9 ms·

I disagree with the article's suggestion for Settlers for boardgame newcomers, since the serial turn ordering causes long wait times, and lack of a comeback mec

• ashark 9y ago
  7 Wonders probably wins for best average popularity among our mixed-interest gaming group, when there are over four people who want to play. It has an intimidating rules explanation compared to some, but plays way easier than it sounds. Would second the recommendation. Sushi Go! is another good "getting people into not-awful board games" game.
  • mikepurvis 9y ago
    I'm probably coloured by just not really enjoying drafting games in general, but I have trouble imagining trying to get a bunch of newbies going in 7 Wonders— between the glyphs, the complicated upgrade/borrow/payment scheme, and point salad path to victory, it seems like a lot to talk about. I'd counter the recommendation with something like
  • sureste 9y ago
    We have found Sushi No is even a more fun experience for us. Basically Sushi Go! but whoever gets the lower points total wins. It's a bit tense but more fun.
    • irrational 9y ago
      Isn't it fairly easy to get lower total points? Just mainly getting chopsticks and 1 pudding (assuming other get 1+ puddings) can give you negative points.
      • batiudrami 9y ago
        But everyone else is trying to do that too, and players are trying to trick others into taking points.
    • hkmurakami 9y ago
      Great suggestion with Sushi go, basically functions as a smaller game space version of Dominion/7 wonders/MtG draft. Also not surprised to hear that our group isn't the only ones playing a "Razz" (poker variant where you try for the weakest hand) variant of Sushi Go. I found reversing points to make the game chaotic and more casual.
    • godelski 9y ago
      Sushi Go is one of my favorite of the small and easy games. I'd also add Love Letter and Saboteur (no expansion) as great quick intro games.
  • dep_b 9y ago
    7 Wonders is played to death here. Catan and Ticket didn't spark that much fanatism, people wanted to play but they wouldn't be planning and calling a week ahead. The thing about 7 Wonders is that you keep learning new stuff about the game, every game is different and new players still can win their first game with a bit of help, luck and wits. But if I lose (and I lose plenty of games) I'm always intrigued why I'm lost and what I could do next time, it never really feels bad. Also people that cannot deal with setbacks, somebody else doing something that thwarts their strategy or losing (I shall refrain from naming them ;) ) never get angry with this game. Looking into buying a dungeon crawler now (cool map and miniatures preferred) and another game like 7 Wonders, perhaps Puerto Rico.
    • barrkel 9y ago
      I think the complexity in 7 Wonders is, how should I say, "cheaply" generated. That is, the complexity is right there in the details, and there are so many details. I far, far prefer emergent complexity than that kind of explicitly designed complexity. It's a kind of complexity that rewards nerding out and learning combos and chains.
      • Abundnce10 9y ago
        > I far, far prefer emergent complexity than that kind of explicitly designed complexity. Can you recommend any games?
        • b0rsuk 9y ago
          Lords of Scotland is a fiendishly tricky game that appears simple at first. It's very quick to teach, but there is both strategic and tactical aspect to it and many non-obvious paths to victory. Beware of high player interaction (some people like it, some are hurt). It's rather chaotic in higher player kinds, you need to appear relatively harmless to win. Tigris and Euphrates is an old classic that has very few tile types to place, but they result in complex outcomes. I can't say very much about it because I only played it once on a game show, but it's on my to-buy list.
  • b0rsuk 9y ago
    I play 7 Wonders pretty often, but counting scores at the end is a rather awful procedure. I jokingly say that if I ever design a board game, the rules will grant a score bonus to whoever explains the rules. (There is no "beginner's luck" in boardgames. There's "rule explainer's curse". The player doing the explaining is distracted, not just by explaining but also watching over anyone and often plays badly).
• 4restm 9y ago
  for a starter, forbidden island is cheap and relatively easy 4 player coop boardgame. I always use it to break in board game newbies.
  • rockostrich 9y ago
    Pandemic is another co-op game that's easy to pick up for new players. The one bad thing about co-op games is if there are mostly experienced players and one new person then the experience people will usually influence the new person a lot and cause them to not learn much.
    • caf 9y ago
      That's true with "total information" co-op games like Forbidden Island and Pandemic (or Flash Point, which is another great one). "Codenames Duet" though is an example of a co-operative game where the two teams are working together but have to make their own decisions - it's also very easy to pick up for new players, I highly recommend it.
