Getting Into Board Games
Article • 646 Words • Board Games, 2026 • 03/16/2026
The beginning of my personal journey into board games after reflecting on some internal narratives about them.
There are 673 words in this article, and it will probably take you less than 4 minutes to read it.
This article was published 2026-03-16 00:00:00 -0400, which makes this post and me old when I published it.
Background
I have friends who were into board games (and even one who creates his own), but the bug never made its way to me. That is until I started playing games with my partner. She got me into Monopoly Deal through a friend and the faster-paced style that was part luck and mild strategy made me feel like it was a fun way to connect and do something together as a couple.
I think a large reason why I didn’t get into games was that I was playing the wrong games. However, the market for board games has been steadily increasing, which means that there are more games than ever. I think that there are games out there for any kind of person, but you do have to sort through a lot of them. The board game enthusiast/hobbyist community is a great place to find games, but they do have a bit of a representation bias in their taste that you really have to know what you’re looking for and not be swayed by popular opinion.
There are also some other personal reasons that I am going to detail below for why I believed that board games didn’t mesh well with my personality. This was a good exercise in reflection for me, but I also think there is some value in communicating it externally in case it resonates with other people too. I don’t think of myself as evangelizing board games to others in this post because that isn’t really my business, but I do want people to challenge their own internal narratives vis-à-vis games more generally because of my personal belief in the immense importance of play.
Why I thought board games weren’t a good fit for me
- Committing to Imaginary Stakes
- I’m definitely not going to play for money so the idea of winning for the sake of winning doesn’t motivate/excite me. I’m not really a competitive person.
- This means that I am not as incentivized to come up with long-term strategy or really try that much during the game. For longer games this can be particularly tough as I begin to lose steam towards the middle/end of the game.
- People Pleasing and Being Unable to Upset People
- In a lot of games there are many Zero-Sum actions where something good happens to you directly at the expense of another person. Sometimes it’s more abstract than that like just skipping their turn which just makes it harder for them to win.
- I really don’t like being mean to people but mostly because I can’t handle people being upset at me.
- Strategic Thinking
- Strategic thinking doesn’t really come super naturally to me, I am generally somewhat impulsive/follow my gut instead. This leads me to adopt a more “greedy” algorithm in games where I am always taking the locally optimal move. This is sometimes globally optimal, but most times not, especially when playing non-greedy opponents.
How these reasons can be overcome
- Shifting Goals
- Winning need not be the ultimate goal of playing games; and for me it’s more about spending time and having fun with friends/ passing time in an enjoyable way.
- Exposure Therapy or Choosing to Be Nice
- You will upset people. You will hurt them. I need to get over this! Repair if anything actually is wrong, but most times what happens in games is understood to be separate from reality.
- I can and do sometimes just take the loss on purpose and not play the “mean move” not just out of avoidance of conflict but also because it just doesn’t feel good sometimes. There are games that are less zero-sum and even cooperative which can also help scaffold this better.
- Luck as an Equalizer
- I prefer games that involve an element of luck which doesn’t necessarily prevent or punish strategic thinking, but it does take some of the advantages away from it.