The Design Community Hub

c/board-game-geeks

5

joel280•1d ago

Shoutout to the guy who talked me out of sleeving every single card

Last month a dude at my local game shop saw me buying 200 penny sleeves for my copy of Dominion. He told me to only sleeve cards you shuffle or cards you touch all the time. Said I was wasting money and time on stuff nobody touches like Victory cards. I ignored him at first but after 3 games where sleeves kept splitting I gave up. Now I only sleeve the action cards and it saves me like 10 minutes of setup per game. Has anyone else figured out a smarter way to handle sleeves or do you just sleeve everything?

3

ray210•2d ago

Talked with a librarian about game preservation and it hit me different

She told me games disappear if nobody plays them, and now I'm going through my old boxes of games from the 90s to log rulebooks on BGG before the paper crumbles away - has anyone else found old game instructions that were completely lost to time?

12

the_caleb•3d ago

Hot take: I played Pandemic wrong for over a year

Turns out we thought the infection deck reshuffled after every outbreak, not just the outbreak cities. A buddy from a game store pointed it out during a demo and I felt like a total fool.

28

john_hunt2•3d ago

Took me 3 hours to learn a co-op board game rule I was doing wrong the whole time

I was playing Spirit Island with my group last weekend and we kept getting destroyed every single game. Turns out I misread the rule about how blight cascades - I thought it only spread to adjacent lands, but it actually spreads to ALL connected lands on the island. We had been playing it way too easy for like 6 sessions straight. Has anyone else found a rule they got wrong for way longer than they'd like to admit?

17

mila_jones39•6d ago

Went to a board game cafe in Portland last weekend, and the vibe was way off

I popped into this spot called 'Meeples' on a Saturday afternoon (around 2pm) and it was packed with people glued to their phones, not playing games at all. Like, two groups were just scrolling while a stack of Catan sat untouched. Has anyone else noticed these cafes becoming more about the coffee than the actual gaming?

15

blair_dixon•7d ago

Tried being a nice guy at game night and it backfired hard

I let a new player take back a bad move in Agricola because he looked lost, and he ended up beating me by 4 points. Is playing soft on beginners actually doing them a disservice?

12

milam42•7d ago

Found a stat about Catan trades that blew my mind

I was reading a blog post from a gaming statistician last night and saw that in recorded tournament play, trades offering a single brick for two sheep win over 70% of the time. That really surprised me since I always thought resource diversity was the bigger factor. Has anyone else come across numbers like this that changed how you play?

5

willow_anderson85•7d ago

Started using a dice tray at game night and it changed everything

I kept seeing people at my local board game cafe in Chicago knocking over pieces with their elbows. Spent months getting annoyed until I brought a simple felt dice tray from Amazon for like 8 bucks. Now we roll dice without scattering meeples everywhere and it saves like 5 minutes per game. Has anyone else found a cheap fix that makes a huge difference at the table?

15

wren301•7d ago

Found out my favorite game had a misprint rule for 15 years

I was digging through some old forums last week about the board game Dune, the 1979 version. Turns out there's this whole thing about how the movement phase was printed wrong in the original rulebook. For 15 years, people were playing where you could move troops across the whole map in one turn, but the designer later clarified it's supposed to be limited to just the territory next to where your troops already are. I checked my own copy and sure enough, the rulebook I've been using since college has that exact mistake. It blew my mind because my group has been playing with that wrong movement rule for like 8 years! Has anyone else found a rule in a classic game that was totally off from the designer's intent?

19

the_caleb•9d ago

Went to a board game cafe in Chicago and watched a guy lose it over a rulebook

I visited this place called The Dice Dojo last Saturday and there was this one guy at the table next to me who kept arguing with his friend about a single rule in a new game they just opened. He kept flipping through the rulebook like 15 times, getting louder each time, until finally the owner came over and settled it in like 30 seconds. The funny part was the guy still insisted the rulebook was wrong and that the owner must have misread it. I felt bad for the friend who just wanted to play, but it was kind of wild seeing someone get that worked up over cardboard. Has anyone else seen a rules dispute at a game cafe get way out of hand?

1

barnes.kai•9d ago

Old copy of Settlers of Catan I found in my parents' basement last month had a folded rulebook and no hex borders

I was cleaning out their storage closet in Omaha last month and pulled out my old Catan box from 2005. The hex tiles were just solid colors with no borders, and the rulebook was folded like a map. Three years ago I would have tossed it, but last week I played a round with some friends using those clunky pieces and we actually had more fun than with the fancy 3D edition. Has anyone else gone back to an older version of a game and found it plays better than you remember?

13

shah.evan•11d ago

Shoutout to the guy who fixed my worn out Catan board at the local library gaming meetup

I brought my old Catan set to the library meetup last Saturday and the hex tiles were so faded you could barely tell the desert from the pasture. This dude named Marcus showed up with a set of sharpies and spent 15 minutes retracing the border lines. It looked decent after that, not new but way more playable. Anyone else ever get a second life out of a game from a random stranger's help?

18

max388•11d ago

Had to pick between two board game groups last night

My buddy Mike invited me to his heavy euro game night while my sister wanted me to try this new party game called 'Let Me Explain' at her place. I went with Mike and we played 4 hours of Brass Birmingham, which was super intense but I had a headache after. Does anyone else struggle choosing between deep strategy games and just goofing around with family?

