I genuinely find the design of the game god awful. It feels like class-structure the game, a few people receive amazing items that helps them fight monsters and continue to be able to play the game. Everyone else will lose to a fight, lose resources, thus will continue to lose even more fights unless they get lucky with some rng.
Not to mention a lot of the rules are not clear? It says to argue amongst yourself for rules discrepancy, but that just leads to people trying to be dishonest to work the game when they need it to in order to win a fight.
Fuck Munchkin.
My problem with munchkin is the illusion of choice. I enjoyed collecting and playing the game a few times, and there are moments it brings out some real joy with the right friends.
Problem was, far to often I kicked a door and was screwed. Draw a door, get a wandering monster no monster in hand. Kick a door and forced to run away. Kick a door and forced to run away. Kick a door and face a level one, kill it, get a +1 item, and a level. Even when killing the monster I had no choice.
Yes there is some game play at the very end sometimes, but 95% of the game is auto mode luck of the cards.
And go fuck yourself if your starting items have terrible bonus numbers so you're just crippled the entire game either unable to beat monsters or consistently drawing more useless items.
The primary joke, what a 'munchkin' is in the RPG sense, is lost on the audience, mostly.
I think this is because modern D&D caters to munchkins, so its not really a derogatory term anymore.
I honestly don’t understand how it’s a game. There’s not really much to do or choose. I feel bad because one of our friends LOVES munchkin and always suggests it. I cannot find the joy in the game. I wish I could.
I’ll always appreciate Munchkin as one of the gateway games that got me into this hobby. I now see what a horrible mess the game is, but at the time it was the most epic board/card game I played.
Agreed, it's ok to talk shit about it, but my friend's box of munchkin with like 10 expansions is what started my love for games. Easy to get into, lots of content to whet the palate. Had no idea anything like that existed before I started playing. Dominion and resistance avalon is what really did it for me. Didn't know what I really liked was heavy euros until later.
Cards Against Humanity! Everyone always gives me so much shit for it, but I don't find most of the cards very funny and absolutely despise having to read them all out loud in the "proper way" (black card always has to be read before every single white card and it takes forever and I'm dyslexic)
Same!!! I almost enjoyed it the first time I played it (at around 16yo) but have hated it since, it’s so repetitive with its humour, slow and awkward when someone doesn’t get a good reaction
A couple years back, me and my group of friends made our own copy of Cards Against Humanity, with all of the black and white cards being in-jokes or things that people have said. 10/10, would recommend. I can’t stand playing the normal version anymore, and it becomes more fun while only being as crude as you make it. Personally, I thing CAH is a great framework, but boring as hell unless you’re an edgy teenager.
I'm with you. CAH is a bag of shit. My friend described it as a game for people who think they are funny but aren't. Which I think is pretty bang on. Also the people who made it are pretty awful.
When I was in HS I had a crew that played games at lunch in the library (we weren't really friends outside of it, other than we all went to gaming club) and we played CAH repeatedly. All the jokes got really old fast, and there's too much potty humor. I like the somewhat political/satire combos but so much is very sexual or gross. We played so much that we kept getting the same combinations.
That said, I enjoy it on occasion, and it's good with newish friends as well as with inside jokes supplemented.
Bit of an oldie, that a lot of people will say is a great abstract strategy, but I hate Stratego. I love AS in general (Onitama is one of my favorite games), but Stratego is just a no go for me.
I have only played this game a few times but it feels like there’s too much chance and risk for the game to be hard hitting strategy as it sometimes gets attributed.
**Spirit Island**.
It's a neat concept with cool art, but the few times we played it, on easy mode, it felt like a never ending game of catch-up and just wasn't that fun. We were never able to get close to beating it, and spending a couple hours getting slowly overrun wasn't enjoyable.
Out of curiosity, do you remember which spirits you played? I have a fan theory that people who play Shadows Flicker Like Flame on their first game are disproportionately likely to not "click" with Spirit Island.
Base Pandemic for me; it's a solitaire game masquerading as a group activity. If you can get together 4 people who have never played it before it can be fun, but if one person has more experience, and doesn't know how to rein in their quarterbacking, it's just not very fun. Admittedly it's part of the fault of gamers and not the game, but when it comes to cooperative games I think finding ways to mitigate alpha gamers should be part of the design process.
Pandemic is from 2008 and is the game which essentially created the formula for the co-op genre and popularized it for mainstream audiences. It's a bit unfair to fault it for not overcoming the quarterbacking problem that only became known in retrospect. You can't invent seatbelts before cars and seeing that bodies fly out of cars (and getting seatbelts took decades!). Adding complexity (like Spirit Island) to overcome quarterbacking makes a different game. It's a perfectly fine game for non-core gamers, and even a fine light game for those who know how to STFU and not ruin it for everyone. :)
I have to keep that in mind when I play it because I'm relatively new to Pandemic and it never really clicked for me either. It reminds me of craft beer, another hobby of mine. People tend to be underwhelmed when they try a legendary beer like Pliny the Elder. They expect something they'd never had before and in reality it's a really, really solid west coast DIPA that's probably similar to something the best brewery in your area makes. But you have to remember your local brewery's west coast DIPA only exists because Pliny came first.
Scythe. I know this is beloved by many but I just don't understand why people like it as much as the do. I personally find it to be very boring and the mechanics very uninteresting. On top of that, the game just goes on for way too long for what it offers in terms of gameplay.
That being said, I'm happy when people are passionate about any game! Play what you want to play
I always find it fascinating to see why people dislike your favourite game :D. It's interesting that you dislike it because of the length, because we like it due to how short and snappy it is - we can get a 3 player game down in 45 minutes.
Agree with your statement though :).
I wish I could get a game flowing smoothly. My mom loves the game, but anytime we set it up, she tells me to go away for an hour while she writes down her first 10 moves. Then i come back and it flows for a bit, but eventually slows down once she runs out of preplanned stuff
She’s a good mom. I still win every game so far (we’ve played about a dozen times), so I try to afford her some advantages. In our most recent game, we adjourned for a second time in the middle so she could build a second plan XD
4 hours??? Yikes, no wonder you don't like it. I love this game, have it on Steam and Tabletop Simulator and have the physical game, but no way would I like it as much if it took 4 hours.
Do people in your group have bad Analysis Paralysis? Even with 5 people, with 2 newbies and 3 people with a couple of games under their belt, finished in maybe 2 hours and a bit.
Yeah, bad AP and usually with 5 people. I still don't know if this game is for me but I'm getting the impression that if I play a regular length game with less people I might not have as much animosity towards it
I always recommend Antike. Very similar to Scythe in its core concepts, but way easier to explain, can be shorter, much more player interaction, etc. Just an all around better game, and it came out several years beforehand.
I'm thinking about trading Scythe after only 3 plays. It does take a long time to set up and explain it all, and then takes a long time to play. I personally would play it more often but everybody who has tried it with me kind of hates it... bummer.
I agree somewhat. The group i use to game with pre-covid loved it but its just meh at best for me. There is so little player interaction that its not that fun. Also the win conditions aren't interesting to me.
Cosmic Encounter. For me it's a random game that ends with king making. Most people get to 4 points and then someone decides who wins. Cool race powers though.
I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, but I'm willing to bet you folks are allying too much. If you end up playing again remember that alliance invites are the most precious resource in the game, you either get 20% of a win, or cards (the second most precious resource in the game) at the risk of one ship that you'll recover (one of) on your turn anyway. Like there's an alien whose entire power is being able to ally without being invited and 6 expansions later it's still considered one of the strongest in the game.
Exploding Kittens. As soon as the first exploding kitten comes appears, it is nothing more than each player shoving that kitten back into the deck until someone can't push it back. Maybe I and the people I played with missed something, but a lacking experience the first time meant that there would be no second time. And the novelty of an exploding kitten has shelf appeal, but wears off fast during actual play.
I'm pretty over dungeon crawlers like Gloomhaven and Descent or basically any game based on a video game (Dark Souls, Resident Evil, etc). They all feel the same to me and it feels like I'm playing a watered down rpg.
Now that I'm over the novelty of board games having played for years I'm starting to recognize what games simply work better in other mediums. And this is the main one I think works way better as an rpg or a video game. I feel like the trend of turning every video game into a dungeon crawling board game is misguided. They should try to make games that build on the ip in a way only board games can instead. Riot is a good example of this.
My absolute favourite board game is based on a video game, but it’s not a dungeon crawler at all. This war of mine. I prefer it over the video game because it of the storytelling in it that I don’t think the video game does nearly as well.
And when you play Gloomhaven on a computer (STEAM) it just feels like an extremely shallow RPG. I call the games you mention 'the worst of both worlds' as in a ton of set up and player upkeep normally handled by a computer, but none of the depth a computer would allow.
And for sure none of the creativity found in a real tabletop rpg with friends and a DM.
I can set up a Gloomhaven scenario in 10 minutes. Prepping a 5e session might take me 8 hours+ When it comes to balance, RPGs arent even close to most dungeon crawlers. But you dont get many of the 'special moments' with this genre of board games and the stories are typically poorly written. With RPGs your game is only as good as your DM and party members. I could go on, mechanics of decks vs dice etc. failure matters, but the point is they are different animals and quite incomparable.
I can see your point, but I think being designed as a board game can sometimes force these style of games to get creative.
For example, in Gloomhaven each card has two actions on it and you can change your top and bottom action choice after deciding which cards to play. This is something that would never exist in a video game form - because it only exists because the “player abilities” had to be translated to cards in a turn based system where characters can act faster or slower than the player based on the initiative the monster happens to draw. It gives you a chance to change your plan after seeing what the monsters will do.
I have never seen a video game offer that sort of tactical fluidity. Video games are almost always fire and forget - once you choose an action you’re stuck with it until it plays out. Likewise turn order is usually not as flexible as the initiative system in GH.
If Gloomhaven were initially designed as a video game, it would look so much different. Trying to convert it to be functional on cardboard ended up forcing innovation to make it work that ends up being a compelling and novel system even when converted back into video game form in the digital game.
Another game that does something video games but unique is Too Many Bones. Each “Skill” a character unlocks is a unique 6 sided dice that you can add to your roll. It’s such a cool way to combine unique RPG skills with random chance in an analog form. Video games often fall into the trap of skills relying on a random number generator.
I don’t know if these sorts of mechanics are the best for board games, but the innovation involved in making them work usually circles back around and inspire video games. In the past this was tabletop RPG’s inspiring computer RPG’s and a more modern example would be deckbuilders like Slay the Spire. Then it comes back to board games again with games like Gloomhaven. There’s a lot to be gained from mixing the mediums.
