c/board-game-geeks

The old roll and move dice games are gone from my group's table

Back in 2014, my group in Philly would play Risk and Monopoly all night, simple dice and cards. Now every session is worker placement or engine builders with 40 page rulebooks. I miss the nights where we could teach a new guy in 5 minutes, anyone else feel like the hobby moved past the casual stuff?

My friend swore by the 'gamma ray' strategy in Cosmic Encounter... it backfired hard on both of us

A buddy of mine, Tom, keeps telling me that the Gamma Ray flare card is the best early game move in Cosmic Encounter because you can just pick off weak players. He said it's a surefire way to thin the herd and make a power play. So I finally tried it in a 5 player game last Saturday night. I used Gamma Ray against my neighbor right away, dumped all my ships into his home system, and thought I was clever. But the other three players ganged up on me immediately because I'd shown my hand too early. I lost half my fleet and ended up being the first one out. Tom laughed and said I just didn't execute it right. Have any of you dealt with a friend who gives bad advice that sounds great in theory but fails in practice?

Changed my tune on cooperative games after a bad night at a game cafe

I used to think cooperative board games were boring since there's no winner, but last month at a local cafe in Denver my group played The Crew and we were all yelling and laughing together trying to solve each mission. It totally shifted how I see teamwork in games. Has anyone else had a moment where a game completely flipped your opinion on a whole genre?

Fell for a slick $40 board game storage solution on Etsy and the dividers were just cardboard glued together

I ordered this custom foam core insert for my copy of Terraforming Mars after seeing all the rave reviews, and within two unboxings the tabs had warped and ripped clean off. Has anyone else gotten burned by a storage upgrade that looked good in the photos but fell apart fast?

Bought a $50 board game organizer kit and it broke in one week

My buddy Dave was wrong about the expansion pack

So I have this friend Dave who swears by the Dominion Prosperity expansion... he kept saying it would ruin the game balance with too many big money cards. I finally got it last month after ignoring him for like 6 months and honestly it's way more fun than he made it sound. We played it at my place last Friday and even Dave admitted the colonies make for shorter games. Has anyone else had a friend give bad advice about a game expansion?

I was a dice tower skeptic until I tried one at a convention in Minneapolis

I always thought dice towers were just overpriced unnecessary accessories. But last month at Con of the North, a guy let me roll on his 3D printed one during a game of Dune Imperium. My rolls were noticeably more random than my usual tumble from my cupped hands. I still won't buy a $60 wooden one, but I get the appeal now. Anyone else have a thing they dismissed until trying it out?

My copy of Terraforming Mars fell off the shelf and the whole box exploded...

My copy of Terraforming Mars fell off the shelf last Saturday and the box burst open... cards went everywhere, including under the couch. I spent a good 45 minutes sorting the player boards back in order and I'm still missing one blue resource cube. Has anyone else had a game completely fall apart on them like this?

Hit 100 games played this year and I still feel like a beginner

So I track my plays on BGG and last week I noticed I crossed 100 games for 2024. That number surprised me because I've only been seriously into board games for like 2 years. I thought after 100 plays I'd feel like I really knew what I was doing, but I still mess up rules all the time and lose to my friend who has way less plays. Is this normal or am I just bad at remembering rules? Has anyone else hit a weird milestone and felt the same way?

Spent 45 minutes on a rule I misread in Terraforming Mars

I got the Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars last weekend and tried playing a solo game. I spent a full 45 minutes trying to figure out why my heat production wasn't adding up right. Turns out I was reading the phase order wrong the whole time. Has anyone else spent way too long on a single rule that ended up being really simple?

My group tried a 6 hour game of Twilight Imperium and it broke one guy

Last Saturday we finally got 6 people together for Twilight Imperium. I prepped the rulebook for a week and even made cheat sheets. By hour 4, Dave was negotiating a trade for a space dock he didn't actually own. He snapped around hour 5 when someone took his home system and started talking to his chair. We called it after 6 hours and nobody won. Has anyone else had a game session that made someone totally lose it?

Warning: That one comment at a game store changed how I see trading card games

I used to think TCG players were just hoarders with expensive cardboard. Then three months ago at Dragon's Lair in Austin, a guy named Mark showed me his binder of Magic cards from 1994. He pulled out a Black Lotus and told me he traded a bag of chips for it in middle school. He said he kept it because every card in that binder was a memory, not an investment. That stuck with me because I realized the whole hobby is about stories, not just winning or collecting. Has anyone else had a random stranger totally flip your perspective on a game you wrote off?

I spent 4 hours trying to teach my group the rules to Root and still had to look up stuff mid-game

Everyone raves about Root being this amazing asymmetric game. I finally got a copy and spent a whole Saturday afternoon reading the rulebook and watching a playthrough video. Thought I had it down. We sat down at 7pm, by 9:30 we were still flipping through the law of Root every other turn trying to figure out what lizards could do or how the vagabond could move. We didn't even finish a full game. Are there actual quick guides that work better or does everyone just suffer through the first few games like this?

