My Experience

Now, I’ll start off by saying, I am not the only person I know who owns board games that I play with. I have friends who own other games and different games. I don’t try and repeat games that they have too often. Though there are some, Root for example, that I want my own copy of but I do own a lot of the games that we play.

For me, I don’t consider this to be a bad thing. If “Friend X” owns a game and I want to play it but they aren’t around to play it, or I want to introduce it to a different group, I can’t if they own it. Now this isn’t a problem too often, but something like Mysterium which I think would be great around Halloween and I wouldn’t have minded playing last game night, I couldn’t because I don’t own it. I’d be introducing it to a new group but I couldn’t because I don’t own it.

I also don’t mind because I have the space to store the games. Granted, that space is filling up a fair amount, but there is still space for some more and I rotate games in and out because, that makes sense. If I were a collector, I’d have to reconsider what I was doing, but I’m a gamer first and a collector second when it comes to board games.

The Disadvantages

This isn’t to say that being the main game buyer doesn’t have some disadvantages, it does. Mainly the space and money involved. Like I said, I rotate games out of my collection, this generally lets me buy new games. And that’s a lot of fun to be adding new games into my collection, but I also make the decisions, generally, on what leaves.

When I look at a game in my collection, I ask myself, will I play it, but more so, will I pull it off of the shelf to play. There are some games that I look at and I know I won’t. Will I pick to play Splendor, the answer is no. But as the owner of that game and the owner of games for my group do I need to keep it around? That one stays around because my wife likes it, otherwise I’d have gotten rid of it.

But what if it’s someone who I only game with sometimes. If it is their favorite game am I going to keep it in my collection for the two times a year that I might play with them and that they’d request that I take it off the shelf? It is using up real estate in my collection. Often one thing that I do is if I am going to get rid of a game that someone else might like, I’ll offer to sell it to them, give them first crack at it. Yes, it means they need to bring it, but it means I have more funds and space to get more games.

It also means that you’re lugging more games around. If you’re the only one with a big collection in your group, you need to bring a variety of games to the game nigh, or host. And if you don’t have a specific theme or focus for what game you want to play, you can lug around a whole lot of games that you don’t end up playing. That sounds like not that big a deal, but if you don’t know what big game you might play, it is a lot.

The Advantages

You always have the game to play whenever you want is the biggest one. You don’t need to ask someone to bring something, you already have it. Now, that means that people ask you to bring things, but I don’t consider that a disadvantage, in fact it can help you know what games are likely to get played so you don’t need to bring as many.

I also like it because it means that I always have games to introduce people to. Now, I might have my go to games that I use, but I don’t always have to use the same ones. If a person likes a certain theme, I can pick out that theme to play with them. I have the variety of games always at hand for whenever I want to play.

And really for me the sharing the hobby part is the biggest thing. If I have a game for most any and every occasion, it means that the hobby can continue to grow. It means that I’ll have new people to play games with. That means that the other more complex games or different games that I want to play will get played more often. This is really the case with campaign games as well. If I have a campaign and I can get new people into gaming, I have more people to play those games with. And if I don’t have the games I can’t do that.

How To Balance Board Game Buying

One issue is that people can expect you to have everything. Or they will want you to keep that one game that they like or get more like it. Obviously that’s not really feasible, so how do you keep from just having stacks of games around that people might want to play?

The first big thing is to rotate your collection. Now, maybe you are a collector and you just want to keep stuff. I don’t think that everyone needs to be a collector though. I have around 300 board games. Do I need to add another 300, it doesn’t make sense. If I have 600 board games I won’t play all of them. In fact in my challenge this year, I’ve played around 70, so that’s not that huge a percentage.

I could have 600 games but I’d still probably only play 70-100 of them a year, that means, assuming no overlap it’s going to be 6 years to get through all of them. That’s unreasonably long. I most likely won’t be playing only unique games. Most likely I’ll be playing the same 70 to 100 games most years.

Next, ask for help in buying games. When Frosthaven came to Kickstarter, I knew it was a campaign game that I wanted to play. I also had a specific group I played Gloomhaven with. Those people will be who I play Frosthaven with as well. So I asked them to chip in a little money. When I got Charterstone to play with a group, we decided to split the cost. The same thing happened with Risk: Legacy.

For getting something like the newest version of Ticket to Ride, I wouldn’t ask. But a campaign game, and extended shared experience with a specific group, ask. People might say no, and then you have to decide if it’s worth it. Or they might say yes and gladly help.

Are you the game owner/buyer in your group? Is there someone in your group who is?

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But before that, let’s talk a little bit about why you build up a collection of board games. For me, clearly I love board games and having a variety of board games brings me joy. I like being able to pull out so many really different games and play them, but also to just look at them on my shelf, mess around with the pieces and learning the rules. It also gives me joy because I get to introduce other people to the board game hobby as well because I have so many games. I can pull out a game for any occasion, whether it was the board game club that I started just before Covid-19 hit so it’s been on hiatus, or if it’s playing with family, or introducing someone to gaming. Now, that’s why I have a diverse collection of games, but that also is something that won’t work for some people, some people simply do not want to play complex games or they don’t want to play party games, and therefore you might not have as much in your collection. So when building up your collection target games that you’ll love and games that you’ll enjoy that work for your group. If you only play with casual gamers, you’ll probably want to focus your collection more on games that’ll fit their play style. If everyone hates party games, no need to have one in your collection.

