When we were young Sorry and Chutes and Ladders were the games of choice but as we got older we played a lot of Battleship, Backgammon, and various games on this thing. But, our most epic sibling battles were fought on the Monopoly board. I’m such a trusting sister it took me years to figure out that I never won when my brother was the banker. Mother. Licker. From then on a new family rule was established, not only was he not allowed to be the banker but the bank was not even kept within his reach. Recently my brother went to visit our sisters and when he took the Monopoly game with him I called my niece and nephew to make them aware of the family rule. When they were about to play and the kids laid the family rule down on his ass he called to ask why I would do such a thing. “Um, because I love them and you are a dream crusher! Duh.” I am getting him Monopoly City for Christmas, that'll lead to some good times for sure.
I played it a little as a kid, never owned a set. The recent knowledge (to me) that the game has been solved destroys any appeal it might still have; if the player who goes first knows what they're doing, they're guaranteed to win. As a kid, for me it was checkers, Sorry, Battleship, Candyland early on, and of course Monopoly. My brother and I learned chess when I was about ten. Oh, one other game we played that never gets mentioned by anyone else in these threads: Wow. There are no decent pictures of this game online, anywhere. This one is at least the same box as ours: The mighty Mille Bornes. You think a hotel on Boardwalk is bad? Try giving your loved ones a flat tire, an accident, out of gas, okay they just need a green light card to go, dammit where is it, finally! Then you play a red light on them. I've never understood how a stupid fucking game can be such a point of contention, but if they are for your family and you want blood this holiday season, introduce them to Mille Bornes.
What is wrong with you people? Has no-one ever played Malefiz? Some people call it Barricade I heard, but the premise of the game is to reach the goal first by blocking your opponents' advance. It is still one of the few games I regularly play. The game would often turn violent off-board between me and my brothers, but it all just enhanced the fun!
I'm not quite patient enough for Scrabble, but my family and I play something they call Cannibal Scrabble, which doesn't involve anyone sitting around for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to play a seven letter word. It gets pretty vicious sometimes, but it's really fun if you like quick word games. In case anyone is interested, here are the rules: Take two sets of Scrabble tiles (minus the blanks) and put them face down in the center of the table. You can play with one set, but it's not as fun, especially if you're playing with more than one other person. Take turns flipping tiles over, one at a time. When you see a word that's at least 3 letters long, call it out, then take it and place it in front of you, and flip the next letter. Words can be stolen from other players (or you can extend your own) by adding letters to them, but you have to change the root (fit can become sift, but not fits) and you have to use all the letters from the word being stolen. You can also combine multiple words (are and can becomes arcane) in order to steal them from other players or protect your own words from being stolen. Once all the letters are flipped over and everyone agrees they don't see any more words, you total up the point values on the letters of your words, and the one with the most points wins.
I say fuck scrabble. Not necessarily because I suck at it, but because it seems most people that are into that game come across as weirdos or rapists to me. Damn, I forgot about Hotels and Fireball Island. Those two were probably my all-time favorites. Battleship was a close runner-up though.
My grandfather picked up Shogi when he was peacekeeping in Japan after World War II and taught it to the rest of my family. I highly recommend it if you like chess, since it's essentially the same game with slightly modified pieces and more complex rules.
Strat O-Matic Baseball: before there were video games, there was Strat O-Matic. It's a board game that will effectively simulate a major league baseball game by rolling the dice. This game was awesome when I was 7 years old and my older cousin Michael and I would play all day Christmas. It became slightly less awesome when we realized that Michael was extreme OCD and nearly died of malnutrition because he locked himself in his dorm room in college to attempt to simulate the entire 1998 Yankee baseball season.
I own this one: Poleconomy. That is, in addition to some of the ones mentioned on this board already: Clue/Cluedo, Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Risk... I'm not sure if Poleconomy was released in the U.S., but I think the Australian and NZ Members might be familiar with it. I've never been able to have a proper game with it. Everyone I know took one look at the rules and said it was too complex... Fuck. Also, there are two ways to play the game, with two separate sets of rules (as published in the rulebook that accompanies the game). The role you *really* want in this game (either Game 1 or Game 2) is that of Prime Minister, not Banker, since the Prime Minister controls inflation (thus, he/she can fuck over everyone in the game, but PMs can be ousted and new elections take place).
Risk is probably my favorite game. Friendships were started and ended with that game. It's awesome. Monopoly has the same effect, but in a more negative way. While in Risk it is fun to try to destroy people, in Monopoly it can just feel very horrible and tedious. As a younger kid I used to love Mouse Trap mainly for the board setup. We've got a couple that we're friends with here who are hard core board gamers. They go to a convention either in Indy or somewhere out that way every year. They have all sorts of contacts and get to test games, etc. We're always trying out strange new board games that they find. Some are good, some are tragically horrible. We play a lot of weird card games. The best one we've been playing is called Guillotine. It's based on the Reign of Terror in France and the idea is to collect heads from the Guillotine. It's simple and fun. Most of the board and card games we play are fairly simple to learn and once learned, very very easy to play. this is helpful as they are DRINKERS! I never leave there without having consumed a ridiculous amount of alcohol and simple games enhance this. We also play a game called Say Anything. Look it up. It's crazy. One person asks a question from a card and everybody writes down what they think that person would answer. All people then bet on the answers. Points are awarded based on correctly betting. It's amazing what people will write down. Disturbing really. Tonight a large group of us are going over to their place to play live action Clue. We all have identities and play a handful of games throughout the night on top of whatever card games we end up playing as well. They usually have some newly brewed beer and/or wine which makes things more exciting.
RoboRally has been my absolute favorite board game since I was 9 years old. It was Richard Garfield's original pet project. He made Magic: The Gathering specifically to earn him enough cred so that he could convince someone to publish RoboRally. Unfortunately, finding someone to play it with me when I was little was nigh-impossible, and even these days it's pretty difficult. It's also pretty tough to find these days, as it's gone through two different publishers. Originally it was Wizards of the Coast, now it's Avalon Hill. There are also a bunch of different versions, with different boards included, different power-up option cards, and different robot pieces. I have the second edition from the early 90s, which is widely considered among fans to be the best.
My friends and I are the exact same way...we had to cool it on the board game playing because some friendships were actually being put on the line. My buddy sent me this video a couple months back, anyone who has had intense board games sessions with friends will relate. It also contains one of the best insults I've heard in a while.
From the makers of "Apples-to-Apples" bring you "Snorta" the game of barnyard animal noises. Also a good game for the bedroom.
Has anyone ever played 13 Dead End Drive? It starts with the death of a rich old lady, and then you try to kill off all of the other players so you can inherit her money. I have never seen it outside of my home, so I guess it wasn't a very popular game among my generation. Perhaps parents didn't want their kids playing board games based on knocking family members off in order to get the inheritance. Alt. Focus - My family is big into card games now. My personal favorite is Lord of the Fries. You are working at a zombie fast food restaurant and you have to fill orders to get points. That description doesn't really do it justice, but you get the idea. My sister loves Killer Bunnies, which is pretty fun, too. Some other card games my family and I enjoy are Bohnanza, Gloom, The Enemy Chocolatier, and Groo. I recommend them all.
Had it. That and Mousetrap are two games my parents tossed immediately due to their dissatisfaction with the setup required. I've always been into Trivial Pursuit. My friends tried out Star Wars Trivial Pursuit with me as well once or twice but it turned into a rather embarrassing curb-stomp battle that I'd rather not talk about.