Five Types of Board Games To Play With Non-Gamers

Now, I am going to skip a bit one, mainly because some of these will fall into that same category or they can. But cooperative games are always good. Often times people don’t like games because they played Monopoly and Risk as a kid and had bad experiences with that. So competitive games are kind of a trigger for a bad time, but turning it on it’s head and everyone working together is great.

Escape Room Games

Let’s start out with board games that are escape room or puzzle games. These are going to feel really unique to players. And this is a situation where the games are cooperative as well, so players are going to like it for that, potentially. But it is also going to feel not like a normal experience. A game like Micro Macro Crime City where you explore a map and spot a criminal or crime across a map in a “Where is Waldo?” style experience is going to be unique.

Or there are the Exit and Unlock games. These are going to give you more of the puzzle feeling that an escape room might be. And there are a lot of people who do escape rooms who might not board game. So it’s a good branch between an activity that some people might like and a board game. Or even things like Sudoku and Crosswords and Cryptograms that people do for a brain teaser activity daily will help them be interested in an escape room style of game.

Trick Taking Games

Next up for a type of board games is trick taking games. This one makes a lot of sense because even if people don’t play too many games, they often at least know Hearts from the computer. So trick taking games are a nice safe and soft entry into more board games.

Now it might seem like this isn’t really an entry point, but it is. It is because there are so many variations or board gamer type things done with trick taking games. Things like The Crew make it cooperative, so that is interesting. Or there is Schadenfreude where you want to come in second to score points, but you also don’t want to go over forty points. And Rebel Princess which is just hearts, but there are powers and rules change each round. So it is going to feel familiar but there are a lots of trick taking games that add in more.

Dexterity Games

Next up is Dexterity Games. These are great board games to use when you have a variety of ages and a variety of interest. Why, because they can become a funny good time or a really tense time, it’s up in the air, literally, depending on the game that you decide to play.

A game like Ice Cool or Pitchcar are going to be more on that funny good time as you either have Penguins who are skipping class to get a fish snack and trying to avoid the hall monitor as you flick them around. Or you are racing around a track in Pitchcar. Either way it’s lighter and more of the excitement comes from someone making a great shot.

Then you have a game like Menara. This is going to be a stacking game, but unlike others, say Jenga, where you are removing things and the person who knocks it over loses, this one you are building up the tower, kind of like Jenga, but it’s cooperative. So you want to complete a target objective before it gets knocked over. And that is going to provide that cooperative and dexterity that can make it easier to play.

Roll and Write Games

The next time of board games are roll and write games. Now, with this one be careful. There are roll and write games that are very complex. But there are a lot of easy ones as well. And you want to target those that are a step up from Yahtzee. That is why they are on the list. People know Yahtzee, so it is going to be familiar to them. And a roll and write will seem less intimidating.

I think that something like Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever) can be a great option. There is a bit to learn in scoring, but for the most part it’s a fast and easy teach. Or a game like Metro X where you fill in tracks, that could bed good. And Mind Space or Qwixx over simpler game play but with just that little bit more for it. There are a ton out there, so a lot of good options.

Drafting Games

Finally are drafting games. This, like Roll and Write Games, you need to think about a little bit. I don’t know that I’d jump straight into Seven Wonders. But there are great games out there like Sushi Go and Draftosaurus that work really well. And the themes help those games.

The reason I think these board games work well is that you all go at once. There isn’t that downtime. And you learn as you go, often times with these games. Often, I feel like, for a competitive game, you get the question, what’s a good strategy. Or, I don’t know what to do. Drafting games I often find you get the question, but the answer is pick something for the first card. And as options get fewer it is easier and becomes more reactive. So I say often times the first card doesn’t matter.

And because you play all at once it means that games are often shorter. A game of Draftosaurus, for example, is maybe twenty minutes if people are really slow. So it’s great to play once and then play again.

Final Thoughts

These are just some of the types of games. I think there are a lot of types of games that can work for people to try for a new game. One important thing, though, is to remember that not everyone is going to like every type of game. So try some things and see what works, and ask people why they maybe don’t like board games. And then if you want to try, try and find something that’ll avoid those things they don’t like.

