Godless Dave

I really like Settlers of Cataan, but I'd like to know what idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a game that can only be played with 3 or 4 players. Not 2. 5 is right out. Unless you buy the expansion pack. Great game, but you have to shell out extra money to make it a practical option for game night.

I remember seeing commercials for "Dark Tower" (or was it "Black Tower"?) when I was a kid. I really wanted it but never got it. Is it good? Later in life I assumed that any board game with an electronic component would break and be lame.

When I was 10 or so my best friend had the board games "S.W.A.T." and "CHiPS" (based on the TV shows). We put them together and made a game called "SWAT the CHiPS".

Sarpedon

Bookman. I usually ignore the AST. The best games are the ones that you can modify a bit to suit yourself and your fellow players. We have all kinds of house civilization rules.

Bloop

Chess, although it isn't much fun for people that aren't "into it" to watch. It's not the social game of my choice. Sometimes a little too much prestige connected to this Battle of the Brains.

Trivial Pursuit, modern classic is the oxymoron that applies best.
Prestige is at stake here as well but not as much as in Chess since it's mostly pointless trivia anyhow.

Scattergories, its very funny but you could just as well construct your own very easily and not have to pay 35 $ for it.

Pictionary

braces_for_impact

What about Axis and Allies? That was a blast.

Deadend

I like Trivial Pursuit, Settlers of Cataan and Ludo (I think, in Dutch it�s mens-erger-je-niet).

Especially Ludo, it�s simple, easy to transport, easy to play but can get very exciting.

Bookman

That's a good point...with house rules it can be made quite enjoyable. I still think that the out of the box rules are broken, but it is a great theme.

With my current boardgaming group (which includes my wife and some other couples) there's not a lot of appetite for games that take several hours to play. We generally sit down to boardgame for several hours, it is true, but the group as a whole would prefer to play several games to playing just one.

The next game on my list is a trading game (which is one of the enjoyable parts of Civilization) called Ra. Has anyone played it?

Bookman

FlyingWOOxygen

When I had time, and was younger I always liked Axis 'n Allies - A great 4+ hour game played into the wee morning hours.

Now that I have kids:
Chutes's and Ladders, Candy Land (Winnie the Pooh edition), Childrens Scrabble, and Hi Ho Cherry-o.

And for adult games it is Scrabble and various card games (euchre, spades and rummy).

elwoodblues

For anyone remotely interested in board-gaming of ANY kind, check out this site. Boardgamegeek.com is simply the most comprehensive, active, interesting site I've found while poking about on the internet the past few days. More user information, lists and articles than you could ever want on any game you care to think of.

scarmig

I can't believe noone knows about Cults Across America. Best Boardgame Ever.

Heavily steeped in the Cthulhu Mythos, each player is the leader of a cult. Your cult vies for control of various cities, monsters, and Important People in a question to gather enough points or complete the Hands Across America. It's a wacky, wacky game where you do things like take the Director of the CDC, put him into a Satanic Pushcart, drop him into Detroit and release the Plague. It's also heavy on cardplay and the game is wildly variable. Games last anywhere from 30 minutes to 4 or 5 hours. And you can Summon Cthulhu. W00t.

ProNihil

Ditto