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What kingdom set would lead to the highest scoring games of Dominion?
Obviously anything that puts curses into circulation would be anathema. I'm not necessarily looking for one player to have the highest score possible, so much as to have games where everyone's scores where really high.
I figure Monument is obvious, and Great Hall, Island, etc. seem like they might also contribute to a high scoring game.
On the other hand if there are tons of non-terminal action cards and Vinyards that could lead to some pretty ridiculous scores as well.

You might want to clarify if you're looking for a set that has high scores when players are playing to win, or when players are cooperating to obtain high overall scores.

I am starting to do some analysis of games on the online dominion server at http://dominion.isotropic.org.  The top 5 scoring games there all involve a combination of Goons and King's Court.  These are all solo games where people are trying to run up the score, so they aren't representative.  But from my experience, Colony, Goons, Vineyard, Bishop, Duke, and Gardens all contribute to really high scores in real games.
2941  Alchemist, City, Colony, Gardens, Goons, Grand Market, King's Court, Platinum, Potion, Steward, Throne Room, Vineyard, and Watchtower
 2760
Ambassador, Bridge, Chapel, City, Council Room, Goons, King's Court, Throne Room, Watchtower, and Worker's Village
 2722
Bishop, Bridge, City, Colony, Council Room, Fishing Village, Goons, King's Court, Monument, Platinum, Wharf, and Worker's Village
 2681
Bazaar, Bishop, Chapel, Colony, Council Room, Goons, Grand Market, King's Court, Market, Platinum, Throne Room, and Wharf
 2625
Bishop, Black Market, Bridge, Caravan, City, Colony, Goons, King's Court, Monument, Platinum, Throne Room, and Wharf

Yeah, King's Courting 2 or 3 levels deep is going to be the key to any high-scoring game, I think.

It's important to note that Colony and Platinum are not Kingdom cards.

For those who don't know all the Prosperity cards: A picture of Goons ( http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/scans/prosperity/goons.jpg  ) and a visual Dominion reference ( http://dominion.diehrstraits.com/?set=Prosperity )

An important side note that was not mentioned five years ago:  Goons will only ever award you 1 victory point per card you buy per Goons card in play.  King's Court does not increase this.  This is because it's a "While this is in play" effect and a King's Courted Goons is still only a single card.

For reference, Highway is another card affected by this wording, while Bridge is not.

Even if you stipulate that a player must buy a card when he can, a two-player game with Monuments and Ambassadors could go on indefinitely.

No, not indefinitely. There are a limited number of cards in the supply, and when 3 stacks are empty the game is over. If you are forced to buy when you can, simple math will show the max number of buys before the game ends.

Ambassador returns cards to the supply.

I know this is an old board, but highest score I've ever got on the online game is 14,461 VP against 4 bots:

The playset was:

Festival
Highway
Torturer
Goons
King's Court
City Quarter
Overlord
Chapel
Encampment
Black Market

There were also Adventures events,  and Platinum and Colony cards.

Thanks for the breakdown Doppelgreener. I should add it took 43 turns to reach 14,461 VP.

Goons + Ambassador allows for potentially infinite scores (VP chips from Goons purchases and Ambassadors to return cards to the supply so the game never ends on piles). Obviously some serious support would be necessary in terms of drawing, +actions to play all the Goons, and likely KC to return cards to the supply fast enough with Ambassador.

unless your opponent is also using ambassador, the game will end.

@ColinD Moat could stop the cards from coming.

Any sort of pin with monument would get an unlimited score. 5 Card deck, King's Court, King's Court, Monument, Monument, Masquerade would see your opponent (in a 2-player game), only have two cards to play with, and eventually only have one (assuming coppers haven't run out). As they can only buy out 2 piles (excluding ruins), the game will never end, and you will get 6 points every turn and never need to buy anything else. Any variation of a pin (where your opponent can only buy copper or curses each turn) + VP tokens will see a potentially unlimited score.
Other 5 card hand variations:
The addition of Prince (new card, cost 8), would also make for potentially higher scores per turn if monument was set aside, or bishop with fortress in hand.
King's court, King's court, Bishop, Fortress, Masquerade (9 points per turn)
King's court, King's court, Monument, Cutpurse, Masquerade (3 points per turn, stronger pin, opponent will have 0 card hand's sooner, more effective in 3 and 4 player games)
I'm sure there are many more variations but these are all very strong.

Here is a realistic game where everyone may have an arbitrary high score: The newest expansion, Dominion: Empires, has added a new Landmark, Tomb; whenever you trash a card during the game, you gain 1 Victory Point token. With Rats and Fortress in the game, a player may start accumulating infinite Victory Point tokens without advancing the game state, i.e., buying cards. If no cards are ever bought then the game can last until one player dies of starvation.
It is quite probably that one player may just start playing as many Rats as he can, trashing the same Fortress. Eventually, the Rats pile will be of course depleted, but this player could just stale the game until he can gain +20 Victory Point tokens every turn (for playing 20 Rats). If both players start doing the same, eventually the game may end up at a stalemate.
As already mentioned, without Landmarks, an infinite score may be achieved with Monument, being the only card that can give you Victory Points without advancing the game state (removing cards from the supply). Nevertheless, this is not realistic, as Monument is a rather weak card. I can however envision a real game where the Rats-Fortress-Tomb combo might come up and a player just decides to prolong the game as long as possible.
For what is worth, this is found in a proposed set with the appropriate name: Tomb of the Rat King

I've played hundreds of games on the dominon android app -- which randomly selects card sets. The highest scoring (single turn) hand ever was 38 victory points. The deck needed to have these cards to make the combo work:
city, platinum, cultist, Goons, Bishop, caravan, counterfeit, and Colony
So this is something of a 7 card combo.
Early game: other players need to buy the bishop and use it. This lets you thin our your estates and coppers. Meanwhile, you buy silver (3) and caravans (4), then cultists (5) and goons (6). Having 2 caravans and 3 cultists and 1 goon will ensure you can fill the other players up with ruins AND draw your entire deck, which you will use exclusively to buy gold and platinum, 1 counterfeit and 3 city cards for the mid-game.
End game: If you have at some point a deck with 3 cultists, 2 goons, 1 counterfeit, 2-4 caravans, and at least 3 platinum and several more gold and silver pieces, you will eventually manage to pull off the 38 point combo turn.
Combo: play your caravans and city cards first, then your cultists, which are useful as a "draw 2" card that keeps playing more cultists as a free action. This can usually get you enough cards in hand to have 20+ gold. Also, because you've used the cultists to load everybody else up with ruins they will probably be buying up all the duchies. But in order to seal the deal the counterfeit card is absolutely essential, as are drawing 2 goons cards. Goons and counterfeits give you extra buys, and each colony is essentially worth 12 victory points if you buy it after playing Goons twice.
On my magic turn I played 2 City, 1 counterfeit, 2 caravans, 3 platinum, 2 gold, 1 silver, 3 cultist cards. This gave me 4 buys and 33 coins. I purchased 3 colonies and 1 copper for a whopping 38 points!

Playing Androminion on my phone my highest score is 920.  I haven't been able to beat this yet but one day I'm sure to get lucky and do it.
Here is the setup:
Cards in play:
Vineyard        (0p)
University      (2p) +2 Actions
Bridge          (4)  +1 Buy, +1 Gold
Silk Road       (4)
Gardens         (4)
Duke            (5)
Wharf           (5)  +1 Buy, +2 Cards (+1 Buy, +2 Cards next turn)
Council Room    (5)  +1 Buy, +4 Cards (...)
City            (5)  +2 Actions, +1 Card (...)
Kings Court         (7)  Play an action card three times

My ending hand:
920 VPs
Estate x14: 14 VPs
Duchy x10: 30 VPs
Province x10: 60 VPs
Colony x6: 60 VPs
Duke x12: 120 VPs
Vineyard x12: 192 VPs
Gardens x12: 180 VPs
SilkRoad x12: 264 VPs
Curse x0: 0 VPs
Victory Tokens: 0

Consider this a specialized house rules set of cards because normally with two players you would not use 12 of every card, and I don't think Colony and Platinum are meant to be used this way... but we had fun!
We played a two player game where we decided to not end the game until the very last moment possible. We just wanted to see how high we could get our scores and how long the game would last (about 1-1.5 hrs). We played until two of the supply stacks ran out then it was a race to get whatever other supply cards we wanted until there was 1 left at which point we were no longer allowed to buy from that stack because it would end the game. We just kept buying from other supply stacks until nothing was left and we ended the game buying either the last Province or Colony.
The final score was 223 to 205. We each had between 102-109 cards in our decks so Gardens were worth 10 each. I think only 3 Colonies were sold throughout the game. The score could have been higher if more Colony cards had been purchased before the game ended with the last Province sold or if more cards were in our decks causing the Gardens to be worth more. These are the cards we used:
12 x Great Hall
12 x Islands
12 x Gardens
12 x Dukes
12 x Nobles
12 x Harem
10 x Baron
10 x Scout
10 x Haven
10 x Adventurer *
12 x Estate
12 x Duchy
12 x Province
12 x Colony (as Kingdom not Supply)
12 x Platinum (as Kingdom not Supply)
* We figured Adventurer was kind of a "wild card" that could be replaced with a number of different options. We chose Adventurer to keep the game simple but you could use anything here.

