c/friday-night-games

I used to think longer sessions were better, but a 2 AM finish in Portland changed my mind.

We played 'Betrayal at House on the Hill' for almost five hours last week, and by the end, everyone was just tired and cranky, not having fun. The moment I knew it was wrong was when my friend Mark just put his head on the table and said, 'Can we please stop?' I'm switching to a strict three-hour limit from now on. What's a good way to keep a game night moving so it doesn't drag?

If you're not setting a hard stop time for your game night, you're setting everyone up for a bad next day.

We switched from just playing games to having a themed potluck dinner first, and the whole vibe changed.

After 3 months of our usual pizza and Catan nights feeling a bit stale, my friend Sarah suggested we each bring a dish from the game's setting, like baking medieval meat pies for Lords of Waterdeep, and suddenly everyone was invested in the world before we even rolled dice.

My brother told me to never play Monopoly with our cousin Mark

He said Mark gets way too competitive and it ruins the vibe, but I thought he was just being dramatic. Last Friday we played and Mark bought Boardwalk and Park Place, then spent the next hour making insane deals and gloating every time someone landed there. The game dragged on for like 3 hours and two people just quit. I should have listened lol. Anyone have a story about a game night tip that saved you from a bad time?

Found out my favorite board game has a 45% win rate for the starting player

I was reading the rulebook for Terraforming Mars again last night and saw a tiny note about playtest stats. The person who goes first wins almost half the time in a four-player game. That's wild to me because we've been picking randomly for years. Now I'm thinking we should try a draft for turn order or something. How do you guys handle first player advantage in your group?

Just learned that the original Monopoly game was based on a property tax protest

I was reading a history of board games last week and saw that Monopoly started as 'The Landlord's Game' in 1903. It was made by a woman named Lizzie Magie to show how rents make people poor. The version we all know was basically stolen and sold by Parker Brothers in 1935. I always thought it was just about getting rich, but the whole point was the opposite. Does knowing this change how you feel about playing it, or is it just a game night classic no matter what?

Shoutout to my friend who convinced me to skip the deluxe edition of 'Cosmic Encounter' after I wasted $40 on extra pieces we never even opened.

We've played it six times now and that whole 'alliance' expansion pack is still sealed in the box, so what's a game you guys bought extra stuff for and then totally ignored?

Appreciation post: My $30 dice tower purchase actually saved our D&D night

We used to have a player who would 'accidentally' roll dice off the table every single time (you know the type). I grabbed a basic wooden dice tower on a whim, and it cut our combat rounds down by like ten minutes each. Now we can actually get through a full dungeon in one sitting. Anyone else find a small thing that fixed a big game night problem?

My friend told me my game night invites are too vague

For months I'd just text 'games at my place Friday' with no details. My buddy Mark finally said, 'Dude, I need to know if we're doing Catan or Jackbox and if I should eat first.' He was right. Now I send a short list with the main game, a start time, and a note about snacks. It cut down on last minute texts by a lot. How specific do you guys get when you plan a night?

Can we talk about the worst game night host ever?

Last Friday, my buddy Dave said he'd host but didn't set anything up. We showed up at 8 and he was still doing laundry. He pulled out a game with a 90-minute setup and then his cat knocked the whole board over after 20 minutes of play. We ended up just watching a movie instead. Anyone else have a game night totally derailed by a bad host?

Our game of 'Eclipse' turned into a four hour standoff over a single asteroid

Last Friday, three of us were playing that big space board game, 'Eclipse'. We were about two hours in when my buddy Mark claimed the last resource spot on a middle asteroid. My other friend, Jen, had her fleet parked right next to it and needed those materials to win. What followed was a two hour cold war where Jen kept building ships to scare Mark off, and Mark just kept upgrading his defenses, refusing to budge. The rest of the board basically froze while we all watched this one tiny fight that never happened. We finally called the game at 1 AM because no one would make a move. Has anyone else had a game night completely stall because two players got locked in a staring contest like that?