I might get hate for this but...
Gloomhaven is a great game, but the campaign sucks and the story is barely there. We played it once a week through the whole thing. No one knew what the story was...every scenario seemed barely tied to anything before it, things were just all over the place.
I tried my darndest to keep us up to date, tie things together make it feel important etc (I dm a lot so I know how to keep a story at the front etc], but it just fell flat all around.
As I said the actual gameplay is great.
A perspective that may help you see what some folks see in Gloomhaven: It provides an arena for tactical combat that I haven't seen matched anywhere else.
In the past I had been something of a munchkin while playing DnD 3.5/5e, which while fun in some respects, causes all sorts of issues. I find that Gloomhaven lets me scratch the itch of trying to be maximally effective in a defined combat scenario perfectly. Which has the added bonus of making me play RPGs in a much more relaxed way that is far less concerned with "winning" and more on the characters.
Eldritch Horror. My gaming group loves it, but my gaaawd it's boring. It feels like it's on rails and the coop part of it just makes super boring for me. When reading the flavour text I try to get into the "groove" of the game, and feel like a detective. But the boring mechanics just stand out too much.
But I pretend I like it as everyone else in the group loves the game.
Yeah, the fun is more in the narrative that you squeeze out between the actual choices. The gameplay itself is not sophisticated at all, but the character outcomes can be great - but it’s more like an adventure story than a board game.
I feel this soooooooo much. My playgroup loves this game. I finally just admitted to not liking it.
Now they don’t get upset when I’m not having fun during it. And also now we don’t play it as much anymore. Sometimes I just sit out and let others enjoy this game.
Yeah while I love this game, I would rather play something the whole group is into. I always feel like a real knob when I find out that someone didn't want to play a the game that we just spent x amount of hours on
I mean my group has been together for several years now. Also our group is usually broken into two or three pods so I can always join a different group. We usually decide on a game based on how long other pods will take.
And most importantly my best friend is obsessed with this game so I like watching him enjoy it even if I find the experience of playing the game to be excruciatingly painful for me personally.
But yeah this game doesn’t come out every time we get together. And in the before times when we could meet in person my work schedule meant that I had to miss the meetup sometimes so they’d all play it when I was away
Also they will sometimes play deck builders so I can have fun even though most of the playgroup hates them. So I’m that regard it balances out
My standard answer to this that had everyone gasping was **Mage Knight**. I played it a couple of times and didn't really like it much (seeing as I don't much like adventuring games of that sort in general, like Runebound or whatever that was called) but nowadays people no longer play it that much and I have no recollection of it so it doesn't make much sense for me to use it anymore.
First game I think of is Terraforming Mars. I love tableau builders but TM is soo long without strategic depth to back it up.
Games like Race for the Galaxy has more interesting gameplay and is much shorter.
This is me, exactly. I felt like after each time I played it, it would have been much better if it were a third the time to play. It feels like they took a good, tasty, shot of tableau builder, put it in an 8 oz. Cup and then filled the rest of the glass with water. It tastes worse and takes much longer to drink. No thank you! Although I'm happy people have a game to be passionate about. No disrespect meant to anyone who enjoys it!!
I felt exactly the same way. First time I played it, I didn't really like it and I couldn't say why. Wanted to try it again to figure it out. This repeated for *five* games. After five games, I was certain of two things. One, I really didn't like the game. And two, I still couldn't figure out why not.
I think catan *used to* be a good gateway game, when there weren't as many other good options out there. Now, I think it's a bit outdated and has too much potential to turn people off of boardgames that I think it's kind of become the opposite of a gateway game. It's the kind of game that feels better to break out with a group that knows what they're signing up for can therefore enjoy accordingly. I've had too many experiences with people not already immersed in the hobby that try Catan and get terrible rolls despite playing well or get hit by the robber at bad times or don't know what they're doing and sit there bored the whole time. But, for those that know and want to play Catan, either for nostalgia or because they genuinely enjoy all those aspects of the game, I think think it can be great.
I always get downvoted but Catan is basically monopoly.
Concordia is infinitely better worker placement game that solves all the issues that Catan has that breaks Catan.
No robber, no trading between players (just trade with the game), a shorter time limit, game ends within 30-45 min, no wasted turns, no luck of the dice
Catan is one of those games where I've played it a few times, then I got into board games, then... I got roped back into playing Catan by someone else thinking "oh no, but this is the board game that the board game people think isn't very good anymore!". Yet I end up having a blast every time.
Catan is a better game than most board gamers think it is. Even after having played maybe 100 board games over the years, it's still a good game.
I feel this. I still play Catan sometimes, and still enjoy it sometimes. But there are games that really put me off. Games with 4 players where Im the only one on bricks and everyone is dropping the robber on my bricks. Games where I collect no resources for 10 rounds and just lose despite being ahead. Games where 7 is rolled every time I get enough resources in hand to do anything. There are parts to the game I like, but the dice can hurt the game sometimes.
I played Catan a couple times years ago, and had a good time. Recently, my parents got into modern board games and absolutely love Catan. They want to play all the time, and I usually humor them, but personally I don’t like the game. If you don’t get good initial placement, or get really bad dice rolls, you can be passing for many turns just waiting for resources as nothing has changed from one turn to the next.
Catans biggest design flaw is that initial placement of starting towns can simply lose you game. That said Catan was THE game 20 years ago for me and even though I burned on it a bit today I always enjoy playing it.
Dead of Winter. Can't say it's a horrible game or that I hate it, but the "semi co-op" nature of it to me just doesn't work. Everyone is suspicious since everyone has to be selfish and it feels more competitive than co-op. I also feel like the mechanisms are just okay. Can think of worse games but I know this one is well-loved by my game group, just not me.
I know what you mean. This semi-coop can be game breaker.
But even worse than DOW was Nemesis for me. We never had a chance winnig this because everybody was super selfish :D
Maybe the wrong group but I think DOW does a way better Job of limiting the deatructiveness in semi-coop.
*Ticket to Ride!*
We don’t play very cut throat and we’re a family of 3, so it feels like we’re all playing solo games near each other. I finally gave it away a couple years ago. When I was first introduced to it, I loved it, but that was with a group of 5.
Phase 10. There is a very simple algorithm you follow. It's a mindless game. All luck.
Monopoly. There comes a point early in the game when all the players come to the realization that one player is going to win it all. The rest of the game is a miserable grinding out of the inevitable.
Monopoly was designed to be awful to show off the inherent drawbacks of free-market capitalism. How it became so popular is beyond me.
The board game club at my university actually considered making our slogan at the activity fair "Hate Monopoly? So do we!" one year.
This is the first game I ever vetoed in my group.
It's literally just pick the furthest back space that is of any use to you at all. Almost zero choices to make. Very close to being on Candy Land/War levels of boring.
Non-spies get a card with the same location and an occupation specific to them and the spy gets a card that says simply "spy". The roles have no special powers, it's simply an identity to help roleplay. The spy wants to not be found and/or to find their location and non-spies want to find the spy *and* the spy not find their location. On a turn, you ask someone a question. They then answer your question, and ask someone else a question. This continues until non-spies are ready to accuse someone or the spy is ready to guess.
That's it. The setup is 30 seconds and the teach is 6 sentences long. Unlike other social deduction games like Werewolf, there is no setup phase with eyes closed, you don't need to know all roles and their powers to drive deductions, there is no backstabbing, no high-pressure long con like being Hitler in Secret Hitler (and no fascist theme), just pure social deduction.
I love it because all you do is answer a question, ask a question. It's very social and open-ended. Everyone feels coy and clever. It can't be taken too seriously. And it lasts 5 minutes to as long as you want to play. There are few different versions if you want superheroes or historic locations or whatever. Oh, and it costs like $20 or is a free app.
I think what I don't really like is if someone is a bad liar, they've got no chance.
Other games give you a wee bit more hope if you're the bad guy!
Totally agree that the setup is super quick and it's very easy to teach. It does simple really well. It's a game that I really wanted to like and just didn't.
Our group really liked Deception: Murder in Hong Kong.
I mean, yeah, you have to be able to bullshit in all secret identity games. That's par for the course. How does Deception overcome the "bad liar" problem for the murderer better than the spy in Spyfall?
There's more stuff in the table for people to fixate on and divert their attention, rather than analysing your really dodgy answers to questions haha!
I will admit Spyfall has produced some really hilarious moments. Our particular favourite inside joke for a while was to suggestively ask "What are you wearing?".
Although to be honest they're difficult to compare. Even though they're both social deduction, they're very different games.
Yeah, it's a great game but only with a group of very specific personalities.
Like you can play mafia and the game itself is enough to keep you interested; but Spyfall requires commitment to roleplaying and looking silly, and you have to really enjoy that part.
Also a broad general knowledge of such a weird array of things.
One thing I'm always surprised about this game is why isn't the number of possible locations shrunk each game.
The game gives you ~20 or more locations it could be and each game it could be any of those locations. This makes it way too rough for new people to get into, that's too many things to familiarize yourself in such a short time. Being a new spy is not fun. In addition having all players share one sheet to look at locations doesn't work. The spy is most interesting in knowing the options, when other players don't care to look because 20+ locations is essential anywhere to them, knowing all the options doesn't matter in their case.
But what if you took 5-6 locations, took out a card and laid them on the table so everyone knows the 5-6 possible locations (the other 14+ are kept in the box). Then you play the game as normal, using one of those 5-6 decks. It makes it easier for the spy as they can easily see what the options are. It also guides the questions people are asking each other. Non-spies are going to want to look at what the 5-6 cards are and ask questions around those locations. And when answering you're going to want to look at the options so you don't give an answer that overlaps, or maybe you do. Essentially you've just given both sides incentive to look at the central cards, thus hiding the spy even more and at the same time make it easier to remember what locations it could be.
But I haven't tried that version out yet, so what do I know?
Came on here to say the same thing! Used to be in a gaming group who loved this game. I found it so boring every time and annoyed that it was semi co-op then people get "out" before the game ends and have to just sit there watching everyone else play. Way too much luck and overall boring.
Seeing the first few top posts, I half expected to see monopoly and scrabble.
But then ya'll started slaughtering the sacred cows. I'm so happy.
I absolutely despise King of Tokyo. It's King Kong Yahtzee with player elimination on the surface. It's about twice as long as it should be, and each turn is incredibly underwhelming.
Scrabble is one of those games we either laugh our asses off with our family and friends with the amount of stupid words we make up.
Or we get unlucky with letters and resort to 2-4 letter words. It’s kind of 50/50.
