10 Board Games for People Who Hate Rules

i love board games but i hate learning rules and yet without them there is no game they are the broccoli we have to finish before dessert the condom we all have to put on to have a good time so the thinner the better we're talking about rule books now in this video i've got 10 really fun board games that are easy to learn and easy to teach but first here's a few rules on how i made the list just kidding let's go if something looks exciting and sounds exciting you can really take the piss with what you make people sit through as proven by the latest batman movie if you put this screen up and tell your friends there's been a murder and that their psychic investigators sent to commune with the ghost of the victim you'll have their attention not that you need it for long because the rules to mysterium are very simple pretty cool huh wow are we playing dungeon dragons and you can get them up to speed quicker by telling them it's like a game they've already played pluto because in this you also have to find the right murder weapon location and suspect the twist is that someone is playing as the ghost and they'll be communicating how they were killed through psychic visions the trouble with psychic visions is they're ambiguous and confusing which must be really hard on professional psychics who are already under pressure from all the skeptics all i'm saying is they don't get to decide who they're on the phone with the psychics are all working together to solve the crime and so they discuss the dreams they just had with each other to work out what they mean something you should never do in real life because you might bore someone to death you're looking at the cards you've been given to try and find a common theme or symbol that leads to one of the suspects and then you put your crystal ball on the one you think if you're struggling you can just guess which is a bit unrealistic because a real psychic would never do that it's great fun being the ghost trying to piece together a clue that they'll notice and then sitting there listening as they completely miss it and fixate on something else this one has a park and whenever we go to the park we have cheese sandwiches so i'm looking for something with cheese no not that one did you say something no oh no there must be a wheel ghost one tip for mysterium is to simplify it by not using the clairvoyancy tokens they add a lot of faff to the game and i don't think they're worth it especially because it's easier to teach and run the game without them you can have read the rules twice you can have played it the night before you could have taught it perfectly and the most points wins right that's it should we get going but no matter what you do there will always be another question yeah what's the hand size well like i said it's um god damn it going back to the rule book is the worst feeling in the world sir you've come crawling back yeah hi it's me again you couldn't keep away could you no i just need one thing and i'll be out your hair that's what they all say take your time i'm not going anywhere you fancy a drink i'm really going to be getting back to the game so i just need need someone to tell you what to do don't you you like that where are you hiding that rule it was right here before i don't know what you're talking about oh i found it thank god oh just a quickie then he'll be back they all come back trekking the world does everything it can to stop you from needing to go back to the rule book at every step there's a player aid or a visual cue to remind you of what you should be doing in the game you're tracking the world visiting famous sightseeing spots there are always four hot destinations to visit and you're racing to instagram them first by collecting the right colored cards and sending your adventurer to the location to claim it and the game pits you against each other by making two of them worth even more points to make you want them more as you travel around the map collecting the cards you need you're also picking up souvenirs from all the places you visit taking its cube and putting it in your suitcase if you have the most figurines you get this tile which is worth 11 points but if someone gets more of them later on they'll steal it off you it's like the battle for the longest road in catan but there's four of them to fight over so you've got to spread your focus between getting the big destination cards before anyone else and trying to pick up the cubes you want on the way plus if you take the last cube from a continent you get another bonus one of the best touches is not even part of the game on the back of each destination card is a description of the place they know that when you play a game like this you'll talk about the places that you've visited and want to visit so that when you come across a place you don't know you can read the card and find out that my saw palace is not just something you say when you get kicked in the groin to find the right games for this list i took all of my rule books out into a field and i was looking for the ones that would blow away in a light breeze carcassonne is so easy to teach that i could do it by heart which is good because the rule book blew into the river in carcassonne you are all creating a region of france on the table you take a tile and you have to add it to the map what makes it so smooth is that the rules are visually intuitive you can't connect a road to an empty field but you wouldn't want to it would feel wrong roads meet roads cities meet cities fields meet fields it's like being the child of an instagrammer if it doesn't look nice you can't do it when you place a tile you can add one of your people to it to take ownership of the city or road that you're building