This has happened to me a few times. One I remember was the game Alchemist, where I just sat there confused as hell for 4 and a half hours while three guys were all talking about strategies. Tonight it was Terraforming Mars, where I was told it would be a 3 hour game, but by hour 4 we were halfway done. This time I said “it’s 11pm, I have work in the morning, this will be my last hand” and the host got very passive aggressive with me. I just don’t know what to do in these situations.
^Also is there a word for this? My girlfriend said I was “held game hostage” but I don’t see that used in my searches.^
I would suggest grabbing your phone and quickly looking up the game on BGG before you start to see its length and complexity rating. Would take less than a minute and would give you a broad idea of what you’re in for.
Do they use the time on the box or user reported game times? Because I often find the game on the box can be very optimistic lol.
BGG is user reported game length and weight. If you’re learning the game you’ll need to plan for it to take a little longer, as the times usually represent experienced players.
I’d start asking questions about what kind of games I’m invited to. Ask more questions about what you are getting yourself into, before committing.
I loathe Terraforming Mars, because you can’t ease into it. You start at full speed and if you don’t know what you’re doing at the start, you’re already fucked. The problem is, you don’t know that, so it’s one of those where you to royally fuck up twice, before you can play a good game.
You can’t just go “well, I’m the tree-planting guys, I should probably focus on planting trees”, because the game doesn’t reward some things at all. There are straight up worse choices.
I spent a weekend learning a boardgame, only to find out it kinda sucks.
I partially agree with you. I like playing the game, but it does have some problems. The biggest thing is that you can fairly easily get screwed on cards and have no real options. There’s also a common occurrence that one player will be put into an unwinnable position every game. The other problem is the expansions make the game worse and significantly longer, if you happen to be the player that gets screwed it’s just more waiting to lose.
I’m thinking it would be helpful to explicitly state your boundaries before even agreeing to play the game. Something like this:
“There are some board games i like and some i don’t. I’d be glad to give it a try if you’re ok with me deciding I don’t like it after 10 minutes and dropping out. Also i don’t enjoy playing board games that take longer than an hour to finish, so I’d be happy to play as long as you’re cool with me dropping out of the game if it goes on longer than an hour.”
If you explain clear boundaries to them before starting play then they know what to expect when those boundaries are reached
I would have needed the answer to this question back when my friends invited me to play twilight empire.
We started at 10 am and finished at 11 pm ffs.
Games like that are why I own a board game table. We know we only have 2-3 hours a night, but if we want to play a long long game, it gets packed up underneath the topper. We used to be the ones with a hard stop time, I’m grateful our friends stuck with us through it.
These days I’ll sometimes take a few days to play a game of ticket to ride, in one hour spurts.
So the people teaching the game with you should make sure everyone is aware of the game time and expectations, first of all. I love board games, but would be a bit irritated if someone expected me to play Terra Mystica at a moments notice. The only exception that comes to mind is if they’re cool with ending it early because I wouldn’t be able to play the whole time.
Since your friends don’t seem very responsible, you have to do more legwork. I would ask which game is being played, and what the expected game time is. In addition, let them know your time limitations and that you’ll have to leave by a specific time whether your finished or not. This may lead to less invitations (“lets start a game of Twilight Imperium 3 at 830 Pm on a Tuesday night! but lets not invite Meep_Launcher because he’ll leave the game early”) but at least everyone will be aware of the situation before hand.
Ideally, your friends will work around the person with the most restrictive schedule, “only 2 hours? lets play some love letter, DND Inn fighting game, and Port Royale”. If they really want to play Monopoly, you can suggest a better time when you would be interested in playing where you’d have sufficient time to finish the game.
Ask what game you’re going to play and read about the game? Learn the rules in advance?
Not sure I have an answer, but my group has an understanding that we’re all adults, and if someone needs to leave early or whatever, that’s totally cool. I have one friend that I don’t think has ever actually finished a game of MtG Commander lol.
Learning a board game if no one’s played it before can easily takes an hour and sometimes more in addition to the suggested play time, to figure out the set up and fully read and understand the rules.
I don’t know what kind of friends would be upset at you being tired. The only time I might be annoyed is if you continually overcommit (ask to play a game you know takes all night then leave early).
I suggest you tell your friends whenabouts you need to leave, at the start and/or the middle of your hangout so they can set their expectations accordingly.
If the Alchemist game you think you would enjoy if you just weren’t confused by the gameplay, have someone walk you through it, looking at your hand/pieces and tell you what to play and why for a round. I think part of the issue is that you need to communicate early and clearly so that you don’t have to suffer in silence. A board game hangout shouldn’t be something you dread; if it is then do something else. If it’s that the game just isn’t sparking your interest, 5-10 minutes into the rules you can stop and tell them that this doesn’t feel interesting.
