Needless to say, that’s a lot of different ones. And that doesn’t even include games like My City, Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1 and 2, Risk Legacy, Charterstone, and I’m pretty sure I’m missing one or two. But why play a campaign game? Why play a game that has a story that when you’re done you can’t really play again?

The Case Against A Campaign Game

1. A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once
2. It Takes A Long Time To Play
3. They Are Hard to Get A Group For

A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once

Once you’ve played a campaign game you can’t play it again? You might be marking up a board or you might not be, tearing up cards, but you might not be. In either case, though, you play the story once and you know the story of the campaign, is there really that much difference? And why would I want a game that limits my game plays?

It Takes A Long Time To Play

You want to play the same game over and over again? What happens if you have a break and need to pick it up again, will you remember where you left the story? Do you leave the game set-up so that you aren’t doing the set-up and teardown every time?

They Are Hard To Get A Group For

And with that play time, how do you find a group who is up for that. What sort of plan do you come up to play with? We all have lives, so how do you get it to the table consistently?

The Campaign Game Rebuttal

A Campaign Can Only Be Played Once

This is not fully true. For some games it is a bit more and very much so for Legacy games. Though with a Legacy game often, Risk Legacy, My City, and Charterstone, they can be played after. But even in the case with a legacy game if you can’t, it is still a great experience. It is a story that can’t be told in a normal game.

And this is true for all campaign games. It tells a story that might not exist anywhere else. If you do only play it once, you still get an experience that is different than most games. Even your favorite games you might play five times a year, or maybe that’s just games that you like pretty well. So if you do get through a whole campaign, you end up getting your money’s worth from it.

Finally, not all campaign games can’t be replayed. While I am not sure I could go back and play Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game again, at least not without everyone else being new. There is still plenty in that game that I never saw. Gloomhaven has more scenarios and classes that I never played. Tainted Grail has tons of story and plot lines that I never went down. So yes, you can replay them, you just might know some.

It Times A Long Time To Play

Yes, this is true, but that is also part of the experience of an unfolding narrative in a game. In a shorter game, there might be a narrative that emerges, but by nature of the shorter experience and desire to be replayable, it’ll be less impactful.

So if you want to experience a whole narrative, campaign games are a great way to go. And while some can have one person running the game, most, as compared to an RPG which also matches up with a lot of these criteria, are fully cooperative. That means that everyone is playing the same game and doing the same things.

They Are Hard To Get A Group For

It is not much harder than getting a game group together. I play campaigns with two different groups, both offshoots of my game group. But expectations do need to be set when it comes to a campaign. I had one group fall apart because of life reasons, but still am maintaining the other two.

Start with letting them know the commitment. A campaign game is a commitments and they should know that. Also discuss frequency of play. A lot of times groups will fall apart because they are not frequent enough or too frequent. If they aren’t frequent enough, people forget how to play. Too frequent and it becomes a burden to play it. Know what schedule works for your group and try and stick to it.

Why Play A Campaign Game?

So we’ve looked at some reasons why you might or might not want to. And I do think that game group can be a valid reason if no one is interested in playing a campaign game. However, I think more people are than a lot of gamers might think. But why do I play them?

1. The Narrative Experience
2. Consistent Gaming
3. The Epic Scope
4. Digging Into A Game

The Narrative Experience

I talk about this a lot. I love games that give you story that you can explore. You’ve seen me play Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, some and Sleeping Gods. Even Pandemic Legacy Season 1 gave story to delve into. And I love when a game gives you story like that.

It is interesting, because the ones that I really love give me flexibility in that story. Gloomhaven more so in how you build and play your character. But Tainted Grail and Sleeping Gods allow you to branch out into the world and see more of what is happening. And they don’t tell you how you need to play it, yes, there are targets you go for, but there is always more to explore.

Compare that to regular Pandemic, or a lot of other one off games, they don’t offer the same story. Now, there is story that emerges in those games from the choices that you make as a player. Which is the same for a campaign game. But the players need to bring a lot more of the narrative to the game.

Consistent Gaming

This is also kind of a rebuttal to it being long and finding a group. For myself and other gamers, consistently gaming is amazing. So often it is hard to set aside time to play games, but with a campaign game, it forces you to do so. Like I said, it’s about that developing that rhythm. And a good campaign game will draw you in with the story it provides so you want to keep coming back to it.

It is a knock, actually, that I have against Gloomhaven. The story is less compelling than the game play. I love the mechanics, but the story could and should be better. But the game play kept me coming back over and over again. That cycle of playing cards and figuring out the strategy for a scenario is amazing. But a campaign game helps hook you to come back for consistent gaming.

The Epic Scope

A campaign game also can have much more epic scope to it. I own other games that have epic scope, The Reckoners or Atlantis Rising are two examples. Pandemic, even, with trying to save the world from diseases. But while you play, those games, that scope is just smaller than what you can get in a campaign game.

