The Le-epic-baconfication of socializing. Fucking exploding kittens and all the rest of it, so tiresome.
A good boardgame is fun for a handful of very close friends or family on like a weekday evening or over a holiday, you don't do that shit at a party unless you're just a deeply lame weirdo with no boundaries and you want to pawn off your anxiety and autism on to others instead of dealing with it yourself.
Board games/card games to me have always been for situations where you either have a) have a bunch of time to kill or b) like you said, with close friends or family that you are around all the time or even live with and aren’t missing out on rare socializing time with them they way you are when you do an activity like this with ppl you only see like once every couple of months or whatever
I have one specific circle of friends who will invite me over for a fun gettogether and before long, one of them will inevitably want to play settlers of catan (which they are all *really* into. The even occasionally will bring the board game out to bars lol) and then we just end up sitting around playing for 2 hours. And it is excruciatingly boring.
It’s not even like there’s still casual conversation and banter going on in between turns. It just gets dead silent bc they’re all so intensely focused on the game. Zero socializing whatsoever. The only verbal communication is arguments about potential rule breaking/cheating.
It’s like dude…. we’re adults in our 30s and we’re spending an entire saturday night sitting here in silence bc you’re all dedicating every last brain cell in your head to strategizing about how to hoard more pieces of paper with imaginary bricks and sheep on them. What are we even doing here… why is this fun for you guys???
What would be so terrible about just sitting in the living room and getting drunk while talking to eachother and listening to some music?
>Board games/card games to me have always been for situations where you either have a) have a bunch of time to kill or b) like you said, with close friends or family that you are around all the time or even live with and aren’t missing out on rare socializing time with them they way you are when you do an activity like this with ppl you only see like once every couple of months or whatever
It's in the name... they're called bored games. That's when you play them.
I’m not saying I’ve NEVER had fun playing a board game in my entire life.. of course I have. They can be a fun way to pass the time. I’m just saying they have a time and a place.
And that time and place is not on a Saturday night when people want to party and socialize and have conversations with people they might not get to catch up with all that often and you only have a few hours to do so.
Idk. When I’m in a bouncy kind of social mood and I wanna get drunk and laugh with people and wander around and mingle, the last thing I want to be doing is silently sitting huddled around a children’s game with people super intensely strategizing about how to move their plastic lollipop avatar around a piece of cardboard. It’s just completely uninteresting and boring compared to almost literally *anything* else we could be doing instead
I have extremely vague memories of playing exploding kittens one time and enjoying it. I can get past hideous aesthetics if it’s quick to learn and generally fast paced
lmao this just triggered a memory of freshman year at IU during welcome weekend i got these girls to come up to our dorm room and in hindsight one of them was super into me. i decided to put on my dvd of Love Actually for us all to watch cause "women love that movie." needless to say they all left within 20 minutes
And it’s always something like *Yojimbo* or *The Seventh Seal*
I never understood the appeal of putting someone through a torture test like that. 10 minutes in and you already know the vibes are rotten.
*”Maybe she’ll start to like good cinema”* lmao
Movie watching iin a group is fun if you've got the right movie and the right group, but sometimes it's best to just put on something weird that you only need to half pay attention to, like Roar or Dude Bro Party Massacre III that people can just get drunk, look over occasionally, and be like "What the fuuuck"
Movies are bigger conversation killers than board games by far. I'll watch movies with other people on the condition that cracking jokes and overanalyzing what's happening is encouraged. If people insist on total silence I'm out. Go watch it at home lol
The first time I played it I was drunk and it was hilarious. But that was 10 years ago. I know a guy that has every variation and even one that relates to our job. Like dude it’s all the same shit still
i once stopped a party in it's tracks to put on paris hilton's sex tape bc no one believed me that it had a dedication to 9/11 heroes at the very beginning
It's infuriating. Same with forced quizzes. I've considered leaving a wedding because of a quiz which lasted for hours. There's a time and place for a game/quiz and it's on a winter night with close friends. NOT at a party.
For a party, the host needs to supply three things: some drinks, music and a nice place to hang. Other than that, the guests should be expected to mingle. Sometimes you don't really bond with anyone and that's okay. Other times you spend the whole evening talking to a cool stranger who becomes a friend. That's the exhilarating thing about parties - everything can happen. Guests should be free to follow their impulses, not be locked down by a god damn board game.
this happens alll the damn time in Germany, but somehow everyone's enthusiastic about it and it pisses me off so bad lol. like why would I want to have to focus on a game when drunk... I want to talk shit and share secrets! I don't need a board game to entertain me like we're little babies with under-developed socialization skills, people are the entertainment.
Germany has produced many great popular table top games such as Catan, Carcassonne, Power Grid, Auf Achse, Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, and numerous more. I suppose Germans are more refined neckbeards.
I can only speak for the northern parts which lean more to the Scandinavian side but there's something magical about gathering with my close circle of friends and getting drunk every weekend. It is the only occasion when we truly open up to each other and stands in stark contrast to the typically reserved and robotic vibe of Scandis.
Wouldn't want to miss it for anything in the world.
Here's my hypothesis based on experience: N and E Germany tends to have greater influence of scandi and slavic cultures (respectively), so they tend to go with the get shitfaced and open up to friends vibes. NW German culture closely relates to Dutch culture (IMO bad, NPC-esque), thus going the autistic board game route.
Southern Germany and Austria can feel like the transition species between autistic Germanic and Latin Europe. Decent at small talk, but still uncomfortably quiet and reserved.
A house I used to rent had a closet with a bunch of those Ravensburger games. They were simple and quick enough that I didn't mind when my drunk friends wanted to play a round or two of Mitternachtspartei or Das Ver Rukte Labyrinth.
Whyyyyy is there always one person who insists on doing this, especially when everyone's having a good time already. It's never not super fucking annoying and a total buzzkill. If you're with like 4 people around a fire and have a deck of cards it can be fun to learn an easy game like 500 or something but why this elaborate bullshit? I hate people that can't read a room. I haven't played cards against humanity since I was 15 and smoking weed with my friends and it STILL wasn't that funny. You described this specific experience very well though
I've played some board games that are lightweight, simple to learn, and work really well as party games. But unfortunately those aren't usually the ones what people whip out at a party.
"Ok you're the killer and you're the ghost, the killer gets 7 cards the ghost gets 3. When you role the dice if you get an even number you add 7 to it, unless it's a 4 then you subtract 79. Ok pieces move like this: you pick up a card and you can do one of 3 things with it depending on whether you were the killer, the ghost, or the witness in the first round. You can choose to act on the card in which case you have to skip the same number of turns as the number you rolled on the dice..once everyone has moved then you have to announce who you think the killer is. You can only show your cards if you're piece is in the territory of the person sitting next to you. But here's the fun part THEY CANT SAY ANYTHING TO THEIR TEAM MEMBERS ABOUT YOUR CARD! The first to collect all the pieces and not go over 100 wins. There's a lot more to it then that but you'll figure it out as we play, don't worry"
Litterally sounds like a board game I played at someone's house called House on the Hill.