• loceng 9y ago
  This is what makes Settlers such a balanced game IMHO. You can have a new beginner or experienced players and everyone has a good chance at winning - so long as the newbies are given fair introduction into the different strategies to winning. The scenario you mentioned is one example that makes the game turn into a political one. I have no chance at winning and you weren't nice to me, well then I'm going to fuck with you the whole game and hope someone else wins. If there are 2 people against 1 then that makes it even more fun. On that note, the game is likely an average or median length of 40 minutes, so if you're playing with good people it's always been a tolerable length of time. Seeing and experiencing the dynamics of Settlers is the best way to learn, like anything generally..
  • hkmurakami 9y ago
    If you like kingsmaking as a core part of a game, then sure.
  • tyrust 9y ago
    >everyone has a good chance at winning - so long as the newbies are given fair introduction into the different strategies to winning Telling someone how to play a game and then going through the motions of playing isn't really fun. Most of the fun is trying things for yourself and figuring stuff out. If a game (like Catan) doesn't allow players to do this, then where is the fun?
    • loceng 9y ago
      Different strokes for different folks, I suppose. I think once you level the playing field knowledge wise as much as you can with a new beginner, then everyone has more fun - because everyone can pick a strategy based on the randomness that went along with their decision making process for their initial placements (for Catan in this example). Perhaps it's my preference as I don't like having an unfair advantage, it makes it boring for me then because I know that without a clear explanation then my chances of winning are far higher; sometimes not because of the randomness with how resources may end up getting distributed. If a new person is getting tons of resources then they'll have aa good time from the sheer excitement of being able to do actions, especially if other people aren't getting many to be able to progress.
• strictnein 9y ago
  King of Tokyo is another good game that's pretty simple. Also it can be over in 15-30 min, so it's easy to play a couple sessions.
  • logfromblammo 9y ago
    In my opinion, stars earned by taking and holding Tokyo should scale with the number of players. Otherwise, the strategy is to stay the heck out of Tokyo, buy cards, and then roll for your stars once you acquire enough power-advantages. With 4 players, you have to weather 3 rounds of potential attacks to get the 2 stars for endurance, whereas in a 2 player game, you only need to survive one round of potential attacks to get the bonus. Furthermore, as you are yielding more often in order to not-die, other players are getting a star for it, so the advantage is less.
    • godelski 9y ago
      The expansion balances this a little better because of powerups. Though I think it more depends on who you play with.
• rockostrich 9y ago
  Dominion is so great for newbies. Unless you're playing online or the game is a blowout, it's difficult to know who's winning. It's also easy to pick up since the cards are basically the instructions. I'd recommend pretty much any deck building game since they're usually very easy to learn as you go.
  • godelski 9y ago
    Dominion actually turned me off of deck builders for awhile. I found the DC and Marvel games to be great introductions. DC one is definitely easier, as there is less going on, but it is still really fun.
  • tgb 9y ago
    I found the large number of cards available at once to be overwhelming when playing dominion the first (and only) time. In that regard, Star Realms is better since it only offers a rotating selection of cards to purchase. It also gives you obvious basic strategies where you just take cards of a chosen color or two.
    • brianwawok 9y ago
      Star realms is good. Hero realms is a titch better. Had a lot of hero realms fun over Thanksgiving.
• taoistextremist 9y ago
  I think no matter what, you need a small group to really pique the interest of newcomers. Dominion was definitely what pulled me in, I played it back in 2010, when I believe it was still kind of new on the scene, and though I didn't touch it much afterwards, it really made me want to explore more games.
• scj 9y ago
  I like to teach Splendor to new people. Most people seem to understand game flow by the end of the first game they play (figuring out strategy comes later). The most promising sign is that most people want to play it again.
  • busterarm 9y ago
    It's the most "play it again" game I've seen in many years (maybe Till Dawn being another) and usually I can always get 3-4 games in with the same people. Nice depth of strategy as well. Probably my favorite game in years.
    • ghaff 9y ago
      One of my game designer friends recommended it to me. I don't play it as a board game but it's one of my go-tos on both a tablet and smartphone.
      • mfoy_ 9y ago
        Oh but the beautiful pieces are half the fun! The "gems" are high-quality custom poker chips... so much fun to just play with them!
  • barrkel 9y ago
    Splendor has a high initial spike, but the appeal wears off surprisingly rapidly. I've had a lot more longevity out of something like Carcassonne (measured in years) than Splendor (measured in months), when played every day. Splendor also requires a lot of concentration, which can be fatiguing.