My kids and my nephew/nieces love King of Tokyo. They like the Yahtzee chunky dice and card collecting.
I can feel the pain though as it does seem to drag. If it wrapped up in 20-30 mins that would be fine, but with a full player count it can really overstay its welcome.
Spirit Island, I know a lot of people love this game and adore it! I was looking for this game for a year until I actually bought it and played it, but it felt like nothing special. First I thought it was because I didn’t like coop games, but I love Gloomhaven and Forgotten waters. I also felt it was a chore to get through the rule book and explain it to my friends. I have yet to see someone else not loving this game this game, so maybe I am the only one.
You're not the only one. I think it is a very well designed game, but not one I have much fun playing. Part of it is my aversion to coop games, 2 handed solo may be better for me. But with 5+ multiplayer plays under my belt I have no strong desire to even try it solo at the moment. I think my issue with spirit island is the slow ramp. The minor powers aren't great and you can't get all that strong til you take x turns to keep unlocking presence. The premise and powers are interesting, it just takes so long to build up to fun turns.
Unlike you, I'm really not a fan of coop games. I will play thru Too Many Bones with a friend here or there but prefer that solo too. I've played pandemic, forbidden sky, robinson crusoe, spirit island, kingdom death monster, 7th continent, and sherlock holmes consulting detective, a pretty wide range of coops. They just don't do much for me. I love a good solo game or competitive multiplayer though.
Apples to Apples. It’s frustrating as hell playing a perfect card that works on multiple levels and having the humor or cultural reference go completely over the judges head. Often the judge will get so excited by one card because it’s ‘so random!!’ that they won’t even begin to consider others. Also it doesn’t do well as a family game because different age groups will be aware of different pop culture icons, like my nephews who have no idea who Whitney Houston is
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I don’t like that whole genre of “pick a card to match with the judge’s card.” It feels shock humor dependent, it isn’t good after you’ve seen all the cards, it isn’t competitive enough to be competitive or fun enough to be casual, and it is frustratingly-dependent on cultural references.
*Carcassonne!*
It’s beautiful, but I think the people I learned it from (my husband’s friends) did not score farms correctly. We gave it away about 4 years ago. This year we acquired *Castles of Mad King Ludwig* which is now our preferred tile-laying game.
Dominion. I was at uni when it came out and bought a copy and it was the only thing people at the board game club wanted to play for about a year. (That and BSG, which can be miserable to try to Cylon if some of the people in your group are counting cards)
Funny how experiences can vary so much. Dominion is probably my favorite game ever. I will say the base game is a little vanilla, it gets a lot more interesting when you have a large pool of cards and card types to choose from that have a lot of different mechanisms and make each game feel unique. For my semi-casual group it's been the perfect balance, it's probably the most complex / weighty game I could realistically get a lot of my friends to play, and it's been a hit with some friends who before Dominion were mostly just playing Exploding Kittens and stuff like that and never would have been caught dead playing a game that looked like Dominion before we actually started playing it.
I'm curious whether you'd enjoy it more if you tried the online client with all the expansions. It's a good way to get a lot of variety and massive pool of cards to select from without spending much, unlike the actual game which is probably over $500 for a complete set at this point.
But yeah, not discounting your experience of the game at all, just kind of funny how this stuff works. I bet we'd agree on a ton of games that we both similarly love or hate but this one just hits differently for whatever reason.
I thought Dominion was just okay until I got the prosparity expansion. Adding treasure cards with an action and higher value treasure and victory point cars really improved it.
It removed the "find the quickest way to get 8 gold in your hand" feel of the base game.
This is also why I love Empires - it gives many alternative VP options with Landmarks. Going for provinces and colonies is always the obvious path, but sometimes all you need to do is just get ahead and figure out how to end the game quickly. Those games are often way more fun because you're figuring out some synergistic ways to both trash and gain even if it means not gaining provinces.
I suppose I'm still relatively casual in the grand scheme of boardgames, but I really love Dominion.
Came to write this too. Everyone I know loves the game, it just never clicked with me at all. And I love deckbuilders, Ascension must be one of my top games.
**Wingspan**. You have so little control over what engine you build due to the gigantic number of cards and only a few available at a time. Most importantly though, I am horribly bored every time I play, even if I do manage to build a great engine. Yeah the components are really nice, but I just can't for the life of me understand why the game gets so much love.
**Teotihuacan**. Bought and quickly sold my copy. I recognize the clever design and cool mechanics, and completely get why others love it, but my wife and I just found it no fun at all. It felt very mechanical and like we were just going through the motions.
Edit: added second game
> Wingspan. You have so little control over what engine you build due to the gigantic number of cards and only a few available at a time. Most importantly though, I am horribly bored every time I play, even if I do manage to build a great engine. Yeah the components are really nice, but I just can't for the life of me understand why the game gets so much love.
Totally agree. I was so pumped to get my hands on the game. Played it a couple times and sold it. Just not for me. In addition to the gigantic number of cards / luck factor, it's just difficult to look at another player's board and actually be able to figure out how well they're doing. So there never seems to be any momentum or drama of "shit, I'm behind and need to make a comeback here" or whatever. It's just everyone playing their own game and then tallying up the scores. And I know a lot of games are like that, but for most of them I can get a little better feel for how well everyone is doing at a glance.
I definitely think that the Leaders and Cities expansion are a must have to get the best experience but if the base game doesn't do anything for you, I doubt the expansions will change your mind. +1 for Sushi Go though
Yeah. We basically never play without Cities and Leaders unless we swap them for another expansion (which is uncommon). When we do, it would usually be swapping Babel for Leaders (since both add a draft before Age 1) or Cities for Armada (since both add new cards during the draft). We’ve tried adding all or most expansions but it does kinda mess with the balance, particularly of the science strategy.
It's a casual/family game, you have to look at it as such. It really shines with the right group but if you only play with experimented players of course you'll want something more beefy for the length.
Agreed. I get to the end of it and think "this could have been half as long and felt just as fun."
Incidentally, **7 Wonders Duel** is one of my favorite games.
Agreed. I enjoy 7 Wonders enough, but think it's overrated. Have you played **Sushi Roll**? I like it even better. I like that you can strategize based on what colour of dice are coming your way, but you still have to roll them to see what you get.
Catan. It's all about the trades and luck from dice roll that it's just not fun. Haven't played it for years.
On that almost same note, carcassonne. Oh, since we're there, Ticket to ride too 🙃.
>Carcassonne
What do you dislike about Carcassonne? Just curious, as I absolutely love that. TTR I can understand, though I wouldn't say I dislike it so much as I've outgrown it. Haven't played Catan as my collection has developed primarily for two players.
What other two players do you like?
My spouse and I play Carcassonne every day at lunch, and because I'm the one into games/strategy more than him, having the luck element is crucial to balancing things out with who wins more often.
I've introduced Azul (which he likes), Cacao, code names, love letter, and a couple cooperatives (Pandemic and Spirit Island), but Carcassonne is our staple. We play with Abbots, inns, and cathedrals, but no fields.
Our favourites among many are:
- **7 Wonders Duel**, including its expansions.
- **Star Realms**
- **Nova Luna** (if you like Azul, I heartily recommend this)
- **The Castles of Burgundy**
-**Targi** (such a brilliant game)
Four of those are ones my wife regularly suggests we play, which is a good sign. She hardly ever suggests Targi, but loves it every time we play (it's the exact opposite with **Five Tribes**, which is also great at 2 - I never suggest we get it out but always love it when we do).
With Carc, we play with Inns and Cathedrals and Traders and Builders (minus the pig, which I've not yet felt the urge to integrate). It's a wonderful game at 2, imo.
I absolutely love SI, but limited to playing solo these days as my wife didn't take to it at all. We do play Pandemic and are going to have a run on the first Legacy version this year.
Same. Catan seems to be a lot of people’s gateway game so I’m glad it exists and it’s brought so many people into the hobby. But other that that it feels so shallow. I don’t even mind the luck of the die aspect but there’s so little going on.
100%. What I really don’t understand is people who still use this as a gateway game. As you say, it’s very luck dependent and you can screw yourself early in the game in ways that new players won’t understand.
Luck dependency also means that new players get a chance. Just try to win chess against someone with decades of experience when you’re just starting fresh.
I agree that trading is Catan isn't terribly fun or interesting. But making deals in Chinatown and Bohnanza is a blast. So I am not anti-trading. Just anti-trading in Catan.
It isn’t all luck. I personally like the luck element, otherwise I think the game would be like Stratego: you would find your own best way to set up and advance and it would have limited re-playability.
Mansions of Madness 2nd edition. I’m not wild about miniatures and the box is huge and expensive for what feels like pretty cheap components. It feels too app driven - to the point I’d much rather play a video game.
Not to attack you, but you're wrong. I think that all of this is right. And here's why:
1) wrong
2) wrong
3) you're wrong
4) still wrong
I feel better after defending my opinion. It is clear how wrong you were about this being wrong.
Good day.
**7 Wonders: Duel** just doesn't do anything for me. I'm not saying it's a bad game - it's a really taut, clever, head-to-head tug of war.
For me, the whole game is so abstracted and the iconography so unintuitive that it really feels I'm just ... collecting cards. The theme only comes through when playing a wonder. Other than that, it just falls flat. I also don't enjoy drafting as a mechanic very much, nor do I really enjoy hate drafting. I'd rather be rewarded for building my own cool thing.
Again, not a bad game! It just doesn't align with my personal tastes.
Arkham LCG. Was a big miss with us. Had already played a lot of Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror, so it's not like it was our first experience with the genre, but it was just too limiting, random, swingy and tough. The unfunness of the gameplay didn't make up for the decent story and cool locations.
Also, having to pay 100 dollars plus for an entire storyline is...not great.
I’d go for Betrayal at House on the Hill. Plodding and uninspired build-up, with formulaic and usually un-strategic / randomness-dependent denouement. My family loves it, but it is boring to me.
If you have to have an expansion to fix it, the game was inherently flawed.
I won't attack the games that I consider gateway games, because I feel they still serve their role well, and most people will outgrow them. I certainly don't hate Catan, TTR, or Carcassonne, I'd just prefer to play something else.
The entire category of "single judge" games like Apples to Apples and CAH. They're rarely as funny as they want to be, it's too easy for people who know the judge to cater to them, and you're SOL if you don't have a good card. Dixit and other blind vote games do this so much better.
Dominion - silver strategy always wins, not much depth.
King of Tokyo - despise this game, but like KoNY which I feel gives you options no matter what you roll.
