41–50 of 108 posts
I'd love to try to host something like a poker night, but without the sour taste of gambling. Poker has lots of great qualities: people can drop in and drop out of, pick up quickly, not require so much focus that it precludes whitty bantz or idle side conversation. Are there some modern games that fit this shape?
Any particularly complex or sophisticated board games HN likes to play? Curious what kind of games appeal to the HN mindset
I think the most complex board game I've really played any amount of is Carcasonne (Not particularly complicated). Often, if I'm playing a board game, I prefer it to be on the simpler end, more of a relaxing thing. One memorable board gaming experience I had was playing Splendor (I believe) with my cousin, and it ended up being almost completely silent, just passing tokens around and the occasional "oh..." when anoth…
If only playing board games didn't require colocating several friends for a non-trivial span of time... Everyone around me (including myself!) is busy with work, children, partner, running their household, and exercising. How do people do it?
There are lot of solo only games and most cooperative games allow for solo play. During the pandemic it became pretty popular.
I do a mix of solo, in person and online with boardgamearena.
Are there actually people out there who have never played “modern board games”? Maybe I’m just surrounded by nerds, but I don’t think these games are very niche. If someone I know hasn’t played board games like these, then it’s usually because they don’t have the attention span or don’t enjoy the strategy, not because they don’t realize board games exist.
Are there any good low-stakes games for a regular game night? I'd love to try to host something like a poker night, but without the sour taste of gambling. Poker has lots of great qualities: people can drop in and drop out of, pick up quickly, not require so much focus that it precludes whitty bantz or idle side conversation. Are there some modern games that fit this shape?
* Skull: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/92415/skull
* Cockroach Poker: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11971/cockroach-poker
Power Grid: An ancient one. You compete to connect cities to your power network by buying resources on a market with a fixed replenishment cycle (so the book depletes as each player goes) and buying plants in auction.
Forbidden Stars: WH40k game. The interesting device in this game is that you commit to your actions ahead of time and others stack their actions on top of yours so yours will happen last but you can activate each map section available at your convenience. Combat with card draws and figurines.
Twilight Struggle: The US and the USSR struggle for control of the world. You play cards that represent various pivotal moments in history to give you influence in various parts of the world. You're allowed to coup and realign countries. Dice rolls are significant. An amusing self-confession is that I can't bring myself to play the USSRs. Nuclear Subs as a headline just makes me flush with pride https://twilightstrategy.com/2012/09/10/nuclear-subs/
I haven't played the latter two in recent times but ones I have played recently are:
Mahjong: An old classic. Trick taking with tiles. We most enjoy playing with the Chinese Official scoring rules https://web.archive.org/web/20250219225547/http://mahjong.wi...
But the Taiwanese style are easier to start with
Terraforming Mars: Tableau-building game (you have points based on the cards you've played) with an economy and map placement. I like the Venus and Colonies expansions. Best played with 3d printed parts to keep your nezos in place.
These are all great fun!
Are there actually people out there who have never played “modern board games”? Maybe I’m just surrounded by nerds, but I don’t think these games are very niche. If someone I know hasn’t played board games like these, then it’s usually because they don’t have the attention span or don’t enjoy the strategy, not because they don’t realize board games exist.
You're definitely surrounded by nerds, just to use your words. I'm even in a PhD right now and most people just aren't in the hobby. It's something they did as a kid, ran out of interesting things, moved on to video games and either grew out of those or never looked back. Of the people that did, they started D&D campaigns and have little time for anything else. Boardgame culture is still very much niche, even among t…
I recommend Wingspan for a wide range of gamers. If you don't have anyone to play with there is a very nice app you can play (steam, ios) with great music, AI, relaxing vibe.
If only playing board games didn't require colocating several friends for a non-trivial span of time... Everyone around me (including myself!) is busy with work, children, partner, running their household, and exercising. How do people do it?
We were shocked by how early our kids could pick up board games, including many of the ones mentioned in this article. Our 2 oldest kids were playing Ticket to Ride and Carcassone well enough to beat us form time to time at 3 and 4 years old. Now that they're a little older, slightly more complicated games like Catan and Flamecraft are on the table!
I think you should play modern board games, but can we agree that there are both good and also heinously bad lessons to learn from them? Far too many board games want to be computer games, and seem to think it's trivial to have 20 different piles of crap to set up at the start, and then a dozen different pieces of state to track in your little corner of the table during what will inevitably be a complicated five-phas…
Humor aside, you're not wrong - spending an hour setting up and then 10 minutes per player to actually play was a lot more fun when I had a lot more free time