    • brianwawok 9y ago
      I got bored of Carcassonne within 6 plays. Build big cities sneak in farmers. Zzzz.
      • arstin 9y ago
• TimPC 9y ago
  I used to somewhat enjoy Settlers but I now consider it a terrible game. Exponential Growth Cascade Failure games are generally bad, but they are even worse when the aren't over quickly Using die rolls as the mechanic for who gets to make the key play makes it especially terrible because you don't even get to figure out what you could have done better a lot of the time it's just losing a 55-45 situation on whom gets the resources first.
  • firebones 9y ago
    You refer to "Exponential Growth Cascade Failure" games. Is there a TVTropes for board game mechanics?
    • mfoy_ 9y ago
      I don't know if there's a good resource such as TV tropes, but board games absolutely have tropes, usually in terms of mechanics. For example there is worker placement, card drafting, "coints" (coins are points), hidden victory point cards, etc. There's probably a more comprehensive list somewhere on BGG (Board Game Geek), but the website is so hard to use I can't find it...
  • Retra 9y ago
    Catan has made me very wary of "open trade" games, because they always seem to devolve to "that one player surely knows how to manipulate his friends into handing him the win real good..." It'd be easier to enjoy if trades were regulated somehow. There are more accessible and more strategically meaningful ways to introduce player interaction into a game.
• kaushalmodi 9y ago
  Umm, dice rolling is in serial order in Settlers, but everyone has to pay attention in each turn. And any one can get a come back at any time. Hasn't this ever happened to you? You get a lot of sheep/wool, you build a 2:1 sheep port, and exchange all the sheep for stone, etc to upgrade to cities, and so on?
• skybrian 9y ago
  Despite having obsessed with it for a while, for casual players I wouldn't use Dominion. Its main downside is that serious play requires too much strategy, resulting in too much heads-down thinking about your hand and not enough interaction. I'd rather start people off with Carcassonne.
  • b0rsuk 9y ago
    Casual players don't see that Dominion requires strategy. Probability calculations blow right past them and they dismiss it as a simple, boring game.
  • klmr 9y ago
    Dominion’s problem as a beginners’ game is that an even somewhat experienced player has a huge edge over a complete novice: even a passing familiarity with the cards will open up strategic combinations. In addition, they’ll have a hunch for when in the game they need to start accumulating victory points rather than expanding their monetary assets. That said, I love the game, and I think that it’s fairly easy to get into it.
    • graphitezepp 9y ago
      How is that ever avoided though? I can not imagine a game where any amount of experience is not an advantage, where the game also has sufficient depth to be interesting.
      • klmr 9y ago
        Good point: unless it’s completely random it’s never entirely avoidable — there’s an element of skill. And I still think that Dominion can be very fun with beginners (that’s my experience at least). That said, there are games that level the playing field without yielding entirely to chance; such as Dixit, where advantages are rather gained from knowing the other players.
      • b0rsuk 9y ago
        In games with higher interaction newbies can effectively gang up on the experienced leader. It has its issues, but it works.
• SubiculumCode 9y ago
  Settlers with more than four is not the greatest. Ever play Dominion with a kid? Their slow shuffling kills.
• bloodorange 9y ago
  Carcassonne is an excellent 'gateway' game for introducing people to the boardgame phenomenon. Simple enough that you can explain the rules to an eight year old and start playing in five minutes. Also, it has just the right amount of luck and strategy to be fun for casual settings. I highly recommend it. You can keep making it more interesting by adding expansions later too. Co-operative games are a tonne of fun but they tend to have complex mechanics and a bit of a set-up time in the beginning. This may be a discouraging factor but they are a lot of fun because everyone comes out of it with a sense of accomplishment after having done something together (if you win of course).
  • zentiggr 9y ago
    Our niece and nephew picked up Zombicide: Black Plague, and we love it. Just enough D&D style equipment and effects to feel good, fully cooperative mechanics so everyone is a team vs the spawns, and a chance of getting eliminated individually / team losing if things go awry or there's horrible card draws. All the good aspects in one.
• karlb 9y ago
  Board Game Geek's gift guide is great for newcomers. The 2017 one is just out: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guide_2017 https://www.boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guid... I found it particularly useful to start with games that are good for two players. That way, you need to find only one other person who can be bothered to learn the rules.