10 Pitfalls Board Gamers Should Avoid

it's great fun exploring the world of modern board games but there's more than a few pitfalls that will get you along the way these are all the traps that I've fallen into and climbed back out of since getting into the hobby I'm here to signpost them so you can save yourself the time money and heartache that I couldn't the easiest trap to fall into when getting into board games is to be swept up by The Cult of the new only ever looking at new and upcoming games anything more than 5 minutes old and you turn your nose up at it like Leonardo DiCaprio at a sushi restaurant and it makes sense all the YouTube channels are only reviewing the newest games on Instagram and Board Game Geek you're bombarded with ads for Kickstarter games that are so new they haven't been printed yet these are not the best board games they're just the ones flashing in front of your eyes right now you're not buying a phone you don't need the latest technology if your friend was getting into reading for for the first time you wouldn't recommend them only books released in the last year there's Decades of great titles to explore there's War and Peace crime and punishment that's four great books right there and there's huge advantages to focusing on older games thousands of people have already played it so you can pick up a game like castles of burgundy knowing that 7,000 people on Board Game Geek have rated it 10 out of 10 and most of them after having played it for years you pick up a game from 2022 to you can't know if it will stand the test of time it's still in its honeymoon period but that's longer than DiCaprio would give it plus you can save so much money by buying older games secondhand or getting them in a trade I used to get caught up in the hype all the time as a YouTuber I used to make anticipated games list but they're not helpful you're just a moth shouting at other moths to come look at this shiny light you don't know a game is good until you play it even if a game looks amazing just give it a mark let someone else be the moth they'll soon let you know if it's another disappointing light bulb or the moon you've all been dreaming of but why wait when there's hundreds of great games available now that you haven't played that new fancy you're eyeing up is one of a thousand release this year the chances of it ending up being as universally loved as castles of burgundy is I'd say one in a thousand so stop holding out for the next Generation Leonardo when Kate winset has been there the whole time you know those people that lose everything in a house fire and realize they don't need all of this stuff well they can't have been board gamers can they you probably have too many games I used to have too many games then I got rid of 200 of them and now I have too many games 220 that's more than I've eaten lasagnas I assume I don't log my meals I log the toys that I play with there's no way with that many games that they all deserve their place some of them are padding out your collection like a teenager trying to hit the essay word count the reason that I like this board game is because it is fun and you can throw dice what happened was you bought four cxes and then filled them up because they look sad when they're empty and now you've got a bunch of weak games from 2017 that you didn't hate but you never play your collection should represent you like that Prime bookshelf with the books you want people to see that you've read why yes I do read Jonathan fransen I'm not nearly as uncultured as you think I am wait no don't look at my Kindle list plus have you ever tried to move house with hundreds of board games it's so much work and you can't even pay someone else to box them up because what if they don't protect them properly also good luck building a rapport with the removal guys while they're carrying 20 boxes of your toys down a flight of stairs and when you die tomorrow sorry if and your family has to sell your game collection don't give them extra work for games you don't even love plus they're going to be even harder to sell because you kept a bunch of trash games if you're still starting out in games you don't need to own every game if your friend has a game then you don't need to buy it too if a game sounds amazing but you don't have a big enough group to play it or they won't sit through another cthulu game no matter how much you love it then save yourself the pain of it sitting on the shelf and I used to think I needed a game in every genre to have a complete collection I had to have a word game a deduction game a deckbuilding game no not if those games are less fun for you you're not building Noah's Arc keep the fun animals let the boring ones like pigeons drown there is an illness that only afflicts board gamers called theme blindness and this is when a gamer is so enamored by the theme of A game it makes them blind to all of its weaknesses no you don't understand the castles are in burgundy not provant not alas burgundy that's my favorite French historical region this disease is responsible for millions of Reckless purchases that normal healthy individuals wouldn't make babe you know how much this universe means to me I wouldn't have put it in my wedding vows otherwise look you don't understand how the industry works if I don't buy by this one now there might never be another cthulu game the theme attacks the patient's prefrontal cortex destroying their ability to make good decisions ironically something Gamers usually take very seriously we met with a