New and Improved Board/Card Games Thrad

[LadyShea]

We had a board game thread a hundred years ago, time for a new one I think.

We've been doing family game night, and I have tended towards classics mostly...started with various versions of Guess Who and Sequence and Memory and Candyland and have moved up to Clue, Monopoly, Uno, LRC and other dice and card games. A cool pirate game with a spinning top and pieces of 8. Can't find the kid's Yahtzee but it's somewhere. Went a little nuts with the Lego games, but didn't find the gameplay as neat as the pieces. Most recently I pulled out my family's long time fave, Rummikub and we're doing an ongoing tournament so everything else has gone bye bye.

P. soon we'll have to start playing Cadillac, which is my extended paternal family's game.

I asked mom for Ticket to Ride for our Christmas present, and am really tempted by the Munchkin games

Do you play? If so what do you play? If not, do you want to? Here's a great site I like a lot also BoardGameGeek | Gaming Unplugged Since 2000 .

[Ari]

I highly recommend the Munchin games!
I'm partial to the Cthulhu set but I would suggest getting whatever genre is most liked by the family as they are full of puns and references. The Cthulhu set is a bit meaner than the rest although they can supposably be combined with each other.
How can you not love Cowthulhu?

[Qingdai]

I'm partial to Cheapass Games Home | Cheapass Games, particularly Devil Bunny Needs a Ham and such other classics.

There is also Fluxx 4.0 | Looney Labs

I also like Bananagrams and other such things.

Qingdai jr. and Chunksmediocrites have been playing Pokemon, the card game.

[Crumb]

I will have more time to write a longer post here tomorrow. But I did want to say that you probably can't go wrong with Ticket To Ride. It is a great game and I haven't met anyone interested in playing a game that hasn't found it easy to learn and fun to play.

[Crumb]

A few thoughts on games mentioned:
Fluxx - This can be a fun lighthearted card game. I would suggest skipping the basic game and getting a themed game that appeals to you and your fellow players. (i.e. Pirate Flux, Monty Python Fluxx, etc.) The caveat for this one is that the game is completely chaotic. There is very little hope for any long term plans that players might have. Best if the players don't take it too seriously.

Munchkin - I don't actually like Munchkin, so take this with that in mind. It can be fun for a play or two in my experience, but gets old fast. Since it has the shifting alliance and ganging up aspects it tends to be a game of dog pile on the current leader. The winner tends to be the second person to get a chance at level 10, since usually everyone uses all their resources to stop the first person to get there. As with Fluxx I would make sure to buy a theme that amuses you. That tends to be a big part of the enjoyment of the game. There is a big "take that" element to this game, so if anyone is in danger of taking things personally they should avoid this. (Like they would Diplomacy.)

Ticket To Ride - It is not my favorite game, but it has wide appeal and is fun to play. There are many different versions and expansions, and all of them have some unique elements. Some gamers might steer you to the Märklin edition because that is the more advanced version that appeals more to the heavier gamer. Might want to start with the basic though.

Here are some other suggestions:
Cooperative games: I suggest trying a cooperative game, they are a very different experience than a normal competitive game. For beginners I suggest: Forbidden Island, Forbidden Desert or Hanabi. (Hanabi won the Speil de Jarhes this year so it is readily available and very cheap.)

Dice Games: If you like a good dice game I would try Can't Stop. It is a great "press your luck" style game. Another good one is Qwixx. (Which you can actually make your own if you print the score pads on BGG, and get the appropriately colored dice.) It is a little mathy, but if you can handle Rumikub then that will not be an issue.

Card Games: If you want a card game that allows for more strategic long term planning, I can't recommend Dominion enough. It is a tad drier than the other games I have mentioned so far. I don't know how old the kids are, so they might be too young for it at this point. But I couldn't write this list without recommending my favorite game.

Puzzle Games: If you like a good abstract puzzle game, Blokus is a great choice. I've seen it in department stores too.

[Ari]

One of the things I like about Cthulhu Munchkins is that its slight lean towards the monsters helps to balance out some of these power problems, where a bit more strategy is required, although it's not perfect (There's no reason not to become a cultist!).
Killer Bunnies. is Munchkins on steroids, while I love it, I wouldn't quite recommend it because of its daunting size as there are a billion expansions to it, but it's still playable as the starter set. While a game of bunnies can get pretty complex if you are into it, the hilarious/mean aspect is that you are all fighting for more chances to have drawn the special winning card.

[Demimonde]

First of all, cheers for instituting a family game night. Some of my fondest memories of my mom were game nights. It gets me all verklempt because that is when we were closest as a family with all of us together.

We love Fluxx. I own Starfluxx and Contra and I love playing a few games before dinner. Monty Python is a fun one too, we play that one with friends. You have to know your Python well to succeed at it.

Munchkin is really fun. There are loads of different expansions to keep it fresh and funny. It can take a few hours to play. Not monopoly long but longish.

Zombie dice is really fun. We picked that one up for the beach trip because it is easy to play in the wind. We played it every single day and it never got old.

Quiddler is a word game that uses cards. It is very well balanced for kids and adults to play together because many small words count as well as long wordy words. I am terrible at word games and even I love it.

Guillotine is one I picked up at a garage sale this last spring. It is French revolution themed and uses logic and luck. Each round nobles are lined up for execution and you work to change the order so that you can collect the most points. It sounds much more macabre than it is.

[Kael]

Guillotine is pretty fun and pretty fast if you're looking for a quick party game.