Let’s talk about the three different types of games that I think make a strong collection.

1 – Games You Love

This part is pretty obvious. Your collection should have a lot, probably the majority, of games that you like to play. This is whatever type of game you love, maybe you love heavy war games, or euro games, or ameritrash games, campaign games, dungeons crawls, sci-fi, deduction, trick taking, whatever it might be, most of the games in your collection should be games that you love. Most likely, if you love these games, you’re going to have a few people to play them with, as part of your gaming group. These are the games that I’m using, thus far, in the board game club, so not my campaign games that I love, though I do have a group for that, but stuff like Blood Rage, Lords of Hellas, Dead of Winter, Clank! In! Space!, bigger and a bit meatier games that we can sit down and just spend an evening playing those games. These won’t be the games that you play the most, most likely, but that’s fine, these are the games that you always want to play.

2 – Gateway Games

This is a pretty small part of your collection, these are games that you use to introduce people to hobby gaming. Best known are the Ticket to Rides, Dominion, Carcassone, Small World, and Catan. But find what works for you and the ones that you enjoy. Having a few of these slightly more complicated games than your typical mass market games will allow you to get more people into hobby gaming. You wouldn’t want to start someone off with Blood Rage if they don’t understand area control and card drafting strategies, but Small World and Sushi Go Party! and now they have a basis for potentially playing Blood Rage. Make sure that you do enjoy the ones that you have, you might be sitting for a while in this part of your collection with some gamers as they get to explore and discover new games and strategies as compared to the mass market games, and consider outside the normal games. Something like King of Tokyo is great that isn’t mentioned as often as the big five I mentioned above, but works well and is familiar in some ways to Yahtzee, or something like Century: Golem Edition is easy to teach and play and newer.

3 – Big Group Games

Now, with board game nights, there’s kind of a tipping point of around eight people to ten people where you can start to split into multiple groups. But even then, sometimes you want to play in a big group. I also like these bigger group games for kicking off or winding down a board game night as people start to leave and you go from a couple of groups into a single group. This category of games has stuff like Criss Cross, Welcome To…, Just One, Scattergories, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, Sushi Go Party!, and more that can handle a pretty good size number, and they don’t take that long. They are almost filler games, but for a bigger group, and I could have probably put a fourth category of filler games, but I also like just using the higher player count games with lower player counts if I need a filler. These games are meant to get played quickly to start off a game night, played by people who don’t want to play a heavier game, or just played for the whole game night if that’s what everyone is feeling or you don’t have enough people to split into two groups easily.

Now, obviously, your group and your tastes will get different mileage out of the different types of games. You might just have it planned out that you don’t need filler games. When one game is full, the next person there just starts setting up the next game until more people show up. But that’s going to be up to you. If you know you need a more well rounded collection, those are the three categories that I would look at filling out your collection with. All this keeping in mind that your collection is to bring you joy, so with Gateway Games and Big Group Games, you can fill in a few that you like or can tolerate if you need them. If you hate all gateway games, don’t have any in your collection, that is okay, same with group/filler types of games, but think about the group that you play with, and make your decisions based off of that.

Do you have a mix of games in your collection? Is it only games that you like, do you find that you need group games or gateway games?

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So the question, then becomes, how do you buy games and not end up getting a bunch of games that you don’t like and then you either have to sell them through something like Facebook Market Place, or you sell them to your FLGS, or give them away to a friend who might like them better.

I’ve written on this topic before, but I think that it’s one that is worth coming back to and that deserves a bit more of a deep dive into it. Because there are a number of things that you can do to determine what games might interest you, and while this might only be a couple of parts, I do want to spend the second part talking about some of the online resources that I use to figure out and what I really enjoy about them.

Beyond those online sources, I’ll talk about that a lot in the next article about the reviewers, actual plays, game teachers, etc. that are really good, there are plenty of other ways to narrow down what games you should purchase.

#1 – Play Games

Now, this one is a catch-22, I realize that. You can’t play games if you don’t have games but that might mean you’re getting games that you don’t like. Thankfully, if you’re in a bigger town/city, a lot of FLGS have either demo games, rental games, or a game library. Play different types of games there, see if you can demo a game that you’re interested in. If that doesn’t exist as an option for you, if other people in your area have some games, play those. This does two things for you, if you play something or demo something that you’re interested in, you’ll be able to determine if you like the game for buying, but that’s a fairly specific situation and it might be that you can’t demo or play a game. But playing games also helps you know what you like. Maybe you like Ascension as a deck building game, but Clank! In! Space! was too complex for you. Now you know that you like the lighter more streamlined deck building game. Playing more games helps you get a better idea of what you look for in a game and what parts of the game that you really like. In the Ascension and Clank! In! Space! example, maybe you don’t like Ascension as well and you realize that deck building isn’t the part in Clank! In! Space! that you really like, it’s the push your luck or the combos or something else.

