I highly recommend Apples to Apples for the reasons **Hello Again **gave. You can stop whenever you want (the game doesn’t have to be "over) and nobody cares who “wins.” You can play it with almost any number of people of any age who can read.
The description of this is intriguing… but how precisely does the scoring work? It says to write down as many as you can, then select either one you think everyone wrote or one you think no one else wrote. Why would you ever write down more than two, then? And if everyone only writes down two, the “something everyone wrote” becomes much less interesting.
You’re right about writing down more than two. And if you want to be an asshole playing this game, you can. I mean, if the category is “Things you might find in a desk drawer,” you could write down “dead fish” and win a point because nobody else wrote it, but that’s being an asshole.
In this genre, What Were You Thinking? is the better game. But they’re both good family party games that work for holiday settings where you’re trying to involve a wide range of ages and keep people from getting into political/religious/old family squabbles.
I’ve played oodles of What Were You Thinking, which is indeed a good game. But I really like the idea that you’re trying to write both common and uncommon items. I just don’t see how the scoring can be set up to make the game work in a game-theory sense.
Ironically, We had to push this game at The Game Keeper. (The fact that it’s a Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) product might have had something to do with it.)
Further Irony: The game was a total miss for my family. There was no real challenge for us, as we all thought alike. (or whatever the perfect play mechanic was.)
After you have a list of answers, then choose “Hit” or “Miss”. You can only choose one or the other.
You can only score points if you Miss on an answer, and stated you are going for Misses. And vice versa for hits.
As per the “Dead Fish” in a drawer, I guess that could work. But, knowing my family, we would have players “going after” other players. -People would put stuff down, simply because they think someone else put it down- Even if it is outside the box.
I think topics such as “Colors” might be closer to the mark than “Things a in a desk drawer”.
Incidentally, I would got with Puce, Silver, Eggshell, Maroon, Cyan, and I would go for Miss.
That all being said, I have never played the game. Again, we were busy selling What were you thinking?
I’ve played Hit or Miss, and while the concept is intriguing it has a major flaw. Many categories are too vague, which makes getting misses too easy. Often there are hundreds of legitimate answers, so picking one that no one else will isn’t that hard.
I think the game is vastly more fun when you dispense entirely with the cards and board that come with it and ask the questions yourself. Also, the “name 5 things that are X” questions are much more interactive and interesting than simple “boxers or briefs” or “paper or plastic” questions.
And maybe it’s just that I like overthinking things, but I enjoy questions that really make you think, things like “name 5 historical figures who the average American might think had lived near the year 1000 AD” or “name 5 things that are famous for being in second place or coming in second” or “name the 6th through 10th most famous Beatles songs”, rather than just “name 5 flavors of ice cream” or “name 5 things that are yellow”.
I love board games, but I find that most adults really just like to sit around, have a drink, and chat at social events.
I think that as a competitive person, and particularly as a competitive woman, you are on thin social ice playing competitive board games in a social setting like with people you invited to dinner. Consider whether your husband is maybe trying to give you a hint.
Remember that as Dopers, our responses are not a random sample. We may or may not resemble your IRL friends.
My suggestion would be to find some folks who share your interest in games for some explicit games nights, and forget the games at other events.
There are three facets to that problem…
(1) Judging whether the supplied answer is a legitimate “thing” (usually as opposed to being contrived)
(2) Judging whether it’s in the named category (does “oxygen” count as something in a desk drawer?)
(3) Judging whether it’s the the same as something someone else said (what happens when one person puts “soda” and one puts “cola” and one puts “coke” and the category is cold beverages?)
There are three basic ways to solve this problem:
(1) only allow categories that are 100% unambiguous for all of the above. There are a few categories which are rigorously defined finite sets of things (50 US states for instance). Also, you can have a dictionary and then ask for restricted categories of words (4 letter words beginning with T, 5 letter words containing a double letter, etc.). I think Hit or Miss might work quite well as strictly a word game… come up with a way to randomize word-categories and have a dictionary on hand.
(2) Each “round” of the game, one of the players isn’t participating, but is the gamemaster, with absolute final unarguable veto power. (Only doable if everyone trusts each other not to be overcompetitive dickheads.) That also allows the gamemaster to select a category that he or she feels confident in adjudicating.
(3) All decisions are made by a thumb up/thumb down vote, majority rules.