so that when it's completed you'll score points for how big it is and get your person back or should i say if it's completed if it gets too big or you don't get the tiles you need it might never be finished and your person will be stuck on it all game their only life on this earth spent working towards a project that gets completely forgotten about like a medieval netflix original and you only have a few people so you have to be careful where you invest them it feels terrible to send your last person to control a tiny road one turn and then the next draw a monastery tire which you can't use because you don't have anyone left it'd be like marrying off your daughter to a blacksmith just to get a free axe and then the next day you hear the crown princess single what i love about carcassonne is that you're all adding to the map together in a sort of reluctant collaboration and if you're feeling feisty you can try to leach off someone else's city or road and get the points that they've built up or just make it harder for them to ever finish it what are you doing i'm making your city bigger but now i'm never gonna get to finish it and i'm never gonna get my worker back yeah there is one tricky rule with carcassonne the pharma rule but in the latest version they tell you to play without it for the first game it's even on a separate rule sheet so it doesn't confuse you a farmer scores points for all the cities in the field he's lying in so it gives you an extra reason to build in certain places and to make sure you finish your cities off add it in once everything else makes sense but make sure you do because it really ties the game together forget rules in diamond the players only need to know one thing whether to stick or twist you all play as treasure hunters going into a cave to grab some jewels in every round everyone decides whether to go further into the cave to get more stuff or run away with your winnings straight back to the british museum if you stay in a new card is flipped it could be more treasure which you divide equally among the people still in the cave or you could encounter something bad like snakes it was the exact plot of the film indiana jones there was also some goonies in there finding one hazard is fine but if you find two of the same type you have to leave the cave and lose all the treasure you found this round you've gone bust you should have left when you had the chance snakes why did it have to be snakes it's such an easy game to run because every turn everyone makes the same decision to stay or go they don't even have to understand why they're making it at first they'll soon realize when they lose all their treasure and to help you out there's a player aid to remind you what to do but there's an extra twist that makes diamond spicy any treasure which can't be split between the players stays on the path and if you leave the cave you can take it all but only if you leave on your own it's like if you're in a men's bathroom you can check your hair in the mirror if you're on your own but if someone else walks in now neither of you can you just have to leave as soon as possible if he's lucky he might get some mirror time after you've left so you're not just gambling against the game you're playing chicken with your friends on when to try and grab the stash it's brilliant when everyone goes for it at once and gets nothing or when one brave player stays in after everyone else and manages to get loads of gems on their own if you did make it out alive you keep your horde in your treasure chest the player with the most rubies wins they're just points but points mean so much more when they're shiny and kept in a treasure chest did you know that statistically students learn more if their teacher is attractive maybe you're not bad at teaching rules maybe you're just ugly for some of you it will be both but you don't have to be beautiful if the game itself is give them the dice from sagrada to play with and you'll have their attention john why do the strawberry flavoured ones taste of strawberry in sagrada you are using these dice to create a stained glass window every turn you take one and add it to your board your board that has these pleasant divots to house your dice on a video it probably looks like nothing to you it's a whole a void but when you've played as many games as me you appreciate a divot you might call me a divot devotee you might but the government refuses to try playing another game after sagrada without divot then get back to me it'll be like staying in a holiday apartment without a dishwasher the challenge is in putting your dice in the right place you're aiming to create certain patterns to get points and to make that harder some spots on your board can only take certain colors or numbers and to make that harder you can't put the same color or number next to each other and finally you've got to reckon with which dice came out of the bag this round so you have to rein in your expectations a bit you can't paint the sistine chapel if all you've got is crayons and i guess the same applies in the world of glazery sometimes they run out of purple glass probably the game does give you a few weapons with which to fight the luck of the dice you can spend these gems to use one of these tools to change your number or move something around on your board but just so you don't overload your friends all at once i wouldn't explain how these work until you've played a few rounds they're much more useful later on anyway when the board fills up and decisions become much trickier sagrada is a really satisfying puzzle that is super easy to learn but has enough to keep you engrossed its trick is that every time you come back to it it feels like it's solvable but it isn't it's like doing a sudoku where