chronic sufferer of theme blindness who was asked to wear a wig to protect his anonymity I'd always wanted a game with a medical theme and I heard about a rare one called infar the blindness meant that that I looked past the tacky boxer with a photo of a sexy nurse and I ignored the low Board Game Geek rating and I paid twice what it was worth new for a secondhand copy the game was terrible I see that now the disease makes patients oblivious to any number of red flags including overly ambitious concept bad track record and self-published passion project I back to Game On Kickstarter called The Reunion about surviving a family get together I couldn't help myself I'd never seen a theme like that that was 8 years ago and I've never received the game I still hope it might arrive one day but my therapist says that's the blindness talking I don't hear it for what it is I have theme blindness deafness some patients will continue to present with delusion even after playing the game now that we know the rules I'm sure next time it won't take 5 hours hours and it's probably better with more players the good news is the blindness always wears off after three plays when the patient sees it for what it really is unfortunately by this point they have already bought all the expansions for the game at Great cost there is no known cure for theme blindness but we urge vulnerable Gamers to avoid Kickstarter and when entering game stores to wear sunglasses at all times don't sleeve every single game this was me for years I would religiously and it is a religion sleeve every single card in every single game I owned it was like my daily Penance I must sleeve 50 cards before bed every night to repent for my unclean hands I would sleeve party games I would sleeve these tiny German card games which meant I couldn't close the Box properly I would sleeve a game on a rival play it once realize I didn't like it and then UNS sleeve it I went back through my emails and from 2013 to 2017 I bought 368 packs of sleeves which is 18,400 sleeves that I single-handedly put onto cards that works out to 12 sleeves a day I was sleeving more than I was sleeping and if you're wondering I spent £78 on sleeves that's enough for two people let's call them John and Serena to go on a week's holiday to Turkey a place I've never been to but I didn't need a holiday because I was getting Peace of Mind from knowing my cards were safe and protected except during that time I had someone spill their drink on my copy of One Night Ultimate Werewolf a game that I hadn't sleeved because it has tiles not cards sleeving can't protect you you're going to die one day and so will your cards let your hands feel them while you still can cradling a hand of cheap plastic every game night is miserable and they reflect the light so it's hard to read them on the table they don't stack properly they're always falling over they take up more space in the box so it won't close and they will clutter this planet for eternity I feel like I've been deprogrammed from a cult not least because they take 10% of your income in my etiquette video I said that you can make fun of people who sleeve and I got some angry comments about it so to those people i' like to say sorry sorry you're such a loser well this is a fun one don't buy games just because a reviewer likes them I have regretted buying so many games that reviewers raved about that had to become a reviewer myself just to recoup the cost for every channel on the internet there was a game that I shouldn't have bought I bought level seven Omega protocol because of Tom vassel I bought tales of the Arabian Knights because of Quinton Smith I bought postum because of R and I hate hated all of them I didn't like the games either but it's not their fault I was an excitable little urchin who heard the word fun and didn't realize it meant fun for them it's like I was listening to a cat describe why they love cat food but only hearing the positivity and ignoring the talk of raw meat in jelly reviewers are such a useful free resource not to mention handsome but you have to know how to use them listen to the description of the game how it plays What type of game it is how complex it seems don't listen to the praise but what the praise is for if it's the best in its genre do you even like that genre and where reviewers become really useful is when you start to understand their tastes and how you align with them I don't think it's about finding your gaming soulmate but who you can trust for certain types of games I find that Z Garcia has a good eye for card games so I'm always Keen to hear which ones he's enjoying whereas I'm not not so fond of the Miniatures games he rates because I don't like those types of games unfortunately this is something you learn from experience I bought level 7 Omega protocol before realizing that I just don't care for Dungeon Crawlers I had to play a few to find that out so this isn't so much an avoidable Pitfall as an inevitable one you're a baby trying foods for the first time you've got to taste everything to work out what you like each failed purchase is helping you find your feet then you can go back to the reviewer and rewatch their videos with sharpened ears and then watch again if you want to become a better board gamer you have to watch my videos every day if I could shout one thing into the hearts of all Gamers it would be more content isn't more fun there's an obsession driven by Kickstarter to focus on how much stuff you get with a game this is the campaign page for oathsworn which