What types of board games do you introduce to new prospective gamers?

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Heavy vs Medium vs Light Weight Games

Let’s start with something that I’ve talked about before, but I want to talk about it in a different way. I want to talk about it from the point of view of an experienced gamer. This came up in a conversation last night when talking about Catan and how influential Catan was and whether or not Catan is a good game. But it applies to game weight as well. When I first played Catan, and for a lot of us this will be the case. As we play more games, now Catan feels much lighter, much more random, much more mass market.

And Catan goes from when we first played it, a medium weight game, into a light weight game. And that is because of our shifting perceptions of gaming. At this point in time, I could learn and teach Catan for the first time in a few minutes, the game isn’t that complex for me. However, when I was learning it back then, it was different. There wasn’t the oral history and teaching of a game that naturally occurred with Clue, Monopoly or Uno. And Catan is more complex or as complex as those games.

What’s the Point?

I do have a point with all of that, I think that often as people in the gaming hobby versus people getting into the gaming hobby, weight can vary drastically. For example, I play a ton of games but a war game that is a 2.5 is going to feel way heavier to me because it is outside of game types I know how to learn. But for a war gamer, a war game with a 2.5 out of 5 weight wouldn’t be hard to learn.

So weights of games change depending on the experience level of the gamer. The more that you play, the lighter games will become, because the more you will know how games work and how to learn games. To pull another example of how this works, Gloomhaven is not a complex game to me, at least in how it plays. But for even a lot of experienced gamers, that is a lot to learn. So be helpful to new players and try and understand their weighting and understanding of games.

Family Weight/Gateway Games

Now a good way to get around those light/medium/heavy debates is by calling a game family weight or gateway. These two can be slightly different as an older group of people can probably handle something slightly heavier, but there will be overlap.

A family weight or gateway game is the one that you’d take to play with your family. Can you teach the game to your parents, aunts, uncles, or maybe they’re gamers, so some other group of non-gamers easily. Where the difference between family and gateway could arise is that family is going to imply for most people it’ll be a topic/style/text that is family friendly as well.

These are the games like Catan though, the ones that I might find to be super light now. So I don’t need to say that it’s a light game or an easy to learn game, because it might not be. I can call it a gateway game which makes it feel friendlier when someone is learning. Calling it light and someone not getting it makes them feel inferior, but the nomenclature of gateway, that has a very different feel.

Filler Games

Next we go onto filler games. What is a filler game you might ask? That’s a game with a quick to the table and play time. It is a game you can pull out of the box and get played with a number of people in a few minutes while waiting for another game to wrap up or more people to show up. These games don’t always add in a ton of strategy to them, instead they are meant for making fast decisions and getting onto the next turn. These games are often so fast that we don’t really consider them in gateway or family weight categories because it’s less about playing it to teach new people.

What About More?

Well, there are a lot more types of games out there. I talk about a lot of them over the years and they can be found over here and more topics on board games. I think that there is a lot of interesting game types to talk about and I can dive into them more.

But this topic of game weights and kind of the different types of lighter games as interesting to talk about. I skipped party games because I tend to think people who are looking for light or gateway games have already played a lot of party games. And there is certainly a wider world of games that can be jumped into as people play more games.

I also wanted to talk about it this because I do see people often encouraging new players to get bigger and more complex games. I think it’s a good reminder for myself and for other more experienced board gamers to remember the board games that we started out with. Even if Catan wasn’t our gateway game, we all had some game like that which we started with.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

The Euro Gamer

This gamer is all about the mechanics. If a game has really interesting mechanics, focuses on those mechanics, and allows them to strategize a lot, they’ll like this game.

I think another name for this gamer would also be the strategy gamer. This person likes to pick a strategy and be able to build towards it throughout the game without having to change and deviate from it much at all. It’s all about taking the set of inputs at the start of and throughout the game and implement a long term strategy that can get them the most points.

The Amerithrash Gamer

Also known as Ameritrash, Amerithrash just has a nicer ring to it and also sounds less derogatory to the gamer. This gamer likes their big games that have a lot of theme but a lot more randomness. For an Amerithrash gamer, theme is king and they are more willing to overlook mechanics if the game has a lot of theme.

