c/board-game-geeks

My sister called our game nights 'a weird little bubble' and it's been bugging me

We were chatting over coffee last weekend and she said, 'You and your friends get so into those rules, it's like you're in your own weird little bubble.' She didn't mean it in a bad way, but it hit different. I realized we never invite anyone new anymore because we assume they won't get it. Now I'm wondering if our group has gotten too closed off. Has anyone else felt their game group become an echo chamber?

Just found out the original Settlers of Catan print run was only 5,000 copies in 1995, which is wild considering how huge it is now. Saw it in a documentary on YouTube.

My game night turned into a snack disaster

We were playing a new game at my friend's house last weekend, and someone knocked over a whole bowl of cheesy popcorn onto the board. The pieces were covered, and we had to pause for 20 minutes cleaning everything with wet wipes. Anyone have tips for keeping snacks away from the table?

Showerthought: The local library in Springfield started a board game night and it's packed every week.

I went there to pick up a book on Tuesday and saw the community room was full of people playing games. There were at least 25 folks there, from teens to retirees, all playing different things. The librarian told me they started it six months ago and now have a waitlist for tables. It's nice to see a free, public spot become a hub for this. Has your town's library or a similar spot done something like this?

Warning: I just saw a board game collection photo that made my shelf look tiny

I was scrolling through a forum thread about storage solutions and someone posted a picture of their game room. They had over 800 games, all cataloged in a custom database. The photo was from a house tour in Portland. I had no idea a personal collection could get that big without being a store. How do people even decide what to play with that many options?

Shoutout to the guy at Dice Tower Con who called my game storage a disaster

I used to just cram everything back in the box, lids bulging. After seeing his setup with labeled baggies for every component, I spent a Sunday sorting my copy of Scythe. How do you organize your big box games without it taking a whole day?

I was sure my friend's 'cooperative' board game night would be boring

He invited me over last Friday to play Pandemic Legacy, and I figured it was just a group puzzle with no real stakes. We lost our first game in March, but the way the story changed the board for April completely hooked me. Has anyone else been totally surprised by a game they thought they'd hate?

Pro tip: A guy at the game store in Omaha taught me the best way to teach new players

I was struggling to explain 'Wingspan' to my family last month, and this older guy at the counter saw me fumbling with the rulebook. He leaned over and said, 'Skip the bird powers for the first round, just teach them how to get food and lay eggs.' It worked perfectly and cut the setup time in half. What's your go-to trick for teaching a complex game to beginners?

PSA: My group spent 45 minutes arguing about a single rule in 'Root' last Friday

We were at my place in Denver and the whole night just stopped because nobody could agree on how the Woodland Alliance's sympathy tokens worked. Has anyone else had a game night derailed by a rulebook that feels like it's written in another language?

My brother insisted we try a legacy board game and I thought it was a gimmick

I was sure the whole 'permanent changes' thing was just a way to sell more copies. We played through the first campaign of Pandemic Legacy over a month, and the moment we had to actually rip up a card, I was sold. Anyone else have a game mechanic they were wrong about?

Checked out the new cafe on 5th and saw they have a full shelf of obscure eurogames for customers to play

Tried playing Gloomhaven with a regular group vs a rotating cast and the difference was huge

My friend's group in Portland stuck with the same four people for the whole campaign, meeting every other week. We tried it with people dropping in and out based on schedules. The consistent group finished the story in about 8 months, while ours fell apart after 15 sessions because we kept re-teaching rules and lost the plot thread. Has anyone else managed to make a legacy game work with a changing player roster?

My game group in Austin fell apart over a rules argument about a 3 year old Kickstarter game

Three years ago we all chipped in $60 each for that fancy space game, the one with the plastic ships. Last week we finally tried to play it, and the rulebook had a part about combat that was just plain wrong. Mark said we should house rule it, but Sarah insisted on checking the designer's blog, which took 20 minutes. By then two people had just left, and now our whole group chat is dead. Has anyone else lost friends over a dumb rulebook?

Talking to my niece about board games made me see them in a new light

I was playing Ticket to Ride with my 8-year-old niece over the weekend. After she won, she said, 'It's like building your own little train world.' That simple line hit me different. I realized I always just focus on the strategy and winning, but she was into the story it made. It made me think about how I pick games. Do you ever get so caught up in the rules you miss the fun of just playing?

Hot take: My friend said board game geeks are too obsessed with complexity

She told me, 'You guys care more about rulebooks than having fun,' after our last game night in Charlotte. Has anyone else gotten this from their non-gamer friends?

Just found out how many board games get published every year

I was reading a blog post on a site called Board Game Wire yesterday. They said over 5,000 new board games hit the market last year. I always figured it was a few hundred, maybe a thousand tops. That's like 14 new games coming out every single day. It makes me wonder how anyone can even keep up with all the new stuff. How do you guys decide what's worth buying when there's that much coming out?

My buddy in Cincinnati insisted we play his new 4-hour war game during our lunch break.

We got through one turn in 90 minutes and had to pack it up, leaving the map on my dining table for a week. Does anyone else have a friend who completely misjudges how long a game will take?

TIL my local game store's 'beginner friendly' tag is a total lie for some boxes

They slapped it on a copy of Root, which is a famously complex war game with four totally different rule sets. A new couple came in, bought it based on that sticker, and had a miserable first hour trying to figure it out (I overheard the whole confused mess). How many people have been scared off the hobby because stores mislabel medium-weight games as simple ones?

My game group in Toledo keeps calling our weekly meetup a 'board game night' when we play mostly card games. It's not the same thing.

Pro tip: I used to keep my game collection in a closet, but now it's a full wall in my living room

For years, I kept everything boxed up and only pulled out a game maybe once a month. After a game night in Denver where a friend had everything on display, I changed my mind. I built some simple shelves and now my 40+ games are out where people can see them. It's led to way more spontaneous plays. How do you all decide what to keep out versus what to store away?

My copy of Terraforming Mars had a card that was printed upside down... the whole game night got weird.

Spent three hours trying to figure out the scoring in that new train game

Got the new train game, 'Iron Rails of the West', last weekend. The rulebook looked simple enough, maybe 12 pages. But the scoring section was a mess. It said to add points for connected cities, then subtract for unused track, then multiply by some bonus cards. My group and I just sat there, passing the book around. We must have set the game up and scored it wrong four times. Each time we got a totally different winner. We finally had to look up a video online from the designer himself. Turns out we missed that you only score the longest continuous route, not all of them. What a waste of a game night. Has anyone else had a game where the scoring rules were just broken?

Serious question, why do so many people call it 'Monopoly money' for any game cash?

Ngl, I was at a game night in Portland and someone called the paper from Power Grid 'Monopoly money', which is just wrong. Has anyone else had to correct this, or is it just me?

Just found out how many board games are in the BGG database and my mind is blown

I was looking up a rule for Terraforming Mars on BoardGameGeek last night and clicked around. I saw the total game count on the site is over 140,000. That number is insane to me. I own maybe 50 games and thought I had a big collection. It really puts into perspective how deep this hobby goes. Where do you even start with a catalog that huge? What's the most obscure game you've actually played from that list?

Appreciation post: My game group keeps calling the 'bank' in Monopoly the 'treasury'

It's a small thing, but it bugs me because the rules specifically call it the bank. I think it matters because using the right terms helps when teaching new players. What other common board game terms do you see people get wrong?