

Ask HN: What is your favorite board game and why? - pj

I like Reversi (a.k.a. Othello).  I think because it is so simple, yet so complicated.  It's counter-intuitive. It's a metaphor for life.<p>Which board game do you like best and why?
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SwellJoe
Some friends and I played _Settlers of Catan_ for the first time a couple of
weeks ago. It's a lot of fun. Definitely recommended.

I'm also very fond of Scrabble. Like others have mentioned, Othello and Go can
be fun.

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jeffbradberry
Settlers (and Seafarers, and Cities & Knights) of Catan is a great game. My
girlfriend and I also like Ingenious. It's a very simple and quick game (and
the only one I've found that's still interesting with two players), yet there
is some fairly interesting strategy to it.

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SwellJoe
Yeah, the primary reason I stopped gaming as I reached adulthood (I was a huge
RPG and other tabletop games fan as a kid) was that the games simply took too
much time. Settlers wraps up in about 90 minutes, while still providing a
reasonable amount of time for strategy and development. It's a very well-
balanced and quick to play game. And the rules are simple enough to cover in
about 10-15 minutes.

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kleevr
I've played both a little Reversi/Othello and Go. If you haven't tried Go I'd
give it a shot. It is good to start by playing a little against a computer
(and don't feel bad about using a handicap) until you the basics click. Then
find other humans I guess...

[I always had trouble with chess, my "ADD" always got in my way. I'd end up
making a mistake I had previously ruled out, because I had forgotten where I
was at, felt rushed, and eventually just made a move.]

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seasoup
In Go, all but the very best players in the world play with a handicap
depending on who they are playing. It balances the game so that players who
are not as adept have an equal chance at winning a particular game. This is an
advantage that Go has over Chess, where removing pieces would just be silly.

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jibiki
> This is an advantage that Go has over Chess, where removing pieces would
> just be silly.

It used to be rather popular, actually, to play at pawn-and-move odds. If you
search through old games, you'll eventually come across one where black starts
without an f pawn.

There's also a famous Capablanca game where a young Capablanca is given a
queen by his opponent (he wins, of course.)

I'd say the two biggest problems with chess are:

1\. Too many draws.

2\. First move has too big an advantage.

Neither of these is a problem in Go (draws are extremely rare or even
impossible in many rule sets, and the second player is now given enough points
that the game is almost even.)

I like both games a lot. Arimaa is fun too.

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chaosprophet
Monopoly. I like it because:

1\. It's a really long game.

2\. With a bit of creative rule modding you can totally change the game.

3\. The concept of getting to become insanely rich is _very_ alluring.

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bgnm2000
I like monopoly but mostly because its a game of persuasion. I'm highly
competitive, and always trying to make impossible deals happen in that game.
Which is why I love it.

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seasoup
Go. Another very simple game that takes forever to master, and yet the rules
can be tought in under a minute. It's also so complicated that the Go players
of today are far better then the Go masters of 1000 or even 500 years ago
because of all the strategy in the game that has been discovered and passed
on. You can tell a lot about a person based on how they play Go... are they
timid, aggressive, unwilling to make mistakes, willing to move without all the
information? It comes out in a single game of Go.

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rms
I like www.kdice.com. It's a distillation of the best elements of Risk down to
the most minimal essentials. You'd have to be crazy to try playing it on an
actual board though. I believe it is the largest public installation of Google
Web Toolkit. I'm kevin143 there if you want to play sometime. It is not an
easy game, but I believe it is close to perfect.

Otherwise, Diplomacy.

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Jem
Monopoly or Scrabble - tough decision between the two.