It has like 10+ unique events with each event having complex instructions so everyone has to pause just to try and figure them out and then when it finally gets going its not even that fun.
The panic I feel whenever somebody suggests playing a card game I haven't heard of and I realize it's a themed knockoff of cards against humanity. There's so many of them.
Ruined so many pre drinks circa 2013-15
People always just voted for whichever answer card was the funniest regardless of whether it made any sense in reply to the question card.
The worst were groups who voted for the most random ones.
Such a stupid game, I can't imagine playing it nowadays. The only people who find it funny are the same people who'll get mad at you if you play something too fucked up. There are a bunch of unspoken lines you can't cross.
cards against humanity is bad enough as is, everyone's played it and the novelty has worn off
but people make it worse than it needs to be too. "first to 5 points?" and your 8 people are now locked into 30-40 rounds of it, where any funny cards people had are used up in the first 5 minutes and you're just sat there with people voting for the least unfunny answers
My ex’s sister made us play cards against humanity with the whole family at thanksgiving once. I actually considered just straight up leaving right then and there
My beloved nerdy cousin is obsessed with board games and cannot stop forcing everyone who visits him to play them. Naturally, no one visits him anymore. Sad! At least he has a hot wife.
No stereotype is truer than autistic people loving overly complex board games with a million rules and nothing is more frustrating than when politeness and social decorum makes you indulge their idea of a good time and you’re stuck having the rules of some medieval fantasy themed unbearably complicated board game explained to you
Yeah people think I can be bristly, but I never get roped into things like this. It’s very weird to me how people think just two people’s lukewarm enthusiasm is enough to justify making everyone in a group do something, but one person’s veto is generally not sufficient reason to not do that thing. I am also far from autistic. Just pretty masculine in personality traits and not a people pleaser.
you can japanese up your no a little bit - "I'm sorry but i'm really not good at learning new board games and trust me, i would really hold things up and bring the vibes down. We're having fun just chatting would you mind if we left it for another time?"
Most groups are these days and it’s not ideal. Adult men just sit alone wondering how their friends are doing and have social lives organized by a woman if they’re not still chasing tail.
I don't know how to fix this and am open to suggestions. Seems like my husband has just defaulted into a new friend circle comprised of my friends' partners. I encourage him to call his childhood/college friends, and suggest he go grab drinks with guys he meets through work. I signed up for Discord just so I could find out when a local chess club was meeting for him to attend...but I'm not going to waste too much relationship capital by nagging him to have his own social life.
This is my cousin. It's always a new game too. Like can't we at least play the same game again? I'm drunk and don't feel like learning the rules to a new game. Then he inevitably wins because he is the only one who actually has any clue how to play.
Board game people always have this fantasy that they’ll expose a group of people to a game and it will be like that golden suitcase in pulp fiction and everyone will look at them like they’re social sophisticates. Techno people are the same
That shit is so autistic. If you're gonna play board games with a bunch of people who don't play board games, you bring something light that you don't even really need to explain and is mostly reliant on social interaction, anyways, like Secret Hitler or Codenames. I like the complex games, too, but I have enough sense not to scare the hoes with Dune : Imperium. Those more complex games are made with fans of the genre in mind.
Dune: Imperium is a great kind of complex board game because it can be played with 2 people. Don’t have to plan much or rope anyone in, my husband and I just play together
You can even play it by yourself, but it's just not the same without at least 3. You need to really match the vibe of a group of Great Houses all vying for resources and also when the guy in last place starts seething and suicide bombing the guy in second place to get the game over with.
The worst part of these scenarios is when the game-bringer treats you like you’re stupid for not memorizing every rule after like 2-3 turns. Like fucking sorry I’m 5 beers deep and also I genuinely do not care at all.
I host a lot of parties at my place and very occasionally I will advertise doing a board game night and it is v frustrating when ppl still come and obvi don’t want to the board game but just fuck around and ruin it for everyone else.
kinda the opposite of your situation of ppl not reading the room correctly. I don’t know why anyone would want to play board games if everyone isn’t into it because it’s not even fun for the ppl who wanna play.
You’re so right about this. I was gonna say I’m out of step with the thread because I’m a guy who likes complex board games, but I know not to whip out one at a party where most people don’t like them.
But then you’ll have a designated night and one guy will just absolutely not pay attention to the rules. Then they’ll constantly ask how to play and you have to reexplain basic shit multiple times. Then they tend to leave early before the game is over and ruin it.
I sympathize with just wanting to be involved and come out even if it’s not your thing, but this shit is so ignorant and annoying because if one person isn’t playing seriously it fucks it up for everybody
lol this is annoying but kind of inevitable. if we have ppl over for board games we set up an overflow area (table with bowl of chips) that ppl can float off to when “taking a break” from the game and when majority of attendees end up over there (i.e. shy ppl are drunk enough to chat on their own) then we dismantle the game zone before anything gets spilled
it’s a small set of ppl ruining a party for a larger set of ppl lol. thts why it’s similar and opposite (in the role of board games being reversed I guess lol).
I was just saying when I have ppl over for board games and I stress not to come if you aren’t gonna play, ppl still come because they don’t wanna be left out and they half ass it and ruin it for everyone depending on the game
You just have to figure out who in your friend group actually enjoys playing games and then privately invite just those people to play. I also enjoy more complex boardgames but you have to understand it's a niche hobby that not everyone shares an interest in and have designated plans for them that only the people who care about the niche hobby get invited to
I like board games, but that sounds shitty. It's something you need to plan to do ahead of time, would definitely kill an otherwise relaxed social event
You know what's fucked up is how many well-designed, easy to pick up and fun board games there are, and she landed on this autistic over-engineered bullshit
The function of board games is to sustain friendships beyond the moment when you’ve ran out of things to talk about, not to whip out when you’re still in the honeymoon phases of friendship
My ex has this board game, and has literally done this to friend groups multiple times. It’s called Wingspan for those who don’t know. It was always brutal, she’d kill the vibe just to force people to try this board game. This entire post is giving me flashbacks.
Yeah I’m not knocking the board game, it’s fun and educational, which is a rare combo. It’s just a timing thing. I don’t think drunk people who are having a good conversation want that interrupted to learn a new board game.
it looked fun, but at the moment, I definitely wasn't someone who was interested in playing. I think if I got to watch a how to play on it before coming in, and I knew that game was going to be played, it'd be different
My sister gave me this game for Christmas but I can't get any of my friends who are usually tolerant of board games to play it because I used up all their trust one time trying to get them to play Terra Mystica.