#2 – Ask For Advice
I’m going to give you three good spots for asking for advice. Your friends, FLGS, and BGG. First, ask people you know, they are going to know your taste the best. Also, they’ll know what they have, so everyone in the group doesn’t need to have Wingspan, for example, but if they know you like engine building games they might recommend something like Res Arcana for you to add. An FLGS is going to be able to help some as well, though they are going to know what is newer and hotter or what’s been on their shelf for a while. But if you get familiar with people at your FLGS, they should be familiar with your tastes and they should ask questions and be able to give advice. So for example, if you say that you like engine building games, they should be able to give you some options. Finally, BGG (Board Game Geek) is useful as well. Not only can you use it for rating games and showing people what you like for them to help give you advice, but it has a built in recommendations feature. For example, going to Wingspan will give you some things like Welcome To.. and other games. Now, the returns are diminishing because your friends will know you best.

#3 – Online
Now, I’m going to talk about who I really like online coming up here, but I want to talk about a few different things that are useful online. First, there are rules videos. These teach you how to play the game. But it also shows you the components and too often the back of board game boxes don’t really tell you enough about how a game works. There are also actual plays, play through of whatever board game it might be. These tend to be a whole lot longer, because you’re literally watching someone play the game. Whereas with the rules overview you get an idea of how the game theoretically works, and actual play will show you in great detail, if you can sit through it. Finally, there are reviewers as well. A lot of them go over some of how the game is played and how it feels to play the game before they give their thoughts. Unlike the other two, this one has much more of a subjective nature to it. So going from rules videos to actual play to a review you’re getting more and more subjective. However, the other two can be much drier than a review, so often reviews give you a better feel and in a shorter amount of time than an actual play.

Those are going to be the top three pieces of advice that I have for buying board games, and figuring out which ones you’d like. I’m going to come back to #3 – Online, next week to talk through various sites and content creators that can be useful when thinking about what you might like. How do you generally pick what game to buy?

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It’s kind of crazy to look at all of those games and this doesn’t include any RPG related stuff, gaming adjacent stuff, etc., these are just the games. So with that many games, plus panels and events, the odds of me getting to all of these games, there is now chance. So I wanted to talk about a couple of different things with the game count.

The first is super simple, set-up a budget, there are so many things that it would be possible to spend way too much. I have a budget of what I’m going to be able to spend on games. And I’ve been setting aside money basically the whole year for this, once I knew I was going, and I am sure there will be some things that seem kind of cool that I won’t get because I have a budget. Also, with budgeting go around and look, don’t just buy immediately, or use the Board Game Geek preview to help sort through what you might want to rush and get.

The other thing, and more important, that I just mentioned, is use the Board Game Geek list. The person I’m going with hadn’t looked at the list yet, and was surprised when he realized that there were 396 (at that time) new games to buy and demo. We’re actually going to hangout sometime so that we can go through the list and figure out what we really want to see and possibly demo.

That’s the big thing, demoing games is going to take time. While you can probably walk around and see almost everything or at least glance at almost everything, if you don’t look at the list, you’re going to have no idea what to demo or what you might want to track down early for demoing. You want to know where a game is going to be, and if you are willing to wait for a demo.

So, how do you use the list?

First off, if you are interested in board games, I would highly recommend using Board Game Geek and set-up an account. It’s a great way to keep track of your collection. It also helps you find games based off of what you like and I will probably do an article on Board Game Geek later.

The reason for setting this up is that once you have it, you can use the “must have” and “interested” or “not interested” options. I tend to think the “undecided” option is a bit weird, that just means that I wouldn’t have marked anything, and I actually don’t use the “not interested” option either, but it could be useful. This allows you to easily see what you’re interested in, and in fact, you can download a list of everything that you’ve selected and how interested you are in them. But it doesn’t just give you that, it also tells you the publisher, the location, the price. That’s great, because, again, going back to budgeting because you can see how much you’re interested in, though not every “for sale” game has an MSRP.

For example, how I’ve used it, I have 60 titles on my list (I think it’s missing a couple of them). Of those, I have 4 must haves. Of those 4, 3 of them are for sale. I can see what their booths are, and of all of those, I know that one of them costs $25. That means that I have 56 games that I’m interested in. Of those, 14 are demo games, and 42 are games that will likely be for sale there. I can see that 6 of them are at one booth (all expansions to Welcome To…). I can also use that, for when I’m there, to sort out what booths are near each other to make a plan of attack for visiting things on different days or in a certain order.

Now, that’s just what I’m doing to make things easier for myself when I’m there. I do plan on just wandering around the dealer floor and seeing what is there. I would definitely miss stuff if I only used the list. However, the list is helpful and I feel like the budget is a must.

What games are you looking forward to at GenCon? Have you looked through or used the GeekPreview before from Board Game Geek?

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