10 Mistakes Most Board Gamers Make
Actualol
Views: 29690
Like: 2295
When you’re getting into board games, it’s so easy to make mistakes. These are ten that I’ve made, so you don’t have to!
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07.02.2022
Wisdom and humor.
You'll never get too old to play them? Oh, dear. Dementia has some bad news for some.
I'm not about to scroll through 470+ comments to see if anyone already mentioned this, so will simply say:
Don't attempt to play other people's game for them. They will not appreciate it. If they ask for advice, fine, but I'd still recommend keeping such advice simple and straightforward, and best posed as a leading suggestion, or even a question. There's no shame, either for them or for you, in letting them make their own mistakes.
I feel like I just went to therapy. I have done all of these. Lol
This is such good advice! And a great video. I'm laughing so hard because this is all so spot on. You've gained a new subscriber!
My favorite mistake is getting wrapped in reviewer excitement of the game, buying it (with very steep shipping cost into my country) just to realize that I hate it. And that I never could've liked to be honest. It's not my genre, not my setting – nothing. But I forgot every bit of my critical thinking at that moment.
That taught me that I watch SUSD for the fun and not for recommendations =)
Watching this video was a mistake. You have me second guessing everything…I’m gonna order a new game to feel better. Too Many Bones?
Cheers Jon, also Onitama has an expansion coming out soon!
So many great points – I feel like I could've done with a lot of this advice earlier on. Definitely bought lots of games from FOMO, over-hyped or didn't suit the game group.
Very fun, so true re the BGG top 100. Just checked through the list and only ten of them are in my top 100.
Nice video man, always help to get another POV, that reminds me that a friend and I tried to calculate the price per play of some of our games, that way a game we play a lot can have a very cheap price per play even if it was expensive, and the worst case scenario is an expensive kickstarter we hardly play.
I got into board games 6 months ago and this is the best video ever 🤣 every point is so true
Might add "(New)" or similar to the title or a revised thumbnail, to help the intended audience find this
There’s no “rules” to a board game night you pompous prick
"Even though no game is objectively bad, some games are subjectively bad for the entire population of the World."
Actualol© – nominated for Best Quote of the Year
points for a Dvořák reference
You've nailed it !!!
My goodness. You hit the nail on the head. I'm guilty of these. I've cut back drastically buying new games. I have enough to last a lifetime.
This is easily one of the best videos I've seen this year
KS had defenitivly been my biggest mistake, and it's really hard to get out of it with the FOMO. Now I just find a way to know when a favorite designer gotta on KS and only back those like I did with foundations of Rome from Matsuuchi.
Well done. Not many videos out there cover what you’ve mentioned here. I’m just not sure I would have followed a lot of these advices given how that honeymoon phase is blinding to new gamers, or at least it was to me.
You get much less bang-for-your-buck when buying expansions versus choosing to invest that money on a new game. And it’s easy to overlook the overall cost of a game with its expansions if you don’t buy them all at once (King of Tokyo with all the expansions is probably more expensive than A Feast for Odin, but it’s much harder to pull the trigger on the latter).
My main mistake is playing games primarily with my family. They just need to more properly appreciate Vital Lacerda! My definition of fun is the right one, I swear!
I bought way too many games (and expansions), especially out of FOMO or because the games were on sale. I now have a massive games closet full of regret…
Brilliant video! So funny and so true! It felt like my conscience was talking to me. 🙂 Thank you!
My biggest mistake was buying a bunch of games that I could play solo. Turns out putting out all the components from the box usually stops me from playing a solo games, and heaps of games that play "1 to X players" are multiplayer solitaire games.
“Add 1 or 2 more games to get free shipping”
SPOT ON! And Hilarious to boot! What was the one expansion? Prelude?
The way every one of these is 100% correct !!!
Absolutely superb – cuttingly funny also, particularly the patreon jab. This does feel like content that is for the betterment of board gaming kind – kudos Jon 😀
What's the game on bga shown at time mark 13:13?
I'm also guilty of most these mistakes btw. Just about to enter my curating phase.
Wow, I got into board games like 3 months ago and I feel I went through every stage of what you're describing already. Spot on!
Been there, done all of them…
My disaster award is awarded when after painfully trying to create my own dungeon crawler adventure game, i set a playtesting "event" on one of my friends house who would assemble our Avengers team. Upon visiting the house there were three female of our friends and only the male host friend. The agony and horror, trying to explain why your elf-warrior should attack the goblin, while it "hasn't done you any harm…" and the defense and attack rolls….
This has to be the most relatable video I’ve seen so far. Watch a funny and enjoyable watch!
Number three got me good. Can't tell you how many expansions I've bought and not played yet!
I feel so vindicated for only having one expansion in my collection
01. Know the rules beforehand.
02. Estimated duration on the box is arbitrary.
03. Buying a new game is more variety than an expansion.
04. Recommended player amounts are marketing only.
05. Don't rely on board game geek top 100.
06. Buy fewer games.
07. Get a game group over relying on family / friends.
08. Don't get into Kickstarter.
09. Choose players suiting the game.
10. Don't trust big names (authors, franchises).
These are mostly for me, when I inevitably stumble across this video again at some later point in time.
I hope to add timestamps to these when I am back at PC.