Tainted Grail, yes, you are trying to save Avalon, how is that different than Pandemic and saving the world? Well, it is different because what you need to do builds and changes as the game progresses. It might be finding the grail, but now you need to complete a ritual or more in the game. It just keeps building and building until you reach an epic finale to the game.

Digging Into A Game

And now, this is one that is very much for Gloomhaven, but it allows you to dig further and further into the game. And with that, you get to explore and understand the mechanics of the game and the character(s) that you are playing so well.

In Gloomhaven it is that card loop of playing two cards to do the top action on one and the bottom on the other. It just makes for a fascinating puzzle that then you can augment and optimize with items and figure out what is going to work best for you.

Final Thoughts on a Campaign Game

The scope and epic nature of the experience really pull me in. And they are some of the best stories I’ve found in a game. Now, the experience won’t be for everyone. And I think the biggest reason is that sometimes they are just harder to get to the table. If you’ve watched Malts and Meeples, you know I like to play them there. But without a gaming table, I have one now, it is a lot of work to set-up and tear down every time for one to two hours of gaming.

But if you can find a group, I believe that they are worth checking out. And there are so many themes out there. I look at what I have coming in, Frosthaven another game in the Gloomhaven world. Then HEL: The Last Saga a fantastical Viking mythological game. ISS Vanguard is an epic space exploration adventure. Rogue Angels when that comes out is going to be a more boots on the ground dungeon crawl space game. So there is likely a theme for everyone out there, including lighter fantasy like Adventure Tactics or Cora Quest for the whole family.

What is your favorite campaign game?

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If it’s not obvious, I clearly love campaign games. I have a lot more on my shelf from Pandemic Legacy Season 0 to Midarra: Unintentional Mallum Act 1, to Destinies, all that need to get played. Plus there are more on the way including a massive game, Frosthaven, the follow-up to Gloomhaven. Yet, compared to a lot of gamers, I’ve played a lot of campaign games. So how do I get a consistent group together?

Talk About Campaign Games

Talk with people about playing a campaign game. It sounds obvious, but I think a lot of gamers forget to do this. I forget to do this with people who might be interested in a campaign game. I own many other games that aren’t campaign games, so I sit down and play those with a lot of people. People who might want to play a legacy game or a campaign game, but I don’t mention it.

Now, it does come with a balance. I have one friend who I could play a campaign game with, but I don’t. Why, because while we had fun playing Sword & Sorcery, I realized I wasn’t playing my other games as much. So now I game with him every other week, and it’s just pulling games that maybe don’t get play that much off the shelf. Heavier games that are a one off, or teaching him new games that I’ve gotten. So it is a balance, but if you don’t mention campaign games, people won’t know it’s an option.

Define a Schedule

This one is tricky, especially as you get older. When I was in college I probably could have gotten stuff together easier. Or played campaign games more often. If I’d played Dungeons and Dragons then, I probably would have played for an eight hour session every week, or maybe every two. Now my schedule doesn’t permit that. The same is true for the people I game with. We have work, other activities, and kids in some cases. All of those things eat into gaming time.

On the flip side, we now need to get it scheduled more than before which means that we play more consistently. When younger, it is easy to go months if you aren’t thinking about it. You play for hours, but when you stop, you might not play for a long time again. Because I need it on the calendar to know I can play, that means we have a consistent schedule.

For both campaign board games and Dungeons and Dragons, I play every other week. The Gloomhaven/Tainted Grail group meets every other Tuesday. Dungeons and Dragons is every other Thursday. I keep, or try to, them on opposite weeks. That means that the one player who overlaps doesn’t have two evenings in one week are taken up and the same for me.

It is important to define it also so people know the commitment level. A full Saturday once a month might be what you need, or even weekly. Figure out what works for you and your players.

Be Flexible

This goes against what I said, or might seem like it, but I don’t think it does. Flexibility is scheduling is important. There are different reasons that people cancel and flexibility is important for that. I’ve had my Dungeons and Dragons game shift by a week multiple times, and that is fine. We know the schedule, every other Thursday, and try and make that work, but adjust when need be.

Now, there are more valid reasons for being flexible sometimes. If someone keeps on missing because they just don’t feel like it that day and that causes you to cancel, that isn’t being flexible. That’s them not being interested and they can be dropped from the group. Likely, campaign games weren’t for them. But lie things, working overtime, a kid who is under the weather, car troubles, those sorts of things need to allow flexibility.

Know Your Campaign Players

Finally, know who your campaign players are. I talked about before how I have one person I game with regularly not with campaign games. He’s played them with me before, but doesn’t always love a long campaign. He dropped out of Dungeons and Dragons recently because it’s too long for his focus and style, which is fair. Dungeons and Dragons is a massive commitment. I’d play a shorter campaign board game with him, and have with Sword & Sorcery, but I know he isn’t my big campaign game player.

On the flip side, I’ve played Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and Gloomhaven with the same two people. And that’s taken us years to get through, I think coming up in February will be four years of us playing games. Gloomhaven took up most of that time, but Tainted Grail will as we wait for Frosthaven. I know I can campaign game with them.

