c/board-game-geeks

TIL a guy at a con taught me the perfect shuffle in 30 seconds flat

I was at Gen Con last year and this older dude just grabbed my deck, showed me a bridge shuffle with zero bent cards, and handed it back. He said 'slow hands, fast cards' and walked off. Anyone else have a random stranger change how they play?

I tried using a weighted dice tower and it changed how my group plays Catan

I got a heavy ceramic dice tower for my birthday last month and set it up for our weekly Catan game. The dice stopped bouncing off the table and hitting the floor, so we saved like 10 minutes of searching under furniture each game. What I didn't expect was how it made everyone more careful about rolling - no more sloppy tosses. I swear the resource distribution felt more balanced too, but that might be in my head. Has anyone else noticed a difference in game outcomes after switching to a dice tower?

Vent: Took me 3 hours to figure out why my game pieces were warping

Stumbled on a stat that 40% of board game Kickstarters never actually deliver, which explains a lot about that campaign I backed in 2021.

I found this on a gaming news site and now I'm digging through my old backed projects to see which ones actually made it, has anyone else had a Kickstarter go completely silent on them?

Vent: Spent 3 years playing Settlers wrong

So I've been playing Catan with my group for like 3 years now. Last Tuesday at a game night in Portland, this guy named Mike points out that I've been placing the robber before rolling, not after. I felt like a total idiot, but honestly the game is way more cutthroat now. Has anyone else had a moment where you realized you were playing a game completely wrong for years?

Realized I was shuffling wrong after 8 years of Catan

My buddy Matt called me out last Friday night. Said my mash shuffle was ruining the cards. I've been doing it that way since college. He showed me the bridge shuffle in 30 seconds. Made the game feel totally different. Has anyone else had a basic habit get busted late in the game?

Dice tower ruined my game night, not enhanced it

Bought a fancy wooden dice tower off Etsy for $60. Thought it would be this cool centerpiece for our weekly Gloomhaven session. First time using it, dice kept getting stuck halfway down. By the third roll it tipped over and knocked a buddy's character card into someone's beer. We trashed the tower and went back to rolling by hand. Way faster and nobody's stuff gets wrecked. Anyone else have a dice accessory that ended up being more trouble than it was worth?

Had to pick between a 2-hour teach or just handing them the rulebook

My buddy wanted to learn Scythe and I chose the full teach (you know, explaining every mechanic) instead of just giving him the manual and winging it. Three hours later he was still asking about encounter cards and I wanted to flip the table. Has anyone else regretted giving the full rules walkthrough instead of just playing as you go?

TIL that massive game night at Gen Con changed how I pick board games

I was at Gen Con last August wandering the dealer hall when this guy running a demo for Root pulled me aside. He said something that stuck with me: 'Stop reading the rulebook first, play the game blind and see if the fun hits you.' I had always spent an hour studying rules before buying anything. So I sat down and just played a round of this heavy woodland game without reading a single page. It was way more fun even though I lost bad because I had no clue what I was doing. Now I try to play every new game at least once before even looking at the manual. Has anyone else tried this approach at a con or game store and had it work out weirdly well?

A five minute talk with a tournament organizer changed my view on Catan

I always thought Settlers of Catan was a boring luck fest. Then I talked to a guy named Dave at a local con in Portland last Saturday. He showed me how he tracks probability of every dice roll over a whole game. He also pointed out that trading wisely can beat bad dice almost every time. I still think the robber mechanic is mean, but now I see there is way more skill than I gave it credit for. Has anyone else had a game totally flip for them after one conversation?

The coffee shop game night that wrecked my strategy

I was at Grounds & Games in Portland last Friday for their weekly board game meetup. Some guy named Dave pulled out this obscure tile-laying game I'd never seen and beat me in 20 minutes using a rule I completely missed. I realized I've been speed-reading rulebooks for years and skipping the fine print every time. Now I go through every rule section twice before I even set up the board. Anyone else ever get humbled by a hidden rule you overlooked?

I finally snapped my favorite meeple in half last night

I was setting up Scythe for a game with my group last night and one of the red meeple just snapped right in half. It was probably from 2018 when I first got the game so it had some years on it. The plastic just felt brittle all the sudden and I barely applied pressure. I tried super gluing it back together but the break was too clean and it wont hold. Has anyone else had meeple break on them after years of use? Maybe I need to look into some third party metal ones.

Appreciation post: The guy who warned me about Kickstarter board games at Gen Con last year

Last August at Gen Con in Indianapolis, I ran into this older guy near the Fantasy Flight booth. He saw me backing three Kickstarter games on my phone and told me to slow down. He said he lost nearly $600 in the last two years on games that never shipped or showed up broken. I laughed it off at the time, but now I get it. Three months after Gen Con, one of those campaigns went silent and the other two delivered parts missing. I finally emailed the third company last week and got no reply. That guy was right, I should have listened. Has anyone else had a Kickstarter game just disappear on you?