Make your time limits know ahead of time. Focus on the socialization with your friends rather then the game itself.
People can get annoyed if you dip early for the same reason you stated. You got quorum, you spent hours learning and playing the game. And you don’t even get to finish it.
If your game group suffers from analysis paralysis suggest setting a timer for each turn to keep the game moving.
Just slap your knee and say,” welp, it’s getting late”
Oh damn, alright Neuromancer, we’ll see you next time!
Most German response ever.
I guess Germans and US Midwesterners have more in common than I thought!
There’s actually been quite a few waves of German immigration to the US throughout the years, they make up a pretty big part of US ancestry. There’s even been a myth that German almost became the national language in 1795 and only lost by a single vote in Congress, but it’s apparently just that, a myth. So it’s probably no wonder we share some cultural quirks like awkward goodbyes and a love for scheisse porn.
Can confirm, am German-American from Pennsylvania, where German is taught as an option in many public schools
If you look at ethnic ancestry maps, you’ll see there is a lot of German ancestry in the midwest.
Now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense (part of my family is German ancestry). It had just never occurred to me that this particular social phenomenon was German-based because it’s such a common midwestern thing!
Ich glaube, um sich dafür zu qualifizieren müsste die Aussage auch auf deutsch sein.
Open and honest communication. Just say that you’re not interested in the game.
If the host gets passive-aggressive you could try to talk civilised about that. In case they don’t show the necessary understanding or are difficult to talk to, they might be not be the kind of acquaintance you would like to keep.
To clarify, say that BEFORE starting the game. If we’re 3 hours into a 4 hour game and you bail because you’re not interested, depending on how it affects the game lots of people would get pretty pissy.
Had the exact opposite happen once — playing Risk with a group of friends, one guy ends up completely dominating the board. Almost everyone is out, just him and one other person left.
Everyone wants to either start a new game or go to a pub, but he still hasn’t won. We ask him several times if he’s accomplished his goal yet; he hasn’t.
He drags the game out by an additional 3 hours, and finally wins. Turns out he had won some 4 hours earlier, and “forgot” or “misunderstood” his objective. In reality, assholes just wanted to try to take over the whole world, and thought we wouldn’t insist on seeing the objective card afterwards.
We banned him from participating in any and all games. For life. This was some 25 years ago. I haven’t seen him for 10+ years, but to the best of my knowledge, nobody from that particular friend group (around 12 people) ever let him participate in any games again.
I’m regularly your friend that plays long as fuck games, but I always make sure that anyone I invite for these long games is acutely aware that they’re in this for 4 hours and if that’s not ok with them to tell me and we’ll play something else. I kind of get the annoyance you host had when you abandoned the game midway, but it’s really on them to manage expectations, especially when playing with adults with obligations. It is also up to them to figure out that when you explain a new game, it’s going to take longer to play.
So really no fault of your own, and definitely don’t apologize for having work in the morning, but it seems your friend is not that good at managing expectations and that means you’ll have to do it yourself. Ask ik advance what game you’ll be playing and watch a review or video of it (you can also watch a live game on Board Game Arena), and yeah you’ll probably miss out on some great games that look bad from the outside but if not spending 4 hours playing a game you don’t enjoy is more desirable to you then that’s it.
You could also, of course, try communicating with your friend about your grievances. I don’t know what good will come out of that discussion but I don’t think it can be that bad.
The problem here is this friend communicated it was a 4 hour game but it’s actually 8 hours.
It’s so unreasonable to just expect people to stay longer then what everyone agreed upon
Going by BGG Terraforming Mars is a 2 hour game. New players learning the rules and building engines instead of pushing objectives can lengthen the game, but 4 hours is pushing it and there’s either a problem with AP, people not paying attention, or people not taking their turn.
If that’s regularly the case I can see why OP doesn’t want to play longer heavier games. 2 hours of Terraforming Mars is fun, 4 hours is a slog.
Any rational adult would not expect to effectively hold people hostage to finish a FUCKING BOARDGAME.
I would say ignore that shitcunt and say goodbye and leave.
That depends on context. If you know it’s a 4 hour game, and you join while knowing perfectly well you’re leaving in 2 hours, I’m probably not playing with you again. That’s not the situation in OP’s post, but just to note it’s not as absolute as you make it seem.
Take your phone out, look at it, get a slightly concerned look on your face that quickly turns to fear, run out the room yelling “No No No NO No No No No No they’re not meant to be here this soon”, destroy your phone and start a fresh new life.