I also had a group I played Pandemic Legacy games with, but I don’t think I’d campaign game with them anymore. They were always hard to pin down in terms of scheduling. And lately, they’ve been even harder. One of them was part of the Charterstone group and even with just one, they were still hard to nail down for that. So I moved away from playing campaign games with them. Knowing who will be consistent enough is important.

Are They Worth the Effort?

Clearly for me they are worth the effort. Campaign games give great experiences at the gaming table. They are completely different than playing a one off game because the story emerges around you most of the time. There are twists and turns that simple cannot exist in a regular game.

That isn’t to dismiss other games. Normal single session games still give very good and I still play them a lot. There is just something about a campaign game and a shared experience that is different. This can be a legacy style campaign game or just a campaign game, either are very good. And you get to know that feel of the group you are playing with. You know all your styles and really develop how you play a campaign game.

Have you gotten through a campaign game or are they on your radar? Have you found a good group to play with?

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Why You Wouldn’t

There are obviously some reasons that you’d be unlikely to play campaign games again. A lot of them tell a story that is important to the game play as you go along. Once you know the story, it won’t be fresh or new again. You will see parts of the story over again even if the story does have some branching narrative paths. And that removes some of the fun of the game knowing what is coming up.

You also might have more campaign games to play. Honestly, this is what will keep me from revisiting something like Gloomhaven with another group soon. I have a lot of other campaign games to get through from Tainted Grail that I’m playing now to Reichbusters and Apocrpyha on the shelf now, and games like Middara, Frosthaven, and Oathsworn coming in probably this year. So it isn’t like I’ll be running out of games to play in the genre.

Why You Would

Now, there are reasons to again. I talk about how you might have seen a lot of the story, but you won’t have seen all of it. For example, I have played the first chapter of Tainted Grail 5 times now, twice solo, and then two different groups three times. I know I haven’t seen everything. I know that the group that I have played it twice with, I’ve done different things than before. So if the story is highly engaging and offers a wide variety, then there is reason to go back through it.

Mechanically if the game is interesting I’m more tempted to go back through it as well. For example, Gloomhaven, I love how that game works mechanically. I love the card play in it. I see going back to it eventually if my kid grows up to like board games. It is a big game, but it’d be something to share experience over, or if I have another group of players who really want to play it. I won’t get bored, even though I’ve seen a lot of story, playing through it again, because there are still classes I haven’t played.

Finally, bonding, board games are something that bring people together. And a campaign game can bring a group of people together more consistently. It is like Dungeons and Dragons that way, you can set-up a standing time where you play. It grows friendships and gives people a reason to get out and see people, which in Minnesota in the winter, you sometimes need. That is why I tried to keep it going, and we did a solid job of it, throughout the pandemic playing on TableTop Simulator or games via Zoom.

What Games Would I Wouldn’t I Play Again?

I think it might be useful to talk about the campaign games that I have played, the two I’ve finished and the one I’m going through now and see if I’d play them again and why. It is easy to explain that there are cool things about them, or I really like them, but is that enough to keep them around.

Tainted Grail

Let us start with the one that I’m playing. Mechanically the game is solid, but that isn’t the reason I have played it so many times. Some of it, thus far, is because it is hard. But the story is the element that really draws me back to it. I know, like I said, that there is more yet to find in that game. We finally made it to chapter four last night, and I’m seeing all sorts of new things that I didn’t know about before. I am going to new locations on the island of Avalon and fighting new monsters. For Tainted Grail that openness of the world and story is what keep me coming back to it.

Sword & Sorcery

Now, I sold this game, it might give you a hint. There are two things that kept me from wanting to come back to it. The story itself is fun, but it doesn’t branch much. So you play the story once, you know what will happen. And mechanically, it is a bit lacking at times as well. I love leveling up, getting new abilities, and fighting in new ways. But that doesn’t happen that often. So it ends up being the same thing, find a monster, use an ability, aim, and attack. You roll dice, and it’s just the same combos over and over. It is just missing that umph that Tainted Grail has.

Gloomhaven

Finally, Gloomhaven, that one is my #1 game of all time. It is staying in my collection, and I would gladly play it again. It doesn’t have the most in depth and branching story. But what it does well is give you enough story to keep it interesting. And it gives you a ton in it’s game play. Mechanically with all the different classes you can play, it is so much fun. We saw all of them in my play through, but I haven’t played all of them. So Gloomhaven gives you a lot to go back to, and you can just play randomly generated scenarios as well, which is cool.

Would you go back to a campaign game? What has made you go back if you have before? What do you look for in one that you think you might go back to?

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1 – Not Being Ready to Game

Now this one might seem obvious, but I don’t think that some people get it or are ready to game. While there are certainly social elements to game nights, that is meant to be done in the context of while you are playing a game. So come ready to sit down and play again, not ready to talk for 30 minutes to an hour and then play a game at some point in time and then talk more after a filler game. I fairly often theme in filler game nights for those more social times, but sometimes you need to be prepared to play a bigger game and it’s a game night, so that should be the mindset.

