Modern board games

[Teacher Terry]

Senet is a combination of skill with some luck involved.

 

[Extra Medium]

Love Ticket to Ride. 5 Second Rule is really fun and fast paced, especially good with kids. Our kids are also really into Clue (absolutely not modern).

 

[sengsational]

We were introduced to Kingdomino. Good for kids. Just a little bit of waiting for the other guy to get done with his turn. Quite a bit of luck, but some strategy.

I'm not a huge fan of Catan because so much is determined at the outset. I mean, if I get to place a city on woods and clay, all with, five dots numbers and next to a 2:1 wood port and the board has no other "juicy" options, it's pretty certain I'm winning unless everyone gangs-up on me. And that's another thing I don't like about Catan...if you're out to keep someone from winning, you can make any deal you want, so the two trailing players can trade their entire hand for one unneeded card that the second place player has. All this in order to keep the guy who's winning from finishing in first place.

A game I "never win", but enjoy is Banannagrams. I usually try to make a funny, themed-words board. We have a house rule that lets me win occasionally. First game, two letter words are legit. Next game, the winner of the previous game can't use two-letter words. Should someone win twice, they can't use two or three letter words. At least then I can say "peel" occasionally.

 

[Independent]

I've done a little bit of Catan, Carcassonne,

I've played both of them with my grandsons. I like Catan better.

 

[Puzzler]

We love strategy games, especially Catan, Dominion and 7 Wonders. Our favorite 2 player strategy game is 7 Wonders Duel (including the expansion). We don't play as much since the grandkids popped out, but hoping they can join in as they get older. We probably own about 50 strategy and party games.

 

[Goawayrain]

We enjoy Wingspan - beautiful and very playable game for 2 people. Ticket to Ride is fun and we also enjoy Hive. We own Secret Hitler but haven't had enough people over yet to play it.

 

[Retch The Grate]

I'm curious how many of us older folks are fans of modern board games. I'm not talking about Monopoly, Risk, Uno etc. I talking about games like Ticket to Ride, WingSpan, Castles of Burgundy etc.

Define older? Based on my social group, folks in their 30s and 40s are all into them. Based on folks I see online, folks in their 50s and 60s are too...

I just got my Steve Jackson Games 80s pocket box games reprint Kickstarter shipment, waiting on the Eclipse 2nd edition Kickstarter to show up, had a friend over last night to play 7 Wonders Duel, and see the Star Realms foil set kickstarter just funded so I have that to look forward to.

Highly recommend:
Eclipse
Terraforming Mars
Great Western Trail
Pandemic Legacy, Season 1 (halfway through the season, Legacy games are neat!)

 

[USGrant1962]

Define older? Based on my social group, folks in their 30s and 40s are all into them. Based on folks I see online, folks in their 50s and 60s are too...

I just got my Steve Jackson Games 80s pocket box games reprint Kickstarter shipment, waiting on the Eclipse 2nd edition Kickstarter to show up, had a friend over last night to play 7 Wonders Duel, and see the Star Realms foil set kickstarter just funded so I have that to look forward to.

Highly recommend:
Eclipse
Terraforming Mars
Great Western Trail
Pandemic Legacy, Season 1 (halfway through the season, Legacy games are neat!)

I passed on the SJ Games pocket box kickstarter because I still have all the originals. But I did do Ogre Designers Edition, which has to be the biggest and heaviest game ever made. My name is on the box.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/ogre-designers-edition?ref=discovery&term=OGRE

And this thread got me looking again for local groups. One listed Pandemic Fall of Rome as most played recently. I looked it up between sessions of Field of Glory: Empires and insta-ordered it the other night. Arrives tomorrow.

 

[Harrald]

I knew I couldn't be the only one. There are some great games on everyone's lists.

Eclipse is a personal favorite of mine that never gets to the table. Most people don't want to play a 6 hour game.

Terraforming Mars (known in our house as Changing planets) is a game that's been played at least once a week since it came out.


@USGrant: The first step is admitting you have a problem.

<<SNIP>> I looked it up between sessions of Field of Glory: Empires and insta-ordered it the other night. Arrives tomorrow.

 

[GenXguy]

I used to like Stock Market, Easy Money, Monopoly, Careers, Dungeons and Dragons, and Chess, but that was over 30 years ago. I've barely played any board games since, nor video games. None of them interest me much anymore - too many other things to do.

 

[audreyh1]

My young nephews are so quick they only need to see us play a game once and catch on immediately often winning the next round.

But we’re usually playing card games or dominoes.

 

[scrabbler1]

I play Scrabble (see my screen name!), Strat-o-Matic baseball, and some chess. Back in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, I played Careers, Boggle, other Strat-o-Matic games, a board game called Stock Market, and Monopoly, along with some card games.

 

[jim584672]

The "Game of Life" was good. My sister made me play "Mystery Date" with her, LOL.

 

[Harrald]

I am working very hard on not making snarky, inappropriate and possibly perma-ban worthy comments.

<<SNIP>> My sister made me play "Mystery Date" with her, LOL.

Also, I'm pretty sure my older sister made me play too.

 

[Sunny]

What makes these different than classic board games? I’m not interested in classic board games any more, would the modern games be different?

I think the Euro games sort of kicked off a revitalization of tabletop board gamers. People have mentioned Settlers of Catan, Ticket to ride, Castle of Burgundy, etc. and Carcassonne would be another example.

These different greatly from classic American style board games, which the more classic ones relied heavily on luck while playing and really didn’t offer a lot of opportunities for strategy.

