From: "J.D. Frazer" Subject: RESULTS: Top 5 SF&F Games Here's the current tally on the Top Five SF&F Games list, as at August 9, 1996 (22:30PST). A couple of notes: I have tried to include the publisher's name for each game. If I'm guessing at the publisher there'll be a question mark in the abbreviation. If I don't have a clue, I'll just post a couple of question marks. Some posters included Magic:The Gathering in their lists, maintaining that I didn't specify boardgames. Wrongo. Go back and read my original post *carefully*, and you'll see it there, plain as day. In such cases I have simply dropped M:tG and bumped all of the other games up one. If they didn't include a list of runners-up, then I considered there to be no fifth choice. Some other posters provided their choices in "no particular order". I took these choices as first to fifth, regardless. As far as defining SF&F games...hell, I don't know. Most people seem to know what I meant, though. Let's go with that for now. Each choice was given a "vote value". If the game was a first choice, it received 5 points. The fifth choice game received 1 point. Some people posted games that were "tied" for Xth place. I took only first game mentioned for that position. Below is the tally. With each game I also included the number of times it was mentioned. To a statistician it might mean something. I'm just including it for another perspective: A game that has a 20 points but was mentioned 10 times obviously means that a lot of people like the game, but probably ranked it in the lower half of their top five; a game with 10 points but mentioned only twice would that a only a few people like the game (or have played it) but they consider it to be a very good design. I'll continue to watch the tally until the 12th as opposed to the 19th like I originally stated. The postings have already died down to a trickle. -- POS GAME TITLE PUBLISHER POINTS TIMES MENTIONED --- ------------------- ------------- ------ --------------- 001 Titan AH 47 11 002 Cosmic Encounter Eon/Mayfair 45 11 003 Dune Eon/AH 43 14 004 Merchants of Venus AH 28 10 005 OGRE/GEV SJG 23 7 006 Starfleet Battles TFG 19 5 007 Outpost TimJim 18 5 WizWar Jolly 18 7 008 Freedom i/t Galaxy SPI/AH 16 5 009 Elfenroads White Wind 13 3 Awful Green Things TSR/SJG 13 7 010 Roborally WOTC 11 3 011 2038 TimJim 10 2 Imperium GDW 10 4 War of the Ring SPI 10 4 Talisman GW 10 4 012 Stellar Conquest Metagaming/AH 9 2 Starforce:AC SPI 9 3 Heroquest MB 9 3 013 Melee/Wizard Metagaming 8 2 Fifth Frontier War GDW 8 2 Battletech FASA 8 3 014 4000 A.D. Waddingtons 6 2 Grav Armour Dwarfstar 6 2 015 Lost Worlds Nova 5 1 Outreach SPI 5 1 Mayday GDW 5 1 Middle Earth ?? 5 1 Space Hulk GW 5 1 Barbarian Kings SPI 5 1 Bloodtree Rebellion GDW 5 2 Full Metal Planet ?? 5 2 Star Traders SJG 5 2 Nuclear War/Escal Blade 5 2 Iron Dragon Mayfair 5 2 016 Creature-Sheboygan SPI 4 1 Kings & Things AH 4 1 Illuminati SJG 4 1 Adventurers Swashbuckler? 4 1 Swords & Sorcery SPI 4 1 Dungeonquest GW 4 1 Knight Hawks TSR 4 1 Hoax Eon 4 1 Starfire TFG 4 2 Black Morn Manor Pacesetter? 4 2 Time Agent TimJim? 4 3 017 Mythology Yaquinto 3 1 Full Thrust GZG 3 1 S.P.I.V.S. ?? 3 1 Excalibur Wotan 3 1 Robotech Palladium 3 1 Quirks Eon? 3 1 Battlefleet Mars SPI 3 1 Darkover Eon 3 1 Dragonlance TSR 3 1 Aliens LEG 3 1 Dungeon TSR 3 1 Arkham Horror Chaosium? 3 1 Stellar Conquest Metagaming/AH 3 3 018 Last Frontier:TVI ?? 2 1 Car Wars SJG 2 1 Circus Imperium FASA 2 1 Sanctuary Mayfair 2 1 Fortress America MB 2 1 Orbit War SJG 2 1 Ythri ?? 2 1 Crossbows & Cat. ?? 2 1 Magic Realm AH 2 1 Albion SPI 2 2 019 Heavy Gear Fighter ?? 1 1 Buck Rogers:25th C TSR? 1 1 Army of Darkness LEG 1 1 Search for Emp.Tr. Wham/TSR 1 1 Elric Chaosium? 1 1 Asteroid GDW 1 1 Divine Right TSR 1 1 Red Christmas ?? 1 1 Tales/Arabian Nt. WEG 1 1 Silent Death ICE? 1 1 -- Surveyor's Comments: Some interesting results. Titan, Cosmic Encounter and Dune vie for the top position. What's telling is that this list shouldn't be used as a guide as to what your next SF&F game purchase should be, at least IMO. For example, I think Titan is an awful game. I positively hate it, and couldn't get rid of my copy fast enough (I *gave* it away even though it was in excellent condition). But many people find the game very enjoyable according to the results. Caveat emptor. An old favourite by SJG makes it near the very top --OGRE/GEV. Good, solid game designs. Anyone still have the old OGRE and GEV miniatures? Starfleet Battles creeps in at 6th place, which is surprising when you consider the amount of SFB traffic there's been on r.g.b. I fully expected it to be in the top 3. TimJim and Jolly both come in at a respectable 7th place. I haven't tried any TimJim games yet, but judging from the number of their titles that have made the list, I might just plonk some bucks down on Outpost. WizWar, of course, is a classic, and deserves it's position. Freedom in the Galaxy got a fair bit of attention on r.g.b. lately, which may explain it's decent showing. It *is* a cool game, and I'm just getting ready to start a campaign game up. Talisman came in 11th with three other games. What was notable was that all respondents who included Talisman stated specifically the "older edition". Seems that people don't like the "new improved" version of an old favourite. Yet another game which has followers of a specific edition is Stellar Conquest, in 12th place. The Metagaming version received all the praise. I've only played the AH version, and found it dry. I thought it was really cool that 4000 A.D. came in at all, much less 14th place. A *great* game, and it was the game that really got me into heavy-thinking boardgames. God, I was 12 or 13 years old then. I noticed in 17th place the game Robotech by Palladium. The poster insisted it was a boardgame. I thought it was an RPG? In 19th place comes two surprises. Tom Wham's Search for the Emperor's Treasure, a cute little game that came with an issue of DRAGON magazine. I loved it, and it's mention brought back good memories. Wham really had a knack for neat-o designs; after all, TAGTFOS came in at a very respectable 9th place. The other surprise was Divine Right in 19th place. I can't believe that with all of the demand DR has on r.g.m. and questions about pieces and errata on r.g.b. that it was only mentioned once, and in fifth place. When I started this thread I noted that DR didn't make my list at all. I guess it bears out with everyone else. DR, I suspect, may simply be a boardgame novelty. I'll keep an eye on the votes but probably won't do an update unless something drastic changes. I welcome comments and anyone else's analysis of the results. My thanks to all who participated in the survey. I'm going to get some sleep. Good gaming, J.D.