That 3-minute rule for setting up Terraforming Mars saves me 20 minutes every game night

I got tired of people taking forever to pick their starting corporations and preludes. So I started a timer. 3 minutes to pick everything. No extensions. Now we're actually playing by 7:15 instead of 7:30. Has anyone else tried a strict time cap for setup phases?

Rant: That guy who treats every game like a tournament final

At a meetup last month in Portland, this one dude spent 20 minutes arguing about a rule in Catan like his life depended on it. Three other players just sat there waiting while he flipped the rulebook back and forth. Has anyone else run into people who forget games are supposed to be fun?

Lost a whole game night because of a busted dice tray

Last Saturday I had 5 people over for a game of Dune Imperium, and right as we started the first round, my cheap plastic dice tray just cracked down the middle. Dice went flying everywhere and we spent 20 minutes trying to find a missing one under the couch. I ended up using a takeout container lid as a temporary fix, but it killed the momentum. Has anyone found a dice tray that actually holds up to regular use?

Just realized the local game store is worth the drive

I always bought my board games online because it was cheaper and easier. But last Saturday I stopped into The Dice Den in Portland because my wife wanted to grab coffee next door. Walked in and saw a group of six people testing out a game I'd been curious about for months. The owner let me sit in for 10 minutes and explained a rule I'd been reading wrong online. I ended up buying the game right there for $52 which is only 4 bucks more than Amazon. The experience of trying before buying and getting real advice from people who play daily changed my mind completely. Has anyone else had a store clerk talk you into a game you would have skipped otherwise?

Tried hosting a game night with a spread of party games versus one deep strategy game and the difference was huge

I spent last Saturday running 3 different quick party games like Codenames and Dixit for a group of 6 people and it was chaos with people talking over each other. Then on Sunday I pulled out a single heavy game like Brass Birmingham with just 4 of us and everybody was locked in and having actual fun for 3 hours straight. Has anyone else found that smaller groups with one meaty game beats a big group bouncing between light games?

Warning: my $100 foam core insert turned out to be a trap

I spent $100 on custom foam core inserts for my board game shelves a few years back... Looked great but had to toss them after they started warping from humidity. Anyone else regret going fancy with storage instead of just bagging things up?

Hot take: I stopped bagging up my board games and it actually saves me space

I used to be one of those people who kept every single board game in its original box, with all the little plastic bags for each component type. It felt like the right thing to do, keeping things organized and pristine. But after a 3 hour setup of Eldritch Horror last month, I got fed up. My friend pointed out that half the game's box is just empty air and wasted cardboard. So I ditched the inserts and started using a plano tackle box with 18 compartments for all the tokens and cards. The rulebook and board still fit in the box, and now I can store three expansions in the same footprint as the base game alone. It felt wrong at first, like I was breaking some unspoken rule of board gaming. But honestly, has anyone else found that the standard box inserts are just designed to sell more shelf space instead of actually helping you play?

Debate: Is getting wrecked in a board game actually fun or just frustrating?

Last month I played Dune Imperium and got absolutely crushed by turn 3 because I misread a card. Some people say losing hard teaches you more than winning. What do you think? Is it a good week or a bad week when you bomb out like that?

Three years of hosting game nights and I still can't get people to show up on time

I've been running a weekly board game night at my place in Portland for three years now. Last month I had three people arrive at 7 PM when I clearly said 6 PM, and one guy showed up at 8:30 with takeout. I spent $45 on snacks and had the game set up for 45 minutes before anyone even walked in. It kills the energy when you're sitting there waiting while the game board stares at you. Do you guys have a hard cutoff time for latecomers or do you just deal with it?

My copy of Terraforming Mars fell apart after 3 plays

Picked up Terraforming Mars a month ago from a local shop for $55 and the board split along a fold after our third game night. I tried super glue but it cracked again the next time we set it up. Has anyone had luck getting replacements from the publisher or should I just sleeve the whole thing and move on?

Debate: should you save a broken game or toss it?

I had this happen last weekend with my copy of Fireball Island... the rubber band that launches the fireball snapped right in the middle of a game. Part of me wanted to try and fix it with a new band from a craft store, maybe spend a dollar and keep it going. The other side of me said just toss it and buy a new copy, since the replacement cost is like 40 bucks and it's not a rare game. I ended up trying the fix with a thick rubber band from the kitchen drawer, but it snapped again after two turns. So now I'm stuck wondering if I should order a proper replacement part online or just call it a loss. What do you guys do when a board game breaks mid-session... do you try to repair it or move on? Has anyone else dealt with a snapped rubber band or similar piece failure?

Shoutout to the guy who taught me about sleeving cables at a convention 8 years ago

I was at Gen Con in 2016 and some dude at a booth showed me how to properly sleeve power supply cables for my gaming PC. Took me like 4 hours to do my first set and they looked awful. But last week I sleeved a friend's rig in 45 minutes and it came out clean. That random convention talk actually stuck with me longer than any tutorial I watched online. Has anyone else had a random interaction at a con or game night that ended up being super useful later?