I used to go to a monthly game night back in Colorado, but I totally forget how it was set up.
We had different games (Gin Rummy, Pente, Cribbage, a few board games, etc) and they were ranked differently with points for the winner. At the end of the night the folk with the highest points would win white elephant gifts.
the games would rotate, and much drinking and eating was done.
Have you ever done this? Any ideas?
-Tcat
Wow, yours is a lot more complicated than mine.
We meet at my house after work and order pizza; after we eat, we decide “Scrabble or something else?” (I really don’t know why these people continue to want to play Scrabble with me, I’m a juggernaut), then we hang out and play Scrabble (or something else) and listen to music and gossip. Sometimes Jodi brings chocolate chip cookies.
It’s fun.
No prizes, though.
Second husband and I did this for awhile with some friends - we played cards. Usually the same game - it had a game board, you played with pennies - the heart cards could trump - I think. This was 15 years ago so my memory has dimmed…
In any event, we’d either order pizza or I’d make something - we all pitched in for the food - we’d probably play for five or six hours, listen to music, watch TV.
Oh - there were four or five of us…
We used to play poker until we were too drunk to bet properly, then we switched to Taboo.
If you want to go all out, do a Murder Mystery. They have several, you’ll need 8 people, and you can plan a whole theme around it and have everyone come in character.
I feel real young.
Our game nights consist of Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Mario Baseball, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Star Fox and WarioWare.
Game suggestions: Reversi (also known as Othello) and Rook (a card game). Uno (card game) is fun, too. If you play Uno, try to have at least four players, and swap the player seating every now and then. This game has you playing cards against the players to the right and left, and bad feelings can build up if someone consistently hits another player with “Draw Four Cards”.
We never do prizes, but everyone brings something to drink and something to munch on, the host usually bakes a pie (he’s a pie kinda person) and we all just play trivial pursuit or scattergories or whatever. Lately my friends have been playing poker and I’m introducing them to a dice game one of my friends calls “farkle”.
Oh, we usually have between five and fifteen people.
How many people are we talking about?
If there are too many for one game, you shouldn’t have games with radically different play times (Advanced Civilization* and Tic Tac Toe would be bad)
The only games nights I’ve been to had only one or possibly two games being run.
Brian
We have a poker night, but not a goofy poker night where all you play is one game (no offense, really, but I find the hold 'em style tournament craze that’s sweeping my office boring). A good poker night, where you play all kinds of games. Dealer calls the game. Sometimes it’s five card draw, sometimes stud, sometimes cards are wild, sometimes they aren’t. Guts is good, as is 7 or 27, then there’s a “goalposts” type game where you bet whether the card to be drawn is between the two showing. Hold 'em will show up once or twice, we’ll play Shit on Your Neighbor, as well as many other stud and draw variations. Yeah, you’ll play the same game more than once, often, but it’s fun. Have your players do a little bit of searching before the game night to find a game they’d like to play.
We’ve also had game nights where you play several different board games - start off with Pictionary, move to Taboo or Cranium or somesuch, maybe some Scattergories, then finish off with some card games.
Another popular, but long, option has been to start a Risk game. But with those, you run the option of running too long and losing interest.
Any way you do it, you’re pretty much gauranteed to have fun.
Other good games include Continuo, which requires some visual and spacial skills but is only demanding of the person whos turn it is (thus allowing the other players to chat freely, which is the whole point) and Pit, which easily degenerates into a fun shouting match.
Go on to Ebay and find some old/weird board games. I was looking for a Mystery Date but those go for a lot of money on Ebay. I did find this ‘great’ game called What Shall I Be? (the career game for girls). You choose a career for yourself, Teacher, Actress, Model, Stewardess, Nurse, or Ballerina and you must collect some attributes that go with your chosen career and not have any things against you.
Some of the ‘personality’ tokens say things like;
You are good in an emergency Good for Nurse and Stewardess
or
Your makeup is sloppy, bad for model or actress
or
You are too heavy, bad for model, ballerina and stewardess
The game is a riot.
Also check out CheepAss Games. They have very creative and inexpensive games. (they don’t come with dice or tokens but you’ve got those in other games) I love Kill Doctor Lucky and Devil Bunny Needs a Ham.
Mine would be a home variation on junkyard wars , where the teams would make something out of stuff seeded in a junk yard , but the home version would be out of mecchano , lego , or even picking up plastic model sets and see who does the best job .
Declan
We had a long planning meeting at work and the boss wanted to provide lunch in the middle and have a little “amusing team building game”. I suggested blind folded golf and we had a great time with lots of laughs. I look forward to trying it again with the addition of alcohol. You only need a putter, a ball and a fake hole. Oh and a blindfold of course.
Except for the hearts as “trump” it sounds like Tripoli. Hearts are used to collect prize money. You could put together a board pretty easily.
i recommend Quarto. it’s a strategy board game that’s simple to learn, quick to play, and a lot of fun.
Otto, next time I’m in Mad-town, I will stop by and KISS YOU!!! THAT’S IT!!! THANK YOU!!! 
Damn – sounds like a weekend I once spent in Atlantic City …
And, BTW, with the right partner, you don’t really need the alcohol. 
Largely dependant on numbers, but for reasonably large groups we tend to play some cards, usually Presidents and Arseholes followed by Pit (a good shouting game) and Werewolves.
Really recommend the last one if you have someone not shy of embellishments and good at story telling.
Sequence is my current board game du jour.