Er... The highest scoring game is a game where, in additions to buying all the provinces or colonies, there are way to get a lot of VP. I had games with over 100 vp and I knew I could do better in perfect scenario. For example, king's court king's court fully activated cities then play 6 goons at once will get you infinite buys (like 42 buys) and each buy is 6 VP in addition to whatever victory point it gives you. With watch tower you can trash all the coppers right away and repeat this again. You should be able to do this twice. So I think you can theoritically get more than 500 points.
I just played a game that had something similar happened. If I had more goons and if there was a watchtower then I would be able to do it.
http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/12/game-20120712-013703-e0bead10.html

One of the highest scoring games I saw recently involved King's Court, Bridge, and Chapel.
While it may not seem that important, Chapel is a key cornerstone to a high-scoring game.  It allows you to get rid of your lower value cards, such as Coppers and Estates.
King's Court and Bridge is obscenely powerful.  Together, they give you +3 Coin, +3 Buy, and every card costs 3 less.
What this means is that Colony costs 8 to buy, Province costs 5 to buy, Duchy costs 2 to buy... and you have at least 4 buys.  Along with high-value coins, this has great benefits.
Some cards that can help you start this process earlier are Quarry, Contraband (until your opponents figure out what you're doing), and Tactician.  These cards can be trashed later with the Chapel.
Village, Fishing Village, Mining Village, Worker Village, Fesitval, or Bazaar can all be useful as well, due to their +2 Actions.
Anything that gives you extra cards is a necessity for this strategy... Council Room or Library in particular.  Minion can work, but at the expense of having to discard your other cards.
Other misc cards that can help include: Royal Seal, Watchtower, Bank... basically anything that gives you lots of money.
Keep in mind that you'd need 30 or more actions for each Vineyard to be equal in value to a Colony, so you may want to skip it.

You can reach infinite VP with; Donate, Pirate Ship, Fortress, and Tomb. Use the pirate ship to take away all purchasing power from the opponent first, buy all 10 fortress cards, after the opponent has no purchasing power left, use the pirate ship for profit to pay for donate and trash all the fortress cards. With Tomb; every turn will yield 10 VP from trashing the fortress cards (which are then put back in your hand to do it all again) and the game could go on indefinitely racking up VP.

There are indeed combinations which can in principle collect an arbitrary number of victory tokens. I don't know all the cards you mention, but Bishop + Fortress can in principle do it. I tried that plus Pirate Ship and Saboteur to hold back the opponents. But even with that I didn't quite manage to completely stop the opponents emptying piles, so by the time I got to 90 points it was over (the closest opponent had 9 points.)

I exploited an AI bug in Androminion to rack up 563 VP with only card points (so no Bishop, Goons or Monument). The kingdom was as follows:
Crossroads
Bridge
Gardens
Rats
Silk Road
Duke
Tactician
Wharf
Nobles
King's Court
The AI bug in question is that one of the AI opponents will buy and play exclusively Rats, thinning their deck down to the 20 Rats in the supply and cycling through them indefinitely. This left me free to purchase every other card on the board (Final deck size of 248). The final VP breakdown:
Estate - 11 VP (1x11)
Duchy - 24 VP (8x3)
Province - 48 VP (8x6)
Colony - 80 VP (8x10)
Duke - 64 VP (8x8)
Gardens - 192 VP (8x24)
Nobles - 16 VP (8x2)
Silk Road - 128 VP (8x16)

This isn't responding to the scenario the asker is after: "I'm not necessarily looking for one player to have the highest score possible, so much as to have games where everyone's scores where really high." (It's also not remotely close to the current highest suggestions.)


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Does the cooperative Lord of the Rings game require a decent amount of experience with the books to be playable?
I love cooperative games, and Lord of the Rings seems to be fairly high on the list. (I have Pandemic, Forbidden Island, and Shadows over Camelot. I'm considering Space Alert and Space Hulk Death Angel).
I love the Lord of the Rings series, but how deep does the game get into the story line? If people who don't really know the Lord of The Rings books (however few of them there may be) can't play it I'll probably go with something else. How will having little familiarity with the books affect the other players' enjoyment?

Just curious: how can you think they would make a game which somehow required you to know the book to play it? What could possibly cause that? Either it's a quiz game (and it patently isn't), or there's no sane way to have that requirement.

@Lo'oris Sure there are sane ways. Imagine an LOTR game with event cards that affect particular characters in specific ways, such that players who know the books make better choices. For example, a "Boromir delays the party if he possesses the ring" card. A player who knew the books would know that Boromir is easily tempted by the ring's power and so would never put the ring in Boromir's possession. A player who didn't know the story could make that mistake and feel screwed when it comes up. I wouldn't design a game that way, but it's perfectly sane.

It's absolutely not necessary for game play. Players that don't know the book will not get many of the story line references, but I don't think it means they can't enjoy the game.

As Erik P. said it is not necessary to know the story to play the game. I would add that it can be a good way to be introduced to the Lord of the Rings world.
I think the game goes quite deep into the story, but not in a way that gives an advantage to who has read the books. There are 4 maps: Moria, Helm's Deep, Shelob's lair and Mordor (plus Bree and Isengard with the expansion Friends & Foes). Each takes you through an episode of the book. You'll face many events, gather shields, hearts, rings and suns, meet some famous characters - like Tom Bombadil, Glorfindel, Aragorn, Gandalf or Gollum - and call for Gandalf's help many times.
If you know the books (or even the movies) you'll know who these characters and places are. In the case of Gollum, that means you know that he's neither a friend nor totally a foe. This is made clear in the game as the card for Gollum has three stars and one die (dies are dangerous), so you won't be wronged by this lack of knowledge.
So while knowing the story will give you the reasons for why this event happens there and why this character has these specifications, the game will introduce newcomers fairly well.
In the end, even if you know the books very well, you'll be nothing more than a bunch of hobbits facing too great a destiny. In my case, this meant meeting Sauron in the Moria, many, many times...
Beside, Howe's illustrations are awesome!

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What's a good table-topping material for tile-based games?
On my polished wood table any disturbance (and I have kids, so you can imagine the disturbances...) can shift tiles around, which I then feel compelled to try to adjust to be flush with those around them. I want to get a mat to fix this, and was wondering if anyone has had experience doing this, and can offer advice. Thanks!

Does a tablecloth help?  Sometimes this works for me, sometimes it doesn't.  What about a large bread/cutting board?  not beautiful to look at, but might work also.

You could try some no-slip shelf liner (the kind you use for kitchen cabinets).  They're sold by the roll at various department stores, fairly cheaply.  They lay flat and can be cut into whatever shape you need.  If you can, I would splurge and err on the side of using a heavier-duty liner.  The cheap stuff is probably little better than a tablecloth.
For Carcassonne specifically, you'll want to make sure you cover as much of the table as is practical.  You probably don't want to artificially constrain the game if your no-slip surface isn't big enough.

I'm going to try this.

I have had success with this.  It also works well for card games because you can get under the card without mangling the side.

Felt. A thousand casinos can't be wrong.
Padded felt also makes it easier to pick cards/chits up off the table.

For Settlers of Catan, there is an expansion you can get that consists of six interlocking long sections that frame the pieces in.  At worst, your entire island will shift, instead of individual hexes.  I just picked it up recently from my local game store after seeing our island moved one too many times.
For other tile-based games, I would suggest a tablecloth like Egg of P'an Ku suggested, or a large piece of fabric (or felt) that you can get at a craft store -- you don't want any fabric to be TOO slippery, though.  You can even go one step further and get those no-slip rubber mats for rugs to place between the table and the tablecloth.  The only downside to that I could see is the tablecloth may occasionally get bunched up.
You could also try a table-top gaming mat, or simply skip the tablecloth and just use a large number of the no-slip mats I mentioned above, and place your tiles directly on the rubber mats.

+1 for using no-slip mats. For some games, like Tantrix, one or two mats may well be enough.

Can you post a link to the product?

Yeah, the interlocking edges from Seafarers don't really help, since they just tend to get jostled and have tiles slip under them. Tablecloths seem to make the problem worse, since they don't really prevent slipping, and any bunching of the fabric can cause all hades to roam free. I think I'm going to try to find some no-slip rubber mats to use.

@ICodeForCoffee -- sure, I was thinking of something like http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&biw=1280&bih=606&q=rug+non+slip+pad&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=14991298870165066746&ei=k6LcTI2CJcOclgfw5pjhBQ&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEQQ8wIwBA# or http://www.amazon.com/Non-Slip-Futon-Grip-Pad/dp/B0033C0F34

It was quite a bit of work to construct, but we made a mat to play games on that was baize on one side and leatherette on the other.  It's really nice playing card and board games on the baize surface - it's easy to pick up cards and tokens, as if from a slightly squishy card table.  The leatherette underside is heavy enough to keep it in place, and easy to clean if you discover afterwards that the table wasn't as clean as you thought.  I made an instructable showing how we made this.

It'd be nice to know of places that sell something like this.

For Settlers of Catan, a sheet of acrylic or pane of glass over the board can work wonders!
I have used both a pane of glass and a sheet of plexiglass. The two are roughly equivalent to play on. Pieces slide around a little bit easier, but not so much as to become a nuisance. I prefer glass for its superior durability, but I have been using plexiglass at home for quite a while and it works just fine.

Welcome to the site!  Is this something you use regularly?  Any downsides?  I don't imagine it would be useful for Carcassonne though, right?

Thanks for the warm welcome! I have used both a pane of glass and a sheet of plexiglass. The two are roughly equivalent to play on. Pieces slide around a little bit easier, but not so much as to become a nuisance. I prefer glass for its superior durability, but I have been using plexiglass at home for quite a while and it works just fine. I have never played Carcassonne, but from the description on wikipedia, it sounds like this trick would not be helpful.

excellent! I took the liberty of adding a chunk of your comment to the answer.  One sentence answers don't get a whole lot of votes typically.  With the extra paragraph of good info, I at least can give you an upvote.  Thanks again.

I just took one of my old Bridge tables and is using that for most games, it works great as long as we're 4 players. I also have a fairly cheap 8-sided poker foldable tabletop thing for bigger sessions (with the added bonus of drinkholders).
This means another table which is perhaps not an option for you but both options can be folded and take very little space when not playing at least.

In addition to Kristo's answer, if you have a wood shop you likely have a router mat which would accomplish something similar.

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Dominion randomizer deck confusion
A friend of mine got Dominion for Christmas, and while the game plays wonderfully (I'm hooked), we were both confused by the randomizer deck.
Why are there Curse, Copper, Silver, Gold, and victory point cards in the randomizer deck, when they're needed for every game?  We figured out we would remove those cards from the randomizer deck before dealing out 10 of the Kingdom cards to set up the game, but why bother having the above-named cards in the deck in the first place?  Are we missing something?