By contrast “modern” board games, in the mainstream anyway, tend to offer strategy but still allow for luck to play a factor. This helps a lot for newer people to play against veterans and still have a chance, yet the veteran can strategize away and be content doing so.

The different mechanics of modern board games are truly amazing. Some of the cooperative ones are downright a blast to play with a group of people (Pandemic, Betrayl on Hill House, & Dead of Winter would be examples) and offer different gameplay vs competing with everyone.

A lot of local libraries have checkouts of board games if you want to try some w/o buying, or many metro areas of board game clubs or stores with nights where you can just show up and try out a new game.

 

[kgtest]

Been playing Uno with my 4 year old...he caught on to the reverse, the block and the pick your color cards REALLY fast...like after seeing me use it and sort of snicker at him, he learned he could easily do it back which was awesome.

We also play a modified version of LIFE. Too young to quite grasp all the rules on that one. I like Klask and bring that up north on the big family retreats. Cribbage is something I recently got into and you can never loose with a good ole fashion card game.

 

[Scuba]

We love Rummikub and also enjoy Sequence, Yahtzee, Mexican Train and Mille Bornes. We haven’t gotten into the modern games, although Cards Against Humanity is fun with a group.

 

[CCBoard]

I mostly lurk on these boards - but this thread is in my wheelhouse and I couldn't resist.

I have been playing board games since my childhood - with little letup. I currently own around 900 games.

One of my primary goals for retirement is to free up more time for board games! I play regularly with my wife and other close friends. There are many game groups in my area that meetup up in pubs, libraries, community centers, and game stores. I prefer the pubs!

I tend to play heavier games, but am willing to play just about anything. I enjoy the social interaction as much as the heavy thinking.

For those who may be interested, my favorite games include Through the Ages, Tichu, Carson City, London, Brass, Combat Commander, Marco Polo, Codenames, Castles of Burgundy, Great Western Trail, Taluva, and way too many more...

For those really interested... Wingspan, Everdell, Trismegistus, Railroad Ink, That's Pretty Clever, Taverns of Tiefenthal, and Barrage are among my favorite games from the past year or so. (The "Cult of the New" is a real phenomenon among many dedicate gamers.)

I am sure I've bored enough folks - so I'll move along now...

Jay

 

[Shardo]

Never heard of any of those newer ones, so I guess that lets me out.

Ditto

 

[Retch The Grate]

I passed on the SJ Games pocket box kickstarter because I still have all the originals. But I did do Ogre Designers Edition, which has to be the biggest and heaviest game ever made. My name is on the box.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/ogre-designers-edition?ref=discovery&term=OGRE

And this thread got me looking again for local groups. One listed Pandemic Fall of Rome as most played recently. I looked it up between sessions of Field of Glory: Empires and insta-ordered it the other night. Arrives tomorrow.

I still have the originals too, but the glue is powdering and the front and back covers have started falling off them.... Yeah, I was ~0.1% of the kickstarter funding for the Designer's Edition of Ogre. I have two copies still in shrink wrap in addition to the copy I opened and assembled. I had intended to run some big tournaments at the job I was at when the kickstarter ran (Gazillion Entertainment, we had lots of room for running games, and obviously a staff that was super into games) but by the time it arrived I was working at a tiny startup of mostly non-gamers... very sad. I've since realized my plan of giving one copy to my Dad makes no sense since they just don't have room for something that huge that he'd play with me once or twice every couple years when I visited out there...

 

[Retch The Grate]

Eclipse is a personal favorite of mine that never gets to the table. Most people don't want to play a 6 hour game.

Terraforming Mars (known in our house as Changing planets) is a game that's been played at least once a week since it came out.

Eclipse is really only an hour a player, so 3 player is a decent sweet spot, 4 if you want diplomatic relations, but yeah, it is definitely an "I'm organizing an Eclipse game get together" not "hey, want to play Eclipse today?".

TM has been my primary game at tuesday night game night for the last couple years. I'll play it over basically anything else. So much fun.

 

[CCBoard]

I enjoy both Eclipse and TM.

I am looking forward to the new edition of Eclipse. I already have the large playmat - just need the Kickstarter to arrive. I am fortunate to have enough friends that have embraced my plat fast, play more motto that we are able to play epic games in a reasonable amount of time.

TM is a great game - but once again - fast players is important. I've been in some terribly long TM games due to some slow (if otherwise lovely) players.

 

[Bongleur]

Most of the old (very old!) familiar boardgames are simple race games. Nowadays there is a whole language to describe the various "game mechanisms" such as Set Collection, Tiling, Take That!, Abstract, Push Your Luck, etc.

 

[Harrald]

I've been in six player games where everyone was out for themselves. We're not a co-op kinda group. Add a couple of AP players and you're playing for 9 hours (with a dinner break) till 4am. I liked it but was fragged the next day and didn't get out of my PJ's.

Eclipse is really only an hour a player, so 3 player is a decent sweet spot, 4 if you want diplomatic relations<<SNIP>>

 

[Fishingmn]

I got lucky enough to get invited 6 years ago to a 4-5 day board gaming event every year. Held at a 7 bedroom house in Northern MN and about 30 people attend.

Almost all of the games mentioned in this thread are too mainstream for this group. A lot of the games are found on kickstarter and a few of the members attend Gencon each year (80k gamers in Indy).

Games include names like Euphoria, Zombicide, Endeavor Age of Sail, Lost Island, Caverna and Coma Ward (and many, many more). There's usually a few rounds of D&D in there as well.

Pretty nerdy stuff but it's a really fun event with a great group that is very welcoming and quite open to teaching each new game beforehand.