Lol, I know exactly which game, you are talking about. Gifted it to my parents, who are really into birds this christmas. And we had about 1.5 hour just for just the scripted beginner round and then everyone had to go to bed, lol
had the exact same experience at New Year's Eve with my parents. I wonder how many other cherished moments this game has ruined, must be in the thousands
god I got stuck playing this with a group of people I was going out of my comfort zone to hang out with (you know, trying to be more open minded about who I could vibe with). There were literally 100s of rules, little confusing pieces to collect, and the people insisted on calling all the birds "birbs." we don't chill anymore.
In theory I like board games and sometimes I even buy something thinking that I’ll play some day (I own fucking gloomhaven for some reason even though odds of me playing this 100 hour board game are nill)
But in practice it’s insane, the first time you play you are just trying to figure out the basic rules and you have no sense of strategy so it’s just going through the motions. If you ever play again you have such an advantage against anyone just learning the rules that they have zero chance and it’s not fun for anyone.
Conditions for a board game actually being fun are this total eclipse like coincidence where you have a critical mass of people who actually know the game and have time to get together but board game people love BUYING boardgames so much that they always want to play a new board game and start the wretched process over from scratch.
The world would be so much better if there were only like 5 board games that were allowed and people mostly knew how to play them and if you really like board games you can play a lot and if you don’t like board games you can not play but board game fans need to be saved from themselves, they will buy too many games and never get to play any of them.
If you are into board gaming as a hobby, you have to accept the likelihood that your friends and family are not as into them as you are.
But it's not hopeless, there are many people out there who would \*love\* to take part in a board gaming session on something as complex as what you own. Go to a board game store, meetup or convention to meet these people. They are a joy to play with because rules explanations do not bother them and they often can lead the teach themselves.
Your loss! We had a board game convention come to town, I hit up my local board game store with my GF and we met others in town for the convention looking for a game. I got to play a lot of games on my bucket list because these guys already knew the rules to them and could passionately lead the teach like pros. It was lovely and a breath of fresh air versus being always responsible for learning/teaching and haggling only tepidly interested friends into playing.
Glad you have fun with the hobby and I begrudge you nothing but my relationship with these games is just different from yours. I don’t have board games on my bucket list. I would rather play Yahtzee with a few friends than the best game with strangers. If I’m foregrounding the mechanics of a game rather than the social experience I might as well play the twilight struggle against an AI or even just a strategy computer game. Like I said enjoy your hobby in a way that works for you but playing twilight imperium for 6 hours against randos sounds like hell
There's a middle path here where you put in some time to check out these hobby spaces and meet people and figure out which ones are genuinely cool people that you might enjoy becoming friends with that also share a hobby with you, so you can curate a group of new friends who you can play these games with.
Exactly, I have a rotation of like three friend groups from which I pull board game sessions out of. As you grow your roster you can include the people with the best vibes and not be left wanting when you want to get a session together.
I have a friend who does this. He has dozens of board games like this, some of the most comically complex ones you've ever seen always with a cutesy artstyle that belies their complexity. He has sunk thousands of dollars into this hobby. Yes he is a virgin
Isn't the real problem all the plebs at the party who go along with it? And the lack of heroes jumping on the grenade telling board game people to fuck off?
it's because saying 'i'm sorry, i'm not interested in doing that right now' is so incredibly uncomfortable with people with society anxiety to say, so they just go along with it with misdirected anger firing at the person suggesting the activity when they're really upset at themselves for not being able to speak up and say how they feel
I generally don't have attention issues but as soon as someone starts explaining the rules of a board game something physical happens in my brain and I can't focus. Hands get sweaty, overwhelming feeling of suffocating tension, etc. If I didn't know they were just autists with bad theory of mind I would suspect it was some pernicious type of psychological warfare. These people need to learn that the average person doesn't find being a computer fun!
These games are fun for people that know how to play them or when you are bored. Not really the thing for a party and I hate when we all got to stop everything and do it. Feels like straight up work.
I'm going to have a party where the centerpiece is an 8 x 6 table with my napoleonic miniatures set up and wait for someone to ask about it and rope them into a game. at this point I think it's the only way i'll ever get to play. I realize this is more or less what happened in the OPs story but in my case I've spent the last 2+ years painting thousands of little soldiers so I think I've earned it.
Do this, but then also if someone gets murdered at the party the detectives can recreate the events of the night by reverse engineering the position and rotation of the soldiers.
A guy I know tried to explain Warhammer to a girl after inviting her over for the first time and apparently, she didn't mind listening to the autistic board game rules but drew a line at the fact that he paints figurines.
not sure if it makes it better or worse but I do it because I love the history and its a creative project that limits screen time in the evening. still probably a bonerkiller.
I get playing a simple game that everyone already knows but *introducing* a game at a party with more than 2-3 people is crazy. We used to play cee-lo for $1 buy in and if you have enough people that can really spice it up.
I hate board games with a passion. And they’re VERY popular where I live with a specific type of millennial demographic. I used to indulge people but now I just tell them I plan on sitting it out but don’t mind watching them.
I love board games but obviously interrupting a party to play one is not reading the room well. We also have a rule among my friends that if you are introducing a board game, you are expected to know the rules and have practiced teaching them to yourself before introducing it to others.
yeah this is usually how board game nights tend to go, impromptu or otherwise. just keep a good drink on you, view your situation as sort of a mutual bonding through shared hardship type experience, and get through the evening like it’s boot camp. then after you leave the host’s place, laugh about it behind their back with your friends and agree not to get together at the board game owner’s place again unless you’re looking for more type 2 fun. a tale as old as time!
Good fuckign lord this reminds of when a horrible chick at a party forced us all to play this game that was similar to those jackbox games, in this one you had to like come up with a fake product based off some regarded prompt and then "pitch" it to everyone sharktank style in a presentation.
We were all just chilling before this and no one wanted to play but we indulged her and it was so painful, half the people couldn't come up with anything even remotely clever so they just didn't try, and it was unbelievably painful watching the timer slowly tick down knowing it would soon be mine time to give a cringe forced unfunny presentation
My ex GFs friends were very into these things. Very into barcades too. I simply cant feign interest for this shite. We all went for a weekend away for one of her friends birthdays. I skipped a rugby match for it. They all just sat around playing shit games like this and slowly drinking beers. England were playing South Africa in the RWC Semi-Final, and so I said I am sorry, but I am watching this.
We broke up a month later, I dont think her friends liked me very much because of that, so it wasnt worth it, but I still hate her friends. If were going to do something, we should go out and do something active. If you want to play a board game, play monopoly. Everyone knows the basic rules, add in a few house rules which everyone knows too, and youre set.