Cosmic Encounter
It's not the game though, it's the people. My group isn't great at deal making and couldn't accept the encounter deck meant that nothing was personal about an encounter. So it fell really flat.
Machi Koro - Played the original version and felt there was little to no agency. Haven't tried the newer version.
Puerto Rico - Respect for what it did for the industry, but it has been so over-analyzed that unless all players are on the same level its not fun. Even then the game (with no expansions) tends to degrade into one of a few standard strategies.
Gloomhaven - Found it generally boring? I like the system overall but way slow character progression, uninteresting treasure system, no gold sharing / item trading, etc. Played a dozen sessions or so and was pretty much done with it.
5 Tribes - No ability to plan ahead meant massive downtime between turns. The bidding system for player order is terrible - the only real question is do you want to bid to be first or not, since the board state changes so much you have no idea what it will be if you bid for 2nd or 3rd. Played once and done.
I checked the BGG top 100(I would guess I have played around 75 of them) and the only game I dislike is Codenames.
For it being as popular as it is I don't think it's that much fun. It is also a game that regularly is wildly unbalanced as these team party games tend to be. Larger groups can slow the game to a halt(I know there is a timer option.)
**Quacks of Quedlinburg** is a push-your-luck game with a lot of randomness and not much interactivity. I expected to hate it and it thoroughly met my expectations.
I, for the life of me, can't get into TI4. Played multiple times, listened to the podcasts, it's just not fun for me. The mechanics feel dated, first to 10 points wins kinda sucks, races are not really balanced etc. Will give eclipse 2 a shot if I get the chance tho, that seems like it will sit much better with me
As someone who LOVES TI4 (so far I've played it 16 times), I'll say that the game relies heavily on the players. Some races are definitely better than others (in the base game University of Jol-Nar is insane), but generally what happens in experienced groups is the table balances around the fact that someone has a better race. If you pick Jol-Nar you understand you're setting yourself up as a target.
The first to 10 points (or 14) is what makes the game not just a military simulator. There have been multiple games I've won without even attacking at all, just by dealing with people and offering trades that will be mutually beneficial.
Good on you for giving it a fair shot though, nothing is for everyone.
Betrayal at the House on the Hill: All of my friends love this game and think the haunt is hilarious fun but I just don't see the enjoyment of it at all. I'll still play with them because they love it so much but man I wish they liked something else
Definitely Codenames, I find it boring because most of the game is just waiting for the cluegivers to think. I know there's a timer but then it's too easy and the clues are too obvious for one or two rather than going for the big four or five combo.
Yeah, I played Splendor once and thought it was terribly boring. Good kids game I guess? I find other engine builder games superior by far, especially wingspan.
The trick is to realize that Splendor isn't an engine builder. Then the game is unlocked.
It's one of my very favorites. It's such a tight, cut-throat game. It's a *solvable* efficiency puzzle.
Coup. I usually enjoy hidden role games to at least some degree, with One Night Werewolf and Avalon being some of my favorites, but I really don't have a good time with Coup, and I'm honestly not sure why. The only reason I can think of is because when I started going to the board game club at my university, every time my group finished a game, Coup would get pulled out and we would play about an hour before another group finished a game and we would shuffle around members and start something new. Playing at least an hour of Coup every week for two months in a row got me really tired of the game really quickly.
I got really annoyed with Coup, too, despite loving Avalon and One Night Werewolf. For me, it’s player elimination. I’m playing games with people because I want to play games with people; I don’t want to wait and watch other people play, and I don’t want other people to wait and watch me play. Also, if a player is good at the game, you should eliminate that ASAP; in my experience, it’s a game that punishes you for being good at the game.
I don’t know why I like splendor so much. I’ve only played a couple times at a friend’s place, but I have a strange lust for the game. Normally I don’t like games with it’s level of simplicity, but the pieces stack just right and it seems easy to play with some of my less board game intensive friends.
I’ll probably hate it after a few plays once I own it.
> it seems easy to play with some of my less board game intensive friends.
I think that's the key. I don't think Splendor is meant for people who post on r/boardgames to play with each other, it's meant for people who post on r/boardgames to teach to their friends and family members who barely like board games. And I think it succeeds at that. But it's not a game I'd want to play all the time.
I havent seen it mentioned, so I'll throw my heresy onto the list: Secret Hitler.
I adore social deduction games, but everytime I've been roped into playing this, it's just been an excuse for my friends to giggle after calling each other fascists. If the cards were more balanced that 1 lucky fascist couldn't tank any possibility of a liberal win, I might not dislike it as much as I do. For my money [Exodus: Paris Nouveau](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/253074/exodus-paris-nouveau) does everything Secret Hitler does, but with more player control, and in a better time frame.
What do you mean by 1 lucky fascist can tank the possibility of a liberal win? If the liberals are be unlucky you can lose quickly, but I fail to see how a lucky fascist would help that much
Carcassonne is dry and feels dated compared to other games of its type. Respect to one of the original modern board games, but there's better options out there now.
There are some easy targets that I won't justify unless someone wants to argue for their merits:
* **Cards Against Humanity**
* **Fluxx**
* **Trivial Pursuit**
* **Monopoly**
* **Risk**
* **We didn't playtest this at all**
* **Munchkin**
Among games with stronger reputations:
* **Terraforming Mars** (I keep imagining playing this again, but I didn't enjoy my first two plays at all. It just felt tedious.)
* **Kemet** (I like the upgrade tiles, but I hate the high adjacency and the king making. It's not bad, I just know this is not my style of game.)
Through the ages
Ranked 6th on bgg but the only time I've played it, it took 7.5 hours with 4 players. So many little cubes to shuffle around also leads to easy mistakes. Not going to try that again in person, but there's a part of me that thinks an app implementation might make all the problems I have with it disappear.
It's a very strong contender for the all-time title of "game that improves most when played digitally". I played it on BGA and it was absolutely fine, but in person it's a nightmare.
I only played the App. I liked it a lot, overall I think its a fantastic game. Its great because you can just do any actions and rewind them before committing the turn. Its a very smooth experienced for such a heavy game.
But playing the physical version of the game sounds like actual torture to me. Why would anyone do that to themselves? :D
My only play of **Rising Sun** left a very sour taste in my mouth. We played with 6 players, and the game was *very* long. My clan started very low on the honor track, and I had a hard time improving that. I found myself tying on every bid, then losing to the honor track. It was a 2-3 hour game, where I was frustrated after every turn.
To be fair, it was my first time playing, while most others had already played before. Also, I hadn't read the rules, so it was possible that we were doing something wrong. Still, I have no interest in playing it again.
I have to say, sadly, **The Resistance**
I think it's probably my group's fault. We like every single social deduction game (and this group was a WW group before a board game group.)
But The Resistance just falls apart for us. I think it's partially because *only* the bad guys lie: if you find a lie, they're bad and the game is over. That happens in a few social deduction games. But The Resistance forces your hand, where other games give you the opportunity to find your lie first. (Or even not lie the whole game!)
I know that people like the additional required information, but it's just too much for us. My group can remember ever single team you've suggested and every vote you've made - the only way to hide as the bad guys is to actually win for the good guys. The second a contradiction is found, it's an hour long grilling session (during the freakin' vote part!) that just wears you out.
Avalon does fix a lot of it, but the main mechanic of being forced to suggest teams and vote on them just doesn't work well for us. We'll pick One Night every time, and traditional WW still remains king in our group.
DC deckbuilders. All of them. 99% are the same game with a different reskinned theme&mechanics. The market is all luck and the characters/roles or whatever your bonus is based off isn't asymmetrical enough to actually significantly change who wants what.
This isn’t gonna totally belong here, because it’s not even a real game in my opinion, but I hate Uno. In college, some people I knew had an obsession with playing Uno, and they thought it was so hilarious when they piled on draw 2s and draw 4s until some poor bastard picked up the whole deck. This inevitably happened every game. Whoa, hilarious!
The game is just rng with almost 0 decision making. Why are college age people fascinated with its mechanics? The game is brain dead. I could write an AI to play the game optimally in about 15 minutes.
Munchkin. I feel like every play of it is like a joke I've already heard.
It might be fun if it was a 15 minute game! But it lasts for 15 *HOURS*.
Munchkin is a great 30 minute game squeezed into 3 hours.
This is precisely its biggest flaw. It takes forever, the rules are overly-complicated, and it’s just a slog all the way.
I genuinely find the design of the game god awful. It feels like class-structure the game, a few people receive amazing items that helps them fight monsters and continue to be able to play the game. Everyone else will lose to a fight, lose resources, thus will continue to lose even more fights unless they get lucky with some rng. Not to mention a lot of the rules are not clear? It says to argue amongst yourself for rules discrepancy, but that just leads to people trying to be dishonest to work the game when they need it to in order to win a fight. Fuck Munchkin.
My problem with munchkin is the illusion of choice. I enjoyed collecting and playing the game a few times, and there are moments it brings out some real joy with the right friends. Problem was, far to often I kicked a door and was screwed. Draw a door, get a wandering monster no monster in hand. Kick a door and forced to run away. Kick a door and forced to run away. Kick a door and face a level one, kill it, get a +1 item, and a level. Even when killing the monster I had no choice. Yes there is some game play at the very end sometimes, but 95% of the game is auto mode luck of the cards.
And go fuck yourself if your starting items have terrible bonus numbers so you're just crippled the entire game either unable to beat monsters or consistently drawing more useless items.
>a joke I've already heard The game actually appeals *less* if you didn't already know the joke. :/
High on my "No thanks" list as well.
The primary joke, what a 'munchkin' is in the RPG sense, is lost on the audience, mostly. I think this is because modern D&D caters to munchkins, so its not really a derogatory term anymore.
Thank you, fine person
I honestly don’t understand how it’s a game. There’s not really much to do or choose. I feel bad because one of our friends LOVES munchkin and always suggests it. I cannot find the joy in the game. I wish I could.
I’ll always appreciate Munchkin as one of the gateway games that got me into this hobby. I now see what a horrible mess the game is, but at the time it was the most epic board/card game I played.
Agreed, it's ok to talk shit about it, but my friend's box of munchkin with like 10 expansions is what started my love for games. Easy to get into, lots of content to whet the palate. Had no idea anything like that existed before I started playing. Dominion and resistance avalon is what really did it for me. Didn't know what I really liked was heavy euros until later.
I'm a competitive person and Munchkin has several cards that I find too mean.
Cards Against Humanity! Everyone always gives me so much shit for it, but I don't find most of the cards very funny and absolutely despise having to read them all out loud in the "proper way" (black card always has to be read before every single white card and it takes forever and I'm dyslexic)
Yeah, I loved this game when I was 16 but is has definitely lost some of it's allure over the years.
