else is hidden. Hands are dealt automatically, and if you play your cards in the central area, cleanup, discard and shuffles are all automated. I’ve tried a lot of Dominion mods and this is my favourite.

7 Wonders Duel - Scripted and Automated Scoring - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2006684694
It’s such a good two-player game, and this layout specially done for TTS makes it so easy to play. Everything’s automated, the game’s simple to teach, and there’s a reason it’s so high up the BGG rankings.

Clank! Scripted - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=912353521
Clank! is so much fun, and is a nice segue from deckbuilding to boardgame. The scripting really helps with calculating your values to spend each hand, simulating the dragon attacks for you, automatically adding damage etc. Over the course of a game it can easily take 15+ minutes out of the time you’d be doing things manually.

Lords of Waterdeep - Scripted - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1612987074
Stone Age is my favourite intro to workerplacement, but the combination of the D&D theme and the great scripting mean I tend to choose this for TTS. Clean-up is a nightmare in worker placement in TTS when you’re trying to gather workers back, cubes, god-knows-what else. This mod has a ‘retrieve workers’ button, and although it’s not the same as the real game, uses numerical counters instead of cubes for resources. Round starts are automated, so is dealing and replacing quests. Awesome stuff.

Cards Against Humanity (scripted) - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=779344331
I know it’s not everyone’s favourite, but there’s a lot of people out there who’ve played this, and if they haven’t it’s easy to teach and the scripting makes playing really easy. It will shuffle played cards and reveal them at once, and let the chooser place a token to show the winner. This layout even has arrows drawn on the table to show direction of play.

Battlstar Galactica - Scripted Complete Edition - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2064475872
A great hidden role game with interesting mechanics, and good interaction between players to get over those ‘first time on Discord’ nerves. The scripting is clean and easy, and there’s everything in the box.

Wavelength En/Fr - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1710644686
A dual language implentation of a game which shouldn’t really work on TTS but does. Great for player interaction again, and very simple to pick up. The guys’ review here on SU&SD will tell you all you need to know.

If you do manage to get people hooked and want something deeper, the Implementations of Barrage - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1676875832 (even with the worker/resource wheel working), Nemesis - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1265009992 and Great Western Trails - https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2041681437 are all wonderful.

Note: Apparently, Asmodee has purged a lot of titles (especially FFG) recently, so I’ve clicked on all the links and marked those that were “purged” from the Workshop.

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Other interesting resources that were posted

A cool new video made by Paul about gaming and other stuff during the quarantine / lockdown:

14 days of lockdown:

Todo

  • fix the links to forum threads to point to this forum
  • make this a wiki post again, is this possible here? Otherwise, looks like I’ve volunteered to keep this pretty and updated :slight_smile: done!
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(clicky clicky) and done.

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So the Asmodee Purge seems to be really… thorough. As I can still access some of the mods I have in my cache I’d really like more information about that backup tool… has anyone used it? How does it work? I am a bit sceptical that I have to have an account to download it and that it’s “just an exe” that windows warns me about however much that page says “virus scanned” …

Anyone willing vouch for the tool?

As I know that quite a few official and semi official mods are available on the Workshop I am thinking of getting together a list of those that have been either officially approved or are “known” to be tolerated by the game makers.

My personal take on Workshop games: There are obvious copyright issues a publisher can easily point to and so it is not hard to take down those games. That’s totally fine. However, as most of you who play games on TTS will know it is quite difficult to play any complex game on there without at least one person owning it, I usually sit in a session with the paper manual by my side and sometimes the whole game. This is about the worst time to make something like remote playing your games with friends more difficult and I think that while Asmodee is totally within their rights to take down these modules, it’s a bit of a dick move to do this right now.

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Paging @IssiNoho77, perhaps? I think they had some experience with it.

It’s what I’d expect from a company directed by a private equity fund rather than by game designers, game players, etc. – see also the tendencies of post-takeover Chaosium to threaten lawsuits against anyone they don’t like.