Don't use them to randomize.  Use one of the online card pickers:
What is the Best Random Card Setup Tool?
Use them as the last card in their respective stacks.  They are used to indicate that the stack has run out so that it is easier to know how close the game is to ending.  @krisa suggests that if you use sleeves to use a different colored sleeve for the randomizer cards.  This will make it much easier to keep them separate.
Pg. 5 of the rules says:

Players may also use the Randomizer cards
  as Placeholders to mark the card piles so
  empty piles are easily seen.

Aha!  We both missed that little disclaimer on page 5.  I swear we both read that page multiple times, but good to know!

@little - np, glad to help.  Dominion is a great game.

Also, as the link shows, there are at least three good randomizers for the iPhone, one of which is free, and at least one for the Android. Dominion Kingdom Deck even has a great tool to facilitate using the Black Market promo card.

Do they mean to put the randomizer cards face-down? It drives me nuts that the randomizers look just like normal cards when face-up … (I assume it's cheaper not to print two different versions of the faces, like one with blue borders. Still.)

@Luke - that bugs me too.  I have no idea why it was done that way.

I prefer to use the blank cards to show a supply pile has run out.  I would think a randomizer card as a place holder could be confusing.

+1 for the "correct" answer (i.e. The answer given in the rules book), even if it makes no sense in practice.  An empty pile leaves an empty space on the table... why fiddle with cards to "mark" them?

@keith - your group might be more diligent about using a consistent setup for each game.  We like to put the kingdom cards in rows defined by their costs.  For this setup, it isn't always obvious that a pile is gone.

I have placed my placeholder cards in wider colored Magic-The gathering sleeves - that way they stand out under the pile, and you can't accidentally mix them with the others.

To answers your actual question, rather than dance around the issue:
Dominion box sets always have a number of cards that ends in 0 (i.e. are a multiple of 10).  For any extra cards they need, they put in blanks.  There are 500 cards each for Intrigue; Base; and Dark Ages, 300 each for Seaside; Prosperity; and Hinterlands, and 150 each for Alchemy; Cornucopia; and Guilds.
My theory is that they didn't want to print too many of the blank cards, so Base included 7 randomizers for cards you would never actually need randomizers for.
You'll notice that Intrigue, despite also having those 7 decks, doesn't include those in the randomizers?
Intrigue has 6 more normal cards than Base does.  This is due to Intrigue having 4 Kingdom card Victory decks (Duke, Great Hall, Harem, and Nobles), while Base only has 1 (Gardens)... and Victory cards always have 12 cards per deck, rather than the usual 10.

It's probably a side-effect of the manufacturing process.  I would expect that each printed sheet of cards has a variety of cards on it, and they just print some of the sheets with the randomizer backs.  If the sheets have both base and Kingdom cards, you are going to get randomizers for base cards.  With Intrigue, they may have decided to replace the base cards with the extra Victory cards in the sheet layout, and thus not have any extra base cards.

To completely solve the problem of randomizer cards, Don't use them at all. INSTEAD use one card from each kingdom pile, and shuffle them. Draw your 10 cards for the supply piles. Lay these drawn cards out as the bottom card for each supply pile. Then place the rest of the stack for each of these cards, on top of them. When the pile is out, it's out. RIO GRANDE... ARE YOU LISTENING. This would save you millions of cards not printed. No more confusion over what to do with them. Even happier nubbies

While relevant to randomizer cards, this isn't answering the question of why there are randomizer cards for the currency and curse cards. You may have mistaken this place for a discussion forum: it isn't, it's a Q&A network. Please see our [tour] for how we operate. In particular, answers are expected to directly answer the question. Discussion of related points is not something our site engages in.

This doesn't answer the question.


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What size card sleeves should I buy for Penny Arcade - Gamers vs. Evil?
Just picked up Penny Arcade The Game: Gamers vs. Evil.
I like sleeving my card games.  What size sleeves should I get for these?
(I just compared them vs. Dominion, and they're slightly shorter and slightly wider, but I don't know if that's a standard size or what.)

On the producer site (Fantasy Flight Games) you will see that you can use their 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" (63.5 x 88 MM) card sleeves.
On this link you can see that you can use 3 packs of their Standard Card Game Sleeves (grey color packs) and on this page you will see the card sleeves sold by them (the last product from the list).
Another card sleeves producer is Mayday Games. I think that their corresponding card sleeves are named "Card Game Sleeves" (2 1/2" x 3 1/2" (63.5 x 88 MM)) - green pack. I am pretty sure but you can visit their site. They have a pdf file where you can search for your game and see what kind of sleeves you need. IMPORTANT: Today I see that their site is consider by google as threat because they find malicious software, so I think is not a good idea to enter wright now on their page.
Also you can search for ultra pro sleeves but i don't know exactly what kind you should search for.

This is a fantastic answer, but is unfortunately for the wrong game! This game from Fantasy Flight: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite.asp?eidm=88&enmi=Penny%20Arcade:%20The%20Card%20Game is different from this game from Cryptozoic: http://www.cryptozoic.com/games/penny-arcade-game-gamers-vs-evil

Though I finally found a ruler and actually measured the cards. It appears they happen to be the same size (by my measurements, 63mm x 88.5mm, which is hopefully close enough).


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What is the best way to keep everything organized and spend less time setting up?
When playing Dominion, how do you go about organizing all of the various cards and sets while maintaining a priority to getting games started quickly?

For card selection, I highly recommend the iDominion iPhone app.  Lets you specify which sets to include, blacklist individual cards, require Reactions if there are Attacks, and even re-roll one card of the 10 if you just hate the Smithy.  There's also a "lite" free version.
I have all of my cards (Dominion, Intrigue, Seaside, and Alchemy) in two collectible-card-game "long boxes", sorted by set and by name.  (Mine are sleeved as well, but that's not required).  Use one of the many dividers on BoardGameGeek to assist in locating cards.
It's easy to have one person take each box and pull out the cards you need, and for others to chip in parceling out the gold, VPs and starting decks as they're pulled from the boxes.
You can divide up the work this way with the original boxes, but card boxes take up a LOT less table space and the ordering of cards in the original boxes can be highly confusing.

If Android is your phone OS of choice, "Dominion Shuffle" is your best bet for a free highly-customisable supply randomiser.

@Johno Jack of all Dominion is another good choice

I find Dominion setup much faster than many (most?) board games, but generally we have:

One person who pulls out the gold and VPs and deals out the starting hands
One person that chooses the kingdom types (there's an iPhone app that will make a random selection for you, which probably saves a lot of time)
One person that pulls out the types as they're read off the iPhone

It takes maybe three minutes and we're ready to go

Fine the way it is?
I don't feel that Dominion's out-of-the-box card storage, setup, or clean-up need any improvement. The box comes with clearly labeled and organized trays: cards are grouped by type (kingdom, victory point, etc.) and then alphabetically. I have basic and two expansion sets and keep everything in the original boxes. It might be a little big if you were flying, but to go over to a friend's house via car it's hardly cumbersome. Plus, once the game's set up the boxes don't have to take up table space. Put them on the ground or on another table or stack them on top of each other.
All the ideas for divide and conquer during setup and cleanup make perfect sense. I assume that almost all play groups do this without even thinking about it.
Several answers have mentioned an iPhone app for selecting Kingdom cards. This strikes me as a solution in search of a problem, and I'm curious why the app is so popular. lilserf explains it's capabilities well, but why is an app easier than the randomizer cards designed expressly for this purpose? What's easier than selecting 10 cards at random from a deck? I can do that before the app even loads. In fact, the old-school method is probably quicker because each card can be handed to someone as it's selected so the deck can be retrieved. Natural division of labor.
If you like to play with cards from all the expansions then shuffle and store the randomizer decks together; otherwise, pick a few from each expansion set based on what kind of game you want. If you pull a card that folks don't like (Smithy for example) just draw another. If you all hate it, remove the card from your randomizer deck. If you're playing with black market, the unselected randomizer cards are the black market deck.
As for tailoring to ensure games with attack cards also have reactions, that undermines some of the charm of the game: learning to adapt to any situation that comes up. Prohibiting something a priori is doing your group a dis-service.

I don't think there's a huge difference, but I do think the app shines best if you want cards of certain costs, Alchemy picking rules, or to play with Black Market. It really makes those things a lot easier. However, I could totally live without the app, except that I'd refuse to play with Black Market.

@Andrew - I agree, if a group wants to place complicated constraints on the selection of cards then they probably need a special computer program to play a board game. I contend such restrictions are unnecessary and will retard the development of the players. Learning to cope with not having cards of a certain cost is a valuable skill. As for black market, nothing could be easier: the black market deck is the set of randomizer cards not selected--BAM!

With 89 cards (I'm missing Intrigue and Stash) the BM deck was far too unwieldy, and Alchemy picking rules are actually part of the official ruleset. Still, you make some pretty compelling points. I'm voting your answer up, even though it's not my personal preference. :)

Mine is similar to Michael Mrozek, but up until recently, we'd had 5-6 people on average playing, and we've had 8 show up before at once (we split into two games then).
We used to divide responsibilities like this:

One person chooses the kingdom types (using an app)
One person has Dominion to pull out cards the first person names.
One person has Intrigue to pull out cards the first person names.
One person has Seaside to pull out cards the first person names.
If we have any more people, they pull out the treasure and victory cards.  If not, either the person who has Dominion or Intrigue does.

Now, two of our usual players left, leaving us with 3-5 at any given time.  Plus, we now have Prosperity.  We handle this by having the people pulling cards out of two sets instead of just one, alternating between the two pulling cards.

We do a bit of houserulery and slowly change the game between each session.
At the end of a game each player will pick one kingdom to remove, and then we'll split the randomisers about equally and everyone picks a kingdom to replace the ones they've removed.
We wait to pick the replacements until everyone has selected the ones that are going away, and generally try and keep the various costs between 2-5 in play.
After a 3 player game whomever came in third gets to remove and replace 2 kingdoms. In a two player, both player removes two. This way there are four new cards each time.


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Card shuffler for many sizes
A simple search for Card Shuffler on google will list loads of them, does anyone have experience with one that can be used for multiple card sizes?
I'm looking for something that can preferably shuffle both small games like Gosu, big ones like Dixit as well as standard bridge playing cards. Sleeved and unsleeved alike.
Any recommendations out here?

