You know something that annoys me? Articles with meaningless preamble.
Games that don’t fit well (or at all) on my shelves. Like all gamers, I have a trusty set of Ikea Kallax shelves set up prominently in my gaming area in which I store all my games. It’s an attractive, functional and cost effective solution designed specifically to show off boardgames. It’s interesting to see that sometimes people mistakenly use the shelves to store vinyl records, which I guess were probably sized so they would fit nicely on boardgame shelves. Despite this de-facto industry standard of shelving which generously provides 13×13 inch units perfectly sized for storing games, some games decided they were ‘too big’ for this, too special to fit comfortably on a shelf of this size. I’m looking at you, Heroes of Land, Air and Sea, Mechs Vs Minions, Twilight Imperium (3rd edition). Oh, and while we are here … why can’t all game boxes be one of the two perfect game box sizes – the Ticket to Ride box size, or the Agricola box size. I’m ok with varying depth. But isn’t it just annoying when games like Viticulture come along with their extremely non-standard box size to ruin my shelf packing systems.
People not being available to play games with me. I thought we all loved playing games? Why can’t we do something as simple as getting together at a time that suits on a weekly basis? All these excuses like ‘I need to spend time with my newborn baby’ and ‘I have to go to work’ are just really disrespectful. I’ve made the time that is best suited to me available and invited you to come and play games with me, the least you could manage is to come and feed my extroverted social needs.
People wanting to play games I don’t like. We’ve all been there. You’ve sat down hoping to enjoy a good game with some friends and somehow Munchkin is suggested. Nobody wants to play it … but you know everyone is too polite to say no. Next thing you know you’re 1 hour into a 30 min ‘fun and easy’ game that no one is really into and no one really cares enough to fully understand. Should have played my game!
Filler games. I honestly don’t get the idea of ‘filler’ games. They are the packing peanuts of games. Sure I could fill the empty space in my parcel with packing peanuts, but I could also put a big box boardgame in the space instead and have a much better time when I got my parcel. In my experience one filler game is a gateway to a night of filler game after filler game. And I just don’t like it. Why play 3 games of Love Letter when you could have played a juicy game of Azul?
Not bringing an offering for the Snack Gods. Everyone knows that a boardgame night can’t be successful without the blessings of the Snack Gods. An offering to the host and table of something sickeningly sweet or thirst inducingly salty is always required lest you be struck down with bad luck for the entire night. I find it very awkward having to deal with the social and spiritual issues that arise when someone fails to bring their offering, it would be much simpler for all if people just remembered this important facet of boardgaming.
Games that I buy without really researching and then don’t like. What can I say? Everyone was hyping the game up and so I got it because I didn’t want to be left out only to find out it kinda sucks. In my opinion, something should really be done to address this issue.
People beating me. Seriously this one is simple. It’s my house, and my rules. You wanted to be invited back? Let me win! I play games to have fun and feel good about being the superior player, and if you are making that difficult for me then maybe you just won’t be welcome here anymore.
Players who want to be blue. Don’t they know I’m blue? I’m always blue. Like I actually struggle with the idea of not being blue to the point that between turns I will forget I’m not blue and strategise regarding the positions of the blue pieces and when it comes to my turn and I start moving the blue bits around everyone is like ‘Hey that’s not you’ and I have to spend 10 minutes figuring out a new strategy which is apparently annoying to the other players at the table. WELL maybe you shouldn’t have taken blue then! Scythe is an especially bad offender for this issue, though it is nice when my friends attack the blue player mistakenly thinking it’s me.
Games with art I don’t like. Sometimes I really want to enjoy the hyped hotness of the day but when I have a look at it, it just … looks ugly to me. Now I’m not one to shame based on looks, this is definitely a ‘it’s not you it’s me’ problem, but I feel like there are viable solutions to this. Plan B games decided to dress up Spice Road (with their Golem edition). Why not make several editions of each game with varying themes and artwork? It works amazingly for Monopoly. I want to see Game of Thrones Agricola, Game of Thrones Carcasonne, Game of Thrones On Mars, and Game of Thrones Catan!
People who collect statistics. This may be hard to believe based on the largely fictional account above but I don’t really care about winning, or my win rate on certain games, or honing my performance. I especially don’t care that you beat me the last time we played this game in 2017, and the thing I don’t like the most is you jovially telling me my overall win rate is below what it would be if we’d just been flipping a coin to determine the winner of games. To me the real winner is whoever brought me the best snacks, and also Wingspan.
Just most people and most games. I feel like at this point this should be clear.
Thanks for reading! Let me know your biggest boardgaming annoyances in the comments below! I won’t read them though because other people’s opinions is one of my biggest boardgaming annoyances.
The Boardgame Detective 