Siddarth RG

Blog Posts

The Perfect Board Game Night

The design is in the details
2024 Jun, 30th

I distinctly remember my first board game night with friends. It was a Saturday night at a friend’s dorm room during my undergrad. I had never stayed up past midnight for the sake of amusement before, but the thrill of each new round of Dominion and the casual atmosphere at my friend’s place made the conversation and game rounds flow naturally. One shounen manga time-skip later1, and my favorite way to make new friends and deepen old friendships continues to be by playing board games together.

Introverts or extroverts, young or old, board game aficionados to those who’ve never played Chess before; I’ve found that board games bring everyone together and form a sturdy scaffold for conversations and bonding. This being my preferred format of social event, I found myself fortunate enough to host a number of them over the years with near perfect attendance and glowing positive feedback.

Over these many events, I’ve formulated a modular template that helps me plan the Perfect Board Game Night every time, easily and quickly, with minimal notice on my end. I break it down into three phases - planning before the event, playing during the event, and following up after the event.

Before

During After

Now, come closer as I unfurl my scroll of secrets and whisper them for you to make your own.

Before: Nits & Grits

Schedule & Venue

The first decision to make is deciding when the board game night will take place. Ideally, I aim for a date at least two weeks out. People are busy, give them ample notice to plan for attending and they will appreciate you. My best suggestion is to host on a weekday night; it may seem counterintuitive, but weekends & Fridays are competitive time slots.

I always set a start and end time for my events. Setting a hard limit is my way of communicating that I respect my guests’ time and asking them the same of my time. In fact, having a stop time allows them to leave without feeling like they are missing out or ruining the vibes by being the first ones to leave.

I prefer a three-hour time block, because that allows for approximately 2-3 light/medium board games or 1 heavy board game in terms of complexity. Any longer and you need to plan for a meal break which becomes exponentially more complex. It’s tough to stay focused longer than 3 hours on any activity, even if it is one that we love and enjoy doing.

For the venue, my best recommendation is hosting at your own place. Not only do you have full control over the setting, but it also feels more intimate to invite people to your space and this allows you to create deeper bonds with them.

Guests

While other events, like a dinner party, can host a large number of people, with a board game night I find around 6 to 8 to be a perfect number. Groups larger than that end up naturally splitting into two separate games and I prefer, as much as possible, to have everyone able to share the experience of playing the same game.

Board game nights are a fun way to introduce your different friend circles to each other. Take the opportunity to introduce your friends (old and new) to each other - they’ll be grateful for the connection and as host, you’ll be pleased when they get along. Let folks know they can bring plus ones to maximize the chance of everyone getting to meet new people.

I trust my friends to be friendly but it’s also valid to remind everyone to be civil and kind to each other. Using name tags and group introductions (coming up!) are ways to facilitate the tone of these interactions. As host, you hold sway over the norms of the event and it is your responsibility to take care of your guests’ wellbeing.

Games

I advise planning your game night around one main game to play. Usually, this is the medium/heavy game that you can also pitch to your guests when inviting them. Additionally, I set aside a few shorter social interaction focused games for the beginning of the event, and one or two Eurogame-y style games to end with.

Sometimes, you plan your entire game night focused on just one game. Easy, plan to just play that one game. Sometimes that game2 takes an entire afternoon and evening to play - plan meal breaks accordingly. This post assumes you’re only playing board games but I’ve used the same format for hosting tabletop RPG one-shots and video game nights as well.

Grub

I prefer a pot-luck style of bringing snacks. Avoid meals because that requires planning around allergies and dietary restrictions which could get complex and may be informed to you last-minute. For hydration, I bear the responsibility for providing in the form of water and (non-alcoholic) drinks.

I have one Golden Rule of Grub that I inform my guests of:

You may bring one of whatever food is your favourite but you must take any leftovers back home with you.

There’s a lot of great consequences to this rule:

An aside: after listening to this excellent podcast episode on planning cocktail parties3, I’m convinced the best snack to bring to board game nights are grapes. They are so easy to snack on; each one a small juicy packet of sugar and hydration, fueling your brain through the night as it crunches the systems of each new board game.