2 – Quashing Fun

This really is #1 through #7, but I want to call this out specifically. It’s something that was talked about in the thread a fair amount. Don’t quash other people’s fun because something in the game offends you and the flip side of this as well, don’t pull out a game that you know will offend someone. If you aren’t sure, leave it on the shelf, if you are uncomfortable, sit out the game. You can always bring it up after the fact and do so respectfully. And if you don’t know, ask before pulling out a game if the person is fine with it. This also is true for conversation on a board game night. We’re trying to create an inclusive place. If you can’t shut up about the debate last night, don’t come, if you are wearing hateful or polarizing material on your shirt, or whatever it might be, don’t assume everyone is like you, and don’t assume everyone wants to talk about politics or whatever polarizing thing like you do.

3 – Alpha Gaming/Analysis Paralysis Gaming

Now, I’m lumping these two together, and really, like I said, this falls into quashing people’s fun. But while that is more specifically about your tastes and views on things, this is more about the game itself. Don’t tell people what to do on their turns, sure they might not be doing an optimal play, but that’s okay. It might mean you’re less likely to win a cooperative game, and that’s okay. By the same token, don’t take too long on your turn, that is how people checkout of games, and I’ll talk about that later. But slowing a game down makes it less fun for everyone. For AP players, they feel the pressure to go fast and not let everyone else get bored, for the other players, they don’t want to get bored. Here’s going to be an odd statement, but alpha gamers and AP gamers tend to have the same issue, they need to win. The issue is how they do it, one thinks they know what everyone should do, and one locks up to make the optimal play. Winning the game isn’t everything.

4 – Sore Losing/Winning

As I just said, winning the game isn’t everything, and losing the game isn’t nothing. But don’t be sore at either of them. Don’t huff and puff and say that the game isn’t fair, that people ganged up on you (even if they did), lose graciously. Again, this steps on people’s fun if you lose poorly. At the same time, if you win, don’t gloat about it. Also don’t deflect and say it was all luck and that you just happened to get lucky to win, because someone might have been playing their hardest and gotten crushed and feel now like they are a terrible player. Instead be gracious in both winning and losing and that’ll make the game more fun for everyone.

5 – Cheating

Simply put, don’t do this. No game matters that much that it’s worth cheating at, at a board game night. I don’t care if you’re playing poker for the last piece of Rhubarb Cream Pie, don’t cheat. Cheating if you get caught ruins the game for everyone. If you don’t get caught, it makes the whole experience more hollow. I’ve found that the people who cheat usually don’t cheat to win, or if they do, they’ll also cheat to win by more, which makes it less fun.

6 – Readily Getting Distracted/Checkout of the Game

This can happen for several reasons, but try not to. Firstly, again, it’s a game night, you’re hear to play a game, not to look at your phone, not to have a conversation with someone who is playing another game, or someone who just showed up at the expense of missing it’s you’re turn. It’s fine to chat, but don’t get so distracted you lose track of the game, hold it up by missing your turn, and then spend a while figuring out your turn because you weren’t paying attention to what everyone else did. Also, don’t checkout of a game because you think you can’t win. First, you might not be able to actually tell that. But also if you start playing worse than you were, you can king make or otherwise mess up the fun other people are having. See your strategy and plan through to the end.

7 – Mistreating the Game

Now, as I’ve said, we have food at the table, so I’m not as strict about this as most people. In fact we’ve had Doritos and red wine (not the worlds tastiest combo) at the table before. But I’m talking about doing stuff intentionally to a game, or subconsciously. Don’t bend cards and throw pieces. Wipe off your fingers if you have Cheetos or Doritos’ dust on them before picking up pieces and cards. Just generally be respectful of other people’s property, it’s a common courtesy but be conscious of that, and resprect the rules the owner of the game has for their game.

So obviously some people in the thread were more clever than I was and created ones related to the actual seven deadly sins, but I thought it was an interesting topic for a gaming group and board gaming in general, so I wanted to write something up about it. Generally, I think that The RPG Academy gets it right with their motto, “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right”. So make sure that you’re having fun, and make sure that everyone at the table is as well and playing board games will be fun for everyone.

What are your rules for gaming?

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AP (Analysis Paralysis) Player
So I’ve talked about AP players in the past and I’ll get them out of the way fairly quickly here, but these are the players, when it’s really bad, who will take 5-10 times longer on their turn than any other player. They overthink everything, sometimes trying to optimize points, sometimes just because they happen to see another possibility, so they need to think about that one a little bit, and they weren’t planning ahead of their turn. It’s fine to take of extra time on some key turns, but when you, yourself, call out that your turns are taking long, that needs to be a mental trigger to just do something, even if you don’t know if it’s ideal.