So, another name for an Amerithrash gamer would probably be a theme gamer. This gamer is going to be fine with a whole lot more randomness, less laid out rules, and changing states of the game and events shaking up the game, as long as it is thematic.

The Party Gamer

This one is pretty simple and probably not reading an article about different types of gamers. This is the person who might dip their toe into a game like Monopoly or even Ticket to Ride, but they really only play party style games. For them, the point of a game is to make them laugh. The funnier they find the cards or a theme of the game, the better that game is going to be for them. They look at board games as another form of entertainment like a movie or television show where it is the entertainments job to provide the fun, not incumbent at all upon the person watching, reading, or playing it.

The Omni-Gamer

This gamer likes all games whether they are Euro or Amerithrash, they are going to be willing to sit down and play most any game and probably find something fun with it. They’re even cool sitting down and playing a party game.

I think that a lot of gamers almost fall into this category of being an Omni-gamer. Most, however, will have one way that they prefer, whether it’s the more strategic Euro style sensibilities or the heavily involved theme of Amerithrash. But they’ll be willing to play most any game, at least once.

The Experience Gamer

I think that all of them that I’ve written to up to this point are gamers that most board gamers would find to be pretty normal. Euro and Amerithrash are two very accepted styles of board games and games that gamers often have strong opinions on.

I think that there is a fifth type of gamer, and I think that I fall into this one. I will say that this might skew a little bit more towards the Amerithrash side, but not completely there. While I don’t mind dice chucking madness like you get in a lot of heavy Amerithrash games, I prefer games that give me an experience. A lot of Amerithrash games do that because they have heavy amounts of theme and theme as king gives a lot of interesting experiences.

But I think of gamers like Gloomhaven and Lords of Hellas, two games one that has a story running through it and another that doesn’t, but both aren’t just your standard dice chucking game with minis. Then again, both of the games do have some minis. Gloomhaven does have some randomness with a modifier deck, but you are able to tailor that as you play so it’s less random, or more random, or more randomly better. And the card play in Gloomhaven and how you build your deck is definitely strategic. With Lords of Hellas, sure you can go fight giant monsters, but it’s done through card play again, and you can pick various strategies from just building temples to fighting lots of monsters to beating up on other players to building statues. The main thing about those two thematic but not really Ameritrash games that drew me in was the experience I had playing it.

So I think there is a fifth gamer option, and that is the experience gamer. This is the gamer who doesn’t care about the mechanics, if they are great or bad, doesn’t care about the theme, if it’s dripping with theme or non-existent, they care about the experience of the game. This is also made trickier by the fact that experience can depend on the other players at the table as well, but most of the time I can separate that player experience from the game experience.

What type of Gamer Are You?

Let me say, while some board gamers might look down upon other types of gamers, all types of gamers are good board gamers and true board gamers. Just because ones taste doesn’t match with someone else’s or because party games are easier to learn and play than other games doesn’t make them worse or better. I really want to hammer this home because often gamers look down on other types of gamers, and I want to see the hobby grow.

So let me know in the comments below what type of gamer you are, or over on Twitter and Facebook.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

I’m blessed with a lot of friends who like to play board games. When I was starting playing Gloomhaven, we didn’t end up with a fourth player because the person I asked was too busy playing other board games to commit. We host a board game night and get 8-10 different people showing up most times. The Risk Legacy group and the Gloomhaven group have no overlap. So clearly I have a lot of friends who like to play board games like I do. But what if you aren’t as blessed or you’re working against bad board gaming experiences?

Let’s start by talking about places where you can meet new people. This might be outside of your comfort zone, but it’s a good possibility for meeting new gamers to start playing with.

Look for meet-up groups online. There are a lot of meet up groups that plan events at breweries, game shops, and other places to hang out and play games. Obviously, this is going to be all strangers unless you can grab a friend to come along, but it would be a solid way to find people you know will be interested in board games. It’s also low commitment since you don’t need to show up at all of them, but going to a few in a row would be good to build up relationships.