17

betty_ward•13d ago

Hot take: competitive gamers make better board game hosts than casual players do

Overheard a guy at my local game store in Denver saying hardcore euro gamers ruin game nights because they take too long. But honestly I've seen the opposite. My buddy Mark who plays in tournaments sets up faster and explains rules way clearer than my casual friends. He finishes his turns in 30 seconds flat. The casual crew takes 5 minutes just counting coins. We had 4 games done in one night with the competitive guy hosting. The casual host got us through 1 game in 3 hours. Which type of player actually makes for a better game night leader?

8

uma_patel19•14d ago

Appreciation post: The quiet joy of finding a play group at a local library

I visited the library on Main Street in Burlington last weekend and stumbled into their monthly board game night. There were about 15 people there, ranging from a retired math teacher to a college kid who brought a rare copy of Dune from 1979. It was really nice to see a mix of ages just sitting around and playing without any pressure to be competitive. Has anyone else had good luck finding a group at a library or community center?

1

simon_black•14d ago

Serious question, how do you recover after a rulebook fails mid-game?

I was running a Dune game at a local convention in Seattle last Saturday. Someone challenged the spice blow rule and I realized I had misread a key paragraph for years. Has anyone else had to pause a game to crowdsource the correct rule from the table?

22

eric359•17d ago

Ran into an old gaming buddy at a thrift store today...

I was flipping through a pile of used board games at a Goodwill in St. Louis when I heard someone say "no way, that's you?" Turned around and it was this guy Dave I used to play Settlers of Catan with back in college like 8 years ago. He pointed at the copy of Brass Birmingham I was holding and said "you always did have good taste, even when nobody else would play it with you." We ended up sitting on a bench outside the store for almost an hour just talking about what games we've been into lately. He told me he got his whole family into Cascadia over the pandemic and now his kids ask to play every weekend. It was just a really nice reminder that this hobby connects people in ways you don't expect. Has anyone else run into someone from their old gaming group randomly like that?

24

holly47•17d ago

Unpopular opinion: the board game cafe in Portland had the worst setup I've seen

I went to Mox Boarding House last Saturday and noticed they had all the heavy strategy games shoved on a high shelf where nobody could reach them. Then I saw a group of new players getting handed Root as their first game and watched them give up after 10 minutes. Has anyone else run into a game store that just doesn't think about how they display stuff for regular people?

6

michaelcoleman•17d ago

Finally changed my approach to teaching new games after a friend's blunt comment

My buddy told me I explain rules like I'm training a new plumber on a job site - all jargon and no overview. Now I start with the win condition and work backwards, and our game nights are way smoother. Has anyone else had to completely rework how they teach complex board games?

24

barbara429•18d ago

Spent 3 hours trying to figure out why a game rule didn't make sense, turns out I was reading the 2010 edition instead of the 2022 reprint.

I bought a used copy of Terraforming Mars off Craigslist and spent a whole evening confused why the corporate era cards felt off. Turned out the seller didn't mention they had the first edition rulebook mixed in with the newer components. Has anyone else gotten tripped up by edition differences like that?

27

jake_mason30•21d ago

Hot take: table talk is ruining competitive board gaming nights

At my local shop in Austin last Friday, a guy spent 15 minutes negotiating a trade during a 4-player game of Brass Birmingham and honestly I think we should start enforcing time limits on negotiations like they do in tournament chess.

2

the_piper•22d ago

Shoutout to the guy who told me to stop sleeving every single card I own

I used to sleeve every board game I bought, even the ones I barely played, until a guy at my local shop in Portland asked if I was collecting cards or playing games. Now I only sleeve stuff that gets heavy rotation like my Terraforming Mars deck, and it's saved me like $40 per game.

11

keith_henderson•22d ago

Just got the player count right for my gaming group after months of guessing wrong

I've been running a weekly game night for about 6 months now and I kept struggling with how many people would actually show up. I'd pick games for 4 players and get 6, or prep a big 6 player game and have 3 people with nothing to do. It was driving me crazy because I'd spend an hour setting up Dead of Winter only to have two people cancel last minute. Last week I started a simple trick where I message everyone 24 hours before and ask for a firm yes or no reply by 9pm the night before. Turns out three people in my group were just saying 'maybe' and then flaking. So I set a hard cutoff and now I plan for exactly the count I get. First time I did it we had 5 people and played Cosmic Encounter perfectly. Has anyone else dealt with people being flaky about RSVPs? I'm thinking about starting a small fee to lock in a spot.

16

christophermurray•25d ago

Why I stopped bringing my favorite game to game night

Had a guy at the Tabletop Tavern in Denver last Friday flip the board on Terraforming Mars because he was losing by 30 points. Made me realize my competitive collection stuff just doesn't fit the casual crowd I play with now.

22

holly47•27d ago

Had a moment at board game night where I realized I'd been shuffling cards wrong for 15 years

I was at a friend's house last Tuesday playing Dominion and this guy Mark kept getting weird draws. He grabbed the deck from me and showed me I was doing a bad overhand shuffle instead of a proper riffle. I guess I never learned the right way, I just watched my dad do it as a kid and copied him. Has anyone else had a basic game skill they did wrong forever without knowing it?