3 ms·

You may be surprised that some people play board games assuming some kind of "fair play" or "play with fun in mind" rule is implicit. They may get very pissed o

You may be surprised that some people play board games assuming some kind of "fair play" or "play with fun in mind" rule is implicit. They may get very pissed off if you "ruin" a game by taking every single advantage you can according to the rules. [EDIT] Risk and Catan also have what are sometimes regarded as straight-up design flaws that can cause "zombie players" who stick around for most/all of the game but, very early on, no longer have any chance of winning. In both cases pretty much the only entertaining thing left to do is to be a prick to other players and try to play "kingmaker" by causing the second-place player to overtake the first-place one. Often, in Catan, if you're that badly screwed you don't really even have a way to do that much. This leaves the zombie player having a pretty bad time just about no matter what, and can leave other players upset if the zombie player stopped playing to win and started playing just to mess with other players. Risk, especially played in the (really, really not great, as much as I liked it when I was 10 years old) world-conquest mode, also has a problem with very long games and early player elimination, in addition to sometimes generating hopelessly-screwed-but-not-technically-out-yet players.

squeaky-clean 4y ago
I've had the inverse happen to me, not playing optimally upsetting someone. Playing the DC superhero deck-building game at a card shop with some friends and a stranger asked to join, he already knew how to play. Well I didn't stop another player from getting one of the final Power Ring cards and he flipped the F!&%$ out. "How could you not block her! She's guaranteed to win on her next turn now! You suck at this game!" Bro, I'm just trying to power up my batman. It's not a very competitive game. Needless to say we asked him not to join in our next round, "that's fine, I don't want to play with a bunch of noobs."
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Well I didn't stop another player from getting one of the final Power Ring cards and he flipped the F!&%$ out. "How could you not block her! She's guaranteed to win on her next turn now! You suck at this game!" Bro, I'm just trying to power up my batman. It's not a very competitive game. Ohhhhh yeah, there's "expert" players who hate when others don't play "correctly". You even see it in poker with pros getting really mad when someone wins with an "incorrect" play (among actual pros this can be a sign of cheating, but some of them still get mad when non-pros do it). Some of these like to try to "puppet" other players into doing the right thing, and my god, just... please don't. A helpful pointer or three after a play or after the game is great. The odd "uh oh, if so-and-so gets X on their next turn, it's all over!" said to no one in particular can be OK in many games. Telling people what to do while they're playing, more than very occasionally, is awful though. I do kinda get it, it can be frustrating when you play with someone who gives the game to another player who shouldn't have won on that turn if the other'd made the obviously-correct play, but that's just part of playing a game with a mixed-skill set of players and you gotta roll with it.

squeaky-clean 4y ago

I've had the inverse happen to me, not playing optimally upsetting someone. Playing the DC superhero deck-building game at a card shop with some friends and a stranger asked to join, he already knew how to play. Well I didn't stop another player from getting one of the final Power Ring cards and he flipped the F!&%$ out. "How could you not block her! She's guaranteed to win on her next turn now! You suck at this game!" Bro, I'm just trying to power up my batman. It's not a very competitive game. Needless to say we asked him not to join in our next round, "that's fine, I don't want to play with a bunch of noobs."

yamtaddle 4y ago
> Well I didn't stop another player from getting one of the final Power Ring cards and he flipped the F!&%$ out. "How could you not block her! She's guaranteed to win on her next turn now! You suck at this game!" Bro, I'm just trying to power up my batman. It's not a very competitive game. Ohhhhh yeah, there's "expert" players who hate when others don't play "correctly". You even see it in poker with pros getting really mad when someone wins with an "incorrect" play (among actual pros this can be a sign of cheating, but some of them still get mad when non-pros do it). Some of these like to try to "puppet" other players into doing the right thing, and my god, just... please don't. A helpful pointer or three after a play or after the game is great. The odd "uh oh, if so-and-so gets X on their next turn, it's all over!" said to no one in particular can be OK in many games. Telling people what to do while they're playing, more than very occasionally, is awful though. I do kinda get it, it can be frustrating when you play with someone who gives the game to another player who shouldn't have won on that turn if the other'd made the obviously-correct play, but that's just part of playing a game with a mixed-skill set of players and you gotta roll with it.