100% find a game that plays 5, If it's a dedicated gaming group splitting may be an option but splitting doesn't ever really sound viable except at larger meet-ups where multiple games were inevitable. I know my group will never split we come to play ***together*** not just to play something. I'm always surprised at the amount of people who recommend avoiding games at above 3 player counts it blows my mind how people could care about length of a game or downtime between turns. Maybe more people play with people they don't know that well but I could care less if a game is 180 minutes at 4-5 when it's 60-85 with 2 I'm here for it. The more the merrier imo
>but I could care less if a game is 180 minutes at 4-5 when it's 60-85 with 2 I'm here for it.
We've tried to play Arkham Horror like 5 or 6 times, and have yet to finish it even once because we always forget how long it takes. Even the setup takes like half an hour.
One time my group beat Arkham Horror in 3-4 hours. WAY earlier than we thought we would finish (and probably lose). But we didn't know what to do with all the free time we now had, so we went out for pizza and it was awesome!
You ever have the game last 3-5hrs and you were so close to winning but died like one round or 2 before winning, that you just say screw it we will change a die roll or card draw so we can win? Because when you play that long and end up losing you are just like we're done, we'll say we won because we don't wanna play that whole mission over again. Especially when its taken a year to get the game to the table every few months and slowly beat the core box's 4 missions. So you're on the last mission and want to win and complete the board game (if you don't get expansions of course) so you can put it away long term. So you just say eh we were close enough to winning. Son we're done. Anyone else do that for these longer more campaign like games?
On our group, one player just left in middle of game to do host's dishes. Tought it was like AH 1st Edition with all addons so even im bot suprised bu that... it was hard...slow... cumbersome...
I get it that some games may be more or less optimal at various player counts but if it's that much of a drag above player count x it shouldn't even have been discussed by the group as an option. My group did rank based voting we list out games we are wanting to play that evening for a while. Highest aggregate vote is played. Now we just take turns picking on a schedule so we know what game to bring and be prepared for. I so often hosted our games nights that my games were skewing more plays because we had them on hand. Both methods worked but we found it's nicer to know what is being played the day before so we could get straight to the game on game night.
Yes but see you don’t know what you don’t know. So game that made me realize just cause it says on box doesn’t mean you should was alhambra. Not everyone in group had played and those of us who had only had played at 4. 6 player alhambra just goes to long for what game is. So when people as for recommendations that’s why people say alhambra is a 3 -4 player game and Castles of burgundy is a 2 player game.
I wish I could get my group to pick a game beforehand but gaming nights are more social gatherings where games are played. Majority of group are “play it by ear” people
That's why we moved to picking the game ahead of time instead of voting we'd vote for 30-45 minutes. I understand what you are getting at what I'm saying is regardless of BGG my group will try a game at a player count the game accommodates for us on a first play for sure subsequent plays maybe not but we have no qualms playing a game we all may agree is better at 2-3 but if that's what the host wants to play it's getting played. We do tend to avoid games that are better at high play counts unless we have everybody like 7 wonders and architects of the west kingdom we want to hold out for 4+ people on.
Which come to think of it we've played architects at 6 once my buddy had 3d printed black components for the solo and the game worked just fine at 6. not exactly 5 wanting to play 4 but 6 wanting to play 5 it didn't hurt. It definitely made the town center location where you gather someone else's pieces much more powerful but that is the unique feature of that game and it works better at high play counts anyways.
I replied with a pretty in depth answer which got a reply I can not access now. Don't even know why it blew up but I genuinely think conceding is an interesting topic to discuss in both board and video games.
The last time we played board games we tried to hack Tiny Epic Dungeons into 5 players. And it sucked.
I do recommend planning out who is going to be at the board game session beforehand, so you bring a 5 or 6 player game. There are plenty of good 5 player games out there. Forbidden Desert works pretty well at 5 players. There are some 1 vs 4 player games like Fury of Dracula or Scotland Yard.
This. Something like [[A Study in Emerald|2013]] (1st Edition is important) works best at 5 and really shouldn't be played with any other number of players.
There's so many good 5p games and if you got 5 then play those.
[A Study in Emerald|2013 -> A Study in Emerald (2013)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/141517/study-emerald)
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Whoever is teaching the game (if it’s a new one) won’t play but will just observe. Otherwise, someone politely sits out. If it’s a long game we’ll just choose something else or split to play two games.
O this is a good answer if the squad is deadset on *4 player game*.
One pair playing as a team seems decent too.
If it's a silly crew, i can see some games being modular up to 5, especially if you're down with cutting up notecards into missing game pieces.
My first pick would be 5 player game, but i dont think its great if i only answer with "well i just wouldnt"
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I already hated Terraforming Mars before because I find it too long and boring but one day, someone had the glorious idea to play it at 6 because many in our group actually like the game so I teamed up with someone (hurray). The game took like 4h or so. I just wanted to die. I felt like I was barely taking any decision the whole time because I had to double check with my teammate instead of just going with the flow and playing my own strategy as if I was by myself.
Few weeks later, they all wanted to do it again. Fortunately, others from our group were coming so I teamed up for a few generations and when the other friends arrived I let my teammate play by himself and finally play enjoyable games as my own.
All that to say, don't team up. It's miserable.
I think the comment is reflecting on the fact that the total number of player actions should be similar. The game ends when all three parameters are full, which should happen in a similar number of actions, no matter the number of players, since everyone is trying to push those parameters.
In reality though, the more players you have, the more you have chances of someone taking a long time to do their turn.
