That Saturday game night in Tulsa where everyone brought broken games

Last month I organized a board game meetup and three of the five people showed up with games missing pieces or rulebooks, so we spent an hour just jury-rigging house rules for Catan and Ticket to Ride. Has anyone else hosted a session where the chaos actually made it more fun than a smooth playthrough?

2 comments

2 Comments

paige3311mo ago

The three broken games thing actually proves a point nobody's brought up yet: broken games FORCE people to talk to each other in a way that smooth games never do. With a normal rulebook, everyone just stares at the board and follows orders like robots, but that night you had to actually negotiate and argue about what a "fair" rule even means. That's real teamwork, not the fake kind where you just roll dice and move pieces. Also, nobody gets butthurt about losing when the game itself was half-made up, so the competition gets weirdly lighter and more fun. I bet the person who brought the broken Ticket to Ride ended up being the hero of the night, not the villain, because their mistake gave everyone else permission to be creative. Honestly, I'd take a chaotic night like that over a perfect game any Saturday, because the stories you tell later are a hundred times better.

keith9001mo ago

Bet that hour of house rules became the real game, probably way more memorable than any actual Catan session since everybody had to invent half the rules on the spot.