I don't think I've ever seen a card shuffler for anything but the standard sizes for poker cards.

A battery-operated card shuffler can shuffle any deck of cards of width/height 1/2 the size of the bay all the way up to the full width/height of the bay. Slightly smaller cards shouldn't be an issue, but I've never seen one larger than a standard deck.

While I'm sure this isn't the answer you're looking for, my answer is simple: don't use a card shuffler.
In my experience, card shufflers tend to shred whatever cards they're used to shuffle over the course of far too few (not more than a couple dozen) shuffles - I watched several early Magic players ruin cards on them, and Magic cards are actually substantially sturdier than many other games' cards.  Casinos can generally get away with using automatic shufflers (and note that the shufflers casinos have access to are much higher-quality than anything you're likely to find at any reasonable price) because they have little need for a deck of cards to last more than a couple of hours, but I'd strongly disrecommend them for any game you want to play for more than a handful of sessions.


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Is there a good method for choosing which cards to use in Deluxe Illuminati?
I have played Deluxe Illuminati from the beginning, and have all the original expansions and the Y2K expansion.  The problem is that when playing with Y2K, you end up with too many cards in the deck.
Does anyone have a good way of deciding which cards to use?  Is there an official method?

Steve Jackson games are good at that -- my decks of Chez Geek and Munchkin almost require a mechanical shuffler from the decks being so huge.

@Little BT: actually they are quite bad at that; Munchkin is definitely not a good game, but if you add the expansions it becomes even more unplayable. I also wonder how Hacker would look like without the (now-embedded) expansion.

Sometimes I use a very targeted set of cards, for example, having lots of power zero cards, in a game where the player who loves playing Cthulu gets on everybody's nerves.
You can build sets of cards geared for more income, remove all the non-group cards, and anything that comes to mind.
But I cannot be bothered. Sometimes I'll remove some cards that just seem to water down the deck, but other than that, I really do use a mechanical shuffler like LittleBobbyTables says, and then I just take the top 50-100 cards off the top, and we use those. The games end up being random enough.

I have only the Deluxe set, but one thing that we've done is use multiple stacks to draw from. After shuffling the cards, cut the deck into several stacks. Whenever someone draws, they choose which stack they draw from. That way, if you start to get a run of basic set cards, you can try another pile and possibly get something different.
It may not actually be making a difference, but it seems like you see more variety of cards that way.


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What are good placement strategies for Stratego?
How would I set up a good placement in Stratego, especially with bombs and the flag?  What is a good strategy for varying the placement?

I'm voting to close this as too broad, as it's essentially a what are some good tips? question - albeit tips about a particular thing. The answers are many and varied, as evidenced below.

I find that the key to Stratego lies in-

Cover your flag with bombs
Kill all enemy miners.
DO NOT MOVE a new piece when moving an old one will suffice.

Of those, I find that #3 is the most crucial.  Most players have a very hard time attacking pieces about which they have no information;  every time you touch a piece, or even visibly consider moving it, you inform your opponent that that piece is NOT a bomb.

This can work the other way 'round, though, if you can convincingly appear to consider moving a piece that is, in fact, a bomb.

@AndrewVandever: On a sidenote, some may consider this close to cheating. So make sure the people you play with do not mind being "tricked" like this.

@mafutrct As long as you don't actually touch a piece that can't move, I don't see how it can be considered cheating....  I'm just looking at my pieces and thinking.  Whatever you choose to read into it is clearly entirely up to you.

@GWLlosa That's how I see it too. I like applying little mind tricks like these. Just some of the people I played with seemed to be unused to it, and slightly annoyed ;\

fwiw - I find that surrounding other pieces with bombs more effective

There is no hard and fast answer for a good placement in Stratego, in part because as soon as someone learns your regular setup they can easily counter.  Many good strategies can work once but not regularly.
In general, common logic is to keep the flag in the back of your field surrounded by bombs.  Corners are also great because they only require two bombs instead of three to cover.  Both are excellent strategies with the weakness being predictability.  It is still a good idea to protect a flag on as many sides as possible with mines.  Setting up dummy flags with a Sergeant in wait for a miner is also common.
One of my favorite ploys is to leave the flag behind one of the lakes unprotected, or protected only on one side or both as not to be conspicuous.  Many players will assume that the flag is in the back row and go charging past that ignored Lieutenant or Sergeant.
I also commonly pick one of my three entrances and double bomb it off.  If the other player is set to attack all three fronts evenly it can throw a kink in their plans as they need to move a miner in to clear the way.  Also the miner is sure to be gobbled up as soon as it defuses one of the mines to clear a path.

double bombing off an entrance is great if you can find a way around the loss in maneuverability. Really gives you a solid defense.

Blocking your own entrances (any) is self-defeating in my opinion. It is something which can easily be overcome by the enemy (although probably at the cost of a miner) and you lose all control over what happens behind the barrier until your opponent clears a path. Loss of maneuverability, loss of control. It's not worth it.

If you play the same person more than once, the most important setup strategy is to avoid being predictable. If I play someone who always surrounds their flags with bombs, I'll beat them almost every time because discovering the location of a bomb (or better yet several bombs) means there's a good chance the flag is nearby.
In order to avoid being predicable, I tend to rotate between the following types of setups:

2-3 bomb clusters located far from each other (flag behind only 1 of
them)
2-3 bomb clusters located far from each other but flag NOT behind
them, so opponent wastes a lot of time and effort cleaning up bombs
that protect 7s.
semi-random bomb placement where no 2 bombs are placed adjacent or
diagonally.
a single bomb cluster protecting the flag with the rest placed
semi-randomly
One bomb protected side of the board that has lots of poor ranking
pieces, leaving me free to concentrate my attack on the other side of
the board.
I also occasionally do something truly wacky like place the flag in
the front row NOT behind a lake. I've won most times I've done this
because it is unexpected and is assumed to be a bomb, which is then
usually ignored/avoided, though I'm usually also protecting it with a
strong piece or two.

I've found that more important than flags/bombs is the placement of your best pieces (1, 2, 3, 3, and Spy in the old, original version). If your best pieces are too far back and separate from each other, you'll be at a big disadvantage to the player who comes barreling through your front ranks with a concentration of good pieces.
If you're playing someone for the first time, it's important to get a sense of how much they've played and what bomb strategies they employ, if they're willing to tell you. For example, if you're able to determine they've never used or played against the semi-random bomb setup, you're very likely to win if you use that set up.

[B][5][6][3][1][7][6][6][6]
[7][B][6][S][2]
[B][7][B][F][3][4][5]
[7][B][7][B][9][9][9][9]

Above you have a classic 6 bomb matrix - your opponent will have no choice but to position 8's and 6's to get through it.  This should give you plenty of moves to attack.  Use the top row 7's and 6's to test enemy units. then use the row nearby 1,2,3... to kill enemy units once you know what they are.  Leave the spy near the flag as a failsafe.  Keep the nines close to each other to make a little 9 highway, they can get out of the way of each other very quickly.

I'm confused by the diagram. Is it just that a bunch of pieces are cut off from the right side?

@Alex P, I was doing it from memory, so I don't remember all the other pieces.  The left hand side is what's important.

Use a diagonal of bombs backed by sevens to protect your flag. I go
back and forth between a pyramid toward the middle or a diagonal on
each corner, with a six or above instead of a bomb on one side.
Use your one for one aisle, your two and spy for another, and at
least one three for the last. Try to keep enough space clear that
you can maneuver these pieces around. Once you've really pinched
all three aisles, it's hard to lose.
Save some spies for later.

The diagonals+6s has always been one of my favorite strategies. If you can wipe out their 8's, it's not a definite win but sure helps.

Great setups are nice, but are secondary to TACTICS. All placements have advantages and disadvantages. Generally, I don't like grouping bombs much in the first 2 rows because it impedes movement of your troops, likely will only kill lower ranked pieces, and gives away the location of your bombs too soon. Obviously you shouldn't NOT ever put bombs in the first 2 rows, just keep it to a minimum IMHO. Also, I save my Scouts for the end of the game by keeping them in the back rows. You will want them when you are at the end of the game and you have NO IDEA where to attack.

Bomb Decoys. I play an updated version with and 8x10 board and only 30 pcs per side. I always stack 4 bombs on one side and put the flag in the corner with the other two bombs. put your spy near the decoys so when your opponent thinks he has discovered your flag he sends in his ten. your opponent will put several 3s and 1s to uncover ur bomb.

NOTE: This is an old school set so bear with my strategy if you have the new ones.
All of y'all's strategy is good, but I have a good one too :)

Guard your flag with an X of bombs
(make an X out of bombs, have the flag below the middle bomb, your marshal to the right of the middle bomb, your 3 left of the middle bomb, and your 4 on top of the middle bomb. Place further 4s to the right and left of the bottom X corners).
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have your spy with your general, this way when your general is taken out by a marshal (obviously) take your spy (next to your general which is now next to the marshal) and kill him.
A lot of people actually have their 9s in the front which is not a bad idea, but it's also not a bad idea to have a number like 4-7 as infantry.
Never attack a non-moving piece. Even though it could be a bluff (like the non-moving piece could be a bomb or 1-S ) just don't attack them. Instead, have your scout see what the piece is then determine whether to take your miner or 4-7 to attack that piece.

This may not be good for you but it's how I roll and how I win xD
Btw it's an old school set so bear with my strategy :D
All I can say now is enjoy the strategy and the game ;)

"this way when your general is taken out by a marshal".  unfortunately, this seems to be the first rule drilled into everybody's head, and as a result I have never had anybody's marshall attempt to take my general when the spy is waiting next to it.

Here are a few key principles. It's important to play "systematically".

Flag should always go in the back row and be protected by bombs.
6, 5, 4, 2s should go in the front row, however limit to just 1 six in the front row. Don't waste twos early on save them for mid-game. Opponents rarely put pieces worth knowing in their front row.
You will lose the game if you go down a 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10. Play carefully with these pieces. 9 and ten should be on opposite sides and be on the second or row and be able to reach the middle easily.
You want to clear the front row out quickly and use it as a path to organize your pieces.

