# Best and Worst Board Games **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 13, 2018, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798 "2018-02-13T23:47:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Kron](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kron/32/12444_2.png) [@Kron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kron)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/41 "2018-02-15T20:41:38Z")
> [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](#): > > I like deck building games myself, and I love the tension Dominion has where the cards that award the game-winning points are the cards that hold you back when playing the game (I’m frequently too slow in converting from acquisition of resource-getting action cards to point-awarding territories). > > I recently played **Star Realms** , a two player deck builder, with my son- enjoyed it a lot. > > I like deck builder games, because I love Magic, except I hate investing a bunch of time building a deck, especially just to get stomped by someone who has better (or far better) cards. Not to mention organizing the whole mess. Deck building games grant parity and spontaneity that Magic lacks (unless you’re drafting- but then you still have to go through preliminary phases before you get to play). Have you tried _[Clank!](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/201808/clank-deck-building-adventure)_ yet? It’s a pretty fun take on the deck-building experience. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/42 "2018-02-15T20:42:31Z")
> [@Boozahol\_Squid\_P.I](#): > > My least favorite game is probably _Talisman_, although that’s only if you play games by the rules. Oy. I nearly lost my brother’s love over this game. The rules are written ambiguously, and my brother is brilliant at finding loopholes in rules that allow him to pull of ridiculous cheese. In a single session of the game, he did this twice, requiring opposing interpretations of an ambiguous rule both times, to screw me over. The first time I assented, because it was brilliant, but the second time I…may not have been my most mature and kind self over the incident. I’m not proud. I’m also not gonna play that game again. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/43 "2018-02-15T21:03:12Z")
> [@Kron](#): > > Have you tried _[Clank!](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/201808/clank-deck-building-adventure)_ yet? It’s a pretty fun take on the deck-building experience. Not I, but I think my son has, in board game club. (That’s where he discovered Star Realms.) Usually, if he likes a game at club, he’s gotta get it, to a fault. He didn’t get Clank! ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/44 "2018-02-16T09:41:25Z")
I too like Star Realms - one of the few “gamer’s games” I’ve managed to get my wife interested in. Yet to buy any expansion sets but plan to in due course. > [@Mahaloth](#): > > Mouse Trap - the actual game is terrible Well, sure - it doesn’t really belong with most of the other games mentioned here, it’s a kid’s game. Roll and move with virtually zero strategy. The mechanical aspect of the game is clever, but very frustrating (especially when playing with a 3-year-old who keeps bumping into the board - admittedly the age recommendation is 6+). It becomes about 19% die rolling, 20% resetting traps, 60% resetting traps that have gone off accidentally, and 1% enjoyment from seeing someone else’s mouse kicked off the board. As you can see, I’m not actually disagreeing with you. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/45 "2018-02-16T14:14:57Z")
Did anyone ever actually play Mousetrap as a game? It was very good at what it was designed to be. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/46 "2018-02-16T15:00:41Z")
Another one I heard mentioned on the GWJ podcast and ended up having a lot of fun with over the holidays is “Red 7.” It’s one of those games where the rules are almost comically simple but as you start playing it it rapidly gets pretty deep as you try to figure out what’s in everyone’s hands and plan out your next 2 or 3 moves. It gets my vote for “Best game you can buy for less than $10.” ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/47 "2018-02-16T20:59:49Z")
RoboRally is quite fun. There is an older and newer version. The rules changes streamline the game a bit, but older rules are good, too. Very good game, maybe not ‘best game ever’. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/48 "2018-02-16T21:33:08Z")
I like _Dark Tower_ still today. I have one from the 1980’s that still works. It’s a riot to play with kids and it’s relatively quick. My oldest and I have heated sessions of _Stratego_. I also really love the old version of _Axis And Allies_ from like the mid-1980’s before they added all the complicated rule changes. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/49 "2018-02-16T21:55:22Z")