I have a very crude “haul assets out of the cache” tool but it’s not really designed by use for anyone except me.

Mods that I know are formally approved by the designer/publisher (and that’s its own can of worms that I’m not going to open):

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I use it constantly and have never had anything suspicious happen. The account isn’t related to the tool, it’s just a Nexus thing, and they’re the #1 destination on the web for game mods. (Though they don’t have much in the way of TTS content because the Workshop is so easy and there’s not a bunch of reasons that model doesn’t work for the game, unlike e.g. Skyrim.)

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I’m only currently aware of one official/sanctioned TTS mod:

And I also happen to know about a community-created one that I’m eager to try out (now that I’ve spent way too much money on a physical copy):

@yashima - I’ve used the tool quite a lot. So have a lot of other people. The only reason you need an account is because it’s hosted at nexus mod, and that place serves a HUGE amount of skyrim and other game mods and content. I think it’s to stop hotlinking to just anything and everything.

The tool seems really good to me. It’s been around for ages and I’ve seen no-one complain about any worries or risks. It pre-fetches all the assets associated with a mod and stores them locally. It can even take a save file and turn it into a mod, and that’s how a lot of mods are shared outside of the workshop. For example, I’m on the TTSClub discord and they have a channel for people sharing save files. Save files are in essence the actual full game, it’s just a one-off state of it. TTS Mod Backup has a tool to convert save files to full mods. It’s useful too if you’re taking an existing mod and improving it, as you can just save your work then fork it off into your own thing.

The really nice thing with it though is that you can choose to backup a mod and it zips up all the game files, objects, art and everything else so that you can move it to another computer, or send to someone else.

I’ve seen plenty of mods officially supported, even developed by the original designers:
Relicblade
Maquis
Assembly
Dale of Merchants
Even bigger stuff like Nemesis is done with the author’s support and assets, and Isaac Childres himself supports the incredible Gloomhaven mod.

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It’s pretty common these days to see Kickstarter games demo with a TTS mod, or even do public playtesting through TTS (for example, Aeon Trespass: Odyssey’s mod is official and how they’re doing wider playtesting, and I’m not sure if the Oath playtest is publically available but it’s being done in TTS due to the infeasibility of face to face playtests at the moment.).

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Cards Against Humanity Family feels utterly bananas (to bananas)

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I’ve tagged TTS as “Realtime” (you start a game, you do nothing else while you play through till the end) and yucata as “Asynchronous” (you get an alert when it’s your turn). Could people who know the other platforms edit their descriptions accordingly? This is something that they don’t make obvious…

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There’s a digital board game bundle from Asmodee at Humble Bundle right now:

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A Paizo blog about two officially sanctioned ways to play Pathfinder Adventure Card Game online:
https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6sh7y?PACG-Online-Play-in-Real-Time&mc_cid=009ee58cbb&mc_eid=fdc90e6514
Including an officially sanctioned Tabletop Simulator mod (though it sounds like they’re perfectly aware of and okay with other existing mods which are potentially more complete and/or scripted and may be adding more to the official mod as well) and another digital implementation that apparently was designed for play by forum.

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Saw this in the BGG newsletter and thought it worth sharing. One BBG user has pulled together a pdf of online board gaming options. See the link below for more info.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2425525/list-options-online-board-games

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I just wanted to add this incredible link for people using Tabletop Simulator.

It’s a curated list of mods of the top 500 BGG games… it’s a staggering amount of work, and despite already having a lot of mods in my collection, I now have a lot more :slight_smile:

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Thank you @yashima for starting this excellent wiki post!

Do you guys think there would be value in a separate topic focusing on connecting people that are interested in playing (online) games together? Of course we could also use this topic, but a new one dedicated topic might be more visible.

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I really cannot take credit. This was a collaborative work on the old forum which I simply copied over here.

A thread connecting players might be a good idea although there is already a separate section up in the top post.

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