Make sure you evenly distribute your major pieces (e.g. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). That means 1 six on the left, 2 in the center and 1 on the right and the same with your other pieces (7, 8, 9, 10). Once you reach end game you want to be able to quickly bring these pieces to the flanks between the lakes.
We outline more of how to play "systematically" in our e-book and also offer a lot of free content.
Check out Strategy for Stratego

Hi Paul. Thanks for disclosing your affiliation with your product and providing an otherwise useful answer - or at least, I think so; I don't play stratego! If you haven't read them already, please bear in mind our advertising policy when you post here - though it seems like you might have already done so. See the 'Avoid overt self-promotion' heading at the bottom.

I agree that the front row should be cleared out quickly. Maneuverability is your best defence.

hide flag with bombs, make decoy bombs so they think your flag is hidden somewhere else, hide 4/5/6's near the decoys to kill any 3's they use to defuse the bombs, don't waste all your 2's at the start of the game, you will need them later on, 2's are great for finding out which piece is the spy - AND TWOS KILL THE SPY- so then your 10 is safe so you can go rampaging around killing anything that they move
Finally they will be out if moving pieces and forced to surrender- you win!!

You Should place your flag in the corner and make a grid of bombs and fill that grid of bombs with 7s. 7s are the least useful.


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Containers for decks of small cards?
What sorts of containers have been found to be appropriate for storing large amounts of small cards?  For example, in Descent: Second Edition, There are 155 cards which must be stored, and which measure 41mm by 63mm.  Once they are sleeved (in these), they no longer fit in their little baggie;  is there some company that makes/sells boxes that fit these small cards?  Are there any commonly available containers that work well to fit these card sizes?

Are those sizes before or after sleeving the cards? What size are they sleeved? What type of sleeves are you using?

Also, even if they don't fit in their baggie, do they fit in a generic sandwich-sized baggie?

They may fit in some larger baggie, but some sort of box-type structure seems more ideal to not allowing them to bend/fold out of shape as much as possible...

I believe the measure is for the cards themselves.  I've updated the question with a link to the sleeves being used.

I usually use those white cardboard boxes to hold large amounts of cards. They come in various sizes. http://www.amazon.com/BCW-Count--Corrugated-Cardboard-Storage/dp/B000K3XQ8U/
Or I create my own boxes using plastic canvas. (sorry i do not have any better links for these at the moment) http://www.crafts-for-all-seasons.com/plastic-canvas-box.html

Note that those white cardboard boxes are well outsized for the kind of cards he's talking about here - his cards are about 1.5"x2.5", a good half-inch smaller than those stock cards in both directions.

You can get little plastic boxes in all kinds of shapes and sizes.
http://www.reallyusefulproducts.co.uk/uk/html/onlineshop/fullrange_rub.php
Also the little clear plastic bags with press-in tops (known as zip-lock)
http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Pages/default.aspx?products=all
For storage of multiple card-based games there are all kinds of small craft storage units with drawers of varying sizes. Personally I use the bags for games with lots of elements such as Agricola, and just keep all the bags of pieces/cards in the Agricola box.
Magic: the Gathering fat-pack boxes are excellent for storing multiple cards in (I have a friend who stores Race for the Galaxy, Gloom, The Great Del Mutay, and some regular playing cards in one) You can get empty ones from ebay or M:tG stores such as Troll and Toad (I'm limited to 2 hyperlinks).


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Is there WSOP (or other organisation) Texas Hold-em chip and blind schedule?
Is there a WSOP (or other organisation) agreed hold-'em tournament set-up for chips and blinds schedule:
e.g. something that lays out:
Chips arrangement:
Players start with 2000 worth of chips:
200 in 5
200 in 10
500 in 25
600 in 50
500 in 100
Blinds schedule:
5-10
10-20
20-40
25-50
30-60
50-100
100-200
200-400
250-500 (max)
Blind increase:
Blinds increase every 15 minutes/per knock out?
Do any sites recommend set-ups for home games for varying numbers of players (under 10)?

The blind structure depends strongly on too many factors to have a standard structure. Most importantly it depends on the chip values you use.
You can look at the offical WSOP structure on it's site: http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/ (The "Structure Sheet" links)


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In Broadside, what is your strategy for placing the shore guns and mines during setup?
I was recently reminded of the childhood naval game Broadside. As the defender, you get to place four shore guns and six mines during the setup phase, one on either side of two channels.
The channels are choke points that the attackers ships have to pass through to be able to win the game; one is close to the attacking fleet starting location and represents a direct path to the merchant ships they need to sink to win the game, while the other channel is out of their way.
The trick is that two of the guns are useless decoys, while the other two get a free shot on any ships that passes within range, and three of the mines can destroy an entire ship, while the other three are duds.
Does anyone who remembers this game ever develop a strategy for how to place these static defensive units, and if so, how did that change how you deployed your blue fleet once the game started?

I liked to put my good mines on one side of the board, and my good guns on the other side of the board. Then place my ships where their "broadsides" could cover the channels.
As I remember, the British fleet had 25 sails, the American only 20. But the guns and mines more than make up for it, for the Americans. Inevitably, the British ships lost sails to the guns. One or two would also hit a "live" mine.

Did you tend to place the mines on the close or far side or did you mix it up? Did you tend to more heavily defend (with your ships) the mined side or the shore gun side?

@adam: As I remember, I mixed up mines and guns between the near and far sides. I would tend to defend the near side more heavily with ships, easier to recoup.

Wait, doesn't that totally change your answer?

@adam: One way, I have mines on the near side, and guns on the far. The other, I have guns on the near side and mines on the far. But ALWAYs have more ships on the near side so there isn't a "pattern."

@adam: One interesting strategy is to mix up the pieces and place them at random so that even YOU don't know where they are. The theory is that a random placement of pieces will win, because the British has the tougher time. (I remember losing one game because the British player was able to read my "body language.")

This was decades ago for me but I remember that I would send a cutter through the middle where both guns would shoot. If both were there I lost 1 sail and if none I was through clear.

I don't think this answers the question does it?

Not at all really, although it makes me think of another good question. Perhaps he can port his answer of there once I ask it. :)

@pat: I've played the game (over 40 years ago) and consider this a "partial" answer. It just scratches the surface but I wouldn't consider it frivolous or off topic or non-responsive. There's a difference in my mind between a "bad" answer (one of these) and a "not good" answer from an inexperienced player.

@Tom - Not answering the question tends to attract negative votes.  Just trying to warn the OP here.

@pat:  He started off well with: "I would send a cutter through the middle where both guns would shoot." It was the "and then" part that was lacking. One problem is that he (and I) played this game decades ago and forgot the game. OK, I take your point if you're saying "this is not a COMPLETE answer." But I took your remark as "this is answering the wrong question."

I was trying to provide data to take into account on how to place the guns. So an answer - no. But relevant to determining an answer - I think so.


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What are the rules for Zombivors?
A friend got some new survivors with Zombivors (zombified survivors) on the back side of their character card.  But there are no rules explaining how to play a Zombivor!  What are the rules for Zombivors?

When does a survivor turn into a Zombivor?
Which "side" does a Zombivor play for?
Do they have free will?
Do the Zombivor skills replace the survivor skills?  (Does XP start over from 0?)

The official rules for Zombivors are now available here.
Quick recap:

Death and zombie infection can’t turn a real hero into a monster .
  Your favorite Survivors can make it back to the game  as Zombie heroes
  called Zombivors! When your Survivor is  eliminated by Zombies, you
  can turn him into a Zombivor:  flip his Identity Card and savor a
  bloody revenge . The Zombivors’ status is indicated with on the
  Survivors’  Identity Card . All Survivor rules apply to them . The
  killer feature about Zombivors is their incredible endurance: a
  Zombivor is only eliminated by five Wounded  Cards in his Inventory
  (instead of two for a standard  Survivor)
Zombivors are great tanks . There’s a serious drawback, though
  (besides the foul breath): at Yellow  Level, Zombivors don’t gain the
  +1 Action Skill of  standard Survivors

It goes on to explain that you can either play with them starting as zombies, or play with them starting as normal but coming back as zombies if they are defeated (which obviously is a big advantage).

The Kickstarter for the original game came with six Zombivors.

"Does XP start over from 0?"

@David That sounds like something that should be asked as a separate question rather than in a comment.

@bwarner possibly.  I just noticed it in the original question and was wondering myself.


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Is there a solitaire version of Bang?
I love playing Bang! but I'm finding it hard to play a game with my friends, because of our busy schedules.
I would love to play a solitaire version of Bang! if it existed, so that I could get my spaghetti-western card game fix between groups.
Does anyone know of, or has anyone created solitaire rules for this game?

The Unofficial Bang! Blog has, among other great variations, a set of instructions (pdf) for single player Bang!
The main changes in this solitaire version are that all roles and cards held are known to the player from the beginning, and that you play as both the sheriff and the deputy, with other "NPCs" making semi-predetermined moves.
You can increase the difficulty by giving more cards to NPCs at the start, but not too many! The author can barely survive with two cards given to each NPC at start. (I'm afraid even I'm not that good :p)
Not always having a large crowd to Bang with, I have thoroughly enjoyed this rule set and have now almost played it more than "normal" Bang!

This is not exactly what you asked for, but it may solve your problem and it's sure good info for those who want to play "alone":
There's an official app for iOS devices that let you play offline against NPCs or online with other people.
As I write this, the app costs US$4.99, but there are two special edition versions that are free, the BANG! Italia 150 and the BANG! 4th of July.


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Mah Jongg set recommendations?
I have wanted to get a Mah Jongg set, but have hesistated because I don't know what to look for in a set so I don't buy something flimsy.
Can anyone suggest what makes a good (or bad) Mah Jongg set? (e.g. materials, printing, etc.)

