Top 10 Good Games with One Annoying Rule

The comedy and chemistry in this top ten is great! This is why I watch the Dice Tower 👏

Zee’s #10 was changed in the 2nd edition of King of Tokyo. The first player enters Tokyo at the end of their turn regardless of what they have rolled. The first player’s claws still won’t resolve, however there’s no more turtling to avoid entering Tokyo.

Next list: terrible games with one really cool idea.

I think the best house-rule to avoid the awkward position of no one starting in Tokyo in King of Tokyo (Zee's #10 pick) is to have the last player start in Tokyo. It gets rid of the problem trying to avoid claws in your first turn and it gives the last player something to do while waiting for everyone else to do their turns (do they want to get out of Tokyo or not). I even give them the point for starting in Tokyo.

My house rule is Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle...The Hogwarts deck is MASSIVE (even without expansions). What can happen is the 6 cards you choose from are all too expensive, so all the players pass on their buy action every turn, the game grinds to a halt and you can't deckbuild in a deckbuilding game! We have 2 Hogwarts decks, one deck with cards that cost 1-4 and a second deck with cards that cost 5+. 4/6 spots you can buy cards from are from the cheap deck (and replenish from that deck as you buy cards), 2/6 spots are from the expensive deck. This doesn't make the game easier, it makes an occasionally broken game into a GAME.

Really appreciate you guys sharing your house rules and fixes for these problematic games. I like a lot of the games on this list and also tend to do house rules, getting more ideas for them is fun

Have you ever done a Top 10 Games You Would Not Play Without An Expansion? I could find a top 10 best expansions in 2012, but that was as close as I could find (I may be blind, mind you, at my age, but.... :-)

On Gloomhaven JOTL my wife and I had burned out because of how much angst we had around the communication, but i hadn't figured out that was the issue until Mike said it just now. We are immediately house ruling that and i think it will make the game so much better.

Kudos for whoever made the transition animations, very well done! :)

When my family plays Lords of Waterdeep we don't like that only one player per round can go to Builders Hall -- we understand that it's meant to be a limit and incentivize people going to Castle Waterdeep but we find the game to be much more interesting when more buildings can be obtained each round, so we have a house rule that Builders Hall has 3 slots, one corresponding to each building on sale. We find that there's still some incentive to go first in the round since some buildings are more advantageous to own than others, and also allows the options on the board to expand more considerably each round. There might be reasons why this was limited in the official rules but we find it more fun this way.

Every time the subject of "semi"co-op hate comes up on this channel it really makes me wish New Angeles had gotten more exposure when it was new. Greedy corporations trying to get one over on each other, while also working together to keep the city from falling into chaos. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the Netrunner/cyberpunk setting, but I just love that game.

This is the funniest Top 10 from Dice Tower I've seen. I've never laughed so much. It would be interesting to have an episode that lists your houserules.

Great list! Neom is great indeed. The designer posted a no disaster variant, as well as a "timed disaster hitting everyone" variant that we use... So no one drafts it, but everyone still needs to build knowing they'll come, which keeps the fire and police station tiles valuable.

I think Castles of Caladale has the same problem that Zee's number 1. Rearranging the whole castle to fit in one tile can take forever. And there is always some way if you think long enough. Great video guys, it was a lot of fun!

@Zee RE: King of Tokyo, second edition fixed the claw to enter Tokyo rule. If Tokyo is empty on your turn, you go into Tokyo. So basically the first player will enter Tokyo on their turn.

This is my favourite top 10 yet! As someone who enjoys game design/casually designing games I found this an interesting look at game design errors and/or pitfalls to avoid putting in games.

This was a really good top 10!

When I was starting out in the hobby with my copy of pandemic, I definitely alpha gamed. I look back and I'm like "I don't think this was actually fun for anyone else". I've gotten much better now 😅

@Mike - Yes, the monster "dice loss" is an essential part of the dice economy. Losing your dice to the monster fight has been the most contentious mechanics in the game. Glad to hear that the game is still on the positive side for you. Either way, thanks for mentioning us!

"I One-der if I can help." 😁 In Carcassonne, I play with each player having 2 tiles and drawing one after playing one. This way there's always a choice between 2 tiles to play except the last round. I worry 3 tiles draw may slow it down too much. I will definitelyimplement the Takenoko variant of not eating the last bamboo stalk. I also like the variant rule of each set of objective gives you extra points which encourages some balance.