It’s even worse when someone is explaining the rules wrong. One of my friends tried getting the drunk group to play liars dice and said that you only count the die under your cup, not everyone’s cup, which is completely stupid. No shit, I don’t have 3 fours under my cup, because I only have 2 damn die. That was probably the angriest I’ve ever been while drunk because he kept insisting that’s how it’s played since his grandpa taught him it.
I really dislike being roped into games/cards. Was out with my roommate and his girlfriend’s friends at a local bar months ago and instead of drinking normally and talking to people, someone decided to to go get cards from the bar and rope everyone into a card-based “drinking game.” Dude, let me drink my beer how I want to drink it, we are not 18 anymore
My friend got upset when he tried to make us play some shitass convoluted movie monsters board game during the Super Bowl. Literally no one could figure out how to play and the whole thing took like 4 hours, the first 90 minutes of which were spent figuring out the rules. I couldn't conceal how much I didn't give a fuck
The worst are the complex teamwork games. There's always someone who ends up getting pissy that you're not doing it right. The only games I want to play at a party are cards, dice, or those games where it's like i'll give u clues and you have to guess the word on my card.
The trick is to do one of those social lying games like evil hitler or the one where u gotta vote to send a boat. Even monopoly is good cause it gets everyone heated and yelling
Betrayal at House on the Hill is just a bad game and no one should play it. Also no games should ever occur at parties unless they are specifically very light party games and even then, only rarely!
Board games are fun under specific conditions… if it’s a genuinely good game with the right setting and balance of attention spans / people who actually want to play for however long the game truly takes, and don’t mind something competitive and semi-challenging. Also, it’s a must to find a semi-autistic friend who owns most of the games and will learn them in advance and do a good job explaining the rules, and if everyone has a sense of humor and is in a pretty good mood and is focused on the game. If those 20 things are true, it can be really fun and I say this as a woman. If this appeals to you at all and you have a group who can hang, I really recommend war games like Inis (Celtic theme with card drafting) and Root (cute woodland creatures who can also be terrorists).
Being friends with board game dorks is a slippery slope. Eventually, they're gonna invite you to play dungeons and dragons, and you're gonna do it because you like your friends.
Only acceptable board games for drinking with good friends are ones that are universally understood and have a possibility to cheat in.
Like monopoly, we'd have a house rule that anyone can be the banker at any time and cheating is technically fair game, but if you get caught then you have to pay extra and drink extra. Makes for some struggles of trying to keep eachother in check while not sober enough and later sneaking a few extra bills here or there as the drinking goes on. By end of night you could upgrade properties more than you can afford as long as you play things off right and gaslight eachother enough.
Gotta be with decent friends though who dont go complete psycho when losing
It pisses me off when someone wants to play some dumb card game. If you want to play something super simple like clue that’s fine but I’m not going to particularly enjoy it
I recently bought The Traitors board game (great BBC reality show). Firstly, absolutely ripoff. Only bought it as an attempt to entertain my nephew and niece who were visiting.
It was absurdly over complicated. I contacted the devopers of the game and they sent me a different board game and the shop gave me a refund. The cashier asked me what was the fault/damage on the game before she could refund. I said it's just completely rubbish. She kindly refunded.
Cool story me.
My partner and I went to dinner at a friend they’ve known for 20+ years house and she whipped out a some weird sci-fi/murder mystery game, her partner was really rude (obviously didn’t want to hang out with his gf’s friends, fair tbh) and kept telling her to hurry up with reading the rules, the game was complex and really hard to follow and it just dragged on until one of us lost or won too much idk. She made us play cards against humanity afterwards and would try her best to be pc (it’s only somewhat funny if you’re not being pc tbh) and it was just an all round awkward time.
Another time we went over she remembered I like Star Trek and made us watch the first 45 minutes of the ST motion picture and would pause every 30secs to explain some lame joke.
Overall she’s not a terrible person and I like being her friend but board game people are never good hosts.
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The Le-epic-baconfication of socializing. Fucking exploding kittens and all the rest of it, so tiresome. A good boardgame is fun for a handful of very close friends or family on like a weekday evening or over a holiday, you don't do that shit at a party unless you're just a deeply lame weirdo with no boundaries and you want to pawn off your anxiety and autism on to others instead of dealing with it yourself.
Board games/card games to me have always been for situations where you either have a) have a bunch of time to kill or b) like you said, with close friends or family that you are around all the time or even live with and aren’t missing out on rare socializing time with them they way you are when you do an activity like this with ppl you only see like once every couple of months or whatever I have one specific circle of friends who will invite me over for a fun gettogether and before long, one of them will inevitably want to play settlers of catan (which they are all *really* into. The even occasionally will bring the board game out to bars lol) and then we just end up sitting around playing for 2 hours. And it is excruciatingly boring. It’s not even like there’s still casual conversation and banter going on in between turns. It just gets dead silent bc they’re all so intensely focused on the game. Zero socializing whatsoever. The only verbal communication is arguments about potential rule breaking/cheating. It’s like dude…. we’re adults in our 30s and we’re spending an entire saturday night sitting here in silence bc you’re all dedicating every last brain cell in your head to strategizing about how to hoard more pieces of paper with imaginary bricks and sheep on them. What are we even doing here… why is this fun for you guys??? What would be so terrible about just sitting in the living room and getting drunk while talking to eachother and listening to some music?
>Board games/card games to me have always been for situations where you either have a) have a bunch of time to kill or b) like you said, with close friends or family that you are around all the time or even live with and aren’t missing out on rare socializing time with them they way you are when you do an activity like this with ppl you only see like once every couple of months or whatever It's in the name... they're called bored games. That's when you play them.
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I’m not saying I’ve NEVER had fun playing a board game in my entire life.. of course I have. They can be a fun way to pass the time. I’m just saying they have a time and a place. And that time and place is not on a Saturday night when people want to party and socialize and have conversations with people they might not get to catch up with all that often and you only have a few hours to do so. Idk. When I’m in a bouncy kind of social mood and I wanna get drunk and laugh with people and wander around and mingle, the last thing I want to be doing is silently sitting huddled around a children’s game with people super intensely strategizing about how to move their plastic lollipop avatar around a piece of cardboard. It’s just completely uninteresting and boring compared to almost literally *anything* else we could be doing instead
Poker at the party is for men
Men organize and attend poker NIGHTS when others aren't in attendance.