you can't use the number seven i did a sudoku once easy completed it i never need to do another one whereas with sagrada there's a reason to keep coming back it couldn't be named after a more apt cathedral because you could spend 100 years on it and still not feel like you've completed it this video is sponsored by subscribe to this channel have you ever found yourself watching an actual old video what if i told you you're watching one right now if you found it to be more enjoyable than watching a blank screen you're going to love subscribing to this channel and for just one millisecond more of your time you can click the notification bell and be told when videos are released which you would think would come with the base package but it doesn't i actually use this product myself and i think it's solid you know i was using it for weeks before they offered to sponsor me so it's just weird and thank you to subscribe to this channel for sponsoring this video rules are part of a wider family of gaming hassle known as faff other types of faff are how long it takes to set up a game right so we've got to shuffle this deck then we need to divide it into five equal stacks then we take one of these cards and put them into each of those five stacks then shuffle the stacks separately on their own then put them all on top of each other and then can we play yeah after six more steps and the admin you have to do between turns to keep the cogs turning okay so roll the dice to refresh the pool right well the game can't have any sixes or one so re-roll those okay okay well you've rolled two sixes so re-roll them okay well now you've rolled a one so reroll that okay you got a six so reroll that seriously chronicles of crime gives you a faf-free experience by using a mobile app to be the brains of the game okay so you still have to lay out some cards but that's some of that polyunsaturated faff that's actually good for you and it cuts out any rules faff by teaching you how to play while you play an introductory scenario you play as detectives trying to solve a crime together and you use the mobile app to interact with that world when you visit the crime scene for example you get to explore the room on the app like you're looking around at yourself to try and find evidence oh there's a knife and the sleepy woman is covered in ketchup john i think she might be making a sandwich and the evidence you find then becomes cards that you can ask people about to interview a suspect you scan their qr code and read what they have to say if you've been to a restaurant in the last two years i know you can do that the genius of the app is that you can ask a suspect about anyone or anything scanning the code of a book you found at the crime scene or a rumor someone told you about sometimes they won't know what you're talking about but when you get a juicy answer it feels great ask him about the catcher wow they tested the the ketchup that was found at the lunch scene and it actually belongs to the politician she stole his catch up no wonder he killed her oh so you know she's dead yes does it make you sad no but i am hungry and just like in a real case asking the right questions will open up whole new places to visit and people to interview by the end you've got to use everything you've learned to solve the case i think we should have left the politician but we know that he couldn't have killed her on that day yeah but he's a politician he's guilty of something yeah i wouldn't want to play every board game with an app but with chronicles of crime it means you never have to worry about the rules or getting anything wrong it's your personal faf butler which is a nice break when that person is usually you timmy do you want me to teach you another game yes but tidy this one away first when i'm bringing out a game to play with non-gamers i want something short simple and loads of fun and my number one pick in that situation is always las vegas it's great to teach because you can just start playing and teach everyone on their first turn in fact it's so easy you can teach it in rhyme if you haven't even the vegas clue of how to play las vegas you should shut up and sit down you brainless fools i'm here to explain the rules roll your dice in the tray then choose a number you want to play put all the dice of that kind on the casino they're assigned if by the end you have the most dice there you will win riches beyond compare unless there is a tie to those dice we must say goodbye that's it see wasn't that painless you now know how to play las vegas it has everything i want from this type of game it's competitive you're trying to win the casinos with the most money on them by getting more of your dice on there than anyone else but it isn't aggressive you aren't attacking each other it's full of gambling and trying to make loads of money or playing it safe and guaranteeing you get something every turn there's tough decisions to make if you roll loads of sixes on your first term do you put them down now and try to scare everyone else off but that's a waste of so many dice so maybe you put down one five and hope you get some sixes later i love that there's always big moments when a casino switches hands with the last roll or when someone accidentally makes a tie and someone else wins a hundred grand with one dice it means that everyone's always watching and invested in the game the most available version at the moment is las vegas royale which has a bunch of extras you can add in after a few games it will teach you the rules to las vegas first and it's brilliant on its own but if you want to add some more drama or more chaos you can add in these tiles that give you special abilities and mini games and ways to make even more money but they do have extra rules