Game Recommendation – Sagrada
There are a few reasons why I think that this one would work well. First, there are no major decisions in it, yes, you have to decide what die to take and where to place it, but you have specific restrictions on it and the die pool is small enough. Everything leads you in a direction versus being able to pick what direction you want to go, and with that, you cut down on the AP.

Alpha Gamer
So, Alpha Gaming is mainly brought up in the context of cooperative games, but it can happen in any game. It’s when some player at the table thinks that they know better than everyone else, so they tell people what to do on their turn. This can come from two things, feeling like they know better in the game, or in cooperative games, desperately needing to win. The downside is that the Alpha Gamer is basically playing a solo game with other people moving pieces, and sometimes not even that, the Alpha Gamer will move another person’s pieces as well. If you notice yourself doing that, it hurts, but shut your mouth. Or, if that ends up being too hard, do what I do when running a game of D&D, if someone seems to be struggling with what they can or should do, give them two or three options, including the ideal option, just don’t tell them what’s the best option, but give them some help in in things to pick from.

Game Recommendation – The Lost Expedition
This game really tries to solve a personal issue, alpha gaming, in the game itself. The Mind is also another example of this. Anything that limits communication, I just think that The Lost Expedition is the best I’ve run across. You can’t discuss what cards you’re playing down when you’re hiking in both the morning and evening, so it’s the person who is laying down their cards decision. After that, the Alpha Gamer can have some fun as you discuss what’s the most ideal course of action, but the game is already giving you half of it that the Alpha Gamer can’t run.

Must Get It Right Gamer
So this one was harder to come up with a name for them, but they’re the gamer who needs to know the rules perfectly at the start of the game. If there’s something that comes up and is ambiguous in the middle of the game, they have to stop it and look up the rules. Now, sometimes it’s very important to get that rule right if it’s a major scoring rule or something like that, and I’m fine pausing a game to look that up, but when that person is flipping through the rule book between every turn and sometimes a couple of times on their turn, it’s dragging the game out considerably. If you find yourself doing that, keep track of what you’re wondering about and look it up either not on your turn or after the game. Don’t slow down the game by looking stuff up on your own turn, and if it gets to your turn and you don’t know the answer and that would affect what you do, do something else, and then continue looking it up.

Game Recommendation – Quoridor
Now, this is a placeholder for a number of games, and a lot of abstract games are going to work very well, because they can have simpler rulesets. But in Quoridor you either are moving a space left, right, up or down, or you’re placing a wall. That’s it, so it’s a fast game to teach and there aren’t rules to look up. Finding a game with good and simple rules that still offers a choice is going to be the best bet.

Between Turn Scroller
This is the person who gets distracted by something, anything, between turns. They have trouble sitting there and waiting for their turn, so they pull out a phone and start scrolling through Facebook, and then all of a sudden, it’s their turn, they don’t know what they want to do, because they were scrolling through Facebook or something like that. It can also be the person who gets up and walks away from the table to do something between turns, or starts a conversation with someone the second their turn is done. This one is harder to suggest things for because attention spans are short and sometimes between turns is quite long. My recommendation for someone who notices that they’re doing this is take up knitting or something else that keeps your fingers moving and brain somewhat engaged but isn’t as fully distracting. Once it’s more muscle memory as you know what you’re doing and you’ve done it a lot, you’ll be able to pay more attention between turns but still be doing something so it doesn’t feel like dead time.

Game Recommendation – Welcome To…
Now, there are a number of games that can fit here, and really any real time game could or simultaneous turns. In Welcome To, there’s just no downtime, same with Second Chance or Criss Cross, so if you know you have someone who can start scrolling at the table, just don’t give them enough time to do that by keeping them always invovled.

This Games The Best/Worst
This is the person who after having played the game for 10 minutes will declare the game the greatest game of all time or the worst game of all time. Now, sometimes this isn’t horrible because if the game is the best of all time the person is probably going to be happy and in a good mood, though that might also just mean that person is winning handily, which is why it’s the best, so it can come off as bragging. The this game is the worst side of things is tougher because if they make that proclamation 10 minutes into a two hour game, they’re going to spend a lot of the rest of the time complaining and that’ll kill other people’s fun. And it might turn out that what was thought in the first 10 minutes isn’t accurate to how good or bad the game really is. So if you’re one of these gamers, how do you combat it? First, try and free yourself from all preconceived notions. That’s way easier said than done, but often times when a game is the best ever it lived up to hype or if it’s worst ever, it didn’t live up to hype. So I guess another thing to say would be to avoid the hype market, now that means you probably can’t checkout Board Game Geek or something as much as you’d like, but it’ll keep the bias for or against a game lower. And the biggest thing is just bite your tongue at times. Now, if you don’t like a game after 10 minutes, you can make a comment, same if you like a game, but try not to use best/worst language and keep it to a comment. That way you have a release for some of your opinion in the moment but that doesn’t become the focus of the game.