Local gaming stores are another good option. Again, this is going to be more random people that you are meeting up with, but keep an eye out for board game events. International Table Top Day which happens in April of each year (most likely) is a great option. A lot of stores have sales, promo cards, and other events. Depending on the shop, they might have limited events otherwise, so they are going to be less likely to get you randomly connected with more gamers than a meet-up would be.

Local conventions are also a great option. Nerdy conventions often have gaming rooms and planned events and games that you can sign up for. If you have one that is for gaming in particular, that’s going to be your best option to get connected with people. Even conventions that aren’t focused on gaming often have gaming rooms. CONvergence, the one that Kristen has written about, has multiple gaming rooms even though that is not the focus of the convention. So even if the convention on the surface doesn’t look like it’s focused on gaming, check out the details and you might find that they have some gaming that you can take part in. I will point out that this is the most likely to be a one off, but who knows, you might make some great connections, or get connected to a group that way.

If all of that seems too intimidating, you can try and recruit from within your friend group. You might find out that there are people who actually like board games that just assume when someone asks if people want to play board games, that they mean Monopoly or some other game that they don’t like. So be specific when asking people to play board games with you.

That is going to be the case sometimes, but more likely, you’re going to have to introduce people to the hobby or break down the perception of the hobby. What am I talking about when I say break down the perception of the hobby?

A lot of people have the idea of board games of rage quitting Monopoly, or a game of Risk that lasts five hours. There isn’t fun with their memories of board games, and that is something that is tricky to work against. Or they have an idea of gaming as a bunch of overweight guys with acne sitting in of their parents basements playing a massively complicated game. It takes time and patience to change peoples opinions, especially from negative to positive. So what can you do to change minds?

Start with easy to grasp games. Games that have lighter rules and a heavier theme or at least a nice look to them are going to get people more apt to play. Sushi Go! is a good example of this. The game is pretty simple and straight forward, you try and get points by picking cards. It’s something that people can understand, and then you add in the graphics. The sushi and various foods are drawn in a very cute way, so it’s fun to look at while you play it. Once they’ve enjoyed a simpler game like Sushi Go! start them on more challenging games like 7 Wonders, which is a similar concept, but more moving pieces.

Also, start with games that are faster. To keep on Sushi Go!, it’s a fast game as well. There are a couple of areas that you can keep a game faster. One is how long it takes to play the complete game, but the other is how long it takes between turns. Now, gaming is often a social event, but you want people to stay involved in the game. So while in Sushi Go! there can certainly be talking, it also moves forward and keeps everyone busy with the game, so you’re less likely to forget what is going on. It doesn’t have to be a game where everyone is always taking their turn, but as long as they stay involved throughout the game that’s good.

Sometimes you also run into people who just think that they won’t be good at a board game because board games are too logical and they aren’t that logical. This has a nice solution to it, and that’s cooperative board games. A good cooperative board game means that they don’t have to do all of the thinking and planning themselves. As they are learning the game and the strategy behind it, try not to run their character for them. Give them time to come up with ideas, give suggestions when asked, but let them learn to play their character. Pandemic is a good game for this, especially with giving them a more straight forward role like the medic where they are going to be removing disease cubes, let them figure out where they want to go and what they want to do, and then suggest something if you see a better/different option. Cooperative games also has a lot of theme or an interesting theme a lot of times, so it might be easier to grab someones attention.

Speaking of theme, that’s one final way to get more people to play board games. Find your friends who really love The Thing, those are the people who even as non-board gamers might be interested in playing. Or find the theme that people might be interested in, your Lord of the Rings friends might want to play a Lord of the Rings themed game or even a fantasy game as compared to playing a Sci-Fi themed game to start. If you really like Euro games and trading the Mediterranean, you might have to find one that has a theme pasted onto it that people might like better. For example, there are some Euro games with a Vikings theme, that might be easier to get people to play. So look through your collection and figure out who you know who might like some theme in particular.

Now that we’ve gotten some ideas out there, go find your gaming group or make some new fans of board games. Have you tried any of these before, if so, let me know how it went in the comments below…

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.