I don’t like the combat in Gloomhaven. I’m the sap who read the rulebook enough times to know how all the bad guys act, so I end up being the computer my friends play against. It’s like being a Dungeon Master with none of the creative flair. Gloomhaven is a big enough game that it can take critiques from one more rando, but I’m driven to write this because of a persistent comment on Far Away’s creature management. Some folks can find that phase tedious or disproportional to the explorer phase. It’s a fair observation and, obviously, you can say whatever they want on the internet. To me, Gloomhaven has all the same problems and fewer of the emotional or narrative rewards Far Away offers. In analyzing the difference, I want to understand the role these systems play on the player.