Vent: Bought a fancy board game organizer that wasted our whole night

I dropped $45 on a wooden insert for our copy of 'Settlers of Catan' thinking it would speed up setup. It took me over an hour to assemble the thing, and then we realized it didn't fit in the box with the 5-6 player expansion we always use. We spent the first 30 minutes of game night just trying to force it to work before giving up and dumping everything back into baggies. Has anyone found a good storage solution that actually works with all the expansions?

My group bought the 'Mystic Realms' expansion before checking the rules

In my experience, we dropped $35 on it thinking it would add a whole new campaign, but it's basically just cosmetic cards and one extra character. We spent our whole session last Friday just trying to make it work with the base game and gave up after two hours. Has anyone else had a letdown with a game add-on that looked way better online?

Bought a $60 board game expansion that completely ruined our campaign

The new rules were so broken we had to scrap the whole thing after two sessions. Anyone have a good 'house rule' fix for a game that's too easy to exploit?

My cousin insisted we try a 'no phones' rule for our game nights last month.

We played Codenames for 3 hours straight and actually talked. Anyone else have a simple rule that improved your group's vibe?

We used to just pick a game on a whim, but one night in my old apartment changed that.

It was maybe five years ago, we were all at my place in Columbus and spent a full hour just arguing about what to play. Someone said 'just pick something' and my friend Jake pulled out a game nobody knew. We spent the whole night reading rules instead of playing. Now, I send out a poll on Wednesday with three options so we can vote. It sounds small, but it saved so much time. Does anyone else have a system to stop the 'what should we play' debate?

I found a perfect new spot for our group at that old bookstore cafe on Maple Street (they have a huge back room with big tables).

We tried it last Friday, played for four hours, and the owner said we could book it for free if we bought a couple drinks each, which got me wondering what other hidden spots people have found for their game nights.

Rant: Bought a $40 custom playmat for our group and it was a total waste.

Everyone says they're a must-have, but it just made setup slower and we argued more about where to put drinks. Has anyone else found a good way to protect a table that doesn't get in the way?

My friend Mark called my game night hosting 'chaotic' and he was right

He said I was always switching games before anyone learned the rules, and last Friday with Betrayal at House on the Hill was a mess. I changed it up and now we pick one game a week and stick with it, which helped a ton. Anyone have tips for picking the right game for a group of 6?

Looking back at my old game shelf and seeing the same box for 15 years

I was cleaning out my closet last weekend and pulled out my copy of Catan, the one with the worn corners from my college apartment. I flipped it open and saw my name and the date '2009' written inside the lid, which means I've owned this same game for a full 15 years now. How many of you have a game that's stuck with you for that long?

Our group just hit 50 straight weeks of Friday game nights

We started last January with just three of us and now we're a solid crew of six. We've played through two full Gloomhaven campaigns and a bunch of shorter stuff. It matters because we all have busy jobs and kids, so keeping this going felt impossible. Has anyone else kept a streak going this long, and how did you manage it?

My game night group fell apart after one guy brought his new girlfriend to our Gloomhaven campaign

We were six sessions deep, and she spent the whole night on her phone, asking 'what's happening now?' every ten minutes. Now we have a strict 'no new people after session zero' rule for any campaign. How do you handle bringing new players into an ongoing story?

We let our quietest friend pick the game and it changed our whole group

He chose a hidden role game called 'Blood on the Clocktower' and we played for 5 hours straight. I learned that the person who never talks can be the most devious liar when given the right role. What's a game that totally flipped the social dynamic of your game night?

We played a game of Codenames with a totally new rule set and it broke our group.

Last Friday, my friend Mike insisted we play Codenames where the clue giver could only use movie titles. We thought it would be fun, but it turned into a 45 minute argument over whether 'The Fast and the Furious' could link 'Tokyo' and 'car'. I learned that a 'creative twist' can totally kill the flow if it's too hard. Has anyone else tried a house rule that completely backfired?

We had to pick between a 5 hour board game or a quick card game last Friday

My group was split, half wanted to start our new campaign game (which we knew would take all night) and half just wanted to play Skull for a couple rounds. I pushed hard for the short game first, because we had two friends who were already tired from work. We played three quick rounds of Skull, everyone laughed a lot, and then the tired folks went home happy. Honestly, forcing the big game would have ruined the night. Does anyone else have a hard rule about starting game nights with something fast?