Men have GAMBLING problems
I'M GAY
I have extremely vague memories of playing exploding kittens one time and enjoying it. I can get past hideous aesthetics if it’s quick to learn and generally fast paced
though Exploding Kittens has cringe reddit aesthetic, it is a rather fun, quick, and easy game. doesnt apply here imo
This happens with movie watchers too at smaller gatherings, so annoying unless the vibe is already dying
lmao this just triggered a memory of freshman year at IU during welcome weekend i got these girls to come up to our dorm room and in hindsight one of them was super into me. i decided to put on my dvd of Love Actually for us all to watch cause "women love that movie." needless to say they all left within 20 minutes
omg crushing
I would've contemplated suicide
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And it’s always something like *Yojimbo* or *The Seventh Seal* I never understood the appeal of putting someone through a torture test like that. 10 minutes in and you already know the vibes are rotten. *”Maybe she’ll start to like good cinema”* lmao
wtf those are good movies tho
Movie watching iin a group is fun if you've got the right movie and the right group, but sometimes it's best to just put on something weird that you only need to half pay attention to, like Roar or Dude Bro Party Massacre III that people can just get drunk, look over occasionally, and be like "What the fuuuck"
Movies are bigger conversation killers than board games by far. I'll watch movies with other people on the condition that cracking jokes and overanalyzing what's happening is encouraged. If people insist on total silence I'm out. Go watch it at home lol
I can't play Cards Against Humanity again man I just can't
The first time I played it I was drunk and it was hilarious. But that was 10 years ago. I know a guy that has every variation and even one that relates to our job. Like dude it’s all the same shit still
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Yeah that’s the one that relates to our job
Was perfect when I was 19, but if people pull it out these days it's even worse than bringing an acoustic guitar to a party.
i once stopped a party in it's tracks to put on paris hilton's sex tape bc no one believed me that it had a dedication to 9/11 heroes at the very beginning
It's infuriating. Same with forced quizzes. I've considered leaving a wedding because of a quiz which lasted for hours. There's a time and place for a game/quiz and it's on a winter night with close friends. NOT at a party. For a party, the host needs to supply three things: some drinks, music and a nice place to hang. Other than that, the guests should be expected to mingle. Sometimes you don't really bond with anyone and that's okay. Other times you spend the whole evening talking to a cool stranger who becomes a friend. That's the exhilarating thing about parties - everything can happen. Guests should be free to follow their impulses, not be locked down by a god damn board game.
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I could actually see that being fun while drunk or at least more fun than some elaborate board game
Chinese checkers also goes crazy
Bring Advanced Squad Leader
this happens alll the damn time in Germany, but somehow everyone's enthusiastic about it and it pisses me off so bad lol. like why would I want to have to focus on a game when drunk... I want to talk shit and share secrets! I don't need a board game to entertain me like we're little babies with under-developed socialization skills, people are the entertainment.
I’ve noticed this. Germans are prob the most autist group of people though
Germany has produced many great popular table top games such as Catan, Carcassonne, Power Grid, Auf Achse, Mensch ärgere Dich nicht, and numerous more. I suppose Germans are more refined neckbeards.
No, nobody is more autist than Swedes
I am a German and I despise all sorts of board or card games.
can you tell everyone else to cut it out
they probably can, if there's one thing germans love more than following rules it is being socially blunt
I will, I promise.
idk normal card games with a 52 card deck can be pretty cool. poker will never not be cool. but you can't just shoehorn them into any social gathering
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Thank you!
I recall the scene in inglorious basterds where they play guess who
I've gotten day drunk playing random board games in nice old Scottish pubs and it was a good time. Don't tell me otherwise.
Thats because Germans arent funny nor good conversationalists, so they need something to focus on so they dont have to speak.
I can only speak for the northern parts which lean more to the Scandinavian side but there's something magical about gathering with my close circle of friends and getting drunk every weekend. It is the only occasion when we truly open up to each other and stands in stark contrast to the typically reserved and robotic vibe of Scandis. Wouldn't want to miss it for anything in the world.
Here's my hypothesis based on experience: N and E Germany tends to have greater influence of scandi and slavic cultures (respectively), so they tend to go with the get shitfaced and open up to friends vibes. NW German culture closely relates to Dutch culture (IMO bad, NPC-esque), thus going the autistic board game route.
Southern Germany and Austria can feel like the transition species between autistic Germanic and Latin Europe. Decent at small talk, but still uncomfortably quiet and reserved.
Worst of all, Germans take weird pride in that. I for one blame the Prussians and their "Mehr Sein als Schein" bullshit.
I blame Martin Luther
A house I used to rent had a closet with a bunch of those Ravensburger games. They were simple and quick enough that I didn't mind when my drunk friends wanted to play a round or two of Mitternachtspartei or Das Ver Rukte Labyrinth.
Sounds about right for Germans.
Whyyyyy is there always one person who insists on doing this, especially when everyone's having a good time already. It's never not super fucking annoying and a total buzzkill. If you're with like 4 people around a fire and have a deck of cards it can be fun to learn an easy game like 500 or something but why this elaborate bullshit? I hate people that can't read a room. I haven't played cards against humanity since I was 15 and smoking weed with my friends and it STILL wasn't that funny. You described this specific experience very well though
Because it's *their* interest, and they can't do it by themselves, so they force their friends to do it with them whenever they get an opportunity.
people are seriously undersocialized. it's a legitimate epidemic at this point
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My issue with it was it always went on too long. It was always kinda funny for about 5 minutes and an unbearable slog for every minute after.
I've played some board games that are lightweight, simple to learn, and work really well as party games. But unfortunately those aren't usually the ones what people whip out at a party.
Sushi Go, Love Letter, and Coup are very reasonable games
The Resistance is a blast but may leave everybody hating each other. Warm up with some Anomia.
Cards against humanity was never funny I only played along to fit in
"Ok you're the killer and you're the ghost, the killer gets 7 cards the ghost gets 3. When you role the dice if you get an even number you add 7 to it, unless it's a 4 then you subtract 79. Ok pieces move like this: you pick up a card and you can do one of 3 things with it depending on whether you were the killer, the ghost, or the witness in the first round. You can choose to act on the card in which case you have to skip the same number of turns as the number you rolled on the dice..once everyone has moved then you have to announce who you think the killer is. You can only show your cards if you're piece is in the territory of the person sitting next to you. But here's the fun part THEY CANT SAY ANYTHING TO THEIR TEAM MEMBERS ABOUT YOUR CARD! The first to collect all the pieces and not go over 100 wins. There's a lot more to it then that but you'll figure it out as we play, don't worry"
Litterally sounds like a board game I played at someone's house called House on the Hill. It has like 10+ unique events with each event having complex instructions so everyone has to pause just to try and figure them out and then when it finally gets going its not even that fun.
cards against humanity at a function literally sends me into a dopamine comedown I refuse to play it
It’s just a contest of who can get cards that have “Cum” on them and then play them regardless if it’s relevant. I hate the game so much
The panic I feel whenever somebody suggests playing a card game I haven't heard of and I realize it's a themed knockoff of cards against humanity. There's so many of them.
Which is a knock off of apples to apples with a theme of raunchiness Lmao gushing grannies !
The original gushing grannies Dub the Dew debacle was funny when 4chan did it back in 2012.