Munchkin is fun, but I have to admit to getting bored of it after a while, and it falls heavy on the luck side of things especially if you've combined a few decks. We have three of the D&D-style fantasy decks, and the winner is pretty consistently whoever gets the first 2-3 monsters they can actually beat (everyone I play with is pretty cutthroat and we don't help each other much without tangible benefit to ourself and minimal benefit to the player helped). We also have the spy deck and the first space deck. The mish-mash and shenanigans involved in cross-genre combo decks can be pretty hilarious if you've a taste for the absurd. Oh, and you're gonna want like an industrial strength card shuffler if you play with more than two decks. It sucks to try shuffling that many cards. You might instead try building a more-or-less regular sized deck out of your favorite cards from other decks if you feel like investing the time.

For non-generic dice games, I really enjoyed Quarriors. You buy dice corresponding to various monsters/spells/etc, and roll what you have on your turn to cast or summon what comes up and fight your opponents. It's been consistently fun and variable every time we've played it.

[erimir]

I enjoy Cards Against Humanity, but it is most certainly not appropriate for Kiddo.

[curses]

Thanks to Qingdai I now know of the existence of this game. Silly is the way to go and I'mma be watchin this thrad like a hawk. Or an eagle.

[Demimonde]

While Cards Against Humanity is a bit blue for kiddo, Apples to Apples is a fun game. It uses abstract associations as well as rhetorical elements of knowing your audience to succeed. I enjoyed playing it with my AVID kids that I tutored. Among the high school set, the write in card of "Yo mama" is never fail winner. Especially when played by a stogy authority figure.

Wits and Wagers is another fun board game that takes your opponents into account.

Others that I remember fondly from back in the day are Trouble, Ono, Sorry, and Candyland.

[Megatron]

RISK, motherfuckers.

[LadyShea]

I think we played Apples to Apples one Christmas (or something similar). It was hilarious as we had ages 3 to 93 playing and Kiddo and his great-grandma were prone to arguing with each other at that time.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Crumb

Card Games: If you want a card game that allows for more strategic long term planning, I can't recommend Dominion enough. It is a tad drier than the other games I have mentioned so far. I don't know how old the kids are, so they might be too young for it at this point. But I couldn't write this list without recommending my favorite game.

I tried this for the first time a week ago. I like it.

I think being an experienced Magic player and Magic drafter definitely makes it a lot easier to learn, since a lot of the things you learn that aren't obvious in Magic seem to correspond (i.e. cards with very good, but situational effects are generally bad/you have to build around them and be willing to abandon them if you can't support them; being able to draw more cards and do more things is really good; etc.).

I don't know that it'd be that easy for younger kids, but I guess if you're all just learning it might not be so bad.

[Ari]

To oddly continue my Cthulhu theme,
Call of Cthulhu the Card Game is a pretty fun 2 player Magic-esque card game which is just different enough from Magic to keep it interesting. While it can be played as a deck building style game, it's fun straight from the box by just mixing a few groups/colors. Each color has their strength and weakness but things are balanced towards the monsters (as any good Cthulhu game should) which means you can also adjust for skill level and give beginning players a more straight forwardly powerful deck.

[LadyShea]

Tell me about Smallworld peoples

[LadyShea]

So I have been watching some of those Wil Wheaton playing games videos (who would have thought that would be enjoyable to watch?) and we have several rounds of Ticket to Ride under our belts..fun! We also got Liar's Dice for Christmas, but Kiddo is somewhat confused by it. We'll keep playing. Tonight Kiddo and I learned cribbage from Hubby after receiving a vintage board from my parents; I had a blast, Kiddo started getting bored and restless toward the end (long game), but stuck it out.

Srsly I think Family Game Night is the best pop-psychology/marketing thing I have ever fallen for like a sucker. I really find it beneficial for all of us.

[LadyShea]

Any Rummikubers here? I want to be able to play with 5-8 players but am unsure if simply using two sets of tiles will work, or if it would mess something up. We used to play Gin Rummy with like 10 people and used extra decks of cards, so it seemed it would be the same thing right?

This here boardgamegeek thread talks about adding additional color sets via an expansion, and I don't get why that would be necessary or desirable.

ETA: NM figured it out. 2-4 players is played with 2 sets of tiles numbered 1-13 in four colors, for 5-6 players you play with 3 sets, and for 7-8 players you use 4 sets. I found a complete game on eBay that is exactly the same edition I already have (from 1990 yo!) so it will be perfect. I was worried about a new edition because they've changed the colors over the years.

[Crumb]

I've never played Rummikub with more than 4. Let us know how it goes.

[LadyShea]

We regularly have 5 people on game nights, so Kiddo always has to team up. We want him to be able to play his own tray. Also, we want to be able to introduce Rummikub to another part of the family that will always be at least 6 people and usually 8

Can you think of any reason it wouldn't work out, from a mathematical POV or anything?

[Crumb]

Not at all. I do wonder if it would take a much longer time. I think 8 would be too much, but 5 might be manageable. A game can get very boring fast if it is spent waiting on other players.

One thing that it might do is reduce the number of rounds where everyone draws a tile and no one plays.

[Ensign Steve]

I like to play backgammon, and apparently bey never has. I like it because it's easier than chess and way more interesting than checkers. I also like how cut-throat it can get. I've been thinking of picking up a set since forever. Just, you know. FYI.

[LadyShea]

You should get a set!

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Crumb

A game can get very boring fast if it is spent waiting on other players.

I think strict timing would be in order for sure, but LOL, we seem to enjoy showing off too much to get bored. One time Kiddo made like 10 unnecessary (but legal and correct) tile moves to play a single tile...I think just to be like Grandpa who shuffles the whole damn table all the time

[Crumb]

I do like to shuffle the tiles around a lot in that game. What annoys me are the players who shuffle the tiles around for 10 minutes, are not sure how to put things back into a legal state, and didn't manage to play a single tile.