Game Recommendation – Draftosaurus
Why, the game is 15 minutes long, so that’s really a placeholder again for this type of player. They might hate Draftosaurus, but it’s only 15 minutes long, so they aren’t going to be able to complain through a long game. And the game has enough going on in it that it should keep them somewhat entertained at a least and it looks good on the table. But basically, with this type of player, try and avoid the 90 minute long games.

The Sore Loser/Bad Winner
This can tie into the this is the best/worst game ever person, but this is going to be the person who can’t believe that they lost, that their strategy was clearly worse than everyone else, that the dice hate them, etc. When you’re done playing a game with them, you kind of wish you’d let them win because you’re done with their complaining. This can stem from several things, but probably the most obvious is going to be taking the game too seriously. And on the winning side, there are couple of types of bad winner, there’s the person who gloats, which is just annoying but can be dealt with, and there’s the person who makes it seem like they lucked into the win. For fixing some of this issue, first, remember that it’s only a game, if you win or lose, it’s still only a game, the point of playing games is to have fun first and foremost. Secondly, and this is stealing from little league, hockey, etc, train yourself to tell people good game afterwards. You don’t need to line up and give each other high fives, but try and compliment people on what they’ve done, and this really can go for everyone at the table to do.

Game Recommendation – Pandemic
More placeholding for games, this one is simply anything cooperative. Pandemic is just a good gateway cooperative game to get to the table, but if you can win or lose as a group, that’s going to make the poor winner/sore loser feel better about the game because they are in the same boat as everyone else. It also gives them a chance to see people model a healthier style of winning and losing at the same time they’re going through the emotion of winning or losing.

Now, I’m sure there are more types of gamers out there that can cause issues at the gaming table. And I didn’t touch on things like hygiene or anything like that, more on the mental and emotional side of board gaming. Hopefully this will give you some ideas of how you can improve your gaming habits if you fall into one of these categories, or what you can bring to the table if you play with someone who falls into one of the gamer tropes.

Which gamer tropes have I missed? And what games would you recommend to some of the groups that I’ve mentioned above?

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Games can be split into four different categories in my opinion. There are light weight, family weight, medium weight, and heavy weight games. And for me, that goes from the least complex to the most complex games. I am sure that other people might have an extra category at the end of super heavy weight games for the 18XX games and Train Games (not Ticket to Ride), where you playing in a very heavy economic game and you might actually need a calculator to figure out what is going on, on your turn, not just to add up scores at the end of a game.

Let’s first talk about why games are split into these categories. There are a ton of ways to sort or categorize games such as by some mechanic in the game or the theme of the game, but where those tell you some about the game, the weight of a game is really to help you determine the complexity of the game. The heavier a game is, the more complex that it’s going to be, and the more time commitment is going to be needed for learning the game and possibly for playing the game. However, not all games that have a lot of rules have a high weight to the game. Gloomhaven, for example, on Board Game Geek, is rated at a 3.79 out of 5 for weight, which puts it at a medium heavy, and it has a pretty hefty rule book.

What is a Light Weight game?

A light weight game is going to be those filler sorts of games. Something Tsuro, is a light weight game because the rules are simple to teach and the game is easy to play. Party games also fall into this category as you can generally pull them out and get them taught and to the table in five minutes. People aren’t likely to have many questions either about them when you are playing them. And if there is a question that comes up, the rules are likely so simple that you don’t need to look up anything and can just answer it. Kids games would also fall into this category, though, not all of them. But simple games like Chutes (Snakes) and Ladders or Candyland, that people normally think of, are so simple that you really just do what the game tells you, versus make any decision in the game. That’s another area where the complexity of the game is pretty low, even in Tsuro, you have three tiles and while you have some choice at the start of the game, the choice doesn’t matter much then. And in the later part of the game, the choice matters, but you have an obvious choice so you don’t have to think about it much.

What is a Family Weight Game?

So just by thinking what is a bit more complex than the light weight games, you can start to figure out what family weight games are. The best way to describe it is that these are the games that you play with your parents if they aren’t board gamers growing up. Or growing up only played a few like Skip-Bo, Uno, Rummikub, and Yahtzee. The latter two would actually probably fall into the family weight category. But more modern games that are family weight would be things like Carcassone, Ticket to Ride, and Catan. These games have more complex rules than light games, but generally there aren’t edge cases where you have to remember that something only happens in a specific situation. These games also start to offer meaningful decisions. Yes, they are generally not that complex, but Carcassone gives you choices when you place figures like knights, farmers, thieves, and monks (if I have the terms correct). In Catan you determine where you start and where you build towards, and in Ticket to Ride, do you take those train cars you want or do you play a route before someone else can get it? But the decisions are still pretty simple and you can probably do either option and end up being fine in the game. These games also can still end up with a run away winner. Other games would something like Sushi Go! Party, Pandemic, Dominion or Welcome To…

What are Medium Weight Games?