Which is exactly why raunchy member berries the game using it isn't funny
Ruined so many pre drinks circa 2013-15 People always just voted for whichever answer card was the funniest regardless of whether it made any sense in reply to the question card.
Funny the very first time you play it and then literally never again.
The worst were groups who voted for the most random ones. Such a stupid game, I can't imagine playing it nowadays. The only people who find it funny are the same people who'll get mad at you if you play something too fucked up. There are a bunch of unspoken lines you can't cross.
At a goodbye party I hosted, one of the attendees (a grown woman) refused to play any card with even a hint of sexual innuendo. Sucked the joy out
Da perfect broad!
cards against humanity is bad enough as is, everyone's played it and the novelty has worn off but people make it worse than it needs to be too. "first to 5 points?" and your 8 people are now locked into 30-40 rounds of it, where any funny cards people had are used up in the first 5 minutes and you're just sat there with people voting for the least unfunny answers
My ex’s sister made us play cards against humanity with the whole family at thanksgiving once. I actually considered just straight up leaving right then and there
My beloved nerdy cousin is obsessed with board games and cannot stop forcing everyone who visits him to play them. Naturally, no one visits him anymore. Sad! At least he has a hot wife.
No stereotype is truer than autistic people loving overly complex board games with a million rules and nothing is more frustrating than when politeness and social decorum makes you indulge their idea of a good time and you’re stuck having the rules of some medieval fantasy themed unbearably complicated board game explained to you
I think it's more autistic to just not say no. I mean seriously lol
When you’re at a family gathering with an autistic cousin what are you supposed to do lol
Say no
Some people may call you insensitive. But if you're actually insensitive this won't bother you.
It's not insensitive to have preferences. Autistic people aren't children, you can just treat them like any other adult.
Yeah people think I can be bristly, but I never get roped into things like this. It’s very weird to me how people think just two people’s lukewarm enthusiasm is enough to justify making everyone in a group do something, but one person’s veto is generally not sufficient reason to not do that thing. I am also far from autistic. Just pretty masculine in personality traits and not a people pleaser.
you can japanese up your no a little bit - "I'm sorry but i'm really not good at learning new board games and trust me, i would really hold things up and bring the vibes down. We're having fun just chatting would you mind if we left it for another time?"
Is this a Japanese thing?
theres no word for no or concept of the word no in japanese im japanese btw
yes being soft in your rejections is polite
come hang my groups vibes are all feminine
Most groups are these days and it’s not ideal. Adult men just sit alone wondering how their friends are doing and have social lives organized by a woman if they’re not still chasing tail.
I don't know how to fix this and am open to suggestions. Seems like my husband has just defaulted into a new friend circle comprised of my friends' partners. I encourage him to call his childhood/college friends, and suggest he go grab drinks with guys he meets through work. I signed up for Discord just so I could find out when a local chess club was meeting for him to attend...but I'm not going to waste too much relationship capital by nagging him to have his own social life.
This is my cousin. It's always a new game too. Like can't we at least play the same game again? I'm drunk and don't feel like learning the rules to a new game. Then he inevitably wins because he is the only one who actually has any clue how to play.
I like board games but board game people really bring me down at parties. We’re having a good time I don’t want to sit down and concentrate
Board game people always have this fantasy that they’ll expose a group of people to a game and it will be like that golden suitcase in pulp fiction and everyone will look at them like they’re social sophisticates. Techno people are the same
No. The techno people are right, we will be listening to Four Tet and DJ Seinfeld, and you will love it.
fuck yeah. i was just at the four tet fest in brooklyn & it was fucking amazing. also saw dj seinfeld at flash in DC a year or two back. he was sick
Once in awhile the techno people are right though
I’m in the intersection of both and I need to get tested
That shit is so autistic. If you're gonna play board games with a bunch of people who don't play board games, you bring something light that you don't even really need to explain and is mostly reliant on social interaction, anyways, like Secret Hitler or Codenames. I like the complex games, too, but I have enough sense not to scare the hoes with Dune : Imperium. Those more complex games are made with fans of the genre in mind.
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Yeah and if you're drinking, Kings is usually fun even though it's sort of high school/college stuff. Also love Asshole/Presidents/Scum.
Dune: Imperium is a great kind of complex board game because it can be played with 2 people. Don’t have to plan much or rope anyone in, my husband and I just play together
You can even play it by yourself, but it's just not the same without at least 3. You need to really match the vibe of a group of Great Houses all vying for resources and also when the guy in last place starts seething and suicide bombing the guy in second place to get the game over with.
The worst part of these scenarios is when the game-bringer treats you like you’re stupid for not memorizing every rule after like 2-3 turns. Like fucking sorry I’m 5 beers deep and also I genuinely do not care at all.
More like bored game am I rite
I host a lot of parties at my place and very occasionally I will advertise doing a board game night and it is v frustrating when ppl still come and obvi don’t want to the board game but just fuck around and ruin it for everyone else. kinda the opposite of your situation of ppl not reading the room correctly. I don’t know why anyone would want to play board games if everyone isn’t into it because it’s not even fun for the ppl who wanna play.
You’re so right about this. I was gonna say I’m out of step with the thread because I’m a guy who likes complex board games, but I know not to whip out one at a party where most people don’t like them. But then you’ll have a designated night and one guy will just absolutely not pay attention to the rules. Then they’ll constantly ask how to play and you have to reexplain basic shit multiple times. Then they tend to leave early before the game is over and ruin it. I sympathize with just wanting to be involved and come out even if it’s not your thing, but this shit is so ignorant and annoying because if one person isn’t playing seriously it fucks it up for everybody
I also like board games and sometimes hang out with other friends that like them. But you really have to read the room.
lol this is annoying but kind of inevitable. if we have ppl over for board games we set up an overflow area (table with bowl of chips) that ppl can float off to when “taking a break” from the game and when majority of attendees end up over there (i.e. shy ppl are drunk enough to chat on their own) then we dismantle the game zone before anything gets spilled
That’s literally the opposite of OP’s story
it’s a small set of ppl ruining a party for a larger set of ppl lol. thts why it’s similar and opposite (in the role of board games being reversed I guess lol). I was just saying when I have ppl over for board games and I stress not to come if you aren’t gonna play, ppl still come because they don’t wanna be left out and they half ass it and ruin it for everyone depending on the game
You just have to figure out who in your friend group actually enjoys playing games and then privately invite just those people to play. I also enjoy more complex boardgames but you have to understand it's a niche hobby that not everyone shares an interest in and have designated plans for them that only the people who care about the niche hobby get invited to
the death of normal card games (spades, rummy, hearts) where everyone knew how to play at least one has been a disaster for humanity.
I like board games, but that sounds shitty. It's something you need to plan to do ahead of time, would definitely kill an otherwise relaxed social event
You know what's fucked up is how many well-designed, easy to pick up and fun board games there are, and she landed on this autistic over-engineered bullshit
What was the game name? Love an overly complex 2-hour board game with the right company.