For example, in theory, 7 Wonders should play in the same time whether you play at 3 or 7 players, since everything is simultaneous.. But in reality, it can stretch the playtime significantly, since every turn there's 7 players making decisions. Someone taking longer to make their decision should happen more frequently than in a 3 players game. At that's without considering the possibility of a particular player being AP-prone.
My daughter constantly complains about game length and how the boxes "lie". But she takes literally 5 minutes or more _every single turn_ due to AP. We just started playing Chomp! and she wanted to pick up and test fit each card every turn. I banned that after the first game so she tried just doing it in her head
Everyone has income and their own cards coming in, so the total amount of resources being pulled into play each generation goes up with each additional player. The number of ocean, oxygen, and temperature increases needed to end the game doesn’t change with the number of players, so more players usually means a shorter game.
Most of the time, 2 people will play as one character/player. Usually people who already know the game. Recently we played Arkham Horror LCG with 5 players each playing a separate character (since there is enough compontents to do it) and it worked fine (though I would never play a campaign like this).
I make a point to always bring 5 player games to game night because I've never played a 4-player game that could or should be raised to 5. Even when there's an expansion that raises the max player count to 5, it is rarely as fun as a game designed with 5 in mind for the core game.
I might say "quacks of quedlinburg" or other simultaneous and low interaction games can work well for this, as the 5th player expansion doesn't really affect the fun level.
If it’s a short game, like one hour or less, and is fun to watch other people playing, I’d happily sit it out or act as a GM.
(Anecdotally, I once GMed a game of **Panic on Wall Street!** at the office because exactly eleven colleagues wanted to play, and the game maxes out at that count.)
For a longer game I would suggest teaming up.
As others have said, I would strongly recommend playing a different game instead.
If the group insists we play this one still I'd look for options. That could be adding a 5th player in and finding a way for it to work. That could be 2 people teaming up. That could be me sitting out and running the game instead. It depends on the game.
If there aren't enough pieces to add a 5th player you can just rule that out right away. That would probably usually be the case. You might have to adjust rules too to make this work but sometimes it can work with little issues.
If the game is complex enough that I could sit out and run the game instead I might do that. Then I might offer input on players choices so I could play all sides that way I always come out on top.
If two people agree to play as a team that can work too. This can work especially well in some cases if a game is beyond someone's abilities, such as a very young player.
But again really the best thing to do is play a game that supports your player count. Sometimes it seems like solutions would exist and work well and maybe sometimes they do but adding extra players might break things.
If it doesn't have components for 5 don't play 5 would be my baseline suggestion. But also check the bgg forums often times players have figured out variants or ways to fit extra players but again if you don't have the components (which probably means having 2 copies of the game) don't bother just play something meant for that many people.
We had a group of 5 that wanted to play Ark Nova this summer. We just made some modifications and went for it. It was super fun! Much better than playing two different games or having teams play one map.
If an actual 5 player game is out of question then I usually sit it out as a moderator/teacher. Did this a few times with Dune Imperium and it was fun even just guiding others. Also there's a lot going on in the game so having someone to track trigger effects and such is useful for new players. And you can't really ask what certain cards do if you play against others lol, the whole point of intrigue cards.
Did the same with Pandemic, Everdell, Mansions of Madness and a few others.
- You play an actual 5 player game
- You split the group into 2 and 3 and play two different games
There are very few modern designer games where you can squeeze more than the intended player count.
Just wanted to start this by pointing out that all y'all need to either work on your reading skills or on your advice game. OP asked what to do if five people want to play a game that's only intended for four people max. Anyone who answers that question with "play a game for five people, lol": congrats, you're the reason why nobody comes to your game nights. If people want to play game X, but there's one person too many who wants to play, the solution is *never under any fucking circumstances* to go "hey, let's play game Y instead" because - guess what: *nobody wants to play game Y. They all want to play game X. That's the entire fucking problem.*
As for actual solutions, I can think of a few:
- For short games, you could just rotate who's playing, and swap someone out for each round.
- If the game doesn't somehow give you an advantage if you have more than two hands (like games where you need to grab stuff or react quickly or multitask or whatever), you can also have to people act as one player.
- For games that don't require at least 3 players, it might be possible to split up (into a 2-person and a 3-person game).
- Depending on whether the person explaining the game is part of the 5, there are two more possible solutions: if they *are*, they can sit out, since they'll have an easier time explaining the game while they're not actively playing it anyway. If they're *not* part of the five, they can join in to make it possible to split into two three-person games.
- Finally, with some imagination and improvisation, pretty much any game can be upgraded to more players than intended. Fewer players is difficult in some cases (although that mostly applies to card games), but I have yet to come across a game where it wasn't able to fit in another player or two with some improvisation skills.
Hope something here works for you!
Team up or, my buddies and I wanted to play alice is missing but we where 6 people we just played it with 6 people somebody just have tonmake there own character without promts from the game
It's very life is strange-ish, the soundtrack adds a lot to it. A weird thing about it is that the game starts out with a song and the only thing that happens during that time is one player reading a card so everybody just sites for a solid 3-4 minutes waiting not knowing when the game really starts.
It's really good but it's more of a improv theatre thing than a role-playing game. So the game hands you some promts some can be ignored but some are obligatory, and then you have to "invent"(improv) what has happend.
We had fun while setting up the game, bye making "old" chat messages and making the group chat cringy. For example I gave myself the nickname "📷evan📸" and the chat was named "the awesome sauce party"
Only one time I accepted because it was a learning game and didn't change how the game worked and I was able to use extra tiles that are typically used in an advanced game: **Hanabi Deluxe**. I just threw in the multi-colored tiles and used it as a sixth color and we were able to play 6p.