Something I chalk up to biggest mistakes is buying the game specific mats. Often times they're not any better than the board, but they take up significantly more space. I'm always surprised by how much people rave about them, because I'm unimpressed considering the cost of a mat.
Still, when I was at a convention and my wife bought a game that she blinged out with a mat and upgraded coins, I shrugged and though, "Well, at least I'm not the only one that gets suckered into these things."
A mistake I think a lot of gamers make is constantly making the group play a new game. There's so many games coming out, and it's bound to be a situation where players all have something new they want to play, that favorites never get played. Instead, it's just OK plays of new games before moving on to the next thing.
Actually, we finished a 4p Ark Nova session in 5 hours last night, two players never played it (and one is not a board gamer at all, while the other is very proficient in games), and the two of us played it only twice before. 😀
However, we enjoyed it so much it only felt like 3 hours! 😛 I believe only my partner ended up with a sour taste because his points totalled up to 0 after those 5 hours. Well, what can I say, he should have invested a little bit more into the appeal of his zoo…
That is the journey of mistakes. Great video.
This is so painfully to watch. Because it's all true. 😖
I love this video. It's a great entry point for new players. I've been into board games for about 20 years now and all of it applies.
One thing I'm disagreeing with slightly though is your fiery speech about expansions.
1. Expansions give you more for a game that you already love and they can make a game stay interesting for a group longer. Learning an expansion to a game people already know how to play is very often not as taxing as learning an entirely new game. If you've already played and loved Ruins of Arnak, then adding the expansion in for more variety and a couple of twists is exactly what a lot of people want. You get something new to explore and figure out but at the same time you don't need to learn/teach yet another new and complex game.
2. Sometimes expansion ARE essential because they fix something about the base game or make it come into its own and end up being the reason that the game in question is still played and enjoyed many years later. Often, for an expansion to be considered essential, enough time needs to have passed for that truth to crystalize. The base game versions of these games are fine, but they simply become excellent/more immersive/crunchy/balanced, so in essence the "definitive version" with the expansion.
I think your bias against expansions here comes from your own preference of liking elegantly designed games with clear rules instead of, say another highly complicated Worker Placement Game like Anachrony, which then comes with oodles of modules. For you it's adding complexity for the sake of complexity. But there ARE players who really enjoy these. For me Viticulture in it's base version is just …. too lucky and the actual wine-making not important enough …. and then you play with the Tuscany expansion and it just clicks and it's the only version of Viticulture that I want to play.
I realize that I'm saying that viticulture is not very "budget friendly" because you need to buy the base game (not cheap to begin with) AND the expansion or "not even bother and get a game that is worth playing outright". But in all honesty, Board Gaming is one of the cheaper hobbies out there so a "splurge" here isn't exactly the same as tuning your motorbike, getting a new part for your Gaming-PC etc.
Very good video. I'm a few months into boardgaming and haven't done many of these mistakes, because they are obvious.
I just like games based on themes I like, and luckily War of the Rings or Hellboy are good games, which I knew, because I extensively researched prior to buying.
I'm just regretting not opting also for the Conqueror worm reprint while backing the new Hellboy expansions!
I bought the expansion for WOTR 1st edition even though I don't own the base game, turned it into a TTS mod, voila (ok, I bought it for the two different scenarios that are actually another type of game). When I finally buy the new reprint of WOTR, I'll have a hard time resisting the two expansions – but I can play them on TTS to my heart's content anyway.
As a die hard Dune fan I bought the game – of course only the new, slick one that is grafically tied in with the new film (overrated), because, duh.
I like all three of my Zen Garden games because I'm developing one myself.
From the beginning I told and reminded myself which games, or franchises I want and deviated so far only with Blitz Bowl, because I've forgotten that I have a soft spot for fictional brutal sports.
But I've become a real nuisance for my friends, because I'm very slow in finding new friends who actually like playing board games.
So I really resonated with this video because it supports my intuition…
Another mistake is introduce someone to a new game along with its expansions at the same time
It will be very overwhelming for them… too much information at the same time
Best to start with the basics first and build it from there
Great video. But the YouTube advert algorithm decided that an ad the La Granja "Deluxe Master Edition" Kickstarter was the best thing to play right after you finished telling us to avoid Kickstarter. "With TRIPLE layer player boards" 😀
Has to fight really hard not to spray coffee over the screen.
I have to agree with the expansions one. I got The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow the Pact, which has about 47 characters and I've barely ever played even part of it.
On the other hand though I have played One Night Ultimate Werewolf with Daybreak and Vampire. It's all about knowing 1. How often you'll play it and 2. Knowing how many people will play it.
No 6,7 and 8 are definitely me. I need to stop buying games. I've got so many I've never even played. If I could, I'd play a different game every night. I'd just started some legwork in setting up a board game evening at work once a week and then Covid hit. Now it's a pipe dream.
Great video, good advice for those of us that are the main people getting into the hobby.
I'm absolutely guilty of buying the expansions too early.
Though for me, it's usually the ones that allow more players.
Any other games that absolutely need the expansion, like because that fixes something major; then that expansion should be part of the original box.
I found that lately almost all board games on Kickstarter have a TTS mod to try the game before pledging. It's probably a generally good idea to try the game online before buying it