We used to play Mousetrap with the kids. Worked surprisingly well. Except the cheese wheel at the end. It took forever to satisfy conditions for attempting to drop the cage on the mouse. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2018, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/50 "2018-02-17T21:14:48Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > I’ve always liked both _Monopoly_ and _Clue._ My wife kicks my ass in Clue each time we play and I end up feeing like a lobotomized chimp. There’s a trick to winning, I just haven’t figured it out yet. Monopoly if you play by the rules can be an angry type of game. Just never build hotels, as it limits the amount of houses needed to obtain Hotels. Clue is 123 simple. Just ask the right questions, and throw people off by asking someone for a car you hold. ---
**Author:** ![Hoopy\_Frood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoopy_frood/32/8452_2.png) [@Hoopy\_Frood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoopy_Frood)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/51 "2018-02-19T15:17:18Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Clue is 123 simple. Just ask the right questions, and throw people off by asking someone for a car you hold. Yeah, but it means they can likely conclude you hold that card. Every time I’ve played clue, it’s come down largely to luck at the end, because almost everyone has the same two of the three solutions figured out and it’s just who manages to figure out the third one first. There’s no reason to not be close to winning when someone figures it all out unless you’re not actually paying attention to everyone else’s suggestions. Then there’s the rare occasion someone just gets lucky on a suggestion and puts it all together really early. I find Monopoly more strategic than Clue/Cluedo. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/53 "2018-02-20T06:38:05Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Best: Squad Leader in its original version. A fun, playable squad-level WWII wargame. > Worst: Squad Leader in its final version after umpteen revisions and “improvements.” I don’t know if there is another game that has as many rules as Squad Leader came to have. Playing became a boring search through the rule book a lot of the time.All the hundreds of rules were added to cover every possible action and do things like reproduce the fog of war. About half the people I played with were rules lawyers, so that exacerbated the issue. Boy, do I know what you mean: it was a fairly long time ago that I played with a co-worker and was gradually introduced to the modules that one by one increased realism (complexity and rules) until by the end I simply wished and wished for a computer to hold the rule books and act as umpire. That was about ten years away… ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/54 "2018-02-20T06:42:56Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > My teenage love for Squad Leader reached its end at a specific point. > > The rules are incremental – modules add new rules to cover new situations. Eventually there were rules for bicycle troops, and rules for splitting off a lone scout from a squad, so there were rules that allowed you to account for a single man on a bicycle (fighting World War II). There was a rule for a shell glancing off a tank’s front hull and stunning the driver temporarily, causing the tank to move randomly one space. There was a rule for cliff hexes – only a few existed in all the maps. There were rules for “overrunning” infantry with tanks. Those rules contemplated reducing a tank’s inherent overrun value if one or more machine guns or the cannon were jammed – even a gunless tank had a basic hull value for simply rolling over a squad of troops trying to squash people. > It was at that point we realized the rules simulated World War II elaborately enough that you could calculate the attack value of a tank falling off a cliff onto a man riding a bicycle. > > The absurdity of that was funny at first, but as more and more rules were added it became our wargaming group’s symbol of all that was needlessly, trivially complex about wargames. The finale of this, from the previous post, was that when I moved back to SoCal I became friends with a game designer named Gary Grigsby who had already wirtten what was, in effect, Squad Leader for computer as realistic as could be , that played quickly with pretty good AI and fun scenarios and I was happy at last. He had written, “Steel Panthers” which is now available for free download. Wheeee. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/55 "2018-02-20T08:02:10Z")
If the category is all-inclusive, I hereby nominate Chutes and Ladders as the worst board game of all time. Yes, it’s a children’s game, but if you HAVE children, you’ve probably had to play it as an adult. It’s dull as dirt, and there’s no way to surreptitiously cheat to hurry the game along (and let the kid win). Call me crazy, but I _like_ Risk. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/56 "2018-02-20T11:56:12Z")
Best: Diplomacy. Worst: Gotta go with Advanced Squad Leader. ---
