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[jaydub]

I did a Google Image search on "recreational equations", but it came up disappointingly short of content, with the puzzling exception of the following:



Sometimes Google's subtlety is too deep for me.

[jay-ell]

Well, there's degrees there. There's Monopoly and Life, and then there's Puerto Rico and Carcassonne.

we will not speak of BattleTech, it is unnecessary

Oh man.  We own both those games.  They're in our house right now, along with Guillotine, Bohnanza, and Settlers of the Catan.  We just got a copy of Eurorails for Christmas. 

Last time we had friends over, Sunday night in fact, we played a board game with them, but it's even worse than you think. 

We were helping them play-test a game they made.  About medieval sea trade routes.  And it was fun. 

At least we weren't wearing costumes. 

[theinevitable]

all of my friends at home are obsessed with Apples to Apples due to my influence. But I don't think that's particularly brainy.

[Ben-San]

One of the many sadnesses of engaging in little non-online socialization is the inability to play Betrayal At The House On The Hill or Cosmic Encounter.

[CortJstr]

With us it's more along the lines of Trivial Pursuit. Or Celebrities which, technically, doesn't have a board. Or pieces. Or really anything aside from slips of paper. And maybe a bowl.

[littlefallsmets]

As my friends and I are all sort of emotionally stunted to the end of college still, we tend to not play board games but, rather, creatively insult each other and people we know. And talk about writing projects we're not following through on. That's probably the Los Angeles portion of the equation.

[jaydub]

We were helping them play-test a game they made.  About medieval sea trade routes.  And it was fun. 

You should check out 1701 A.D. (or Anno 1701 in its original German).  My wife, who is a deeply devoted Civilization 4 player, is astonished that I find it entertaining to set up trade networks for little island city-states.

We've drifted a long way from sleep-chilling cartoon cats and sandwiches.

[Drastic Action]

Trivial Pursuit is my game.  No one wants to play with me, because they have become convinced that I just know all the answers.  This is not true; you just need to be able to think up a way to logically create the best possible guess.  Nevertheless, we never play it, because my piece goes on a wedge feast while everyone else flounders about with nothing but an Entertainment wedge, while slowly falling of their chairs in boredom.  I find this terribly disappointing, as I love the game so much.

But also, Guesstures is an excellent game, sort of a more well-defined charades.  And I've got a game called Don't Be a Dork, where you are (ironically!) asked to do pretty much the dorkiest things imaginable in order to reach the end.

But it seems like me and my friends find good-natured tresspassing to be our passtime of choice of late.

[jay-ell]

Apples to Apples is the bomb.  Great for parties where some of your guests don't know each other very well. 

I am awesome at Taboo.  It doesn't seem to matter who I play with, although Pedro and I have obvious advantages.  ("That thing that the guy had that time at the...place" "...NACHOS!")  I somehow seem to have a knack for describing a thing in a way that is not at all the way you'd expect but is still remarkably clear. 

I also always beat Pedro at Ceasar and Cleopatra, but that's because I know how his mind works and I know his strategy.  He's a greedy gazoo and can't stand to give up a point here or there if he can help it, and Cae&Cleo will cut you on that every time.  But he always wins at Carcasonne because he's a sneaky bear and always manages to steal farms from me. 

Pedro and I don't play Trivial Pursuit any more because something about the way the questions are written causes short circuits in my brain.  I totally know the answer when I hear it, but the question itself doesn't make any sense.  I'm better at Jeopardy, but not as good as August.   

We also don't do Monopoly because (a) it is the game that sucks (plus it causes depression) and (b) Pedro absolutely refuses to trade in any way, shape, or form unless it is so clearly and unequivocally in his favor that it's clear I'm just making the deal out of desperation so that someone, anyone, will win the game and put us both out of our misery.  (See the above-referenced greedy gazoo.) 

Apparently my parents haven't played chess since they were first married because my mom threw the board at my dad in a fit of frustration.  In her defense, Dad does have a tendancy to gloat. 

[isaacs_law]

Trivial Pursuit is my game too. I always bring it out after losing at Scrabble.

Aside: I don't know if this is true of any of the other subject GRE's, but the subject GRE in English is very much like Trivial Pursuit in the tone of the questions and the way of thinking you need to crack them - mostly in the sense that

a) most questions on obscure subjects are really just tests of your ability to read context, and
b) when relatively unread literatures come up with one relatively widely-read figure, it's that one (ergo "which Aesthetic writer's work espoused [pointless elaboration on obscure theory of Socialism which you don't even bother reading because it's going to be Oscar Wilde - not just for reasons expressed above, but because Oscar Wilde is right up there with Marvell and Emily Dickinson on the list of Safe Bets On The English GRE]).

My score on the English subject test didn't merit my offering advice, but on the other hand the Princeton Review would tell you just the same for $20.

Do you find modern editions of Trivial Pursuit significantly worse than the 80's editions? My brother and I do. Unfortunately this means we can spend some time in search of the Entertainment wedge as our knowledge of television from twenty years before we were born is pretty much nil.



Oh, and the questions are just poorly written, it's a major flaw in the game and I acknowledge it. Boo!

[coldfrog]

Tigris and Euphrates on www.boardgamegeek.com.

Though generally sites and such that try to put geek in the title still try to go too mainstream, I think this site deserves it.  And it's a great reference if you want to look up any of the awesome games that everyone has been talking about.

[AugustWest]

I'm pretty good at trivia.

[jay-ell]

I wonder if we still have that video clip somewhere...?

Pedro? 

[pmcd9]

I'm pretty good at trivia.

So modest.

[theinevitable]

paul-- I do. I do like your hat!

(that was my very first very favorite book. I made my dad read it to me so many times that he memorized it-- including when to point at the pictures, when to turn the page, etc.)