to learn sushi go is a very simple card game but it's hard to teach as you play because you have to keep your card secret john what does this card mean show me which one no if i show you you'll know what card i have okay i'll explain all the cards again tempura is worth five points if you have two of them okay got it thanks sushi roll is easier to explain because everything is out in the open you're competing to have the best meal of sushi taking dice from the conveyor belt to add to your plate then the conveyor belts move around the table and you pick again you're trying to collect sets of sushi to score points such as two tempura or three sashimi i love that you can look at what's on the other conveyor belts this round and decide whether you can pull it off you have to account for what you think the other players will take and gamble on the dice going your way because when the conveyor belts move you have to roll all of the dice so your options will change and there's some added drama with these swap tokens where you can steal a dice from another player's conveyor belt and the re-roll tokens will let you re-roll dice when you're really trying to get something you need rules-wise all you have to understand is how each type of sushi scores and you can't forget it because it explains it on your player board on tour is a puzzle game you're trying to plan the perfect tour for your band across the united states every turn the game gives you two numbers to write on your map and they represent the gigs on your schedule you're trying to create a route so that you can drive your tour bus from one gig to the next at the end the player with the longest continuous route will win the game it's such an easy idea in theory you can even use your pen to map out an ideal route but each turn you'll flip three cards and you have to write the numbers in those regions so early on you're all optimistic my talk will be the envy of all the bands no john no and that soon shifts to desperation as you say goodbye to another section of the board i can't take any more okay this is the sort of game that you'll pick up by the second turn and it's nice because you're all playing at the same time using the same numbers so at the end you can compare and see how much better or worse it could have gone the genius touch of ontor is that it tempts you into taking risks each card has a specific state written on it and if you write your number in that state it's worth an extra point but to do it you have to change your plans it's the character in the music biopic that offers you drugs for the first time why don't you come over here and play a little gig in wyoming i know you want to i can't i can't i promised my wife i'm going to utah next just one little gig in wyoming never hurt nobody oh what the heck okay but just this once by the third act that passion-fueled trip to wyoming will have ruined your tour and you'll only have yourself to blame when it comes to regrets like your tour bus driver you've had a few but you did it your way unfortunately you always sucked still the game takes less than 30 minutes so now you know what you did wrong you can go back and do it all again and make some different mistakes less rules doesn't mean there's any less of a game and blue lagoon is the perfect example of that it's an iceberg above the surface it's tiny i've received christmas cards bigger than this pamphlet it's got less text than a comment defending expansions on my 10 mistakes video and it's worth reading but beneath the surface hides a real boat breaker of the game you play as seafarers turning up to these islands and putting down roots and what you do each turn is as simple as it gets you place one of your people on the board either arriving in a boat or settling on a nearby island that's all you do every turn but why you do it that's what the iceberg is hiding there are five ways to score points for example if you have the most people on an island you get points but you also get them for linking islands together so that makes you want to spread out and while you're doing both of those things if you go on a spot with a wooden resource you collect it and they're worth points too you want to do it all and everyone else is getting in your way so that simple act of placing one tile a turn becomes such a tough decision imagine you're a buffet table hands are coming in from all sides while you're going big on sausage rolls aunt christine is making sure you won't even taste the trifle every grab matters we all think we'd be leonardo dicaprio but when that iceberg hits women and children first goes out the window and you have to accept that deep down you're billy zane that's what blue lagoon feels like those are 10 games for people who hate rules if you want more recommendations of games with not many rules check out my top 10 gateway games video and my video from camp wildfire i'll put the links below and subscribe to the channel because i haven't finished talking about board games just yet this channel only exists because of support from my patrons become a patron at patreon.com forward slash actual and you'll get my monthly newsletter i'm john perkis thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Actualol

Views: 178,106

Keywords: Jon Purkis, Board games, Board game, family board games, board games for couples, popular board games, top board games, best board games, london board games, new board games, new games, tabletop gaming, party games, shut up and sit down, Dice Tower, Family Games, board games for 2 people, board games for 3 people, Top 10 Board Games, 10 Board Games for People Who Hate Rules, 10 Light Games, 10 Easy Teaches, Easy to Learn, Easy to Teach

Id: PZyULpm53mw

Length: 23min 17sec (1397 seconds)

Published: Fri May 20 2022