I used to let people explain every rule before playing but now I just yell 'we'll figure it out as we go' and it makes game night way more fun lol

After that time Dave spent 45 minutes explaining the rules to Terraforming Mars I just snapped and now we dive in blind but does anyone else find learning by playing actually works better for groups with short attention spans?

Found a weird token in my game box from 15 years ago... turns out it was a printing error

I was digging through my old copy of Carcassonne from 2008 and found this extra river tile that didn't match any expansion. After posting on a board game forum I found out it was a misprint from the first print run. Now I keep checking all my thrift store finds for random misprints. Anyone else ever find something strange in a game box they bought used?

The day I stopped sorting board game pieces by color and started sorting by shape

I spent years organizing my Settlers of Catan pieces by color, until I tried to find the orange settlement in a pile of orange roads during a game last Friday. Now I sort everything by shape first and color second, which saves me about 10 minutes of digging per game night. Has anyone else found a weird system that actually works better?

Vent: Paid $45 for a Kickstarter board game that still hasn't shipped after 18 months

Backed a game called Dungeon Delvers back in early 2023. Looked great, had cool minis, seemed legit. Now the creator posts one update every 3 months saying "almost done" but the last tracker showed they were still molding prototype pieces. Lost $45 and a lot of trust. Anyone else get burned on a crowdfunded game?

That time I realized every board game group has a rules lawyer who's always wrong

I've been playing board games with a group for like 2 years now. There's this guy Dave who ALWAYS corrects everyone on the rules. He pulls out the rulebook and reads the fine print. But I noticed last month he's been getting things WRONG. Like in Settlers of Catan he said you can't build a settlement on a 6 or 8 if you already have one nearby. That's not a thing. Then in Ticket to Ride he claimed you can only draw one train card per turn. I checked the manual later and he was wrong both times. It hit me that people just go along with him because he sounds confident. Has anyone else dealt with a rules lawyer who's actually just making stuff up?

My buddy swore we had to use the 'houserule' for Settlers of Catan where you reroll 7s - ruined 3 games in a row

He said it speeds things up but all it did was let someone hoard resources for 45 minutes with no robber to slow them down. Has anyone else had a houserule that sounded good but wrecked the whole feel of a game?

That rulebook I read 4 times and still got wrong

Picked up Root last Saturday and thought I had the rules down after reading them twice. Took us 3 hours to get through the first game because I kept forgetting how the Woodland Alliance turns work. Finally watched a 20 minute YouTube video and realized I played the Vagabond completely wrong. Has anyone else spent a whole afternoon learning a game only to find out you missed a big rule?

PSA: That one guy at the game night totally changed how I teach rules

I used to just dive right in and explain every single rule from the rulebook during game night. Then this guy named Dave pulled me aside after a game of Brass Birmingham. He said I was overloading people and making them zone out before we even started. He told me to just teach the basic goal and one or two actions, then explain the rest as it comes up. I tried it last month with a group of 4 new players on a game called Great Western Trail. It actually worked way better and we finished in 2 hours instead of 3.5. Nobody looked bored and they asked way more questions during the game. Has anyone else had to unlearn the way they explain games to newcomers?

Spent 3 hours trying to teach my friends Root and gave up after the first turn.

I thought explaining the factions would take 20 minutes tops, but after 45 minutes of reading and another 2 hours of confusion, we just played a simplified version where nobody followed the rules, has anyone else had a game night completely fall apart like that?

Found out my favorite game designer only started making games at age 40

I was looking up the creator of one of my go-to board games, the one we always pull out at family gatherings, and I stumbled across this interview on a game design blog. Turns out the designer worked as a high school teacher for 15 years before he ever made a game. He just did it as a hobby at first, printing cards on his home printer and cutting them out with scissors. That blew my mind because his game is so polished and balanced, like it came from someone with decades of experience. Now I'm looking at my own half-finished game ideas differently. It makes me think about how many great designs are out there just waiting for someone to try. Has anyone else found a designer or creator who started way later than you expected?

Shoutout to the guy who told me to stop hoarding board game expansions

I had like 6 unopened expansions for Spirit Island piling up on my shelf, and some random at a game cafe told me I was just collecting dust, not playing. I finally cracked one open last week and realized half the modules were stuff I didn't even enjoy - anyone else ever been guilty of buying expansions you never touch?

Played Catan for 3 years before realizing you put settlements on corners, not edges

Honestly, I was about 20 games deep into Catan with my buddies in Denver when someone finally pointed out I'd been placing my settlements on the edges of the hexes the whole time. I thought the rule said 'adjacent to roads' meant anywhere along the line, so I was basically blocking whole tiles for no reason. My buddy just stared at me for a solid 10 seconds before asking if I was trolling. Has anyone else played a game completely wrong for that long without knowing?