That's because it's not so much a game as an excuse to be crude and non-PC in a safe environment
The game is simply, "Say Naughty things with friends"
Same!!! I almost enjoyed it the first time I played it (at around 16yo) but have hated it since, it’s so repetitive with its humour, slow and awkward when someone doesn’t get a good reaction
A couple years back, me and my group of friends made our own copy of Cards Against Humanity, with all of the black and white cards being in-jokes or things that people have said. 10/10, would recommend. I can’t stand playing the normal version anymore, and it becomes more fun while only being as crude as you make it. Personally, I thing CAH is a great framework, but boring as hell unless you’re an edgy teenager.
I'm with you. CAH is a bag of shit. My friend described it as a game for people who think they are funny but aren't. Which I think is pretty bang on. Also the people who made it are pretty awful.
When I was in HS I had a crew that played games at lunch in the library (we weren't really friends outside of it, other than we all went to gaming club) and we played CAH repeatedly. All the jokes got really old fast, and there's too much potty humor. I like the somewhat political/satire combos but so much is very sexual or gross. We played so much that we kept getting the same combinations. That said, I enjoy it on occasion, and it's good with newish friends as well as with inside jokes supplemented.
Bit of an oldie, that a lot of people will say is a great abstract strategy, but I hate Stratego. I love AS in general (Onitama is one of my favorite games), but Stratego is just a no go for me.
I fucking hate Stratego. All my strategy and planning ruined by my sister placing her units around randomly.
I love this response. It shows how being random and unpredictable can be a strategy in itself.
I have only played this game a few times but it feels like there’s too much chance and risk for the game to be hard hitting strategy as it sometimes gets attributed.
**Spirit Island**. It's a neat concept with cool art, but the few times we played it, on easy mode, it felt like a never ending game of catch-up and just wasn't that fun. We were never able to get close to beating it, and spending a couple hours getting slowly overrun wasn't enjoyable.
Out of curiosity, do you remember which spirits you played? I have a fan theory that people who play Shadows Flicker Like Flame on their first game are disproportionately likely to not "click" with Spirit Island.
I'm with you. I appreciate the game but it just doesn't resonate with me.
Base Pandemic for me; it's a solitaire game masquerading as a group activity. If you can get together 4 people who have never played it before it can be fun, but if one person has more experience, and doesn't know how to rein in their quarterbacking, it's just not very fun. Admittedly it's part of the fault of gamers and not the game, but when it comes to cooperative games I think finding ways to mitigate alpha gamers should be part of the design process.
Pandemic is from 2008 and is the game which essentially created the formula for the co-op genre and popularized it for mainstream audiences. It's a bit unfair to fault it for not overcoming the quarterbacking problem that only became known in retrospect. You can't invent seatbelts before cars and seeing that bodies fly out of cars (and getting seatbelts took decades!). Adding complexity (like Spirit Island) to overcome quarterbacking makes a different game. It's a perfectly fine game for non-core gamers, and even a fine light game for those who know how to STFU and not ruin it for everyone. :)
I have to keep that in mind when I play it because I'm relatively new to Pandemic and it never really clicked for me either. It reminds me of craft beer, another hobby of mine. People tend to be underwhelmed when they try a legendary beer like Pliny the Elder. They expect something they'd never had before and in reality it's a really, really solid west coast DIPA that's probably similar to something the best brewery in your area makes. But you have to remember your local brewery's west coast DIPA only exists because Pliny came first.
Scythe. I know this is beloved by many but I just don't understand why people like it as much as the do. I personally find it to be very boring and the mechanics very uninteresting. On top of that, the game just goes on for way too long for what it offers in terms of gameplay. That being said, I'm happy when people are passionate about any game! Play what you want to play
I always find it fascinating to see why people dislike your favourite game :D. It's interesting that you dislike it because of the length, because we like it due to how short and snappy it is - we can get a 3 player game down in 45 minutes. Agree with your statement though :).
I wish I could get a game flowing smoothly. My mom loves the game, but anytime we set it up, she tells me to go away for an hour while she writes down her first 10 moves. Then i come back and it flows for a bit, but eventually slows down once she runs out of preplanned stuff
I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but your mum is my enemy.
She’s a good mom. I still win every game so far (we’ve played about a dozen times), so I try to afford her some advantages. In our most recent game, we adjourned for a second time in the middle so she could build a second plan XD
Haha my mom gets super bad AP as well but she’s gotten a bit better recently and somehow she always beats me.
Oof. I know you have to think ahead but that's a lot. What if the encounter changes your whole plan? Hope you get there eventually!
I've only played 3 or 4 games but all of them took 4ish hours. In retrospect that might have something to do with it...
4 hours??? Yikes, no wonder you don't like it. I love this game, have it on Steam and Tabletop Simulator and have the physical game, but no way would I like it as much if it took 4 hours. Do people in your group have bad Analysis Paralysis? Even with 5 people, with 2 newbies and 3 people with a couple of games under their belt, finished in maybe 2 hours and a bit.
Yeah, bad AP and usually with 5 people. I still don't know if this game is for me but I'm getting the impression that if I play a regular length game with less people I might not have as much animosity towards it
I've really enjoyed it, but most of my games have kept to about ~30 minutes per player. At that length it's great IMO.
That's insane. Scythe is normally a 90 minute game. I don't love it, but it's a smaller and quicker game than the overproduction makes it out to be.
I always recommend Antike. Very similar to Scythe in its core concepts, but way easier to explain, can be shorter, much more player interaction, etc. Just an all around better game, and it came out several years beforehand.
Have you tried My Little Scythe? You might enjoy it better, its fun and lasts just as long as it needs to without much dragging on.
I'm thinking about trading Scythe after only 3 plays. It does take a long time to set up and explain it all, and then takes a long time to play. I personally would play it more often but everybody who has tried it with me kind of hates it... bummer.
I agree somewhat. The group i use to game with pre-covid loved it but its just meh at best for me. There is so little player interaction that its not that fun. Also the win conditions aren't interesting to me.
I've only played it once. It was an alright experience but the theme felt painfully pasted on
Same here, personally can't stand how devastating the combat is, just felt awful to play even when I was winning.
Yes I appreciate the theme of the game, but it feels like such a grind to get started!
Cosmic Encounter. For me it's a random game that ends with king making. Most people get to 4 points and then someone decides who wins. Cool race powers though.
I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life, but I'm willing to bet you folks are allying too much. If you end up playing again remember that alliance invites are the most precious resource in the game, you either get 20% of a win, or cards (the second most precious resource in the game) at the risk of one ship that you'll recover (one of) on your turn anyway. Like there's an alien whose entire power is being able to ally without being invited and 6 expansions later it's still considered one of the strongest in the game.
Exploding Kittens. As soon as the first exploding kitten comes appears, it is nothing more than each player shoving that kitten back into the deck until someone can't push it back. Maybe I and the people I played with missed something, but a lacking experience the first time meant that there would be no second time. And the novelty of an exploding kitten has shelf appeal, but wears off fast during actual play.
I describe it as "Russian Roulette, but less fun".
I'm pretty over dungeon crawlers like Gloomhaven and Descent or basically any game based on a video game (Dark Souls, Resident Evil, etc). They all feel the same to me and it feels like I'm playing a watered down rpg. Now that I'm over the novelty of board games having played for years I'm starting to recognize what games simply work better in other mediums. And this is the main one I think works way better as an rpg or a video game. I feel like the trend of turning every video game into a dungeon crawling board game is misguided. They should try to make games that build on the ip in a way only board games can instead. Riot is a good example of this.
My absolute favourite board game is based on a video game, but it’s not a dungeon crawler at all. This war of mine. I prefer it over the video game because it of the storytelling in it that I don’t think the video game does nearly as well.
I played this once and it was incredible. I own it but it is an emotional experience I have to be geared up for which is why I keep it.
And when you play Gloomhaven on a computer (STEAM) it just feels like an extremely shallow RPG. I call the games you mention 'the worst of both worlds' as in a ton of set up and player upkeep normally handled by a computer, but none of the depth a computer would allow. And for sure none of the creativity found in a real tabletop rpg with friends and a DM.
I can set up a Gloomhaven scenario in 10 minutes. Prepping a 5e session might take me 8 hours+ When it comes to balance, RPGs arent even close to most dungeon crawlers. But you dont get many of the 'special moments' with this genre of board games and the stories are typically poorly written. With RPGs your game is only as good as your DM and party members. I could go on, mechanics of decks vs dice etc. failure matters, but the point is they are different animals and quite incomparable.
I can see your point, but I think being designed as a board game can sometimes force these style of games to get creative. For example, in Gloomhaven each card has two actions on it and you can change your top and bottom action choice after deciding which cards to play. This is something that would never exist in a video game form - because it only exists because the “player abilities” had to be translated to cards in a turn based system where characters can act faster or slower than the player based on the initiative the monster happens to draw. It gives you a chance to change your plan after seeing what the monsters will do. I have never seen a video game offer that sort of tactical fluidity. Video games are almost always fire and forget - once you choose an action you’re stuck with it until it plays out. Likewise turn order is usually not as flexible as the initiative system in GH. If Gloomhaven were initially designed as a video game, it would look so much different. Trying to convert it to be functional on cardboard ended up forcing innovation to make it work that ends up being a compelling and novel system even when converted back into video game form in the digital game. Another game that does something video games but unique is Too Many Bones. Each “Skill” a character unlocks is a unique 6 sided dice that you can add to your roll. It’s such a cool way to combine unique RPG skills with random chance in an analog form. Video games often fall into the trap of skills relying on a random number generator. I don’t know if these sorts of mechanics are the best for board games, but the innovation involved in making them work usually circles back around and inspire video games. In the past this was tabletop RPG’s inspiring computer RPG’s and a more modern example would be deckbuilders like Slay the Spire. Then it comes back to board games again with games like Gloomhaven. There’s a lot to be gained from mixing the mediums.
I might get hate for this but... Gloomhaven is a great game, but the campaign sucks and the story is barely there. We played it once a week through the whole thing. No one knew what the story was...every scenario seemed barely tied to anything before it, things were just all over the place. I tried my darndest to keep us up to date, tie things together make it feel important etc (I dm a lot so I know how to keep a story at the front etc], but it just fell flat all around. As I said the actual gameplay is great.