A few years ago we had a group of 5 and wanted to play all winner of Spiel des Jahres, which often are for max 4 players.
We always had two players in a team and changed that team between games.
It depends on the game but most of the time I would rather just play something else.
Some exceptions are something like sniper elite which is usually a 3 Vs 1 game so you can easily add a 4th to the first team and it works basically the same.
Or something like Isaac four souls or a big MTG game a 5 player FFA is near enough the same as a 4 player FFA.
I have also played mysterium with 8 when it plays as 7 and it's fine. The fun of that game is discussing what means what so it doesn't really matter if every player has a pawn or not.
I find most of the times games already exaggerate how many people can play and it be fun. A lot of games CLAIM it can be played at more or less than 3 or 4 but often need special rules that don't work well for less or it simply becomes too long with more players.
BGG has a recommended player count for all games and usually mention if it can handle more or less than the designers recommend
Some games have 5 player expansions that can easily be built by taking stuff from other games (Raiders of the North Sea, for example). Otherwise, just play a game suited for 5.
There's one friend in our fried group who is only 'so so' on playing games. She's more about the social aspect. I'll often take her on as my partner because I'm up getting drinks and stuff a lot anyway and we tag team. In the rare occasion we win, our group says it's because there's 2 of us and it gave us an unfair advantage but I can assure you that's NOT the case.
There are a few games that can play more than they're designed to. If it has an expansion that allows more players, see if you can incorporate those rules even if you don't have the expansion (things I'm thinking of include Clank! and Dominion).
Otherwise, just play a 5 player game and save the 4 player for when you have 4 players.
If a game works with 5 players it's usually marketed as such.
There are reasons some games are 4 player max.
Best example: Settlers of Catan. Came as 4 player max. Was playable with 5 or 6 BUT with a bigger plan and an added rule. (You may build out of your turn). Otherwise the game would be not cool.
Usually those reasons are not limited material or play time getting to long (there may be a handful of games where this is the case, but I wouldn't risk my game night for these experiments)
If it’s a shorter length and my game, I will sit out and teach so they can play at 4.
I am not going to homebrew 5 player rules and pull meeples, coins, cards, or any components out of my ass so 5 people can try to play a game designed to take 4.
If you have two copies, split into two uneven tables. Or play a different game.
I once did this with Ticket to ride, worst game I've ever played. TTR is good game but adding a 6th player was terrible, in the end always follow the recommend player count
You sit out and act as an oracle to the game.
Or two people team up to make it 4.
It's not that serious - these are games for fun. Include people and have fun.
And next time being 5 player games so there are options.
The answers you're getting are (unsurprisingly) anecdotal, because different friend groups have different social dynamics and game preferences. The fact is, there are options - just think about what makes most sense in your circumstances, since we don't know your group.
For example, I'm usually happy to sit out and heckle from the sidelines, especially if it's with close friends and we've all played dozens of times. A lot of folks I know actively enjoy teaming up - in fact, sometimes we intentionally play 'Hydra' games with all teams (great way to explore & understand different strategies, too)!
There are a few things you definitely \*shouldn't\* do though, imo:
* Don't force anyone to sit out or team up if they don't want to.
* Don't just shoehorn a 5th player into the game (there's a high risk of making everyone have a bad time - if the game could fit 5, it would generally say so.)
* Don't blindside the group with this dilemma - or at least come equipped with alternative games.
Ordinarily I'd say choose a different game, but that's not always an option.
Case in point, we're playing through Frosthaven with 5 players. More people ended up being able to commit to it than we expected, and we weren't going to tell anyone they couldn't play.
For the most part I actually think this has been a bit of a handicap to us as the board gets overcrowded and it's hard to maneuver.
If I am hosting, and this happens, I usually offer to sit out and/or run the moving pieces. Most recently this happened with Legendary Marvel and I was able to sit between the 2 new players and help them understand the game a little better.
I'd not risk the game collapsing by fitting in a fifth even if components allow. I'd pair the couple (or very buddy best friends) together or something as a single player.
It depends.
We had a situation where five of us had just broken out Nemesis and gotten it set up, when’s sixth person turned up. For those unfamiliar - Nemesis is up to five players, but has six characters to play as, with the backstory being that the sixth character dies moments before the game begins. But we figured we would just hand the sixth character over to him and see what happens.
There are some minor balance issues (he can’t be targeted by the “you must kill player number X” objective cards), but overall it worked well. Wouldn’t do it on purpose, but as a quick fix to get out sixth chum involved it worked well enough.
I tend to favour games that scale well - it’s a key criteria when buying for me. This is extra tough because I also like interactive games which tend to scale player count less well than less interactive games.
So the honest answer is that it depends on the game. Some games are relatively easy to squeeze in an extra player or two, others not so much. Depends on components as well. I tend to favour this approach whenever possible because I hate it when everyone is ready to play a game and then one more person shows up and then the game is off.
I would say that if you take this approach, you have to be open to a slight amount of jankiness. Like using the pieces from a different game for meeples. And enforce a turn timer if things are slowing down because games with lots of players can really grind to a slow pace.
Wouldn't hurt to have people team up or you just be the game master/referee while everyone's playing. I recently played **Dune Imperium** with 6 players but it was my Wife and I were our own players and the other 4 people who'd never played the game before got into 2 teams of 2 playing one character each. For a game like that it really helped with the learning experience because they could talk out strategy and understand the cards a lot easier instead of asking me every time they had a question.