Invites & Reminders

Always send your guests invites once you’ve figured out the details of the when, where and who. You’re doing them the favor of sharing the details in one place so they can refer back to it as needed. A Google Calendar event works great, though even a simple email will suffice.

I also send out email reminders out 1 week before, 2 days before and on the day of the event. People are busy, and it’s a courtesy to remind them that you’re hosting this event. It’s easy enough to pre-schedule these email reminders and the content doesn’t need to be your opus magnum. You’re just reminding folks the when, where, who and that this event is going to happen. That’s plenty.

During: Now we're gaming

Introductions

Excellent! You’ve made it through all the prep work, fast forward a few weeks, and people are presently showing up to your place and ringing your doorbell.

What now?

I love to buy a stack of name card stickers4 beforehand and hand them out to guests immediately after they step in. Even if there’s only one new person in the guest list, it’s a wonderful way to make everyone feel comfortable learning each other’s names and avoid that awkward situation two hours in where you’re desperately racking your brain to remember if the person next to you is named Arjun or Rohan.5 Name card stickers are cheesy and goofy and they work.

Remember those shorter social games you set aside? Start playing one of those as soon as you have enough people to begin. Keep it low stakes and allow people to jump in as they arrive.

As soon as your entire guest list has arrived, call for a pause and get everyone in a circle to introduce themselves. Keep it simple, ask for their name and the answer to one icebreaker question. There’s lots of icebreaker question lists to be found upon a quick internet search and my current favorite is, “What’s your favorite breakfast?“6 This is purposely a low-stakes question that lets people express their personality in a light-handed way, is easy to think of an answer, and invariably creates a bond within the sweet-versus-savory breakfast groups. Finally, follow up each person’s introduction briefly to let the rest of the group know how you know them.

Playtime!

After introductions, it’s a good time to transition to playing the main game as promised. Stay flexible and read the room as best as you can. It’s fine to change the game plan if everyone seems more excited to play a different game than originally intended.

There is a general order of games that I find works well, like I mentioned previously.

  1. One to three short, social games
  2. The main, medium length game
  3. A point-salad style game

Starting with a party game or bluffing game like Skull or Spyfall works great because it gives everyone a chance to talk with each other, even if it is just the ritualized rule-speak of the game.

The main game is what everyone gathered to play, so make sure to play that. Sometimes, everyone feels like playing a different game and that’s why I had you prep an alternate option. Azul: Summer Pavilion and Canvas are some past favorites for my groups.

It’s unusual that I suggest a point-salad game to end on, but I’ve found it can be nice to focus on the game systems when everyone is weary of conversation at the end of the night. Cartographers has worked well, as I reckon other roll-and-writes would.

Don’t be afraid to call the night early before finishing the game - it’s important to respect each other’s time and your guests are more likely to join next time if they know they can trust you to stick to your word.

Also, make sure to take photos of the final board states and the winners after finishing each game!

After: It’s not over yet

End the night by announcing it to the group and start packing up the games right after. Take a group photo if possible, but let folks leave early if they want to; we want to keep our word on that end time. Don’t forget to thank everyone for coming before they leave!

I recommend sending everyone the photos from that night within the next few days so some can relive their glorious victory and all can look forward to the next board game night.

Now that you have all the pieces to the puzzle, I urge you to take them apart and reassemble them into a picture that works for your perfect board game night.

Photo by Akshan Forouzani

If you use this template to host your next game night OR if you, like me, have strong opinions on planning game nights OR if you also think grapes are the ultimate snack (or want to convince me otherwise); I’d love to hear from you.

1. The duration of one shounen time-skip is roughly equal to ten years on average, in my experience.

2. I’m looking at you, GF9 Dune.

3. McKay, Brett and Nick Gray. "Throw a 2-Hour Cocktail Party That Can Change Your Life." Art of Manliness Podcast, Art of Manliness, 22nd Feb. 2023. Simplecast, https://the-art-of-manliness.simplecast.com/episodes/how-throwing-a-2-hour-cocktail-party-can-change-your-life. Snipd app.

4. Preferably the goofy ones that say “HELLO! My name is ___.”

5. You were sitting next to Vikram.

6. Personally, I’m an eggs, toast & fruits kind of person.

© 2024 Siddarth RG