Fun, fairly casual boardgame recommendations?

jill_valentine

Myself and some friends are having a board game night at the weekend. We'll have 4-6 players on the night, I'd say. They'd be fairly casual players, but we've played some of the classics like Cluedo etc to death at this stage. I'd love something like Risk or Monopoly, but alas, I think I'm on my own on that one.

Any suggestions for something that fairly easy for somebody to pick up, without being too shallow and boring?

Rev Hellfire

Citadels would be one I'd recommend, seems popular with the none gamers.
It's got very simple rules and almost no setup.

TwoShedsJackson

King of Tokyo is sometimes good with new groups or non-gamers. It's a pretty simple dice-rolling, 'push your luck' affair, but good fun. If you need it for this weekend they usually have it in Gamers World on Jervis St.

BoardGamer

King of Tokyo is a very good game to try. Other great games to try:

The Resistance (video)
- 5 to 10 players , easy to learn

The Resistance is a party game of social deduction. It is designed for five to ten players, lasts about 30 minutes, and has no player elimination. I played this with a group of 8 people before and it was brilliant fun.

Settlers of Catan (video)
- 3 to 4 players (5 - 6 player with extension) , easy to learn

Even if your friends hate Monopoly, you should try The Settlers of Catan. Definitely not too shallow and boring.

Other great games would be:

Carcassonne
Dixit
Ticket to Ride

Paddy Samurai

jill_valentine wrote: »

Any suggestions for something that fairly easy for somebody to pick up, without being too shallow and boring?

+1 for Settlers of Catan

Also Power grid is a great game for 4 players.


http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

Ticket to Ride is easy to pick up and great fun.

http://boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&objecttype=boardgame&q=ticket&B1=Go

Paddy Samurai

jill_valentine wrote: »

Myself and some friends are having a board game night at the weekend. We'll have 4-6 players on the night, I'd say. They'd be fairly casual players, but we've played some of the classics like Cluedo etc to death at this stage. I'd love something like Risk or Monopoly, but alas, I think I'm on my own on that one.

Any suggestions for something that fairly easy for somebody to pick up, without being too shallow and boring?

If you like risk you could try these.
They are certainly not shallow or boring, and play similar to Risk.ie area control with armies.
IMO Dust and Cyclades are easy to pick up, while Nerath is a bit harder , but still not a really heavy game.

Dust

Dust is a strategy board game of conquest and control. Seize power sources and capitals, develop your infrastructure, and build and wield vast, high-tech armies in your bid for global domination.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29109/dust

Conquest of Nerath

Conquest of Nerath is a fantasy conquest game. 2-4 players muster armies of foot soldiers, siege engines, monsters, warships, elementals, and dragons to attack their opponents. Players employ heroes such as knights and wizards to lead their troops and explore dungeons in the search of magical artifacts and treasures to increase their power in combat.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/92044/dungeons-dragons-conquest-of-nerath-board-game

Cyclades

Victory requires respect for all the gods - players cannot afford to sacrifice to only one god, but must pay homage to each of five gods in turn. Each turn, the players bid for the favors of the gods, as only one player can have the favor of each god per turn - and each player is also limited to the favor of a single god per turn.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54998/Cyclades

Earthhorse

Ticket to Ride will be easiest to pick up and probably the most appealing to your friends (without knowing the first thing about them ) because the theme is pretty accessible.

Settlers is a little more involved than TtR so you would probably want to play a little round with yourself before they arrived to ensure you knew what you were doing and prevent them getting bored during setup. This is assuming you've never played anything more sophisticated than the regular fare.

HivemindXX

I think a lot of replies are missing that you don't think your friends will go for something like Risk.

I agree that Ticket to Ride should be good. It is on Android and iPad as well so people who were so inclined could pick up the rules on those devices. Basically you try to build sets of cards which allow you to build train routes to join cities in America (base game). Downside is that it is five players max. There is an expansion for six players which is team based, and if you get another edition (eg: Nordic) you can use one of the train colours from that to play with six on the main map, but neither of those is likely to suit you.

Dixit is great. It takes up to six and is very easy to get to understand. No conflict which may be good or bad depending on your players. Each player has a hand of beautiful picture cards, the player whose turn it is gives a clue like "What Bagpuss dreams about" and the others pick their card which best matches the clue. So long as some people guess which card belongs to the lead player but not all of them do then points are gained.

Modern Art works very well with non-gamers. Once again you get pretty cards (well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder depending on which set you get) and each round you try to sell a card for the most money. Cards are worth more the more popular they are (ie: they sold more) so people have to guess how many of a certain card will come out so they can guess how much it is worth. There are multiple different auction types (one bid each, hidden bidding, etc) to keep it interesting. Five players only though.

Mother Duck

Some great suggestions, but as above, they might be a bit complex (even though they're not complex at all on the grand scale)... Ticket to Ride is really simple to pick up, but to be honest I don't find it much fun - there's not a massive amount of player interaction so I would maybe give it a go if you can before shelling out on it...

I'd definitely look at something like the Resistance, or Saboteur... both really easy to pick up, cheap games that have a high amount of player interaction so go down well with some beers :-)

ObeyGiant

I find that the smaller, card games are easier to 'sell' people on. Someone taking out a box of 'bits' can be intimidating. Whereas a few cards are absolutely fine. The Resistance is a terrific suggestion - really easy to pick up and lots of fun. It's the perfect 'gateway' game. Dixit is another great suggestion. So much fun.

I'd also suggest Skull and Bones. It's a game of bluffing, sort of like Poker. And it's really good fun. Only problem is that it can be a bit 'serious'. I doubt many people will smile when playing it, but only because they don't want to give anything away.

Cards Against Humanity can also be good. And again, quick to pick up (you'd be amazed how many non-game players have played Apples to Apples, which is basically the same as CAH). But you might want to warn people that someone will get offended at some stage.

Hanabi is another wonderful co-operative card game. Everyone holds a deck of cards facing away from them. The other players have to can give them some information about cards ('this is a 2', or 'this is a red card') and from that, they have to somewhat blindly choose which card to 'play'. Again, super-quick to pick up but so much fun. I don't think we've ever won a game, but we've always enjoyed it.

If you want to step it up, I'd say Ticket to Ride is a good one, but also, surprisingly, 7 Wonders can be great. If you take a few minutes to read the manual (or watch a few playthrough videos) so that you have a pretty decent grasp of the rules and can explain them to other people, the game can be lots of fun for new players. First round for a newbie is always a bit of a write-off, they're still getting their head around everything, but by the second round, everyone's got it and it's flowing smoothly and it can be amazing.

fenris

Don't forget Munchkin!

Really simple and a lot of fun especially as people get the hang of the blackmail and extortion aspects of the game, really gets the social side of things going especially when there are a few beers involved

Earthhorse

How did this go in the end, Jill? Were you able to pick up something new and convince them to play it?

jill_valentine

We wound up having to postpone in the end. So all suggestions gratefully received, I'll let ye know when we get around to rescheduling how we get on.