**Author:** ![MonkeyMensch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/57 "2018-02-20T21:38:24Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Best: Diplomacy. > Worst: Gotta go with Advanced Squad Leader. I’ll throw a vote in next to yours for how very unplayable ASL is. You gotta be wary of a game whose rules take up a full three ring binder and you’re supposed to be fairly fluent in them… ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/58 "2018-02-21T17:44:03Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Best: Diplomacy. > Worst: Gotta go with Advanced Squad Leader. Diplomacy also a strong contender for worst if you like having friends. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/59 "2018-02-21T20:33:57Z")
> [@MonkeyMensch](#): > > I’ll throw a vote in next to yours for how very unplayable ASL is. You gotta be wary of a game whose rules take up a full three ring binder and you’re supposed to be fairly fluent in them… Well, the game isn’t called Beginner Squad Leader! ---
**Author:** ![MentalGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/439d5e/32.png) [@MentalGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MentalGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/60 "2018-02-21T21:06:05Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I think the best games have you make decisions based on various factors. Lots of important choices are fun to make. > > Best: > > **Carcassonne: The Castle** - 2 player version of Carcassonne and much better in almost every way. > > \*\*Cartagena 2 \*\*- Again, much better than the original. A lot of fun and some pretty great decsion making points. > > Ra: The Dice Game\*\* - Sounds like luck, right? Well, there is luck, but you have to \*\*decide how to allocate your dice and it is a lot of fun. We do modify the rules a bit, though. The original is flawed. > > \*\* > Takenoko \*\*- Just lots of fun and a great theme. Gardening and Panda managing. 🙂 > Worst: > > Risk - 'nuff said. It’s just not that fun. > > Machi Koro - Totally broken, though I heard they fixed it in later updates. You need about half the cards to be able to win. Honestly, it’s terrible. > > Dominion - I’ve only played with two players, but it was not fun at all. We played many times, but it was just a race for the best cards. > > Mouse Trap - the actual game is terrible Dominion is my favorite game. It is a race for the best cards, but the fun comes from figuring out what the best cards for a particular kingdom are. My other favorites are Five Tribes, Castles of Burgundy, and the various versions of Pandemic. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2018, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798/61 "2018-02-22T00:36:47Z")
Dominion is also my favorite game. It in fact works at its best with 2 players, but only when those players actually know what they are doing. 3-4 player games are still good if you have them, but tend to play out differently and less interestingly. Dominion also has a problem of most of the game being contained in expansions and the base set being comparatively dull. It’s pretty complicated once you are able to draw from all the expansions, but the essence of the game is finding interesting interactions between cards that aren’t in general very good. For instance, Philosopher’s Stone and Herbalist are pretty mediocre if not terrible cards, but on a board with nothing else high-powered, they work together in at least 3 ways that all build on the strengths of both cards. (Herbalist can return Potion early on to allow you to buy more Philosopher’s Stone quickly, and can return Philosopher’s Stone in the second half of the game. Herbalist gives +Buy to use when you have way more money than for one province which happens when you draw multiple philosopoher’s Stones. Extra buys puts more cards into your deck to power up the Philosopher’s Stone.) There are lot of times you can do some really clever things if you think about them ahead of time enough. And there’s a constant tension between improving your deck an scoring points that isn’t really present in similar games like Ascension. But it’s also not all that interesting if you’re not really into those sorts of clever interactions and you only have played with some rather bland cards. I can certainly see why people would not like it, though I would expect it to show up more often on Dopers’ best lists than worst lists. I can’t really say I’ve played games that I actively dislike; there’s usually something interesting in all of them. Chutes and Ladders and Candyland and such don’t really draw any hate from me. They are what they are, they’re designed for young children, and they work fine that way. The game that I most actively dislike I have never played, only read the rules and wondered “Why are people pushing this at a board game convention?”: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCR\_(dice\_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCR_(dice_game)) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-and-worst-board-games/808798.md?page=4)