Now that I’ve actually read the precise rules for the game and how the scoring works, you’re missing a few key points… namely, you don’t get to choose Hit or Miss. It’s chosen randomly AFTER you have written your list. So you can’t afford to write only misses or only hits. And you always score points whenever anything you’ve written is what someone else proposes as a hit or miss. So basically it’s always to your advantage to write as many things as you can, both common and uncommon.
So here’s how it works, since I’ve gotten this far. Suppose the category is “superheroes”. You have 45 seconds (or whatever), and everyone simultaneously writes down as many superheroes as they can on a piece of paper. Then, someone goes first. Going first is a huge advantage, and it rotates, and you should play enough rounds so that everyone gets to go first an equal number of times.
That person random chooses “hit” or “miss”. Let’s say he chose “hit”. He says “superman”. Everyone who wrote down superman raises their hand. The guy who was going gets 1 point for everyone who raised their hand. Everyone who raised their hand gets 1 point. The next person also randomly chooses “hit”. He now has to name a superhero he has written down, but can’t name one that’s already named. So he says “Batman”, and the scoring is the same. The next person randomly chooses “miss”. He names “Gazerbeam” (from The Incredibles). Everyone else who has written down “Gazerbeam” raises their hand. The guy who is going gets one point for everyone who did NOT raise their hand. Everyone who raised their hand scores 3 points.
I think the scoring actually is very well designed, because you are definitely encouraged to write as many names as possible, both so that you’ll get to catch as many names other people say as possible, and also so that you’ll still have good hits and misses in case you’re not going first. The real problem is definitely the question of determining what does or does not count, as discussed in my previous post.
I’m one who prefers games to plain old conversation, but that’s just me. There’s a group of guys (one of whom is my best friend) I get together with every now and then, and I enjoy the get-togethers just fine if it’s to “play rummy”, “watch anime”, “go to a movie”, or whatever. I don’t enjoy them at all if the plan is to “go out for coffee”.
My problem, when the object is conversation, is that in every group I’ve been in there is always one person who completely dominates the conversation while everybody else either doesn’t have much to say (that’s me) or can’t get a word in edgewise. Growing up, that person was my dad. Whether it was in a social situation or just around the family dinner table, he delivered a mostly non-stop monologue and everybody else got to listen. As a result, I really didn’t develop much in the way of conversational skills (but I’m a great listener!). In the group I sometimes hang with, there’s one guy who talks and talks and talks and will eventually start repeating himself if somebody doesn’t manage to stop him. I suspect in his case he simply doesn’t know how to end his stories, and so instead he starts going back and filling in more details that he didn’t mention the first time through, which leads to the repeating of things he already said …
I’m also somebody who needs to be “doing something”, and despite trying, I’ve never been able to see just sitting around talking as “doing something”. So while The Non-Stop Talker is going on and on, my brain starts doing something like this.
Of course, a lot of it boils down to whether the members of the group have strong common interests or not. I’ve realized that I have very little trouble making conversation when I’m with a group of musicians, especially if we’ve gathered to play music together. The conversation doesn’t even need to revolve around music - the music simply gives us a starting point and provides a gateway to discovering other common interests to talk about. So the problem I see comes when the members of a group have disparate interests. I’m not a fisherman (and I don’t even like fish), so I’m going to be bored to tears listening to somebody talking about their latest fishing trip; I don’t watch TV and so I’ll be completely lost while somebody talks about what happened in the latest episode of House; nobody in my group is going to care to listen to me describing the way a 35" neck scale improves the definition of the low B string on a 5-string bass guitar when compared to the standard 34" scale.
And that’s where a game (or some other group activity) provides a benefit: it forces The Non-Stop Talker to shut up at least long enough to focus on his or her next move; it provides openings for those who would normally have a lot to say but are too polite to interrupt TNST; and it allows the more taciturn members of the group to speak when they have something to say, without requiring them to go on at length if they don’t want to.
I’m all for games. Depends on the group though. If you are with people that love games go for it. If they aren’t into that, then don’t push it. If it’s a small group of people that know each other well, conversation can be fine. For a larger group and/or group of people where not everyone is familiar with each other, games should be mandatory. I hate going to a party where I only know the host and am expected to chat up people I don’t know and otherwise entertain myself.
Ugh - I have friends who are big time game freaks, but I am not one of those people.
Make sure you know what the guests would like - if they like to play games, it’s okay to present that at an option. But when you have ME over, don’t even bother.