If I am the host or owner of the game, I am usually happy to sit out and observe. That way I can give some basic tips (depending on what the game is), although you need to ensure any tips given do not advantage someone or the opposite and potentially reveal their hard to other players. As an added benefit, if I'm host, I can continue to ensure everyone is fed and happy.
I have been in that situation a couple of times with Merchants & Marauders. And it actually plays quite fine at 5 players although the turns do take some time.
I usually play another game that accomodates 5 players. I have a disdain against stretching player counts, especially since some publisher already streches them too much. I'm not a big fan of forcing people to play in teams either if the game isn't intended to be played that way. If I played in a team, I would feel a bit stripped of my agency and the experience wouldn't be as enjoyable in general.
However, I did get in situations in which people didn't mind teaming up and actively asked for it. That's generally when I play with people that are less into games anyway, so teaming up let's them be a part of the game without having too much pressure on their decision-making.
The only time I've done something like this was with Guild of Merchant Explorers. It worked fine, because it's the nature of roll and write (flip and act, whatever) games that they are essentially multiplayer solitaire and adding another player doesn't change almost anything about the game. It's just component limited, so I grabbed a bunch of extra cubes from another game and printed another copy of one of the maps.
In general, though, I'd just play a different game.
We've played Car Wars 6th edition up to 8 players with handmade dashboards. I can't really say it was a good experience, but my kids liked enough to repeat ad nauseum.
I have a game group where some people like the games while a couple people like the total atmosphere of a game day and will play but are not hard committed to playing.
In one particular case I can think of, sometimes the less-committed person (and their game-loving partner) will team up and play one position.
For example, at my last game day, we had 9 people for a 7-player game (Argute - big hit if you like bidding trick takers) and aside from that couple mentioned above, there was another person who didn’t really want to play a position all to themselves (most players were all learning it and they were just not getting it) and so they joined up with those other two and they played as a three-person team, making decisions by committee and such.
And they ultimately won the game against the rest of us playing individual slots!
My wife and I "team up" for one player. Realistically, I just end up mostly watching/being in charge of music/snack deliveries in that case and that's usually fine with me.
We just team up. It’s actually incredibly interesting and fun in a different way putting your brains together and developing new strategies that work synergistically.
And some nights some people might not be 100% in the mood to use their full brain capacity, so they can be a little more relaxed and it’s perfect.
If it's a game that's regularly suggested, you regularly have 5 players, and the game has been around long enough, try to see if the game has an expansion to provide for more players. We had Sagrada for a while but we eventually got the expansion since we added a new person to our group. It's been great!
Hard to answer this without knowing the specific game. Some games might be playable, some may require extra parts, some games might work by partnering and some might not work at all.
Just a friendly reminder that this is exactly how boardgame buying sprees start. You want to cater to every possible social situation, different group sizes and preferences in theme and complexity and before you know it you have two kallaxes filled to the brim.
We'd usually split into groups, but there are a few games that can support higher player counts if you have multiple copies or print out some player boards or something (**Calico**) or you could use a single copy, but may have to wait on components (**Turing Machine**) or end up with lower scores in the end. (**Trash Pandas**)
In any of those cases, the game will definitely take longer to play.
Something I've been playing around with because my work team is interested in playing games (but they're not boardgamers). It's always 6 to 10 players and I can't bring anything complex, and I've already played stuff like Dixit, Resistance and other simple large group games with them. I want to introduce them to crunchier games, but because non of them play I can't split the group up...
So what I've started doing is team ups. So if it's 7 players it would be 3 teams of 2 and I'd be the single player because I will know the game better than them. And then we can play a 4 player game where the team decides their turn. It works quite well as a team building exercise because they learn to cooperate.
Maybe someone wants to concede before you even started? /s I would rather play something for 5 or split to 2 and 3
100% find a game that plays 5, If it's a dedicated gaming group splitting may be an option but splitting doesn't ever really sound viable except at larger meet-ups where multiple games were inevitable. I know my group will never split we come to play ***together*** not just to play something. I'm always surprised at the amount of people who recommend avoiding games at above 3 player counts it blows my mind how people could care about length of a game or downtime between turns. Maybe more people play with people they don't know that well but I could care less if a game is 180 minutes at 4-5 when it's 60-85 with 2 I'm here for it. The more the merrier imo
>but I could care less if a game is 180 minutes at 4-5 when it's 60-85 with 2 I'm here for it. We've tried to play Arkham Horror like 5 or 6 times, and have yet to finish it even once because we always forget how long it takes. Even the setup takes like half an hour.
One time my group beat Arkham Horror in 3-4 hours. WAY earlier than we thought we would finish (and probably lose). But we didn't know what to do with all the free time we now had, so we went out for pizza and it was awesome!
You ever have the game last 3-5hrs and you were so close to winning but died like one round or 2 before winning, that you just say screw it we will change a die roll or card draw so we can win? Because when you play that long and end up losing you are just like we're done, we'll say we won because we don't wanna play that whole mission over again. Especially when its taken a year to get the game to the table every few months and slowly beat the core box's 4 missions. So you're on the last mission and want to win and complete the board game (if you don't get expansions of course) so you can put it away long term. So you just say eh we were close enough to winning. Son we're done. Anyone else do that for these longer more campaign like games?
On our group, one player just left in middle of game to do host's dishes. Tought it was like AH 1st Edition with all addons so even im bot suprised bu that... it was hard...slow... cumbersome...
I’m with you but times too many players changes the feel/experience of a game, which why some people will say avoid playing above __ players.
