The Problem With Pandemic

Pandemic is a beloved gateway board game for many people out there, but at the same time, it draws a whole lot of criticism much like other big name board games like Catan, though for an entirely different reason. In fact a lot of co-op games get this exact same criticism, and it’s that there’s no point in playing them with a group of people when the efficacy of gameplay can be done just as easily by yourself. This manifests itself as a term that people call “quarterbacking”, where because there’s no gameplay barrier between players, there’s nothing stopping 1 player from essentially playing out the actions of everyone at the table.

In this video, I’m going to rant about quarterbacking, where it comes from and how to tackle it when deciding how to setup your tabletop experience. Pandemic isn’t the only board game to fall victim to this, it’s a problem with a lot of co-op games out there, but honestly Pandemic (especially Pandemic Legacy) is such a big name at this point that it almost feels like I can use it as the poster child for co-ops while still focusing on the core issue of quarterbacking as a whole in tabletop.

Also there’s a random Isaac Childres from Gloomhaven appearance because I went through his blog to snag some of his thoughts on quarterbacking lol. Also also big shoutout to my friend Paul for the valorant gameplay.

*ALL IN PERSON GAMEPLAY CLIPS ARE FROM 2019 WE DID NOT MEETUP FOR THIS*

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