Good but inexpensive set:
Decent weight bakelite or similar plastic pieces, readable "engraved" (molded, really) figures.
I've a set I paid $15 for back in 1988; it's got a few thousand hands on it (I used to play a full game of 16 hands every week, sometimes more than one), and it's still in great shape, but the vinyl over cardboard snap case is about dead. Replacing it would be about $25-$35 now. Higher end plastic sets run to about $50-$75
For the simplest "traditional" game, you need set with just the 7 honors (4 each: N, S, E, W, C {Red}, F {green}, and blank). You should hold out for one with 4 flowers and 4 seasons.
For the American game, 8 "big jokers" are also needed.
It's nice if the set has a deal marker and round marker; many times, this is a die for the round, and a carrier which the die fits into as a round marker.
Almost all sets come with 3 pretty poor quality dice.
It's generally worth it to make certain at least the suit of 10,000's (characters) is marked with western numbers as well; it isn't needed, but is nice, on the suits of bamboo and coins (balls).
The better looking the winds and seasons, the easier they are to tell from the 1 bamboo.
Some have marked extra tiles, usually marked "B"... I use these as my 7th honor, and reserve the blanks as replacement tiles.
More expensive set
Look for the wood or bamboo to be slotted, and the ivory or bone to fit that slot tightly; you should see no space, and normally, the slot is dovetailed. Bone will have visible pores, and is pretty opaque; Ivory has a different pattern, and is slightly translucent. In both cases, look for paint only in the engraved areas, even pieces, and consistent size and color.
If you find an ivory set for under $100, suspect that you're being had. Inexpensive ivory sets just don't exist... many that claim it are bleached bone, or even plastic.
Bone sets can look very nice. But they also run $50 to $150 depending on a lot of factors.
Paper Sets
Mah Jongg cards (often spelled kards) are available for under $25. Most are only the traditional set, usually with both the four winds and four seasons, and the blank is replaced with a white dragon image.
So long as the set is a comfortable size, and is plastic coated, it should work fine.
One can make a passable set using a Mah Jongg font, and an business card template. If you laminate the cards with contact laminate, they come out feeling like lightweight japanese cards... And play just fine.
One other word of warning: when searching for Mah Jongg Cards, you'll get some hits that are the scoring combinations for the American Game, rather than cards with which you play the game itself. Kards almost always refers to playing pieces.
Final Thoughts

If you and those you play with are comfortable with the visible symbols, the set is good enough.
if you find an american style set, it gives you the option to play either game. If you get a traditional set, you can't play the american game.

http://www.sloperama.com/mjfaq/whereg.htm has all the answers you need.

Tips For Buyers
Caveat Emptor. When you see an
  attractive mah-jongg item for sale,
  make sure it's really got everything
  you need. How many time have I heard,
  "I got a wonderful Chinese-style
  mah-jongg set but it doesn't have
  enough tiles," or "I got a wonderful
  Japanese mah-jongg set but I can't
  tell the Winds apart!" I've bought a
  lot of sets on eBay, and have learned
  about some specific things to watch
  for when buying a set...

How many tiles does the set contain?
Are the tiles marked with Western indices? (Or is everything in
  Chinese?)
If your type of mah-jongg requires special tiles, are those tiles
  present?
What condition is the set in?
Are all the bits & pieces included?
Is the set suitable for the sort of mah-jongg you play?
Is the seller's price competitive?

The site also links to a reliable list of sellers as well as lots of information about buying sets. It also helps in selecting which kind of set (Japanese, American, ...) to chose.


text:
King of Tokyo card question+ dice read

Jets says

You suffer no damage when yielding Tokyo.

If the monster in Tokyo has 3 health and he should receive 3 attacks, he should die or he can just leave Tokyo?

In 5 players game Gigazour is in Tokyo, Tokyo Bay is free and CyberBunny 8 health rolled 2 heal and 3 attack (Gigazour doesnt't want to leave Tokyo). So CyberBunny can recover 2 heal, then
hits 3 times Gigazour and then go to Tokyo Bay, right?

In general, if you have two questions like this, it is better to ask them separately.  That way people can answer and vote on each one individually.

Yes, that's basically the point of the card.  Here's a BGG thread confirming it.
CyberBunny is not currently in Tokyo, so he is definitely able to heal.  And since he is not in Tokyo, the damage he deals is applied to monsters in Tokyo.  Since Gigazour does not leave Tokyo, CyberBunny is placed in Tokyo Bay.  So yes, your resolution is correct.


text:
Can I use a weapon that makes noise when there's no room for more noise tokens?
Is it possible to use a weapon making noise if there's no more room for noise tokens on a location? And is it possible to use a weapon making noise in the colony, knowing that you can't put noise token on the colony?

Read the description on the weapon cards. Most of them doesn't make noise. Ones that do, have a clause: "add noise if possible". Thus, you don't add noise in the colony or if 4 noise tokens are already present at the location.


text:
How many times can you pillage the same province in Blood Rage?
In Blood Rage, one of the Clan upgrade cards from the second age is Tyr's Challenge, which states, "As your action, you may pay 2 rage to "repillage" an already pillaged province."
In a recent game experience, a player repeatedly used that card in the center Yggdrasil province, which offers 3 stat increases on a success.  My question is, how many times can a player "repillage" a province?

As much as they have rage to do so.
From the official FAQ on CMON's site:

Q. Does Tyr’s Challenge (pay 2 rage to repillage) allow a player to gain the pillage token reward more than once in the same age?
A. Yes, with Tyr’s Challenge you can pillage an already pillaged province, as long as you pay 2 Rage every time.


text:
Questions on Incendiary Flow and Failed Inspection
Me and my friend have been arguing about these two things for a while now. Also, I’ve been learning it from him, and haven’t played it anywhere else.

First, he played Incendiary Flow on my Geralf's Masterpiece, which says it “deals 3 damage to a player or creature. If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn, exile it instead.” My card was 7/7, so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be dead if my math is correct. He also said me being exiled meant being sent to the graveyard. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.
Second, when I countered him with a Failed Inspection, he countered that with a Failed Inspection, and I thought that counters automatically send the spell to the graveyard.

In the future, please ask each question as a separate Question.

@bwarner Thanks for the title update. I wasn't sure what to do for it either.

My card was 7/7, so I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be dead if my math is correct.

It would take 7 damage to kill a creature with 7 toughness. The damage doesn't need to be dealt all at once, so Incendiary Flow could kill your 7/7 if 4 or more damage had been dealt to it earlier in the turn. But not on its own.
Keep in mind that Geralf's Masterpiece is only a 7/7 if your hand is empty. If you have one card in your hand, it's a 6/6. If two, 5/5. And so on.
Damage from previous turns doesn't matter because all damage dealt is cleared during the Cleanup Step.

119.3e Damage dealt to a creature by a source with neither wither nor infect causes that much damage to be marked on that creature.
704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.
514.2. [As part of the Cleanup Step], the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.

He also said me being exiled meant being sent to the graveyard. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.

The graveyard is where it would normally go. Incendiary Flow creates a replacement effect that alters that.
When a creature is dealt an amount of damage that meets or exceeds its toughness, the creature is destroyed. When a permanent is destroyed, it's put into its owner's graveyard (unless it regenerates).
Incendiary Flow overrides this. If a creature it damages would be sent to the the graveyard before the end of the turn in which it was damaged, it's exiled instead. The Graveyard and Exile are two different zones. It's virtually impossible to get back a card that's been exiled, while a lot of cards can leave the graveyard or can take other cards out of the graveyard.

701.7a To destroy a permanent, move it from the battlefield to its owner’s graveyard.
400.1. A zone is a place where objects can be during a game. There are normally seven zones: library, hand, battlefield, graveyard, stack, exile, and command. Some older cards also use the ante zone. Each player has their own library, hand, and graveyard. The other zones are shared by all players.

when I countered him with a Failed Inspection, he countered that with a Failed Inspection, and I thought that counters automatically send the spell to the graveyard.

That's completely legit. Just like you cast in response to Incendiary Flow, they can cast in response to your Failed Inspection.
Normally, when one casts a spell, this is what happens:

Player A casts Incendiary Flow.
All players pass priority.
Incendiary Flow resolves.

This last step is where the spell actually takes affect.
However, one could cast a spell in response to Incendiary Flow (i.e. in step 2).

Player A casts Incendiary Flow.
Player A passes priority.
Player N casts Failed Inspection targeting Incendiary Flow.
All players pass priority.
Failed Inspection resolves:

Counter Incendiary flow (by moving it from the Stack to the Graveyard).
Draw a card.
Discard a card.

(Incendiary Flow never resolves because it was removed from the Stack.)
Of course, players can cast spells in response to Failed Inspection (i.e. in step 4) too.

Player A casts Incendiary Flow.
Player A passes priority.
Player N casts Failed Inspection targeting Incendiary Flow.
Player N passes priority.
Player A casts Failed Inspection targeting player N's Failed Inspection.
All players pass priority.
Player A's Failed Inspection resolves:

Counter player N's Failed Inspection (by moving it from the Stack to the Graveyard).
Draw a card.
Discard a card.

All players pass priority.
Incendiary Flow resolves.

(Player A's Failed Inspection never resolves because it was removed from the Stack.)

Would it be better to edit out the second question, and the answer to the second question; to encourage the asker to ask a separate question?

@GendoIkari, Not sure, but I have no problems with it. I can always move that part of the answer.

Interstingly, if Geralf's Masterpiece was 3/3 due to cards in your hand when your opponent cast Incendiary Flow, once you cast your Failed Inspection you would have one less card in your hand and he'd become 4/4. Your opponent counters your Failed Inspection. His Inceniary Flow resolves - you've now got a 4/4 with 3 damage marked on it and it survives.

First
Incendiary flow says

If a creature dealt damage this way would die this turn

Dealing less than lethal damage to a creature doesn't kill it.

exile it instead

This means instead of going to the graveyard it is exiled.
Second
All spells and most activated abilities (excluding mana abilities for example) use the stack, this means when a player casts a spell or activates an ability there is time to react to it before it resolves.  This includes counterspells like Failed Inspection.  You can counter a counterspell. (unless there was an ability preventing it like "this spell cannot be countered")

You're correct in all counts on the first set of questions.
A 7/7 creature does not die unless something kills it, typically by dealing an amount of damage equal to its toughness. After applying the damage, your Geralf's Masterpiece would still require 4 more damage to kill, meaning it's still kicking. The "exile it instead" is referring to if something else kills the damaged creature in the same turn. For example, if something else does another 4 damage to the creature before the end of the turn, it would be exiled (and not sent to the graveyard). Being "exiled" is another way of saying "removed from the game" (not being sent to the graveyard).
A player can counter a counter with another counter so your friend was right in that instance. The concept of a "stack" exists in Magic which allows these interactions.
These sorts of questions and misunderstandings are extremely common for new Magic players. I highly recommend you personally read through the rules as published by Wizards, available here.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Do you still score a Go if you end with a pair or sequence?
While playing Cribbage with a new acquaintance, I led the 9H he played 6D for 15-2 I followed with the 10H for 25, Pone called GO. I then played the 2H and 2D for 29, then called Go.   I then counted two for the pair of 2s and one for go.   He argued that after a pair or sequence to end the play you could not count the one for go.  Is there such a rule that I may have missed?