tells you that it comes with100 Miniatures and a th000 cards before you even get to the introductory description of the game you have to scroll for another minute past endless lists of content that comes in the Box before you get any explanation of how the game works it's trying to demonstrate value and justify its Hefty price tag but the value of a game is not the stuff you get in the Box it's the game play it says the campaign lasts 45 hours well only if I enjoy the game it will last 3 hours if it sucks and I never want to play it again I've been seduced by sways of content more times than I care to admit and I didn't need the thousands of cards in seventh continent because after 20 hours you couldn't pay me to play it again and I didn't use half of the 50 playable characters I got with zombie side black plague before I sold it and often it's a red flag they're pushing all this shiny stuff because the gaml doesn't stand on its own it's like the cliche of a man compensating for for something small by having a big car which for reference I don't even feel the need to own a car behind every board game purchase there is a dream of having the best time imaginable playing that game and part of that dream is that you'll love it so much that you'll want to play a 100 times so of course you need all the content but how many games in your collection have you played that much and what are the chances that this will be one of them having endless content doesn't make you want to play a game more and it can mean you end up playing them less the massive boxes they come in are harder to take to meetups or conventions and the Spectre of sorting through the hundreds of components every time you set these games up can make you skip them for something less stressful before Kickstarter games didn't come with a th000 cards they do now for two reasons one so they can charge us a higher price and two because we pay it not because you need it stop putting off going to board game conventions I've Loved board games since 2012 but it took me 4 years before I expressed my love for them physically by going to a convention I made all these excuses like it being too expensive or I can buy all the games I need online or I don't want to go to Birmingham which are all valid but I was missing the point There's no practical purpose to going to a convention it's just fun it's like being a kid again walking into a theme park for the first time and it's really validating to be surrounded by thousands of people that all love the same thing you do look Dad if I'm weird then so are all these people well don't look at the guy dressed as a dalic and everyone's in a great mood the gaming Halls at UK games Expo are teaming with people having the best time it's so nice just walking amongst the tables seeing what people are playing and everyone is so friendly on my first night at Expo in 2016 I joined a random table and ended up playing with Vic and Sam who I've been friends with ever since and now every year I go back I see people that I've played with in the past it must be what it's like living in a village knowing everyone that you walk past for without the seething resentment about their planning permission and even if you don't have anyone to go with you can absolutely loan wolfit and meet people there at airon if you're looking for a group to play with just look for the lightsabers that people put on their tables to show them they're looking for players my top tip will be to try and find one of the smaller conventions that's focused only on playing games I've been going to lobs toon for years now you stay in the hotel where you gain so you just have to wake up and walk downstairs my roommate Anthony showers before bed so he can get to the games quicker in the morning if there's one lesson I wish I'd learned sooner it's that heavier isn't always better when I got into the hobby after playing a few Gateway Games I found myself gravitating towards the most complex heavy games I could find I wanted to experience the best the hobby had to offer and for some reason my brain equated best with most complicated as if the best music is the ones with the most instruments or the best YouTubers are the ones who use the longest words when that's incontrovertibly fallacious I felt like I'd seen the stuff the hobby kept at the front of the store but I was ready to play the games they hid out back so not to scare the customers I thought that to get the best experience gaming had to offer you had to swallow hideous amounts of convoluted rules artwork that would burn your eyes out and a designer's name so unpronouncable that it sounds like you're invoking an elder god so I bought Twilight Struggle an epic two-player game simulating all 4 and a half Decades of the Cold War I played it with my unsuspecting wife and we we struggled with it for 5 hours before stopping to go to bed we took a photo of the board so we could finish it another time but we never did I played it again with a friend for 6 hours but never found the Holy Grail experience I was searching for just a lot of card text to wrap my head around it's a pattern I see again and again in new Gamers that the more rules the more impenetrable a game the better they assume it is but there's no point jumping in at the Deep when most of us don't need that amount of depth to enjoy swimming there are benefits to heavy games they give you more options different past of Victory better emergent storytelling less luck but there's usually a cost to pay for those things you'll have more rules