Tabletop Games

Wylaff

The family and myself have been getting into playing some tabletop games as a means to spend time together. We've recently been getting into Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride as good family games, and Hive as a great little two player game. Anyone have any recommendations?

genareddog

We play beer pong and quarters at our house.

Wylaff

genareddog said:

We play beer pong and quarters at our house.

Thought about that, but the kids are lightweights.

avengethis

Some of the expansions for Catan are really fun and the alternate versions of Ticket to Ride are a blast as well and can add some interesting wrinkles.  Risk is another that I enjoy with my oldest and wife.

90+_Irishman

There are some great card games out there that are easy and good time wasters that just bring the family together and can talk and play without having to focus too much. My favorite is King’s Corners with a regular card deck or Skip-Bo with the Skip-Bo card deck. 

peter4jc

I know Sheepshead is a Midwest/German thing, but that'd be a great thing to teach them.   LOL, not putting a winkie here, so you don't know if I'm being serious or not.

Bob_Luken

We used to have a lot of fun playing "catchphrase". It was the first edition of a handheld electronic word guessing game. You had to describe a word/phrase without saying any of those words in order to get your teammate to say the word/phrase. Everybody gets crazy trying to give the clues. Very entertaining for us. I know this type of guessing game is older than the electronic version we had, so you could even make up your own words and rules even. There was a TV game show at one point. Late show host, Jimmy Falon plays this game with guests.    

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Phrase_(game)

https://youtu.be/8VNTTzQMK48?t=55

avengethis

Sheepshead is a blast especially if you play crack, recrack, blitz, piss up a rope and **** on your neighbor.

Wylaff

avengethis said:

alternate versions of Ticket to Ride

Are you talking Rails and Sails, or the other maps?

avengethis

Rails and Sails is for advanced players.  Some of the other maps add some twists.  We play Europe mostly.

Captain_Call

There's not a judge in the world that wouldn't grant me everything...

I think I might get a few of these for my house for Christmas

Captain_Call

@Wylaff remind me the name of the game you mentioned at the excellent herf that takes a full year to play? 

Yakster

Zombie Dice

Wylaff

Captain_Call said:

@Wylaff remind me the name of the game you mentioned at the excellent herf that takes a full year to play? 

Pandemic Legacy. It would be cool to try, by there is no way I could get a dedicated group together for it.

Poopy_Jones

Flat table equals HO scale slot car track. Puts the FU in fun

Captain_Call

I found one called lost cities that looks like fun

Wylaff

Forbidden Island is another one we play. That one's nice because it's collaborative.

CalvinAndHobo

If one player is good and the other is not then nevermind, but if both players are either beginners, or just at the same level overall where each game can go either way, then chess is surprisingly fun for a game thousands of years old. It also suits itself well to cigar smoking since no cards or anything else need to be held in your hand.

Usaf06

that game where you put the plastic piece in your mouth is hilarious. Im telling you I cry laughing every time. I don't remember what its called and I'm not googling it to figure it out

Wylaff

Usaf06 said:

that game where you put the plastic piece in your mouth is hilarious. Im telling you I cry laughing every time. I don't remember what its called and I'm not googling it to figure it out

I was looking at that one yesterday in Walmart. It does look funny, I’m leaning away from party games at the moment though.

TX98Z28

Yahtzee is a family favorite here.

genareddog

Usaf06 said:

that game where you put the plastic piece in your mouth is hilarious. Im telling you I cry laughing every time. I don't remember what its called and I'm not googling it to figure it out

I think your talking about speak out. Should see my family do that after playing quarters 

avengethis

@Usaf06 Speak Out.  Cards against humanity is fun for the more mature or i guess immature crowd

Yakster

My youngest daughter loves Cards Against Humanity

TNBigfoot68

Farkel is a great dice game 2 or more  very fun  

Martel

Don't get me started...

Catan Seafarers and the Cities and Knights expansion are great.

Our favorites right now are Isle of Skye and Dominion. 

Both of these are a little intimidating until you actually play them.  The Dominion rule book is THICK, and the mechanics don't really make sense.  My son bought it with Christmas money last year, and we didn't tackle it until August.  It took us a couple hours to be comfortable, but then we showed my wife and daughter, and they picked it up in 30 minutes and we knocked out about 3 more rounds in under 2 hours.

Isle of Skye is a cool tile-laying, kingdom-building game.  Replay ability is really high, because there's a random selection of scoring conditions each time you play.  It's far more tactical than strategic, because it has a really cool "auction" mechanism to purchase land.  You have to be able to adapt.  And even if you build a great kingdom and get a lot of points, there's some bonus scoring tiles that can shift things if your opponent gets a bunch.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a ton of fun.  If you're looking for a game that is really balanced, this isn't it.  You explore a haunted house together, but at some point, the main "Haunt" is triggered and one of your group betrays the rest.  From this point on, it's crazy.  You have to have good readers and comfortable gamers to play it.  The betrayer has their own set of instructions, thus the group needs to "get" games.  The unbalanced comes when the haunt is triggered early and everyone is stuck in the basement with a monster or something.  Or, you already have everything you need to beat the monster because it triggered late.  But it's an ambiance game.  We'd agreed the next time we play, we're doing so in character for all table discussion.  But then we went and bought the expansion so we've got to figure it out first.

Escape Zombie City is the most stressful 15 minutes of your life.  And a ton of fun.  You have to have a large table for all the dice rolls.

7 Wonders and all it's expansions are fantastic.  There's a new 2-player version that is supposed to be good, but I haven't tried it.

Citadels is great, but make sure to protect the character cards if there's a set you play with frequently, because when you mix in alternate characters, there's a huge disadvantage to knowing who's who.

Love Forbidden Island and Pandemic.  The newer Forbidden Desert is cool.

If you want to get really crazy, shell out a buck twenty and get Twilight Imperium IV.  It takes an hour to set-up and 8-12 hours to play.  I've known of games done in 6 with really experienced players who are unbalanced in skill.  They all knew how to play so the turns were quick, but the best player just steamrolled.  Newbs don't focus enough on victory points and get lost in the story/upgrade trees.

For party games or a break from strategy, we like Dixit or Bubble Talk.

My family loves Munchkin.  I hate it.  It's a race to 10, but in my house, it's usually Dad gets to 9 and the rest of the family beats up on him, so whoever was in second gets to win.  In reality, that's how this game always turns out.  First to 9 usually loses.  But the cards are funny.

For some easy card games: Exploding Kittens (and Imploding Kittens, the expansion) is really fun, even for a picky guy like me.

We Didn't Playtest This is a good one, too.  Random.  Some hands end in seconds.  Make sure you play in a room with bananas.

And if you like to argue/debate, get Superfight.  Where else can you have a fight between Hermione and Iron Man?  It's awesome.  I'm fully expecting the 80's and 90's expansions for X-mas.  I really want to be Mr. T in a DeLorean fighting against Chuck Norris in the mech-suit from Aliens.

avengethis

Oh yeah "We didnt playtest this" is a lot of fun and can get crazy.  I forgot about that one.

Wylaff

Thanks for the list Martel. We're gonna pick up a couple new games this weekend, and I'll have to look into a lot of those.

Wylaff

We went with Pandemic, Codename Duet, and a cool looking game called Lucidity. Happy gaming!

Wylaff

Lucidity is alright. It’s basically a large version of Zombie Dice. The other two are fantastic.

jd50ae

Doesn't anyone play cards anymore?