You get one point because he called "Go", not because you played the last card(s).
http://www.bicyclecards.com/card-games/rule/cribbage:

If a player cannot add another card without exceeding 31, he or she
  says "Go" and the opponent pegs 1. After gaining the Go, the opponent
  must first lay down any additional cards he can without exceeding 31.
  Besides the point for Go, he may then score any additional points that
  can be made through pairs and runs (described later). If a player
  reaches exactly 31, he pegs two instead of one for Go.

Your opponent is incorrect.  You would score the go as well as the pair, just as you did.  Its hard to prove a negative with a rules quote, so I'd say the burden is on your opponent to show anything in the rules that supports his interpretation.


text:
If Soulflayer is returned to play from your graveyard, does it retain abilities it was granted?
The abilities for Soulflayer are...

Delve (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting this spell pays for 1.)

If a creature card with flying was exiled with Soulflayer's delve ability, Soulflayer has flying. The same is true for first strike, double strike, deathtouch, haste, hexproof, indestructible, lifelink, reach, trample, and vigilance.

...but if you play the card and exile a creature with Flying using Delve, then Soulflayer is put into your graveyard, then you return Soulflayer to the battlefield will Soulflayer still have flying?

When it is in the graveyard, Soulflayer has none of those abilities, and it will not have them if it returns to the battlefield. When it is put into the graveyard, it becomes a card with no memory of its existence on the battlefield, and when it returns to the battlefield, it is a completely new creature.
Rule 400.7 says

An object that moves from one zone to another becomes a new object with no memory of, or relation to, its previous existence. There are seven exceptions to this rule:

When you cast Soulflayer, you can exile cards from the graveyard to pay for its cost, and it keeps track of those exiled cards. While it is on the battlefield, it remembers those cards, and gives itself abilities based on what abilities those cards had. This falls under the third exception to that rule:

400.7c If an ability of a permanent requires information about choices made as that permanent was cast as a spell, including what mana was spent to cast that spell, it uses information about the spell that became that permanent as it resolved.

Once the Soulflayer leaves the battlefield, it forgets about its previous existence, including the cards exiled when it was cast. If it returns to the battlefield, it no longer has any associated exiled cards, so it doesn't give itself any abilities.

No, every time that a creature enters the battlefield (Whether from your hand, your graveyard, from a bounce spell like cloudshift, etc.) it is a new instance of that creature. Since you can only pay a delve cost when casting from your hand there would be no way for it to come back with the ability.


text:
When do you progress to the next stage in the Lord of the Ring LCG?
After you finish a stage in the Lord of the Ring LCG–whether it be by successfully questing or by a card effect–do you finish the current round before progressing to the next stage, or do you immediately travel to the next stage of the quest?

You reveal the next stage of the quest as soon as you complete the previous one.  Depending on the quest, there can be advantages (or disadvantages) to doing this at a non-standard time, such as through Legolas's ability to add progress during combat, but this is intended.


text:
Do progress tokens carry forward in the Lord of the Rings LCG?
If you've successfully quested during the quest phase and come out +7, but you only need 3 more quest points to finish the current stage, do you put your extra 4 progress tokens on the quest card for the next stage or can you only make progress through one stage per round?

No, you place all progress tokens at once, so you can't get progress on the next stage of the quest by overcompleting the first one.


text:
Travel in the Lord of the Rings LCG?
I'm never quite sure how this phase of each round is supposed to go...
So, say during the quest phase you encounter a location with 2 quest points, and after you resolve the quest you come out +2. Do you put the progress tokens on the quest card and then travel to the location? or do you travel to the location and put them on the location card?

If you have an "active" location, you place progress on it before you place them on the current quest.  But a location only becomes active when you travel to it.  If you just revealed the location, it is still in the staging area and not active, so you would put the progress on the quest.  You may then choose to travel to the location during the travel phase.


text:
Thud! - Can the Trolls win?
In every game of Thud! that I have played, the Dwarves win hands down.
It is somewhat off-putting as whoever is playing the Trolls seems to have to simply minimise the losses.
Are there any opening gambits that allow the Trolls at least a fighting chance?  The instructions imply that there are, but don't give any hint as to what they are.

I have found that it is possible for Troll to actually play a strong game, however, there is a fundamental issue with seeing that one could win with either the trolls or dwarves.
Remember, Thud! is an asymmetrical game--and in actuality a complete game comprises of what more closely resembles a "match"--a player plays one game as as each and the remaining value of the pieces are summed to determine the winner.
Thus, if you find your games really only feel like loss-minimizing--and lack strategy--the same applies to your opponent on his turn.
There isn't a lot of openly available games downloadable for analysis for Thud! as it is rather unpopular, but I'm basing this on my own personal play vs a computer opponent that I myself have designed: Thudgame on github. While the AI itself isn't an infalliable player, you might find that the Troll AI can often be quite threatening and I believe there's much that can be learned from it.
Unfortunately, there's not much depth to the openings (the board is symmetrical).  Some common openings I see the Trolls winning with are pretty much one of these two moves:

It's not always the same trolls, but you choose your attack vector based on the initial dwarf move (whether you want to hit the dwarf-swarm or the side dwarves are neglecting).
There's a system in how well you can get a single troll to defeat far more than his own value (5 dwarfs per troll is winning), but I have a hard time generalizing it. Give the bot a shot and I think you'll see some winning patterns emerge.

As an aside, I find there are probably few people who have played as many games as I (because of this bot), so I'd be interested in hearing from you, too, what you think are the weaknesses the Troll AI presents, or if you want an explanation of what the troll AI is calculating behind the scenes.

+100 for making an open-source computer version!

The general consensus is that the game is remarkably well-balanced, but that your strategies develop as you do. It doesn't have to be perfectly balanced, since it's a game of two halves.
Initially, when you are new to the game, the trolls just swamp the dwarves.
Then, you learn how to make blocks, and the dwarves swamp the trolls. This seems to be the stage you are at.
Then you learn trollish aggression, and when and where to make the sacrifices as a troll to stop blocks building and to spread out the trolls, and all that's left is mopping up the dwarves that are left because there's no way they can make a block once you've got the trolls spread out... if you're fast enough.
Then you learn to make dwarvish feints to get the trolls to spread out in the wrong direction first, learn the triangle of death to kill them as they come in with minimal losses, and you're back to swamping the trolls... most of the time.
Then you get the right pacing to strike out to prevent blocks building anywhere, you appreciate that the diagonals are often better paths to tackle because they are closer in terms of shoving, you learn to never, ever retreat, and the trolls once again have the edge... just.
Further refinements on either side happen, but in the end, neither side has an overwhelming advantage.
The thudgame.com forums are sadly dead, and seem unlikely to be resurrected, but you can still find them on https://web.archive.org/web/20081021162429/http://www.thudgame.com/node/183 the search engine won't work there but the forums are fairly easily navigable. The strategy section has a wealth of good info.
The best advice, though, is to play lots of games against lots of people much better than you, and see how they kick your ass with the trolls. You will quickly transition to the next cycle of "how the heck can dwarves possibly ever win?" :)


text:
"Dead Rubber" definitive etymology
What's the etymology of the phrase "dead rubber". Googling attributes it to some obscure bridge reference, but I don't seem to understand it.

I agree with the current answer, while the term "rubber" is used in bridge, I don't think the term "dead rubber" has any relation to bridge.

A rubber is a series that consists of an odd number of matches where a majority of wins takes the series.  For example, in baseball, the World Series is an example of a rubber; the team that wins 4 games out of 7 wins the series.  Rubber bridge is a form of contract bridge where the teams play best out of three games.  (Wiktionary lists this the etymology of this definition of rubber as "unknown."  If you want more information, English Language & Usage would be a good place to ask.)
The rubber match is a match that decides a series after a tie.  For example, in this year's World Series, after 6 games the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals were tied 3-3.  The last game on October 29 was the rubber match, and the winner, San Francisco, won the series.  In rubber bridge, the rubber match is the third game.
A dead rubber is a match in a series that has already been decided, but the match is still played.  In the World Series, this doesn't happen; once a team has four wins, no more games are played.  However, this term is used in other sports, such as some tennis tournaments, cricket, or the FIFA World Cup.  For example, in the group stage of the FIFA World Cup, you might have a match at the end of the group stage where it is already known which teams will advance to the knockout stage before the match begins.  This is a dead rubber match, and no matter who wins, the result of the tournament doesn't change.
In rubber bridge, the rubber is over when one team has won two games, so I don't think that "dead rubber" is a bridge term.

To note: The term does not appear at all in The Complete Encyclopedia of Bridge, 6th Edition (2001), under either Rubber, dead or Dead rubber.

I do know that dead rubber is a generic sporting term used in several sports (football, cricket etc). I just wanted to know why the series is called 'rubber'. A 'dead rubber' is of course a 'rubber' that has lost any significance (except statistically).

@Yaitzme I've just asked a question on English.SE about the etymology of "rubber" (not "dead rubber").  We'll see how well that question is received.


text:
What happens if I push another mech with skewer?
If my mech has a skewer card and I push someone else into a mech do I get the minion on my card?  Or alternatively if they have skewer and I push them into a minion do they get the minion?

Here is the text on Skewer:

SKEWER
[1] Move forward 1 space.
[2] Move forward 2 spaces.
[3] Move forward 3 spaces.
If Skewer kills a Minion, place it on this card (max of 1). Before drawing damage, you may instead scrap the Minion.