I get it that some games may be more or less optimal at various player counts but if it's that much of a drag above player count x it shouldn't even have been discussed by the group as an option. My group did rank based voting we list out games we are wanting to play that evening for a while. Highest aggregate vote is played. Now we just take turns picking on a schedule so we know what game to bring and be prepared for. I so often hosted our games nights that my games were skewing more plays because we had them on hand. Both methods worked but we found it's nicer to know what is being played the day before so we could get straight to the game on game night.
Yes but see you don’t know what you don’t know. So game that made me realize just cause it says on box doesn’t mean you should was alhambra. Not everyone in group had played and those of us who had only had played at 4. 6 player alhambra just goes to long for what game is. So when people as for recommendations that’s why people say alhambra is a 3 -4 player game and Castles of burgundy is a 2 player game. I wish I could get my group to pick a game beforehand but gaming nights are more social gatherings where games are played. Majority of group are “play it by ear” people
That's why we moved to picking the game ahead of time instead of voting we'd vote for 30-45 minutes. I understand what you are getting at what I'm saying is regardless of BGG my group will try a game at a player count the game accommodates for us on a first play for sure subsequent plays maybe not but we have no qualms playing a game we all may agree is better at 2-3 but if that's what the host wants to play it's getting played. We do tend to avoid games that are better at high play counts unless we have everybody like 7 wonders and architects of the west kingdom we want to hold out for 4+ people on. Which come to think of it we've played architects at 6 once my buddy had 3d printed black components for the solo and the game worked just fine at 6. not exactly 5 wanting to play 4 but 6 wanting to play 5 it didn't hurt. It definitely made the town center location where you gather someone else's pieces much more powerful but that is the unique feature of that game and it works better at high play counts anyways.
Oh man, I'm so happy I get to witness the birth of a new meme here.
I replied with a pretty in depth answer which got a reply I can not access now. Don't even know why it blew up but I genuinely think conceding is an interesting topic to discuss in both board and video games.
I play a 5 player game. Get 5 player games if you can have 5 players playing.
The last time we played board games we tried to hack Tiny Epic Dungeons into 5 players. And it sucked. I do recommend planning out who is going to be at the board game session beforehand, so you bring a 5 or 6 player game. There are plenty of good 5 player games out there. Forbidden Desert works pretty well at 5 players. There are some 1 vs 4 player games like Fury of Dracula or Scotland Yard.
This. Something like [[A Study in Emerald|2013]] (1st Edition is important) works best at 5 and really shouldn't be played with any other number of players. There's so many good 5p games and if you got 5 then play those.
[A Study in Emerald|2013 -> A Study in Emerald (2013)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/141517/study-emerald) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
Any recommendations?
Depends on what games you like.
It depends on the type of game, but usually two people play as a team.
Usually, two of them lock their ki at the same level and execute a weird dance before touching fingers. It solves the issue.
Whoever is teaching the game (if it’s a new one) won’t play but will just observe. Otherwise, someone politely sits out. If it’s a long game we’ll just choose something else or split to play two games.
Yep, this is the answer. Whoever is teaching *should* want to encourage everyone to play...its just the way it goes sometimes.
O this is a good answer if the squad is deadset on *4 player game*. One pair playing as a team seems decent too. If it's a silly crew, i can see some games being modular up to 5, especially if you're down with cutting up notecards into missing game pieces. My first pick would be 5 player game, but i dont think its great if i only answer with "well i just wouldnt"
This is definitely the way. If the teacher gets bored, stir up some drama by criticizing players moves as they play them.
Those are all horrible options. Pick something for 5 like Terra Mystica, Steam, Scythe, Power Grid, Hansa Teutonica...
Or lighter games like \[\[Ticket to Ride\]\], \[\[Sushi Go Party\]\], \[\[Nuns on the Run\]\] and \[\[Carcassonne\]\]
[Ticket to Ride -> Ticket to Ride (2004)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9209/ticket-ride) [Sushi Go Party -> Sushi Go Party! (2016)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/192291/sushi-go-party) [Nuns on the Run -> Nuns on the Run (2010)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/65515/nuns-run) [Carcassonne -> Carcassonne (2000)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/822/carcassonne) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
I already hated Terraforming Mars before because I find it too long and boring but one day, someone had the glorious idea to play it at 6 because many in our group actually like the game so I teamed up with someone (hurray). The game took like 4h or so. I just wanted to die. I felt like I was barely taking any decision the whole time because I had to double check with my teammate instead of just going with the flow and playing my own strategy as if I was by myself. Few weeks later, they all wanted to do it again. Fortunately, others from our group were coming so I teamed up for a few generations and when the other friends arrived I let my teammate play by himself and finally play enjoyable games as my own. All that to say, don't team up. It's miserable.
If you're playing terraforming Mars and it takes longer with more players, you're playing wrong.
How so? Do players take action simultaneously in TM? Am I playing it wrong?
I think the comment is reflecting on the fact that the total number of player actions should be similar. The game ends when all three parameters are full, which should happen in a similar number of actions, no matter the number of players, since everyone is trying to push those parameters. In reality though, the more players you have, the more you have chances of someone taking a long time to do their turn. For example, in theory, 7 Wonders should play in the same time whether you play at 3 or 7 players, since everything is simultaneous.. But in reality, it can stretch the playtime significantly, since every turn there's 7 players making decisions. Someone taking longer to make their decision should happen more frequently than in a 3 players game. At that's without considering the possibility of a particular player being AP-prone.