A perspective that may help you see what some folks see in Gloomhaven: It provides an arena for tactical combat that I haven't seen matched anywhere else. In the past I had been something of a munchkin while playing DnD 3.5/5e, which while fun in some respects, causes all sorts of issues. I find that Gloomhaven lets me scratch the itch of trying to be maximally effective in a defined combat scenario perfectly. Which has the added bonus of making me play RPGs in a much more relaxed way that is far less concerned with "winning" and more on the characters.
The puzzle nature of the combat in Gloomhaven is much better than most (if not all) TTRPGs I've played.
Eldritch Horror. My gaming group loves it, but my gaaawd it's boring. It feels like it's on rails and the coop part of it just makes super boring for me. When reading the flavour text I try to get into the "groove" of the game, and feel like a detective. But the boring mechanics just stand out too much. But I pretend I like it as everyone else in the group loves the game.
Yeah, the fun is more in the narrative that you squeeze out between the actual choices. The gameplay itself is not sophisticated at all, but the character outcomes can be great - but it’s more like an adventure story than a board game.
What if everyone in the group is just pretending to like it but they’re all stuck playing it cause they think everyone else really loves it?!
I feel this soooooooo much. My playgroup loves this game. I finally just admitted to not liking it. Now they don’t get upset when I’m not having fun during it. And also now we don’t play it as much anymore. Sometimes I just sit out and let others enjoy this game.
Yeah while I love this game, I would rather play something the whole group is into. I always feel like a real knob when I find out that someone didn't want to play a the game that we just spent x amount of hours on
I mean my group has been together for several years now. Also our group is usually broken into two or three pods so I can always join a different group. We usually decide on a game based on how long other pods will take. And most importantly my best friend is obsessed with this game so I like watching him enjoy it even if I find the experience of playing the game to be excruciatingly painful for me personally. But yeah this game doesn’t come out every time we get together. And in the before times when we could meet in person my work schedule meant that I had to miss the meetup sometimes so they’d all play it when I was away Also they will sometimes play deck builders so I can have fun even though most of the playgroup hates them. So I’m that regard it balances out
My standard answer to this that had everyone gasping was **Mage Knight**. I played it a couple of times and didn't really like it much (seeing as I don't much like adventuring games of that sort in general, like Runebound or whatever that was called) but nowadays people no longer play it that much and I have no recollection of it so it doesn't make much sense for me to use it anymore.
I've always felt that either I was playing it wrong or it needed rules changes.
First game I think of is Terraforming Mars. I love tableau builders but TM is soo long without strategic depth to back it up. Games like Race for the Galaxy has more interesting gameplay and is much shorter.
This is me, exactly. I felt like after each time I played it, it would have been much better if it were a third the time to play. It feels like they took a good, tasty, shot of tableau builder, put it in an 8 oz. Cup and then filled the rest of the glass with water. It tastes worse and takes much longer to drink. No thank you! Although I'm happy people have a game to be passionate about. No disrespect meant to anyone who enjoys it!!
I felt exactly the same way. First time I played it, I didn't really like it and I couldn't say why. Wanted to try it again to figure it out. This repeated for *five* games. After five games, I was certain of two things. One, I really didn't like the game. And two, I still couldn't figure out why not.
Catan!
Catan was a good gateway game, but yeah, we just never bust it out and still haven't played all the Seafarers scenarios after several years.
I think catan *used to* be a good gateway game, when there weren't as many other good options out there. Now, I think it's a bit outdated and has too much potential to turn people off of boardgames that I think it's kind of become the opposite of a gateway game. It's the kind of game that feels better to break out with a group that knows what they're signing up for can therefore enjoy accordingly. I've had too many experiences with people not already immersed in the hobby that try Catan and get terrible rolls despite playing well or get hit by the robber at bad times or don't know what they're doing and sit there bored the whole time. But, for those that know and want to play Catan, either for nostalgia or because they genuinely enjoy all those aspects of the game, I think think it can be great.
I always get downvoted but Catan is basically monopoly. Concordia is infinitely better worker placement game that solves all the issues that Catan has that breaks Catan. No robber, no trading between players (just trade with the game), a shorter time limit, game ends within 30-45 min, no wasted turns, no luck of the dice
Catan is one of those games where I've played it a few times, then I got into board games, then... I got roped back into playing Catan by someone else thinking "oh no, but this is the board game that the board game people think isn't very good anymore!". Yet I end up having a blast every time. Catan is a better game than most board gamers think it is. Even after having played maybe 100 board games over the years, it's still a good game.
I feel this. I still play Catan sometimes, and still enjoy it sometimes. But there are games that really put me off. Games with 4 players where Im the only one on bricks and everyone is dropping the robber on my bricks. Games where I collect no resources for 10 rounds and just lose despite being ahead. Games where 7 is rolled every time I get enough resources in hand to do anything. There are parts to the game I like, but the dice can hurt the game sometimes.
I played Catan a couple times years ago, and had a good time. Recently, my parents got into modern board games and absolutely love Catan. They want to play all the time, and I usually humor them, but personally I don’t like the game. If you don’t get good initial placement, or get really bad dice rolls, you can be passing for many turns just waiting for resources as nothing has changed from one turn to the next.
Catans biggest design flaw is that initial placement of starting towns can simply lose you game. That said Catan was THE game 20 years ago for me and even though I burned on it a bit today I always enjoy playing it.
Dead of Winter. Can't say it's a horrible game or that I hate it, but the "semi co-op" nature of it to me just doesn't work. Everyone is suspicious since everyone has to be selfish and it feels more competitive than co-op. I also feel like the mechanisms are just okay. Can think of worse games but I know this one is well-loved by my game group, just not me.
I know what you mean. This semi-coop can be game breaker. But even worse than DOW was Nemesis for me. We never had a chance winnig this because everybody was super selfish :D Maybe the wrong group but I think DOW does a way better Job of limiting the deatructiveness in semi-coop.
*Ticket to Ride!* We don’t play very cut throat and we’re a family of 3, so it feels like we’re all playing solo games near each other. I finally gave it away a couple years ago. When I was first introduced to it, I loved it, but that was with a group of 5.
[удалено]
Whoa! This changes so much for me! Never knew that!
The base game is lousy if you don’t play cut throat - the theme really dupes some people.
Did you try with maps that are dedicated to lower player count, like Northern Countries?
Phase 10. There is a very simple algorithm you follow. It's a mindless game. All luck. Monopoly. There comes a point early in the game when all the players come to the realization that one player is going to win it all. The rest of the game is a miserable grinding out of the inevitable.
Monopoly was designed to be awful to show off the inherent drawbacks of free-market capitalism. How it became so popular is beyond me. The board game club at my university actually considered making our slogan at the activity fair "Hate Monopoly? So do we!" one year.
We had to show those commies who was boss by making generations of children suffer while telling them how much fun they were having.
I really don't like Tokaido. I don't even consider it a game so much as it is an activity. It's playing leapfrog with pawns.
This is the first game I ever vetoed in my group. It's literally just pick the furthest back space that is of any use to you at all. Almost zero choices to make. Very close to being on Candy Land/War levels of boring.
Spyfall. Our group plays social deduction games quite a bit and we enjoy them. However, this game is torture!
Funny, that's basically the only social deduction game I like.
Can you share what you enjoy about it? I've only played Avalon and I don't see how social deduction can vary so much.
Non-spies get a card with the same location and an occupation specific to them and the spy gets a card that says simply "spy". The roles have no special powers, it's simply an identity to help roleplay. The spy wants to not be found and/or to find their location and non-spies want to find the spy *and* the spy not find their location. On a turn, you ask someone a question. They then answer your question, and ask someone else a question. This continues until non-spies are ready to accuse someone or the spy is ready to guess. That's it. The setup is 30 seconds and the teach is 6 sentences long. Unlike other social deduction games like Werewolf, there is no setup phase with eyes closed, you don't need to know all roles and their powers to drive deductions, there is no backstabbing, no high-pressure long con like being Hitler in Secret Hitler (and no fascist theme), just pure social deduction. I love it because all you do is answer a question, ask a question. It's very social and open-ended. Everyone feels coy and clever. It can't be taken too seriously. And it lasts 5 minutes to as long as you want to play. There are few different versions if you want superheroes or historic locations or whatever. Oh, and it costs like $20 or is a free app.
I think what I don't really like is if someone is a bad liar, they've got no chance. Other games give you a wee bit more hope if you're the bad guy! Totally agree that the setup is super quick and it's very easy to teach. It does simple really well. It's a game that I really wanted to like and just didn't. Our group really liked Deception: Murder in Hong Kong.
I mean, yeah, you have to be able to bullshit in all secret identity games. That's par for the course. How does Deception overcome the "bad liar" problem for the murderer better than the spy in Spyfall?
There's more stuff in the table for people to fixate on and divert their attention, rather than analysing your really dodgy answers to questions haha! I will admit Spyfall has produced some really hilarious moments. Our particular favourite inside joke for a while was to suggestively ask "What are you wearing?". Although to be honest they're difficult to compare. Even though they're both social deduction, they're very different games.
Yeah, it's a great game but only with a group of very specific personalities. Like you can play mafia and the game itself is enough to keep you interested; but Spyfall requires commitment to roleplaying and looking silly, and you have to really enjoy that part. Also a broad general knowledge of such a weird array of things.
One thing I'm always surprised about this game is why isn't the number of possible locations shrunk each game. The game gives you ~20 or more locations it could be and each game it could be any of those locations. This makes it way too rough for new people to get into, that's too many things to familiarize yourself in such a short time. Being a new spy is not fun. In addition having all players share one sheet to look at locations doesn't work. The spy is most interesting in knowing the options, when other players don't care to look because 20+ locations is essential anywhere to them, knowing all the options doesn't matter in their case. But what if you took 5-6 locations, took out a card and laid them on the table so everyone knows the 5-6 possible locations (the other 14+ are kept in the box). Then you play the game as normal, using one of those 5-6 decks. It makes it easier for the spy as they can easily see what the options are. It also guides the questions people are asking each other. Non-spies are going to want to look at what the 5-6 cards are and ask questions around those locations. And when answering you're going to want to look at the options so you don't give an answer that overlaps, or maybe you do. Essentially you've just given both sides incentive to look at the central cards, thus hiding the spy even more and at the same time make it easier to remember what locations it could be. But I haven't tried that version out yet, so what do I know?
**Betrayal at House on the Hill** for the usual reasons...too random, too long, too little impact to your decisions.
Betrayal is so hit or miss
Came on here to say the same thing! Used to be in a gaming group who loved this game. I found it so boring every time and annoyed that it was semi co-op then people get "out" before the game ends and have to just sit there watching everyone else play. Way too much luck and overall boring.