Again, we’re taking it up in complexity of game play and learning. These games still aren’t too difficult to learn, but there are going to be more moving parts. Xenoshyft: Onslaught would be a good example of this. Where Dominion is just a deck builder that is pretty easy to each, Xenoshyft actually has you doing something more in the game, and you are faced with more decisions than just buying a card worth points, a card worth money, or a card that draws you more cards. Another game that would fit into this category is Seven Wonders. Much like Xenoshyft builds upon the fundamentals and adds in more to deck building, Seven Wonders is a more complex card drafting game as compared to Sushi Go! Party. You also start to get edge cases in the games where certain cards together interact in a way that you can’t just naturally figure out. But there aren’t so many of these that once you’ve played the game a few times that you won’t know what is going. I actually think that Gloomhaven falls into the heavier side of Medium Weight games. There are certainly a good number of rules, but once you know them, you can play without looking things up, and it doesn’t take too long to know the rules once you start playing. I’d also put a game like Pandemic Legacy in a medium weight game. The rules don’t vary greatly from base Pandemic, but since the rules are changing, you need to remember everything that is going on.

Finally, What are Heavy Weight Games?

Again, not too difficult to figure out, but these are the games that you have a lot of text on a lot of cards, there is a lot of complexity in these games. I would put games like Cry Havoc and Root into this category where you have asymmetrical powers. Because of this, each person has edge cases that are different than other people at the table. And you need to teach each character separately. These games also have a lot of what I’d call book keeping. That doesn’t always mean taking notes, but it means that there are a lot of phases and some of the phases are resetting things to a starting turn point. Two good examples of this are a couple of cooperative games from Portal Games, First Martian and Robinson Crusoe. In these games, there are certain game events that happen at the end of every turn or end of every round that you need to do. Star Wars: Rebellion is also a heavy game with asymmetrical goals going on, though the actions of the players are pretty similar. But there are a lot of decisions that you have to make in the game, and if you mess up a single decision that can cost you the game. Even a game that is generally panned like SeaFall can fall into this category because the rules are complex (some do to poor writing), but the game offers a ton of tactical decisions that you have to think about.

Finally, let’s talk about what this means for your gaming collection. Do you need a game(s) of each type? I don’t think that you do, if you know your gaming group will never want to play a light filler game, why do you have one of those in your collection or go out of your way to buy one? The same goes for very heavy games, if I know that I don’t want to play a highly tactical war game, I don’t need one in my collection just so I have one just in case. That said, I would try and keep a good variety in your collection that makes sense for the gaming group that you have. For example, according to Board Game Geek, out of the 253 games that I’ve rated on the site (or own), 3 of them are over 4 for weight, so pretty heavy. 23 of them are at 1.25 or lower (1 is the lowest possible number) and all of those are extremely light. That means that I have a lot in the middle, though I tend to skew lighter as those games are easier to get to the table with my gaming group.

So, what does your collection look like? What’s the average weight of the games that you like, do you skew more towards heavy games or do you find your collection to have a lot of filler and party games you can pull out any time?

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It’s something to write about because when people think of large group games they think of games like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, with a few other party games thrown in. It’s fairly repetitive games that are either based around making a few jokes or trivia knowledge. I’m going to sound fairly negative about these games, but they do have their time and place. For me, however, these games have a limited shelf life. My wife and I are actually getting rid of our copy of Cards Against Humanity because once you’ve played it a handful of times, you know the general jokes.

The other reason I wanted to write about this topic is because people have trouble coming up with other larger group games. Now, not all of these games are going to be able to handle 20 people that I’m writing about, so I will write about what you can do with that size of a group as well. But, having games that will play 7-10 people are fairly difficult to come up with as well and often end up causing people to pull out party games again.

Before we talk specifics, let’s talk about what to do with that very large group of people. It’s tricky because part of playing board games is socializing, but sometimes you have a group that is just too large to play a single game. People don’t always want to split into smaller groups because people want to socialize with everyone. I would argue that this is something that you should push through as the host or as someone suggesting splitting into groups. When you have a large group everyone is not part of the same conversation anyways. As much as we want to think so, everyone is having their own little conversations. These can be done in smaller groups. Especially lean into splitting into smaller groups after you have played a larger game. Play a few hands of Cards Against Humanity first so that people are laughing and socializing and then before the game has gotten stale. People will likely be more up to splitting off into groups if they feel comfortable and having an ice breaker game is nice for that.

Also, adapt games as need be for larger groups. I’ve adapted Wits & Wagers for a larger group before because it’s not like there’s anything stopping you. Just add a few more ranges for betting and go from there. Or with a game like Scattergories, just have people share sheets.  You can also team people up for games that normally wouldn’t have teams. Balderdash can really handle any number, but if you think there will be too many things to read and remember, have people team up for that.

Now let’s get into some games. I’m going to start with some of my preferred party style games. While I have expressed some dislike for Cards Against Humanity, it is a game that a lot of people know how to play already, and when drinking, can be kind of funny even if you’ve played it a number of times before?