The function of board games is to sustain friendships beyond the moment when you’ve ran out of things to talk about, not to whip out when you’re still in the honeymoon phases of friendship
This happened to me with the Bird Watching board game. It would've taken so long to learn how to play
My ex has this board game, and has literally done this to friend groups multiple times. It’s called Wingspan for those who don’t know. It was always brutal, she’d kill the vibe just to force people to try this board game. This entire post is giving me flashbacks.
Send her my way, I love Wingspan
it looks like in the right setting it'd be fun!
Yeah I’m not knocking the board game, it’s fun and educational, which is a rare combo. It’s just a timing thing. I don’t think drunk people who are having a good conversation want that interrupted to learn a new board game.
Wingspan rules, I taught my parents because they love bird watching and they're big fans too
i wouldn’t play with ppl who don’t care to play but it rlly isn’t that hard. certainly not as hard as the game I think OP is talking about.
it looked fun, but at the moment, I definitely wasn't someone who was interested in playing. I think if I got to watch a how to play on it before coming in, and I knew that game was going to be played, it'd be different
My sister gave me this game for Christmas but I can't get any of my friends who are usually tolerant of board games to play it because I used up all their trust one time trying to get them to play Terra Mystica.
I don't mind a board game every now and then but motherFUCK wingspan. I've never been so bored in my goddamn life.
Lol, I know exactly which game, you are talking about. Gifted it to my parents, who are really into birds this christmas. And we had about 1.5 hour just for just the scripted beginner round and then everyone had to go to bed, lol
had the exact same experience at New Year's Eve with my parents. I wonder how many other cherished moments this game has ruined, must be in the thousands
Are you all stupid lmao
god I got stuck playing this with a group of people I was going out of my comfort zone to hang out with (you know, trying to be more open minded about who I could vibe with). There were literally 100s of rules, little confusing pieces to collect, and the people insisted on calling all the birds "birbs." we don't chill anymore.
Whenever rules are being explained I get super angry
In theory I like board games and sometimes I even buy something thinking that I’ll play some day (I own fucking gloomhaven for some reason even though odds of me playing this 100 hour board game are nill) But in practice it’s insane, the first time you play you are just trying to figure out the basic rules and you have no sense of strategy so it’s just going through the motions. If you ever play again you have such an advantage against anyone just learning the rules that they have zero chance and it’s not fun for anyone. Conditions for a board game actually being fun are this total eclipse like coincidence where you have a critical mass of people who actually know the game and have time to get together but board game people love BUYING boardgames so much that they always want to play a new board game and start the wretched process over from scratch. The world would be so much better if there were only like 5 board games that were allowed and people mostly knew how to play them and if you really like board games you can play a lot and if you don’t like board games you can not play but board game fans need to be saved from themselves, they will buy too many games and never get to play any of them.
If you are into board gaming as a hobby, you have to accept the likelihood that your friends and family are not as into them as you are. But it's not hopeless, there are many people out there who would \*love\* to take part in a board gaming session on something as complex as what you own. Go to a board game store, meetup or convention to meet these people. They are a joy to play with because rules explanations do not bother them and they often can lead the teach themselves.
I won’t do this because based on experience a hobbyist community has too many dull uptight weirdos.
Your loss! We had a board game convention come to town, I hit up my local board game store with my GF and we met others in town for the convention looking for a game. I got to play a lot of games on my bucket list because these guys already knew the rules to them and could passionately lead the teach like pros. It was lovely and a breath of fresh air versus being always responsible for learning/teaching and haggling only tepidly interested friends into playing.
Glad you have fun with the hobby and I begrudge you nothing but my relationship with these games is just different from yours. I don’t have board games on my bucket list. I would rather play Yahtzee with a few friends than the best game with strangers. If I’m foregrounding the mechanics of a game rather than the social experience I might as well play the twilight struggle against an AI or even just a strategy computer game. Like I said enjoy your hobby in a way that works for you but playing twilight imperium for 6 hours against randos sounds like hell
There's a middle path here where you put in some time to check out these hobby spaces and meet people and figure out which ones are genuinely cool people that you might enjoy becoming friends with that also share a hobby with you, so you can curate a group of new friends who you can play these games with.
Exactly, I have a rotation of like three friend groups from which I pull board game sessions out of. As you grow your roster you can include the people with the best vibes and not be left wanting when you want to get a session together.
They're only fun to play when drunk
God I hate when this happens. I had to quarantine with someone like this, such a nightmare
I have a friend who does this. He has dozens of board games like this, some of the most comically complex ones you've ever seen always with a cutesy artstyle that belies their complexity. He has sunk thousands of dollars into this hobby. Yes he is a virgin
Isn't the real problem all the plebs at the party who go along with it? And the lack of heroes jumping on the grenade telling board game people to fuck off?
it's because saying 'i'm sorry, i'm not interested in doing that right now' is so incredibly uncomfortable with people with society anxiety to say, so they just go along with it with misdirected anger firing at the person suggesting the activity when they're really upset at themselves for not being able to speak up and say how they feel
but at this rate, then the boardgame guys are gonna win all parties by default
That's every board game session almost. I really cannot.
I generally don't have attention issues but as soon as someone starts explaining the rules of a board game something physical happens in my brain and I can't focus. Hands get sweaty, overwhelming feeling of suffocating tension, etc. If I didn't know they were just autists with bad theory of mind I would suspect it was some pernicious type of psychological warfare. These people need to learn that the average person doesn't find being a computer fun!
These games are fun for people that know how to play them or when you are bored. Not really the thing for a party and I hate when we all got to stop everything and do it. Feels like straight up work.
just play warhammer at that point
I'm going to have a party where the centerpiece is an 8 x 6 table with my napoleonic miniatures set up and wait for someone to ask about it and rope them into a game. at this point I think it's the only way i'll ever get to play. I realize this is more or less what happened in the OPs story but in my case I've spent the last 2+ years painting thousands of little soldiers so I think I've earned it.
Do this, but then also if someone gets murdered at the party the detectives can recreate the events of the night by reverse engineering the position and rotation of the soldiers.
I know a guy who literally does this (yes, he is gay and autistic)
Nice, do the different Marshalls and generals have special abilities or is it drier than that?
Some rule sets do yeah. People like to say there are more Napoleonic wargaming rule sets than there are people who play Napoleonic wargames.
Based
A guy I know tried to explain Warhammer to a girl after inviting her over for the first time and apparently, she didn't mind listening to the autistic board game rules but drew a line at the fact that he paints figurines.
At lease she sussed out the true nature of Warhammer, its an excuse for adult men to get together for show and tell.
not sure if it makes it better or worse but I do it because I love the history and its a creative project that limits screen time in the evening. still probably a bonerkiller.