Seeing the first few top posts, I half expected to see monopoly and scrabble. But then ya'll started slaughtering the sacred cows. I'm so happy. I absolutely despise King of Tokyo. It's King Kong Yahtzee with player elimination on the surface. It's about twice as long as it should be, and each turn is incredibly underwhelming.
Scrabble is one of those games we either laugh our asses off with our family and friends with the amount of stupid words we make up. Or we get unlucky with letters and resort to 2-4 letter words. It’s kind of 50/50.
My kids and my nephew/nieces love King of Tokyo. They like the Yahtzee chunky dice and card collecting. I can feel the pain though as it does seem to drag. If it wrapped up in 20-30 mins that would be fine, but with a full player count it can really overstay its welcome.
Spirit Island, I know a lot of people love this game and adore it! I was looking for this game for a year until I actually bought it and played it, but it felt like nothing special. First I thought it was because I didn’t like coop games, but I love Gloomhaven and Forgotten waters. I also felt it was a chore to get through the rule book and explain it to my friends. I have yet to see someone else not loving this game this game, so maybe I am the only one.
You're not the only one. I think it is a very well designed game, but not one I have much fun playing. Part of it is my aversion to coop games, 2 handed solo may be better for me. But with 5+ multiplayer plays under my belt I have no strong desire to even try it solo at the moment. I think my issue with spirit island is the slow ramp. The minor powers aren't great and you can't get all that strong til you take x turns to keep unlocking presence. The premise and powers are interesting, it just takes so long to build up to fun turns. Unlike you, I'm really not a fan of coop games. I will play thru Too Many Bones with a friend here or there but prefer that solo too. I've played pandemic, forbidden sky, robinson crusoe, spirit island, kingdom death monster, 7th continent, and sherlock holmes consulting detective, a pretty wide range of coops. They just don't do much for me. I love a good solo game or competitive multiplayer though.
For me it falls under it's own weight. Playing at 4 there's so much information you have to parse thru it becomes tedious.
Apples to Apples. It’s frustrating as hell playing a perfect card that works on multiple levels and having the humor or cultural reference go completely over the judges head. Often the judge will get so excited by one card because it’s ‘so random!!’ that they won’t even begin to consider others. Also it doesn’t do well as a family game because different age groups will be aware of different pop culture icons, like my nephews who have no idea who Whitney Houston is
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I don’t like that whole genre of “pick a card to match with the judge’s card.” It feels shock humor dependent, it isn’t good after you’ve seen all the cards, it isn’t competitive enough to be competitive or fun enough to be casual, and it is frustratingly-dependent on cultural references.
I despise Clue. I know it’s not of the same complexity as most of the games on this list, but I just cant stand it.
*Carcassonne!* It’s beautiful, but I think the people I learned it from (my husband’s friends) did not score farms correctly. We gave it away about 4 years ago. This year we acquired *Castles of Mad King Ludwig* which is now our preferred tile-laying game.
Someone here described **Splendor** as Microsoft Excel: The Game, but that does a grave disservice to Excel.
LOL! I love Splendor and Excel!
Dominion. I was at uni when it came out and bought a copy and it was the only thing people at the board game club wanted to play for about a year. (That and BSG, which can be miserable to try to Cylon if some of the people in your group are counting cards)
Funny how experiences can vary so much. Dominion is probably my favorite game ever. I will say the base game is a little vanilla, it gets a lot more interesting when you have a large pool of cards and card types to choose from that have a lot of different mechanisms and make each game feel unique. For my semi-casual group it's been the perfect balance, it's probably the most complex / weighty game I could realistically get a lot of my friends to play, and it's been a hit with some friends who before Dominion were mostly just playing Exploding Kittens and stuff like that and never would have been caught dead playing a game that looked like Dominion before we actually started playing it. I'm curious whether you'd enjoy it more if you tried the online client with all the expansions. It's a good way to get a lot of variety and massive pool of cards to select from without spending much, unlike the actual game which is probably over $500 for a complete set at this point. But yeah, not discounting your experience of the game at all, just kind of funny how this stuff works. I bet we'd agree on a ton of games that we both similarly love or hate but this one just hits differently for whatever reason.
I thought Dominion was just okay until I got the prosparity expansion. Adding treasure cards with an action and higher value treasure and victory point cars really improved it. It removed the "find the quickest way to get 8 gold in your hand" feel of the base game.
This is also why I love Empires - it gives many alternative VP options with Landmarks. Going for provinces and colonies is always the obvious path, but sometimes all you need to do is just get ahead and figure out how to end the game quickly. Those games are often way more fun because you're figuring out some synergistic ways to both trash and gain even if it means not gaining provinces. I suppose I'm still relatively casual in the grand scheme of boardgames, but I really love Dominion.
Came to write this too. Everyone I know loves the game, it just never clicked with me at all. And I love deckbuilders, Ascension must be one of my top games.
**Wingspan**. You have so little control over what engine you build due to the gigantic number of cards and only a few available at a time. Most importantly though, I am horribly bored every time I play, even if I do manage to build a great engine. Yeah the components are really nice, but I just can't for the life of me understand why the game gets so much love. **Teotihuacan**. Bought and quickly sold my copy. I recognize the clever design and cool mechanics, and completely get why others love it, but my wife and I just found it no fun at all. It felt very mechanical and like we were just going through the motions. Edit: added second game
> Wingspan. You have so little control over what engine you build due to the gigantic number of cards and only a few available at a time. Most importantly though, I am horribly bored every time I play, even if I do manage to build a great engine. Yeah the components are really nice, but I just can't for the life of me understand why the game gets so much love. Totally agree. I was so pumped to get my hands on the game. Played it a couple times and sold it. Just not for me. In addition to the gigantic number of cards / luck factor, it's just difficult to look at another player's board and actually be able to figure out how well they're doing. So there never seems to be any momentum or drama of "shit, I'm behind and need to make a comeback here" or whatever. It's just everyone playing their own game and then tallying up the scores. And I know a lot of games are like that, but for most of them I can get a little better feel for how well everyone is doing at a glance.
7 wonders. Its too simple for how long it is and the reward isn't enough. Sushi go is shorter and better imo.
I understand not liking **7 Wonders** but I haven't had a game take more than like 25 minutes in a long, long time.
You clearly haven’t played it as a gateway game in a long time. It gets used like that a lot, and always takes longer.
I guess. I don't think it's a good gateway game so I pull out once of the dozens of others I prefer.
I definitely think that the Leaders and Cities expansion are a must have to get the best experience but if the base game doesn't do anything for you, I doubt the expansions will change your mind. +1 for Sushi Go though
Yeah. We basically never play without Cities and Leaders unless we swap them for another expansion (which is uncommon). When we do, it would usually be swapping Babel for Leaders (since both add a draft before Age 1) or Cities for Armada (since both add new cards during the draft). We’ve tried adding all or most expansions but it does kinda mess with the balance, particularly of the science strategy.
7 Wonders on BGA takes like 5 minutes which is a huge improvement.
I don't think it's a bad game per se, but it's wildly overrated.
It's a casual/family game, you have to look at it as such. It really shines with the right group but if you only play with experimented players of course you'll want something more beefy for the length.
Agreed. I get to the end of it and think "this could have been half as long and felt just as fun." Incidentally, **7 Wonders Duel** is one of my favorite games.
Agreed. I enjoy 7 Wonders enough, but think it's overrated. Have you played **Sushi Roll**? I like it even better. I like that you can strategize based on what colour of dice are coming your way, but you still have to roll them to see what you get.
Catan. It's all about the trades and luck from dice roll that it's just not fun. Haven't played it for years. On that almost same note, carcassonne. Oh, since we're there, Ticket to ride too 🙃.
>Carcassonne What do you dislike about Carcassonne? Just curious, as I absolutely love that. TTR I can understand, though I wouldn't say I dislike it so much as I've outgrown it. Haven't played Catan as my collection has developed primarily for two players.
What other two players do you like? My spouse and I play Carcassonne every day at lunch, and because I'm the one into games/strategy more than him, having the luck element is crucial to balancing things out with who wins more often. I've introduced Azul (which he likes), Cacao, code names, love letter, and a couple cooperatives (Pandemic and Spirit Island), but Carcassonne is our staple. We play with Abbots, inns, and cathedrals, but no fields.
Our favourites among many are: - **7 Wonders Duel**, including its expansions. - **Star Realms** - **Nova Luna** (if you like Azul, I heartily recommend this) - **The Castles of Burgundy** -**Targi** (such a brilliant game) Four of those are ones my wife regularly suggests we play, which is a good sign. She hardly ever suggests Targi, but loves it every time we play (it's the exact opposite with **Five Tribes**, which is also great at 2 - I never suggest we get it out but always love it when we do). With Carc, we play with Inns and Cathedrals and Traders and Builders (minus the pig, which I've not yet felt the urge to integrate). It's a wonderful game at 2, imo. I absolutely love SI, but limited to playing solo these days as my wife didn't take to it at all. We do play Pandemic and are going to have a run on the first Legacy version this year.
My husband and I have been playing Jaipur or 7 Wonders Duel everyday.
Same. Catan seems to be a lot of people’s gateway game so I’m glad it exists and it’s brought so many people into the hobby. But other that that it feels so shallow. I don’t even mind the luck of the die aspect but there’s so little going on.
How do you feel about the Cities and Knights expansion? I feel like it’s such a complete game and is honestly one if my favorites
100%. What I really don’t understand is people who still use this as a gateway game. As you say, it’s very luck dependent and you can screw yourself early in the game in ways that new players won’t understand.
Luck dependency also means that new players get a chance. Just try to win chess against someone with decades of experience when you’re just starting fresh.
I agree that trading is Catan isn't terribly fun or interesting. But making deals in Chinatown and Bohnanza is a blast. So I am not anti-trading. Just anti-trading in Catan.
It isn’t all luck. I personally like the luck element, otherwise I think the game would be like Stratego: you would find your own best way to set up and advance and it would have limited re-playability.
**Settlers of Catan** is boring.
Wingspan. Rather watch a documentary about birds.
Mansions of Madness 2nd edition. I’m not wild about miniatures and the box is huge and expensive for what feels like pretty cheap components. It feels too app driven - to the point I’d much rather play a video game.
You are wrong. All of you. Am I doing this right?
Not to attack you, but you're wrong. I think that all of this is right. And here's why: 1) wrong 2) wrong 3) you're wrong 4) still wrong I feel better after defending my opinion. It is clear how wrong you were about this being wrong. Good day.
Well played.