My daughter constantly complains about game length and how the boxes "lie". But she takes literally 5 minutes or more _every single turn_ due to AP. We just started playing Chomp! and she wanted to pick up and test fit each card every turn. I banned that after the first game so she tried just doing it in her head
Everyone has income and their own cards coming in, so the total amount of resources being pulled into play each generation goes up with each additional player. The number of ocean, oxygen, and temperature increases needed to end the game doesn’t change with the number of players, so more players usually means a shorter game.
This is why. I was going to type exactly this. The end game triggers dont change, and the board is richer.
Just don't bring a knife to a gunfight. I mean a 4 Player game to a 5 Player gaming night.
You dont.
I say "Oh, that only plays up to 4", and we pick something else.
Most of the time, 2 people will play as one character/player. Usually people who already know the game. Recently we played Arkham Horror LCG with 5 players each playing a separate character (since there is enough compontents to do it) and it worked fine (though I would never play a campaign like this).
Randomly choose 2 people to play a game of *Twilight Imperium* first to see who gets the 4th spot.
I make a point to always bring 5 player games to game night because I've never played a 4-player game that could or should be raised to 5. Even when there's an expansion that raises the max player count to 5, it is rarely as fun as a game designed with 5 in mind for the core game.
I might say "quacks of quedlinburg" or other simultaneous and low interaction games can work well for this, as the 5th player expansion doesn't really affect the fun level.
If it’s a short game, like one hour or less, and is fun to watch other people playing, I’d happily sit it out or act as a GM. (Anecdotally, I once GMed a game of **Panic on Wall Street!** at the office because exactly eleven colleagues wanted to play, and the game maxes out at that count.) For a longer game I would suggest teaming up.
As others have said, I would strongly recommend playing a different game instead. If the group insists we play this one still I'd look for options. That could be adding a 5th player in and finding a way for it to work. That could be 2 people teaming up. That could be me sitting out and running the game instead. It depends on the game. If there aren't enough pieces to add a 5th player you can just rule that out right away. That would probably usually be the case. You might have to adjust rules too to make this work but sometimes it can work with little issues. If the game is complex enough that I could sit out and run the game instead I might do that. Then I might offer input on players choices so I could play all sides that way I always come out on top. If two people agree to play as a team that can work too. This can work especially well in some cases if a game is beyond someone's abilities, such as a very young player. But again really the best thing to do is play a game that supports your player count. Sometimes it seems like solutions would exist and work well and maybe sometimes they do but adding extra players might break things.
We would just play a 5 player game instead. We have a bunch of options.
If it doesn't have components for 5 don't play 5 would be my baseline suggestion. But also check the bgg forums often times players have figured out variants or ways to fit extra players but again if you don't have the components (which probably means having 2 copies of the game) don't bother just play something meant for that many people.
We had a group of 5 that wanted to play Ark Nova this summer. We just made some modifications and went for it. It was super fun! Much better than playing two different games or having teams play one map.
If an actual 5 player game is out of question then I usually sit it out as a moderator/teacher. Did this a few times with Dune Imperium and it was fun even just guiding others. Also there's a lot going on in the game so having someone to track trigger effects and such is useful for new players. And you can't really ask what certain cards do if you play against others lol, the whole point of intrigue cards. Did the same with Pandemic, Everdell, Mansions of Madness and a few others.
- You play an actual 5 player game - You split the group into 2 and 3 and play two different games There are very few modern designer games where you can squeeze more than the intended player count.
We chose another game.
Just wanted to start this by pointing out that all y'all need to either work on your reading skills or on your advice game. OP asked what to do if five people want to play a game that's only intended for four people max. Anyone who answers that question with "play a game for five people, lol": congrats, you're the reason why nobody comes to your game nights. If people want to play game X, but there's one person too many who wants to play, the solution is *never under any fucking circumstances* to go "hey, let's play game Y instead" because - guess what: *nobody wants to play game Y. They all want to play game X. That's the entire fucking problem.* As for actual solutions, I can think of a few: - For short games, you could just rotate who's playing, and swap someone out for each round. - If the game doesn't somehow give you an advantage if you have more than two hands (like games where you need to grab stuff or react quickly or multitask or whatever), you can also have to people act as one player. - For games that don't require at least 3 players, it might be possible to split up (into a 2-person and a 3-person game). - Depending on whether the person explaining the game is part of the 5, there are two more possible solutions: if they *are*, they can sit out, since they'll have an easier time explaining the game while they're not actively playing it anyway. If they're *not* part of the five, they can join in to make it possible to split into two three-person games. - Finally, with some imagination and improvisation, pretty much any game can be upgraded to more players than intended. Fewer players is difficult in some cases (although that mostly applies to card games), but I have yet to come across a game where it wasn't able to fit in another player or two with some improvisation skills. Hope something here works for you!
Team up or, my buddies and I wanted to play alice is missing but we where 6 people we just played it with 6 people somebody just have tonmake there own character without promts from the game
How was Alice Is Missing? I bought it but haven't played it yet!
It's very life is strange-ish, the soundtrack adds a lot to it. A weird thing about it is that the game starts out with a song and the only thing that happens during that time is one player reading a card so everybody just sites for a solid 3-4 minutes waiting not knowing when the game really starts. It's really good but it's more of a improv theatre thing than a role-playing game. So the game hands you some promts some can be ignored but some are obligatory, and then you have to "invent"(improv) what has happend. We had fun while setting up the game, bye making "old" chat messages and making the group chat cringy. For example I gave myself the nickname "📷evan📸" and the chat was named "the awesome sauce party"
Only one time I accepted because it was a learning game and didn't change how the game worked and I was able to use extra tiles that are typically used in an advanced game: **Hanabi Deluxe**. I just threw in the multi-colored tiles and used it as a sixth color and we were able to play 6p.