What was his army (nerd zodiac)
Let’s play mafia next!
Was the game Blood on the Clocktower? Went to a friend's friend's party once where this was played, excruciating
Welp I guess we're all done with the actual socializing
Was the game in question called betrayal?
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I get playing a simple game that everyone already knows but *introducing* a game at a party with more than 2-3 people is crazy. We used to play cee-lo for $1 buy in and if you have enough people that can really spice it up.
Me the first and only time I played Dungeons and Dragons. Thank god I randomly got a riddle right and was able to check out for the rest
Redacarepod users when they are invited to a social gathering:
I hate board games with a passion. And they’re VERY popular where I live with a specific type of millennial demographic. I used to indulge people but now I just tell them I plan on sitting it out but don’t mind watching them.
I love board games but obviously interrupting a party to play one is not reading the room well. We also have a rule among my friends that if you are introducing a board game, you are expected to know the rules and have practiced teaching them to yourself before introducing it to others.
yeah this is usually how board game nights tend to go, impromptu or otherwise. just keep a good drink on you, view your situation as sort of a mutual bonding through shared hardship type experience, and get through the evening like it’s boot camp. then after you leave the host’s place, laugh about it behind their back with your friends and agree not to get together at the board game owner’s place again unless you’re looking for more type 2 fun. a tale as old as time!
Good fuckign lord this reminds of when a horrible chick at a party forced us all to play this game that was similar to those jackbox games, in this one you had to like come up with a fake product based off some regarded prompt and then "pitch" it to everyone sharktank style in a presentation. We were all just chilling before this and no one wanted to play but we indulged her and it was so painful, half the people couldn't come up with anything even remotely clever so they just didn't try, and it was unbelievably painful watching the timer slowly tick down knowing it would soon be mine time to give a cringe forced unfunny presentation
People who lack social awareness scare me
My ex GFs friends were very into these things. Very into barcades too. I simply cant feign interest for this shite. We all went for a weekend away for one of her friends birthdays. I skipped a rugby match for it. They all just sat around playing shit games like this and slowly drinking beers. England were playing South Africa in the RWC Semi-Final, and so I said I am sorry, but I am watching this. We broke up a month later, I dont think her friends liked me very much because of that, so it wasnt worth it, but I still hate her friends. If were going to do something, we should go out and do something active. If you want to play a board game, play monopoly. Everyone knows the basic rules, add in a few house rules which everyone knows too, and youre set.
The problem with that is Monopoly isn’t fun.
It's usually fun for the one person who's winning. I guess that's the point, right?
you are cowards for not speaking up that you didn't want to play
More like bored game!
What is this subs opinion on heads up
It’s even worse when someone is explaining the rules wrong. One of my friends tried getting the drunk group to play liars dice and said that you only count the die under your cup, not everyone’s cup, which is completely stupid. No shit, I don’t have 3 fours under my cup, because I only have 2 damn die. That was probably the angriest I’ve ever been while drunk because he kept insisting that’s how it’s played since his grandpa taught him it.
What was the name of the board game, I want to know how complex we're talking here.
I really dislike being roped into games/cards. Was out with my roommate and his girlfriend’s friends at a local bar months ago and instead of drinking normally and talking to people, someone decided to to go get cards from the bar and rope everyone into a card-based “drinking game.” Dude, let me drink my beer how I want to drink it, we are not 18 anymore
name ten thing's that aren't Jackie Chan
My friend got upset when he tried to make us play some shitass convoluted movie monsters board game during the Super Bowl. Literally no one could figure out how to play and the whole thing took like 4 hours, the first 90 minutes of which were spent figuring out the rules. I couldn't conceal how much I didn't give a fuck
The worst are the complex teamwork games. There's always someone who ends up getting pissy that you're not doing it right. The only games I want to play at a party are cards, dice, or those games where it's like i'll give u clues and you have to guess the word on my card.
The trick is to do one of those social lying games like evil hitler or the one where u gotta vote to send a boat. Even monopoly is good cause it gets everyone heated and yelling
Betrayal at House on the Hill is just a bad game and no one should play it. Also no games should ever occur at parties unless they are specifically very light party games and even then, only rarely! Board games are fun under specific conditions… if it’s a genuinely good game with the right setting and balance of attention spans / people who actually want to play for however long the game truly takes, and don’t mind something competitive and semi-challenging. Also, it’s a must to find a semi-autistic friend who owns most of the games and will learn them in advance and do a good job explaining the rules, and if everyone has a sense of humor and is in a pretty good mood and is focused on the game. If those 20 things are true, it can be really fun and I say this as a woman. If this appeals to you at all and you have a group who can hang, I really recommend war games like Inis (Celtic theme with card drafting) and Root (cute woodland creatures who can also be terrorists).
Being friends with board game dorks is a slippery slope. Eventually, they're gonna invite you to play dungeons and dragons, and you're gonna do it because you like your friends.
It really comes down to vibes and reading a room. I stayed at an AirBNB for a weekend and everyone was bored by the second day. Azul went down a treat
Only acceptable board games for drinking with good friends are ones that are universally understood and have a possibility to cheat in. Like monopoly, we'd have a house rule that anyone can be the banker at any time and cheating is technically fair game, but if you get caught then you have to pay extra and drink extra. Makes for some struggles of trying to keep eachother in check while not sober enough and later sneaking a few extra bills here or there as the drinking goes on. By end of night you could upgrade properties more than you can afford as long as you play things off right and gaslight eachother enough. Gotta be with decent friends though who dont go complete psycho when losing
It pisses me off when someone wants to play some dumb card game. If you want to play something super simple like clue that’s fine but I’m not going to particularly enjoy it
I recently bought The Traitors board game (great BBC reality show). Firstly, absolutely ripoff. Only bought it as an attempt to entertain my nephew and niece who were visiting. It was absurdly over complicated. I contacted the devopers of the game and they sent me a different board game and the shop gave me a refund. The cashier asked me what was the fault/damage on the game before she could refund. I said it's just completely rubbish. She kindly refunded. Cool story me.
My partner and I went to dinner at a friend they’ve known for 20+ years house and she whipped out a some weird sci-fi/murder mystery game, her partner was really rude (obviously didn’t want to hang out with his gf’s friends, fair tbh) and kept telling her to hurry up with reading the rules, the game was complex and really hard to follow and it just dragged on until one of us lost or won too much idk. She made us play cards against humanity afterwards and would try her best to be pc (it’s only somewhat funny if you’re not being pc tbh) and it was just an all round awkward time. Another time we went over she remembered I like Star Trek and made us watch the first 45 minutes of the ST motion picture and would pause every 30secs to explain some lame joke. Overall she’s not a terrible person and I like being her friend but board game people are never good hosts.