This is the one with the anatomy of a good board game night.

Posted June 29th, 2010 by Mike Lawson

In the past couple of months I’ve been invited to a couple of board game nights at different people’s homes and I’ve come to realize that there are specific ingredients and rules one must follow to have a successful board game night.  I’ve outlined those rules for you here:

1. Diverse Set Of Games – You need word games.  Strategy games.  Card games.  Fast games.  Slow games.  You can’t have too many games.  You don’t have to play all the games, but having a very diverse selection to choose from will be helpful once you get all the different personalities in a room.
2. Diverse Set Of Players - You’ll have a lot more fun if you have people in the room that have never met.  It’s enjoyable to get to know someone as they’re arguing his case in Apples to Apples.  And it’s fun to trash talk a stranger’s responses in Scattegories.
3. No Children/Annoying Pets – Your kids are cute, and your dogs are cuter.  But do we really need to stop the timer because you have to change a diaper or take your dogs out?  Seriously?  How do you live like this?!
4. Snacks – Of course you must have snacks…but the snacks you choose are important.  Think of your friends handling your board games.  How dirty do you want their hands?  Then think of your friends playing board games with forks in their hands.  There is a middle point.  Find it.
5. Boozy Games - Toward the end of the evening all of your prudish friends will have left, and the only ones left will be the drunks.  Make sure you have a game or two that allows all the wasted people to enjoy their drunkenness.  For the record RISK or MONOPOLY are not good games to start past 10pm. 

What am I missing?