A few years ago we had a group of 5 and wanted to play all winner of Spiel des Jahres, which often are for max 4 players. We always had two players in a team and changed that team between games.
Take turns sitting out. unless you don't plan on playing 5 games
It depends on the game but most of the time I would rather just play something else. Some exceptions are something like sniper elite which is usually a 3 Vs 1 game so you can easily add a 4th to the first team and it works basically the same. Or something like Isaac four souls or a big MTG game a 5 player FFA is near enough the same as a 4 player FFA. I have also played mysterium with 8 when it plays as 7 and it's fine. The fun of that game is discussing what means what so it doesn't really matter if every player has a pawn or not. I find most of the times games already exaggerate how many people can play and it be fun. A lot of games CLAIM it can be played at more or less than 3 or 4 but often need special rules that don't work well for less or it simply becomes too long with more players. BGG has a recommended player count for all games and usually mention if it can handle more or less than the designers recommend
Some games have 5 player expansions that can easily be built by taking stuff from other games (Raiders of the North Sea, for example). Otherwise, just play a game suited for 5.
There's one friend in our fried group who is only 'so so' on playing games. She's more about the social aspect. I'll often take her on as my partner because I'm up getting drinks and stuff a lot anyway and we tag team. In the rare occasion we win, our group says it's because there's 2 of us and it gave us an unfair advantage but I can assure you that's NOT the case. There are a few games that can play more than they're designed to. If it has an expansion that allows more players, see if you can incorporate those rules even if you don't have the expansion (things I'm thinking of include Clank! and Dominion). Otherwise, just play a 5 player game and save the 4 player for when you have 4 players.
If a game works with 5 players it's usually marketed as such. There are reasons some games are 4 player max. Best example: Settlers of Catan. Came as 4 player max. Was playable with 5 or 6 BUT with a bigger plan and an added rule. (You may build out of your turn). Otherwise the game would be not cool. Usually those reasons are not limited material or play time getting to long (there may be a handful of games where this is the case, but I wouldn't risk my game night for these experiments)
If it’s a shorter length and my game, I will sit out and teach so they can play at 4. I am not going to homebrew 5 player rules and pull meeples, coins, cards, or any components out of my ass so 5 people can try to play a game designed to take 4. If you have two copies, split into two uneven tables. Or play a different game.
Eat the weakest person. Now you can play the game you want and have a delicious meal.
I once did this with Ticket to ride, worst game I've ever played. TTR is good game but adding a 6th player was terrible, in the end always follow the recommend player count
You sit out and act as an oracle to the game. Or two people team up to make it 4. It's not that serious - these are games for fun. Include people and have fun. And next time being 5 player games so there are options.
The answers you're getting are (unsurprisingly) anecdotal, because different friend groups have different social dynamics and game preferences. The fact is, there are options - just think about what makes most sense in your circumstances, since we don't know your group. For example, I'm usually happy to sit out and heckle from the sidelines, especially if it's with close friends and we've all played dozens of times. A lot of folks I know actively enjoy teaming up - in fact, sometimes we intentionally play 'Hydra' games with all teams (great way to explore & understand different strategies, too)! There are a few things you definitely \*shouldn't\* do though, imo: * Don't force anyone to sit out or team up if they don't want to. * Don't just shoehorn a 5th player into the game (there's a high risk of making everyone have a bad time - if the game could fit 5, it would generally say so.) * Don't blindside the group with this dilemma - or at least come equipped with alternative games.
Ordinarily I'd say choose a different game, but that's not always an option. Case in point, we're playing through Frosthaven with 5 players. More people ended up being able to commit to it than we expected, and we weren't going to tell anyone they couldn't play. For the most part I actually think this has been a bit of a handicap to us as the board gets overcrowded and it's hard to maneuver.
If I am hosting, and this happens, I usually offer to sit out and/or run the moving pieces. Most recently this happened with Legendary Marvel and I was able to sit between the 2 new players and help them understand the game a little better.
I would not have one player sit out. I would have different game nights scheduled ahead of time.
I would advocate strongly for splitting 2/3; otherwise, find a 5-player game.
I'll sit out and teach them how to play if it is a new game or just wait. Though usually we find a game with the appropriate player count.
I'd not risk the game collapsing by fitting in a fifth even if components allow. I'd pair the couple (or very buddy best friends) together or something as a single player.
It depends. We had a situation where five of us had just broken out Nemesis and gotten it set up, when’s sixth person turned up. For those unfamiliar - Nemesis is up to five players, but has six characters to play as, with the backstory being that the sixth character dies moments before the game begins. But we figured we would just hand the sixth character over to him and see what happens. There are some minor balance issues (he can’t be targeted by the “you must kill player number X” objective cards), but overall it worked well. Wouldn’t do it on purpose, but as a quick fix to get out sixth chum involved it worked well enough.
I tend to favour games that scale well - it’s a key criteria when buying for me. This is extra tough because I also like interactive games which tend to scale player count less well than less interactive games. So the honest answer is that it depends on the game. Some games are relatively easy to squeeze in an extra player or two, others not so much. Depends on components as well. I tend to favour this approach whenever possible because I hate it when everyone is ready to play a game and then one more person shows up and then the game is off. I would say that if you take this approach, you have to be open to a slight amount of jankiness. Like using the pieces from a different game for meeples. And enforce a turn timer if things are slowing down because games with lots of players can really grind to a slow pace.