Here are the rules for "stomp" (under the Minions section):

Minions will also die if a Mech stomps on them (moves
into the same space).

And, finally, the relevant rules for "Push":

Player Mechs can Push [..] other player Mechs [...].
[...]
Executing a Move Command that would put the Mech into a space containing another Mech [...] pushes that object forward in the same direction, which could push another Mech [...].

Now that we have the rules established, here is your first question:

If my Mech has a Skewer card and I push someone else into a Mech do I get the minion on my card?

In light of the cited rules, the answer is... unclear. The answer depends on your interpretation of what exact event is taking place when the minion is killed.
That is, is the stomp a sub-event within Skewer or is stomp a result of Skewer? If your interpretation is the former, then yes the minion would be placed on the card. If your interpretation is the latter, then no.
At this time, there is no official clarification that distinguishes the granularity of stomp within the context if its causal action that could be used to resolve this ambiguity. My personal interpretation is the Skewer is triggering stomp and thus the minion is not killed via Skewer directly. This interpretation also makes more thematic sense as the pushed Mech does not necessary have Skewer equipped (and thus it has nothing to physically skewer with!).
We do have enough information to firmly answer your second question, however:

If another player has Skewer and I push them into a minion do they get the minion?

The answer is no, they do not gain the minion. The card specifically says "If Skewer kills a Minion".
Killing a minion any other way does not trigger the ability. If the card could be triggered by other means, the text would have been written as such (e.g., "When your Mech kills a minion...").
Regardless of the thematic implications, the rules are clear.
Source: Printed rules (rulebook and card)


text:
When I tap a creature to attack with it, does that also activate abilities that require tapping it?
When I declare my attackers, that causes the attacker to be tapped. What happens if the attacker I tap has an ability that is triggered by tapping?
Would I have to tap the creature before the combat phase to use the ability (thus making it unable to attack due to it being tapped) or does tapping the creature to declare it as an attacker cause it to trigger its ability?

"Fight" has a meaning in Magic, and it's unrelated to attacking.

If you can attack and use the ability depends on exactly what kind of ability it is.
If it is a triggered ability like Fallowsage that says "Whenever Fallowsage becomes tapped, you may draw a card." you get to use the ability anytime that card becomes tapped, attacking is the most common way but any other way of tapping it would also work.
If it is an activated ability that has tapping as a cost like Elvish Mystic that says "{T}: Add {G}." you have to choose whether you are tapping it to attack or if you are tapping it to pay for its ability. This is because tapping the creature is a cost and if it is already tapped from attacking you can't tap it again to pay for the cost.

You can either attack or activate the ability.

What happens if the attacker I tap has an ability that is triggered by tapping?

Such an ability would be worded as follows:
Whenever this creature becomes tapped, ...

If a creature had such an ability (e.g. Fallowsage), it would trigger if the creature becomes tapped for any reason, including attacking. In fact, it's effect would only happen if you have some external means of tapping it (e.g. by attacking).
The thing is, very few creatures have such an ability. You're probably not asking about a triggered ability; you're probably asking about an activated ability. Activated abilities have the form "[cost]: [effect]". (Note the ":" and the lack of a leading "when", "whenever" or "at".)
Specifically, I presume are talking about an ability with a tap symbol in its cost. e.g. Golden Hind or Dakra Mystic.
Tapping does not actually initiate the attack or cause activated abilities to activate. Choosing to attack or to activate the ability is the first thing that happens. Tapping is then performed as part of that process.
Tapping as part of activating an ability is done to pay a cost. Tapping as part of attacking is similar. Like costs in real life, taking out a dollar out of your wallet doesn't allow you to buy two one dollar items.

What about Fallowsage?

Or Goblin Medics and Grimoire Thief?

"Whenever [creature name] becomes tapped, ..."

@Hao Ye, Thanks. Fixed. Had the wrong template. Fooled by the fact that some lands and enchantments have "whenever ... is tapped".


text:
Gate and monster appear when returning to Arkham from Other world
A gate and a monster appear when returning back to Arkham from Other world.
I want to close the first gate which I came from, so I wait a round.
Does the other gate draw me in next round or can I close the first gate before the other gate draws me in?

It's a little unclear, but you don't generally have to wait a turn to try to close the gate (although you can certainly retry if you fail the first time) - you should come out of the gate during your movement phase, then attempt to close it during the Arkham encounter phase.

Also, you say "when returning" but I think you actually mean during the next mythos phase? I know there are encounters that can cause a gate and a monster to appear, but in order to have a normal encounter at that location, there has to not be a gate there. You're not trying to have a normal encounter instead of closing the gate, are you?

I think the "Gate and a monster" effect still needs to follow the basic rules on placing a gate. This means if you are at a location with an Elder Sign, the gate doesn't open, and if you are at a location with an open gate, then a monster surge happens.
So, you are on a location with an open gate, and you have explored it. A gate opens in your location. This means a monster surge happens, and no second gate.

There can never be 2 gates at the same location at the same time.


text:
Removing Assassin in 3 players game
In French rules, playing at 3 means having two characters at every rounds.
One character card goes face down then crown owner chooses a character and pass the rest to next player.
If the crown owner takes Assassin, he will assassinate without any risk because he can deduce two missing character cards.
I'm thinking a 100% hit ratio by Assassin is nonsense, assassination is a risky task and thus should not be at 100%.
Also, this can be extended this to the Thief with a 100% hit rate if taken by crown owner (and if Assassin is face down).
What do you think about removing Assassin and Thief and inserting Artist to make a more balanced 3 players game ?

My math is not matching yours here.  There are 8 cards.  1st player removes 1 and takes one.  Then everyone takes 1 twice. so the last player has 2 cards to pick from.  He hides the last card.  No one knows all the cards in the round

@Andrey The OP didn't say that the first player would know all the cards in the round.  He said the first player would know for sure two of the cards that were chosen (these are the cards which the other players chose in the first time round) and would therefore be sure to hit a target.

@LeFlou - the ability to deduce two of the chosen character cards is not unique to the first player.

@MikeR but he is the only one able to take out one of them completely.

If you are adding the 9th role, there is a different solution for the same problem. When we play a 3 player game, the roles are distributed as follows:

Player 1 puts one card face down (1), and picks one (2).
Player 2 picks a card (3)
Player 3 picks a card (4) and puts one face down (5)
Player 1 picks a card (6)
Player 2 picks a card (7) and puts one face down (8)
Player 3 picks up the first face-down card (1) and chooses from this card and the last (9). The remaining card goes face down.

This method of picking up the first face-down card is based on the 8 player rule from the Dark City expansion. With this, there is no 100% knowledge.
Alternatively, if you don't have the 9th role, you could let the first player choose which card to place face down, but it has to be either the thief or the assassin. This doesn't solve the problem, but takes some weight off the circulating 100% knowledge.

Very interesting I'll test it.

I think this would actually be less balanced.
Assassin
From the perspective of the choosing player, the main strength of the Assassin is rarely the actual assassination. The Assassin's main strength is actually that since he plays first, he is able to avoid attacks by the Thief and Magician. (Occassionally the Assassin's player will benefit directly by eliminating the Magician or Warlord)
The player who generally benefits most from an assassination is the non-involved player, since (unless he took Warlord) is the only one who can take two actions towards city improvement.
Thief
The thief in a 3-player game still has a lot of things that can go wrong.

He could be killed by the Assassin prior to being able to steal.
If one opponent has coins and the other does not, he has a 50% chance to choose the wrong player and get no money.
If he only sees roles late in the rotation, (ex: Merchant and Architect), there is a good chance the target will also have an earlier role and have spent the money already.

Probable Effects of Removing Assassin and Thief
This would be extremely unbalanced.  Can you imagine a game where the Magician goes first every round?

The biggest reason it would be unbalanced, is because it would just become a race to get the merchant and archatect

I understand your point, but I'm looking for a workaround to avoid 100% hit ratio for Assassin.

Assassin allows you so many options, in a 3 player game as well as a guaranteed kill and immunity etc. it also allows you to pick thief if it is left available ensuring a guaranteed steal and weakining both opponents.


text:
Star Realms: scrapping a card in your hand
Do I still get the actions of a card that I plan to scrap during that turn? For example, if I have the Brain World in play, I am allowed to scrap up to two cards from my hand or my discard pile. I have a Viper and a Scout that I want to get rid of. Do I still get to use their primary actions (1 Combat and 1 Trade) on that turn?
I have interpreted this as the primary actions immediately "fund" the resource pool, so that I do get the benefit of their actions. This would be a no-brainer (pun intended) if the Brain World was not already in play, but it's a base and can carry over from a previous turn. So exactly when does that scrapping action have to take place? At the beginning or the end of the Main Phase?

Your interpretation is incorrect. You cannot use the actions of a card that you scrap.
The rules state that during the main phase, players may perform the following actions in any order (among other actions):

Play cards from your hand
Use the Primary Abilities of in-play Bases

So the answer to your second question is that you can use the Brain World in whatever order you want during the main phase.
The rules go on to state

When a Ship is played, its Primary Ability triggers immediately.

That is to say, you must decide to play a card from your hand in order to gain the benefit of the primary ability.
Under "Playing Cards" they say that to play a card,

place it "in-play" (face-up on the table in front of you).

Later, in the Discard Phase,

Put all in play Ships into your Discard Pile.
  Put any cards left in your hand into your Discard Pile.

These quotes together make it clear that an "in-play" card is not in your hand, nor your discard pile. This demonstrates that using a Primary Ability and being scrapped by the Brain World are mutually exclusive (at least without some special ability to move cards from in-play to your hand or discard pile).

This is correct. Basically, the card is in one of 4 states: In Deck (and has not been drawn yet), In Discard (meaning it is waiting to be reshuffled to form a new Deck), In Hand (and therefore it's primary ability hasn't been triggered yet, so no resources are added to the Trade or Combat pools), or In Play (and therefore no longer a valid target for Brain World, since it only targets In Hand or In Discard). The moment you Play the card to trigger its primary ability and gain Combat or Trade, you move it to a state where it is no longer a valid target for Brain World.