In it’s place, I would suggest Stipulations. This game might be harder to find, I got it from kickstarter, but I believe it is available. Stipulations is one of those write something down based off of what the person who is it says. However, as compared to trying to come up with a definition for a word or the meaning of an acronym, Stipulations has you writing a stipulation for a super power, dream job, lifetime supply of, or fulfilled dream. This doesn’t force you into anything dark and twisted, but if you wanted to go that way and that’s the type of group you have, you can. Unlike Cards Against Humanity, Stipulations is a game you could play with Grandma or at a college kegger.

A nerdier game than Stipulations that goes along with the same premise of writing down an answer and either picking a favorite or trying to guess the right answer is Liebrary. It’s a silly game where you roll and select and get a book title and try and write down what the first sentence is. The person who is it is hoping people will guess the right answer, but not everyone. It fits into the classic Balderdash style of game. This game suffers a little bit because of the categories of books. Romance novels are great to write a first line for because you can be as silly as possible, but other genres aren’t as entertaining.

Scattergories and Wits & Wagers are two that I put down as games that fit into that trivia category. Both of them are better than Cranium in my opinion. The reason that I like both of them is that you can have an arbitrary ending to either of them. In Scattergories you can play three lists or you can play ten, it’s up to you and the group, though, I’d never recommend playing ten in one sitting. With Wits and Wagers, you can just pull out a certain number of cards, and whomever has the most money at the end is the winner. Cranium has a board you have to get around, and if you get the wrong questions in trivia, there’s a chance the game will just stagnate. The same thing is the case with Trivial Pursuit, so pick trivia games that you can have an arbitrary ending to.

Finally, Moniker is a solid party game where you start out by describing someone to get people to guess them, then can only use a one word clue, and then can only charade it. It’s a team game, so only half the time are you really involved, but turns go fairly quickly. This game is on my list because it allows people to be active and moving. It helps build up the energy and is good for a laugh. It is a game that you don’t really need the actual game for though to make work. As long as people know the famous person you wrote down on a slip of paper it works. When they don’t, it kind of breaks the game anyways.

So this is part one of two, the conclusion will come up here shortly. It would have been a bit much to do in a single post, and this one has a nice breaking point because we’re at the point where I’m going to talk about things that aren’t just pure party games. There are a number of games, including a few different categories of games that work well with larger groups. And I’ll also talk about some pitfalls to avoid when looking at games that can have a larger player count.

To Be Continued….

What are your favorite party games?

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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…

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What Do/Don’t You Like About a Game

This is going to be a huge part of determining what your perfect game would be. If you played Blood Rage and you liked it, but you didn’t like everything about it, what did or didn’t you like? Did you really like the card drafting but not so much the combat? Maybe you really liked the area control but didn’t like the action point system. Knowing this is going to be really useful in helping you narrow down what you want to play. If you liked card drafting but didn’t like anything else about Blood Rage, maybe a simpler game like Sushi Go! Party would be good for you. Using this strategy even for games you didn’t really like that well can help you pick the next game to try off of the shelf. That’s one of things that I try to do in my TableTopTakes posts.

How Long Do You Want to Play?

Another way you can help narrow down the list when looking for your perfect game is to think about how long you want to play a game. Don’t use this as a hard-and-fast rule; play games that are shorter/simpler than you think you might like, or try a game or two that’s longer than you think you want to play. You might know that you really won’t ever want to play a game like Arkham Horror because you don’t want a game to go more than an hour or so, but if a game says it might take an hour and a half, still consider giving it a try to see if you like it. Or maybe you find games that take five or ten minutes to be too simple generally, look at some of the more abstract short games out there; there are some short games that can still be challenging and very puzzling. Also, be aware that though a game says it plays in 30-45 minutes, that is just an estimate; games are naturally going to take longer the first time you play them, and the number on the box is really just the game creator’s best guess, as compared to actual playing times. For example, a chatty group will always take longer to play through a game than a more focused group.

Who Do I Play With?

When you think about the group of people you’d play board games with, what is the makeup of that group? For more on this idea, you can check out one of my previous posts, about knowing your gamer group (http://nerdologists.com/2016/04/gamer-group/). Now, what you have available to play with your gaming group might not be your perfect game, or at least may not be what you play often. I tend to like pretty heavy and heady games. I’m not always the best at them, but I like them. However, I play more middle-weight and light games. Why? Because a lot of the times when I can play games is at our board game nights, or with my wife. She’s a much more casual gamer than I am, so while I might like to pull out Arkham Horror, I normally don’t have the right group or enough time to play it. So consider aspects like this, and consider how important a game is to get to the table before you buy it. You might really love the game, but maybe it’s one that you just play at the board game shop from time to time instead of one that you have sitting on your shelf eating up room.

What else do you do to pick out a board game? There are more things that I could write about, but thinking about these three aspects and the ones I talked about in the previous post should help give some direction. Finding the perfect game is also a bad way for me to put it; there is no such thing as the perfect game for everyone or possibly even for anyone. Games always have some sort of flaw to them, but it’s about finding games that you really enjoy.

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