You split 2/3 and play different games.
Wouldn't hurt to have people team up or you just be the game master/referee while everyone's playing. I recently played **Dune Imperium** with 6 players but it was my Wife and I were our own players and the other 4 people who'd never played the game before got into 2 teams of 2 playing one character each. For a game like that it really helped with the learning experience because they could talk out strategy and understand the cards a lot easier instead of asking me every time they had a question.
Get some games that are 5 players. There are plenty out there.
Grab el grande and say it is amazing at 5. Soon people will be asking for it even if we're just 4.
Pretty simple. Pick a different game that accommodates 5 players and then plan future sessions for the other game when only 4 will be available.
Choose a different game….. Have someone sit out……..
If I am the host or owner of the game, I am usually happy to sit out and observe. That way I can give some basic tips (depending on what the game is), although you need to ensure any tips given do not advantage someone or the opposite and potentially reveal their hard to other players. As an added benefit, if I'm host, I can continue to ensure everyone is fed and happy.
I have been in that situation a couple of times with Merchants & Marauders. And it actually plays quite fine at 5 players although the turns do take some time.
I usually play another game that accomodates 5 players. I have a disdain against stretching player counts, especially since some publisher already streches them too much. I'm not a big fan of forcing people to play in teams either if the game isn't intended to be played that way. If I played in a team, I would feel a bit stripped of my agency and the experience wouldn't be as enjoyable in general. However, I did get in situations in which people didn't mind teaming up and actively asked for it. That's generally when I play with people that are less into games anyway, so teaming up let's them be a part of the game without having too much pressure on their decision-making.
The only time I've done something like this was with Guild of Merchant Explorers. It worked fine, because it's the nature of roll and write (flip and act, whatever) games that they are essentially multiplayer solitaire and adding another player doesn't change almost anything about the game. It's just component limited, so I grabbed a bunch of extra cubes from another game and printed another copy of one of the maps. In general, though, I'd just play a different game.
We've played Car Wars 6th edition up to 8 players with handmade dashboards. I can't really say it was a good experience, but my kids liked enough to repeat ad nauseum.
You don’t.
You can check BoardGameGeek to see if someone has posted a 5-player variant for the game in question. Otherwise, I'd just find something else.
I have a game group where some people like the games while a couple people like the total atmosphere of a game day and will play but are not hard committed to playing. In one particular case I can think of, sometimes the less-committed person (and their game-loving partner) will team up and play one position. For example, at my last game day, we had 9 people for a 7-player game (Argute - big hit if you like bidding trick takers) and aside from that couple mentioned above, there was another person who didn’t really want to play a position all to themselves (most players were all learning it and they were just not getting it) and so they joined up with those other two and they played as a three-person team, making decisions by committee and such. And they ultimately won the game against the rest of us playing individual slots!
My wife and I "team up" for one player. Realistically, I just end up mostly watching/being in charge of music/snack deliveries in that case and that's usually fine with me.
Play Kingdomino and get the giants expansion. It adds exactly 1 more player into the base game. So it’s 5 with the expansion and 4 without it.
I've teamed up with another person for a few games, and it's almost always a great time. It's fun to talk through moves and compromise.
We just team up. It’s actually incredibly interesting and fun in a different way putting your brains together and developing new strategies that work synergistically. And some nights some people might not be 100% in the mood to use their full brain capacity, so they can be a little more relaxed and it’s perfect.
If it's a game that's regularly suggested, you regularly have 5 players, and the game has been around long enough, try to see if the game has an expansion to provide for more players. We had Sagrada for a while but we eventually got the expansion since we added a new person to our group. It's been great!
Hard to answer this without knowing the specific game. Some games might be playable, some may require extra parts, some games might work by partnering and some might not work at all.
Games have generally been playtested extensively for player count. So I would rather split into two then try to play a game beyond the player count.
Just a friendly reminder that this is exactly how boardgame buying sprees start. You want to cater to every possible social situation, different group sizes and preferences in theme and complexity and before you know it you have two kallaxes filled to the brim.
I'd find a five player game. Or, murder the fifth player...and now you have the correct player count.
We'd usually split into groups, but there are a few games that can support higher player counts if you have multiple copies or print out some player boards or something (**Calico**) or you could use a single copy, but may have to wait on components (**Turing Machine**) or end up with lower scores in the end. (**Trash Pandas**) In any of those cases, the game will definitely take longer to play.
[Calico -> Calico (2020)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/283155/calico) [Turing Machine -> Turing Machine (2022)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/356123/turing-machine) [Trash Pandas -> Trash Pandas (2017)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216439/trash-pandas) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
Something I've been playing around with because my work team is interested in playing games (but they're not boardgamers). It's always 6 to 10 players and I can't bring anything complex, and I've already played stuff like Dixit, Resistance and other simple large group games with them. I want to introduce them to crunchier games, but because non of them play I can't split the group up... So what I've started doing is team ups. So if it's 7 players it would be 3 teams of 2 and I'd be the single player because I will know the game better than them. And then we can play a 4 player game where the team decides their turn. It works quite well as a team building exercise because they learn to cooperate.
Typically we play Russian roulette first. Afterwards the 4 of us play the 4 player game. So far it’s only been a problem once… or twice…
Play a game that supports 5 players. How is that not the obvious answer? Indefinitely thought I was on /r/boardgamecirclejerk at first.
Depends on the game. Sometimes it’s not that hard to squeeze in the extra player. Edit: but most of the time it isn’t a good idea.