to learn a longer setup more downtime between turns I don't usually find the rewards to be worth the investment but it depends what your priorities are nowadays I get excited by games that give me drama and strategy with less faf my favorite designer Rina kitzia is the master of this in games like raah quest for El Dorado and lost cities and it's a journey I think a lot of people go on that early hunger gives you a taste for the biggest heaviest games and then you mellow out and find your level I don't binge drink like I used to but I still find joy in a nice well-crafted pallel like the ones I get from today's sponsor like And subscribe this one goes out to anyone currently obsessed with board games stop trying to fill the void you know the void that emptiness you feel when you're not playing a board game those first few years in the hobby it was all I could think about I'd finish a game night on a Saturday and stay up late thinking about what we'd played then all week at work i' be on the internet researching new games then at home I'd be watching top 10 rearranging my shelves sleeving cards anything I could do do to be closer to board games I was the teenager waiting outside the stage door hoping Harry Styles spits his chewing gum in my direction I have done it all I've painted Miniatures which looked so bad that I used solvent to strip it all off again I've designed and cut my own board game insert out of foam board and now there's companies that do it for you oh and I made 8 years of YouTube videos and none of it works you can't replace the incredible feeling you get from from playing a board game with good friends by filling your life with adjacent busy work it's Madness imagine someone who is so desperate to have sex that they start sewing a little bag to keep their Lube in we stupidly found ourselves a hobby that relies on the availability and willingness of other people imagine being able to get that same high but from just doing crossstitch on your own some people are so lucky to all of you out there currently feeling the void there is one way I found to get rid of that feeling for good all you got to do is stay in the hobby for 10 years and play so many bad games that you become jaded instead some of you need to know it's okay to hate a game I think when you're starting out it can be really disappointing to have a bad time with a game that everyone else seems to love everyone on the internet says that terraforming Mars or Gloom Haven is amazing but when you play it you don't have fun that's a lonely feeling like everyone in the world is laughing at a joke that you don't get and because you're new you question yourself maybe you got the rules wrong or you haven't got the right brain for it I remember thinking after a particularly bad run that maybe I just don't like board games at all I've got the genan that makes coriander taste like soap and the one that turns wingspan into a sedative so you force yourself to play it again so that you can find the real experience that you meant to have the first time but instead compounding your misery wasting your game night trying to cure yourself with exposure therapy when you could be having fun playing something else this idea that you need to play a game loads to see if you like it is nonsense I'll get comments where someone's like I played it 10 times and I'm just not enjoying it you played it 10 times don't put yourself through that this isn't the first season of The Wire you don't need to warm up to it yeah sure the first game might be a mess as you get to grips with it but by the second game you know whether you're having fun if you're going back after three bad games that's just masochism imagine watching The Hangover part two four times expecting to pick up some Nuance that had so far gone over your head I compare games to films and books a lot but I think with games the disagreements are stronger because often the reason you hate a game is why someone else loves it that game was rubbish I couldn't attack the other players that game was incredible no one could mess up my strategy and other times you'll battle with yourself so desperate to enjoy a game because of that dream you had of how it would go the amount of times I forced myself to play betrayal at house on the hill expecting to have a good time because I love the idea of it all these mechanisms that sounds so fun on their own but just never came together in a way that I liked it's good to hate games it helps you understand what you like so you can find games you enjoy easier plus it keeps your shelves lean your wallet fat and all that righteous anger burns calories those are 10 pitfalls board gamers should avoid which ones would you tell people to look out for let me know in the comments if you like this video please subscribe and to support more videos like this become a patron of the channel on patreon link below I'm John perkus thanks for [Music] watching

Channel: Actualol

Views: 203,652

Keywords: 10 Pitfalls Board Gamers Should Avoid, 10 Mistakes, Board games, Board game, comedy, family board games, board games for couples, popular board games, top board games, best board games, new board games, new games, tabletop gaming, party games, shut up and sit down, Family Games, board games for 2 people, board games for 3 people, 10 Board Game Mistakes, 10 Pitfalls, Beginners, Board Game Advice, Tips, Common Mistakes, Top 10 Mistakes, Problems, Fails, Actualol

Id: cIZU69_Tb48

Length: 23min 2sec (1382 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 24 2023