This topic is going to be a bit about gatekeeping in the board game hobby. I am not going to be talking about all the negative conversations about who should be playing board games. I am not going to be talking about why different images, reactions, or things like that might be bad. My one sentence on that is as follows, everyone is welcome to play games at my table, if your talk, actions, or anything at the table makes people uncomfortable, stop it, I want as many people at the gaming table as possible. Instead, I want to talk about some attitudes with how people gatekeep themselves in what games they play.

What is a Board Game?

A board game is any game that uses cards, or a board, or dice that you play. There are sub genres of games out there such as dice games, or card games, but they are all board games, just like we have roll and write games, dungeon crawl games, deck building, and more. Something like Uno is just as much of a board game as Monopoly, even though only Monopoly has a board. Farkle or Yahtzee is just as much of a board game as Monoploy as well and they are dice primarily.

How Do People Gatekeep Themselves?

So the most common way, and I touch on it above, is thinking that board games need to have a board. I would say that this isn’t quite how it works, it’s more comes down to three main statements.

It just has cards, it’s going to be a simple game or lucky.

That game is just a bunch of minis, I’m sure the they didn’t put effort into the game play itself.

It has an app, that’s not a real board game.

These three mindsets are really bad to have. They cut out so many games that you can play. Let me tackle each of them here.

The Card Game Argument

I can get where people are coming from with this one, a little bit. A lot of people are coming from the mindset that card games are like Exploding Kittens and Uno. There’s not much depth there, and if there is more going on than just playing cards, it’s a party game like Cards Against Humanity which is also extremely simple. And I do think for a while, 90’s and before, card games often were made to be simpler. Now, that excludes games that were played with a deck of cards which a lot of them have great depth and strategy to them. But people can often have the mindset that less stuff in a game means a worse game.

I recently came across this where someone was saying that they wanted the best superhero board game. They dismissed Marvel Champions and Sentinels of the Multiverse immediately because they are just cards. In terms of superhero themed board games where you are playing the good superheroes, they are two of the top ones. Marvel Legendary is up there as well, which has a board, but is primarily cards as it’s a deck building game. So the person who asked that question limited away the best superhero games because they thought card games would be too simple or too lucky. But those games have a lot more strategy than board games with an actual board a lot of the time.

The Minis Problem

This one I get more than the card game aspect. There are a lot of games out there that show up on Kickstarter, they show 200 cool looking minis and when you finally get down to the part where they talk about the game, you find that the game is a simple roll and move game and most of the minis never do anything, they just sit on a space. Now, that example is a bit absurd but I’ve seen things to around those levels.

But just rejecting a game because it has a lot of minis out of hand is also a problem and causes people to miss out on a lot of good games. Lords of Hellas has a lot of minis and even some pretty giant minis with the god statues that are built up throughout the game, but it is an extremely interesting game with a ton of choices. It can be considered to be rough around the edges, but it a way that enhances the experience, not detracts from it. Mansions of Madness is another game that has a lot of minis with the monsters, but again offers some of the best gaming experiences with an app to generate the story for you. Are minis needed in every game, certainly not, and minis can push games to a point where the price becomes a barrier to entry, but the argument about game play cannot be a blanket statement and will keep people from playing a lot of fun and very deep games.

The App Argument

This one is one that crops up somewhat often now. And when someone says that they don’t want a game with an app because they don’t want screens at the table. I can kind of get that. They might be looking for a way to keep their kids away from screens for a time, they might be someone who will default to just watching TV so they push for no screens and it’s a way to stretch themselves. But then others say no screens because that makes it a video game or why isn’t it just a video game at that point.

However, that mindset limits you and keeps you away from a lot of great games. Mansions of Madness, 2nd Edition, is a great game. The app makes it so no one needs to keep track of every piece of the game. There is no one who runs the whole game. The first edition had someone running everything and that kept it from being cooperative. One side played the game while there was one person who just administered it. Being the person who administered the game isn’t that fun. The app takes that away from anyone needing to do it.

And other games, like Chronicles of Crime benefits greatly with an app, it’d be impossible to do without one. Now, could it be just a video game, maybe, but Chronicles of Crimes uses the tactile aspect and moving pieces around to create a map of the crime that’d be harder to do in a video game.

How to Break Free

Now, that’s been fairly negative, I won’t lie. I don’t love being negative, and when people gatekeep themselves from a game because of preconceived notions, it can have a negative affect on the whole community of board gaming. Too often people feel the need to share their opinion or create a blocker for people playing those games. How can we as a community help our hobby grow and try and break free.

– Be willing to try

Every game will not be for everyone. If you are a hard core Amerthrash gamer, give a card game a try if someone says they think you’ll like it. Be open to trying new things, for a lot of gamers, we can find more that we love.

– Don’t Belittle or Discourage

Even if you don’t want to play a game, if someone is excited about a game, don’t thumb your nose at it. Just because a game isn’t your cup of tea doesn’t mean that it won’t be good for someone else. And just because maybe it is legitimately too light a game for you to enjoy, don’t pretend like your games are better. The first step of a gamer to playing heavier games is often through lighter games.

– Politely decline

And honestly, all games aren’t for everyone. This goes along with the previous point, be polite when you decline. It’s fine to be not interested in something. It’s fine to know that you like a certain type of game, but we want everyone in our hobby to play games. Decline and encourage the gamer in finding people to play with.

What Hang-ups Do You Have or I Have?

I wrote all of this and I reference a lot of games that I love. However, every player, every person, is going to have a blind spot. We don’t want to keep ourselves from playing fun games. I know that I don’t love Euro games generally, so I need to keep myself from being negative about them. Playing a Euro game won’t kill me, and I might find some that I like. Or declining a game is also what I can do, but I need to not look down on people who do like them.

What are your favorite games that are only card games, have a ton of minis, or use an app?

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