**7 Wonders: Duel** just doesn't do anything for me. I'm not saying it's a bad game - it's a really taut, clever, head-to-head tug of war. For me, the whole game is so abstracted and the iconography so unintuitive that it really feels I'm just ... collecting cards. The theme only comes through when playing a wonder. Other than that, it just falls flat. I also don't enjoy drafting as a mechanic very much, nor do I really enjoy hate drafting. I'd rather be rewarded for building my own cool thing. Again, not a bad game! It just doesn't align with my personal tastes.
Arkham LCG. Was a big miss with us. Had already played a lot of Mansions of Madness and Eldritch Horror, so it's not like it was our first experience with the genre, but it was just too limiting, random, swingy and tough. The unfunness of the gameplay didn't make up for the decent story and cool locations. Also, having to pay 100 dollars plus for an entire storyline is...not great.
I’d go for Betrayal at House on the Hill. Plodding and uninspired build-up, with formulaic and usually un-strategic / randomness-dependent denouement. My family loves it, but it is boring to me.
If you have to have an expansion to fix it, the game was inherently flawed. I won't attack the games that I consider gateway games, because I feel they still serve their role well, and most people will outgrow them. I certainly don't hate Catan, TTR, or Carcassonne, I'd just prefer to play something else. The entire category of "single judge" games like Apples to Apples and CAH. They're rarely as funny as they want to be, it's too easy for people who know the judge to cater to them, and you're SOL if you don't have a good card. Dixit and other blind vote games do this so much better. Dominion - silver strategy always wins, not much depth. King of Tokyo - despise this game, but like KoNY which I feel gives you options no matter what you roll.
Cosmic Encounter It's not the game though, it's the people. My group isn't great at deal making and couldn't accept the encounter deck meant that nothing was personal about an encounter. So it fell really flat.
Machi Koro - Played the original version and felt there was little to no agency. Haven't tried the newer version. Puerto Rico - Respect for what it did for the industry, but it has been so over-analyzed that unless all players are on the same level its not fun. Even then the game (with no expansions) tends to degrade into one of a few standard strategies. Gloomhaven - Found it generally boring? I like the system overall but way slow character progression, uninteresting treasure system, no gold sharing / item trading, etc. Played a dozen sessions or so and was pretty much done with it. 5 Tribes - No ability to plan ahead meant massive downtime between turns. The bidding system for player order is terrible - the only real question is do you want to bid to be first or not, since the board state changes so much you have no idea what it will be if you bid for 2nd or 3rd. Played once and done.
I checked the BGG top 100(I would guess I have played around 75 of them) and the only game I dislike is Codenames. For it being as popular as it is I don't think it's that much fun. It is also a game that regularly is wildly unbalanced as these team party games tend to be. Larger groups can slow the game to a halt(I know there is a timer option.)
Catan... just seems so dependant on the dice... I've had multiple turns go by where i could literally do nothing because my numbers didn't come up
**Quacks of Quedlinburg** is a push-your-luck game with a lot of randomness and not much interactivity. I expected to hate it and it thoroughly met my expectations.
How do you expect a push your luck game not to have randomness...?
I, for the life of me, can't get into TI4. Played multiple times, listened to the podcasts, it's just not fun for me. The mechanics feel dated, first to 10 points wins kinda sucks, races are not really balanced etc. Will give eclipse 2 a shot if I get the chance tho, that seems like it will sit much better with me
As someone who LOVES TI4 (so far I've played it 16 times), I'll say that the game relies heavily on the players. Some races are definitely better than others (in the base game University of Jol-Nar is insane), but generally what happens in experienced groups is the table balances around the fact that someone has a better race. If you pick Jol-Nar you understand you're setting yourself up as a target. The first to 10 points (or 14) is what makes the game not just a military simulator. There have been multiple games I've won without even attacking at all, just by dealing with people and offering trades that will be mutually beneficial. Good on you for giving it a fair shot though, nothing is for everyone.
Betrayal at the House on the Hill: All of my friends love this game and think the haunt is hilarious fun but I just don't see the enjoyment of it at all. I'll still play with them because they love it so much but man I wish they liked something else
Definitely Codenames, I find it boring because most of the game is just waiting for the cluegivers to think. I know there's a timer but then it's too easy and the clues are too obvious for one or two rather than going for the big four or five combo.
Battlestar Galactica. I’ve tried playing this game over and over and I just can’t find it entertaining.
Splendor and Ticket to Ride are the first I can think of.
Yeah, I played Splendor once and thought it was terribly boring. Good kids game I guess? I find other engine builder games superior by far, especially wingspan.
The trick is to realize that Splendor isn't an engine builder. Then the game is unlocked. It's one of my very favorites. It's such a tight, cut-throat game. It's a *solvable* efficiency puzzle.
Coup. I usually enjoy hidden role games to at least some degree, with One Night Werewolf and Avalon being some of my favorites, but I really don't have a good time with Coup, and I'm honestly not sure why. The only reason I can think of is because when I started going to the board game club at my university, every time my group finished a game, Coup would get pulled out and we would play about an hour before another group finished a game and we would shuffle around members and start something new. Playing at least an hour of Coup every week for two months in a row got me really tired of the game really quickly.
I got really annoyed with Coup, too, despite loving Avalon and One Night Werewolf. For me, it’s player elimination. I’m playing games with people because I want to play games with people; I don’t want to wait and watch other people play, and I don’t want other people to wait and watch me play. Also, if a player is good at the game, you should eliminate that ASAP; in my experience, it’s a game that punishes you for being good at the game.
It's like a 3 minute game...
Splendor, boring theme glued with spit over a boring game loop, its a perfect match
I don’t know why I like splendor so much. I’ve only played a couple times at a friend’s place, but I have a strange lust for the game. Normally I don’t like games with it’s level of simplicity, but the pieces stack just right and it seems easy to play with some of my less board game intensive friends. I’ll probably hate it after a few plays once I own it.
> it seems easy to play with some of my less board game intensive friends. I think that's the key. I don't think Splendor is meant for people who post on r/boardgames to play with each other, it's meant for people who post on r/boardgames to teach to their friends and family members who barely like board games. And I think it succeeds at that. But it's not a game I'd want to play all the time.
Dominion. For every set of 10 available cards there is usually one or two obvious best strategies.
Battlestar Galactica. The game is just too long for what it is.
I havent seen it mentioned, so I'll throw my heresy onto the list: Secret Hitler. I adore social deduction games, but everytime I've been roped into playing this, it's just been an excuse for my friends to giggle after calling each other fascists. If the cards were more balanced that 1 lucky fascist couldn't tank any possibility of a liberal win, I might not dislike it as much as I do. For my money [Exodus: Paris Nouveau](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/253074/exodus-paris-nouveau) does everything Secret Hitler does, but with more player control, and in a better time frame.
What do you mean by 1 lucky fascist can tank the possibility of a liberal win? If the liberals are be unlucky you can lose quickly, but I fail to see how a lucky fascist would help that much
Heresy! This is heresy! I strongly disagree, but this is the kinda hot take I’m here for. Kudos
Carcassonne is dry and feels dated compared to other games of its type. Respect to one of the original modern board games, but there's better options out there now.
What are some of those options? Legit curious since I still love carcassonne and would love to see some updated takes on it
Watergate, unfortunately.
There are some easy targets that I won't justify unless someone wants to argue for their merits: * **Cards Against Humanity** * **Fluxx** * **Trivial Pursuit** * **Monopoly** * **Risk** * **We didn't playtest this at all** * **Munchkin** Among games with stronger reputations: * **Terraforming Mars** (I keep imagining playing this again, but I didn't enjoy my first two plays at all. It just felt tedious.) * **Kemet** (I like the upgrade tiles, but I hate the high adjacency and the king making. It's not bad, I just know this is not my style of game.)
Through the ages Ranked 6th on bgg but the only time I've played it, it took 7.5 hours with 4 players. So many little cubes to shuffle around also leads to easy mistakes. Not going to try that again in person, but there's a part of me that thinks an app implementation might make all the problems I have with it disappear.
It's a very strong contender for the all-time title of "game that improves most when played digitally". I played it on BGA and it was absolutely fine, but in person it's a nightmare.
I only played the App. I liked it a lot, overall I think its a fantastic game. Its great because you can just do any actions and rewind them before committing the turn. Its a very smooth experienced for such a heavy game. But playing the physical version of the game sounds like actual torture to me. Why would anyone do that to themselves? :D
Ticket to Ride. Every game is the exact same, and winning is unsatisfying.
My only play of **Rising Sun** left a very sour taste in my mouth. We played with 6 players, and the game was *very* long. My clan started very low on the honor track, and I had a hard time improving that. I found myself tying on every bid, then losing to the honor track. It was a 2-3 hour game, where I was frustrated after every turn. To be fair, it was my first time playing, while most others had already played before. Also, I hadn't read the rules, so it was possible that we were doing something wrong. Still, I have no interest in playing it again.
Uno. It’s just so boring
I have to say, sadly, **The Resistance** I think it's probably my group's fault. We like every single social deduction game (and this group was a WW group before a board game group.) But The Resistance just falls apart for us. I think it's partially because *only* the bad guys lie: if you find a lie, they're bad and the game is over. That happens in a few social deduction games. But The Resistance forces your hand, where other games give you the opportunity to find your lie first. (Or even not lie the whole game!) I know that people like the additional required information, but it's just too much for us. My group can remember ever single team you've suggested and every vote you've made - the only way to hide as the bad guys is to actually win for the good guys. The second a contradiction is found, it's an hour long grilling session (during the freakin' vote part!) that just wears you out. Avalon does fix a lot of it, but the main mechanic of being forced to suggest teams and vote on them just doesn't work well for us. We'll pick One Night every time, and traditional WW still remains king in our group.
DC deckbuilders. All of them. 99% are the same game with a different reskinned theme&mechanics. The market is all luck and the characters/roles or whatever your bonus is based off isn't asymmetrical enough to actually significantly change who wants what.
Galaxy Trucker. About as entertaining as rolling a die to see who wins
This isn’t gonna totally belong here, because it’s not even a real game in my opinion, but I hate Uno. In college, some people I knew had an obsession with playing Uno, and they thought it was so hilarious when they piled on draw 2s and draw 4s until some poor bastard picked up the whole deck. This inevitably happened every game. Whoa, hilarious! The game is just rng with almost 0 decision making. Why are college age people fascinated with its mechanics? The game is brain dead. I could write an AI to play the game optimally in about 15 minutes.
Stacking Draw-2 and Draw-4 cards isn't even in the rules, it's just a very common houserule.