board games and other sit-round the table activities

hi chris! only problem with cribbage in my fam is its association with GAMBLING, the scent of which must not tarry too near my grandfather, who won't even play games with face cards, so associated they are with the vices of the riverboat.

OK i realize now i'm getting arsey but really my conditions aren't so stringent: no gambling, no face cards, no charades

The new classic game for large families who are clever and funny is Apples To Apples, of course. But you really need at least 6 or 7 for that to work right.

Lost Cities is pretty nice for a 2-player game, and it's all about archaeology! Except not really.

"loco" -- ?

ihttp://www.birmingham.gov.uk/Media?MEDIA_ID=106707

(seven seals is this btw - it's a superfun bright-coloured trick-taking and mutual sabotage game)

Mississipi Queen is totally great fun if you ignore the full game and just play the training games loads of times.

Apples to Apples is still probably otm though!

Shithead will be out too then :o(

Loco! is by Reiner Knizia, who is easily my favorite game designer. It is a gripping mindfuck of a game.

I like Puerto Rico but I have never not come last :(

(This thread has maybe wandered)

classic but trouble:
(players will become much too aggressive whilst learning geography): take off!
(other reasons): beer dice

dud: charades, nasdaq

The game asks the questions that everyone wonders about from time to time. After a question is read aloud, one player (unbeknownst to the others) reads the correct answer, while the other players present bluff answers--as convincingly as they can--and then each player votes for the answer they think is correct. Points are awarded when your bluff answer receives votes or if you vote for the correct answer.

taboo is my board game of choice, though. i will also add to the praise for apples to apples (the more players the better though).

I'm keen to play Bethump'd. Anyone tackled that one?

Settlers of Catan is fun but it seems like it's generally decided within two rounds.

Wrong. It's at LEAST five.

This game is actually AMAZING. Especially after a few drinks. Sometimes if two people get theirs (and thus need a new name) simultaneously, it can be really funny. Once my friends put "ANT" on my head and "DEC" on another friends head.

They were all laughing maniacally the entire time, but I suppose you assume they're just laughing at you. It's weird, it still took about a round for me to realise that because one person was "DEC" I must have been "Ant". But the funniest part was that after this it still took my friend "Dec" about ten goes to get that he was "Dec".

There's such a weird paranoid feeling with this game, everyone laughing at something written on your head.

Our family plays The After Eights Game after Christmas dinner. You each scoff an After Eight, then spend the next half hour trying to turn the wrapper inside out without tearing it. It doesn't matter if you fail because you can just eat another After Eight and start again.

North American Rails is huge fun, but apparently Mayfair doesn't even make it anymore — replaced by Empire Builder

what are these?!

This game sounds brilliant.

chris, i understand your condescension towards skip-bo. it is an almost thoroughly mindless game. my family's other favorite is a bridge-like domino game called texas 42, which is full of bidding, trick-taking, double-crosses, boisterous accusations of cheating, and cryptic phrases like "that's a walker" and "nell-o". some in the family do not feel up to this class of hugger mugger even at the best of times, and others, depending on the hour, would rather let the fates guide their actions via some random distribution of cards, the better to digest the evening's corn chowder and wine, the latter of which would have to have been secretly sipped from plain glasses and referred to as "cranberry juice." but you must be right that "better than skip-bo" is a low bar at best.

so everybody first of all agrees on a fee per game, say 2 euro, or a dollar or whatever, into the pot, for a round. The more people the better really, 8 or 9 is a good number.

Each card has a numeric value, the usual way, you can decide is Aces are high or low before each round.

So everybody is dealt 2 cards, which are placed face up on the table. Then the game begins by each person deciding whether to play or pass.

If you "play" you basically say how much you want to bet, the pot, or less or whatever, and the dealer waits to build some suspense then gives you a card.

If the card is in between the numbers of the two you have then you win. But if it's outside you lose whatever you bet and must put that amount into the pot.

And if the card you get is either of the two numbers you have already then you must pay double the amount you bet.

It sounds very simple, and it is, but believe me this game is gambling in its rawest form (so maybe not best for you tracer, as per what you said about gambling), I've seen friends win and lose huge amounts of money.

gabbneb, check this out. Basically the games are a topographic grid of a continent, and each player builds his/her own railway system and picks up and delivers freight to fulfill contracts that they draw at random. In N.A. Rails, you have to connect six of the seven major North American cities and amass $250 million to win, but of course the rail construction isn't free, building over rivers and mts. costs more, etc. Delivering coffee to Montreal is a big payoff; cars to Chicago, not so much.

Now I want Lunar Rails!

If they want a certain amount of excitement but without any real brain-burning you might consider Guillotine, which is fun and allows for a certain amount of machination but is essentially a luck of the draw game, but you have to have a family that delights in collecting the heads of French nobles rather than finding that somewhat upsetting. There is a card called the "Piss Boy" who is also in line to get his head chopped off, so some of the jokes my friends and I make might not be comfortable to make around grandma.

Another "family favorite" that I have heard people rave about is Bohnanza, which I haven't played but which is a card game about bean planting. But they say it is fun.

I dunno, Lunar Rails is tempting but also not. Part of the fun is having some emotional connection to the cities. (Oo, Montreal wants Uranium!) But I'd certainly give it a go. I would give near any board game a go, once.

Trivial Pursuit Book Lovers Edition might be good, except the "Children's Books" questions are too difficult. What huh? There's a WHOLE CATEGORY of children's books?!?