Merchant of Venus (we do have one good condition set that we use sparingly).
A good time was had by all!

My advice: If you don't have any strong emotional connection to this particular copy of Merchan of Venus: Sell it as long as it is worth as much as it is, then grab a shiny new copy for much less when the reprint arrives sooner or later (it is still unknown, who in fact, will, as the legal battle is going on in the background.)

I did play Munchkin recently, but only briefly, as the owner, who had just bought it went to return it after only 10 minutes or so (kind of a strange story...)

I did play Munchkin recently, but only briefly, as the owner, who had just bought it went to return it after only 10 minutes or so (kind of a strange story...)

I hear a lot of mixed reviews on Munchkin, though I've never actually played it myself. The same goes for the Fluxx games, which appear to drive people bonkers with its constantly changing nature.

My advice: If you don't have any strong emotional connection to this particular copy of Merchan of Venus: Sell it as long as it is worth as much as it is, then grab a shiny new copy for much less when the reprint arrives sooner or later (it is still unknown, who in fact, will, as the legal battle is going on in the background.)

That'd be such a tough decision though for a lot of folks. It would be like me getting rid of my old 1982 edition of Risk...I know there's Risk games in far better condition than mine, but this particular set is the one I spent so many hours in my formative years holing up in Australia or foolishly attempting to subjugate Asia (who hasn't tried that at least once??). Chances are if they've kept a copy this long they're probably not going to go for that option. I've never played MoV, but the way stargazer talks about it I might have to buy a copy myself when the reprint comes out.

I hear a lot of mixed reviews on Munchkin, though I've never actually played it myself. The same goes for the Fluxx games, which appear to drive people bonkers with its constantly changing nature.

Apparently Munchkin is something one either likes very much, or not at all. Funnily enough, he did exchange Munchkin for Fluxx when returning it (we haven't played Fluxx yet, though)

btw: Am I the only one who, upon getting any new game, instantly puts all cards and other potentially destructible components in sleeves?

The only Looney Labs game I have is Back the to Future: The Card Game. And I've yet to play it despite my very much wanting to. Perhaps this weekend for board game night...

I did not hear about sleeving cards until I joined BGG. I know what it is but I would be hard pressed to figure out how to do it on my own. I guess one could always just laminate the cards, but that kind of makes it so you're playing with credit cards instead of playing cards.

If you don't have any strong emotional connection to this particular copy of Merchan of Venus: Sell it as long as it is worth as much as it is, then grab a shiny new copy for much less when the reprint arrives sooner or later

I mentioned the value of the game the night we played, and that my friend could sell it to finance a family vacation but he didn't seem interested in doing so.

I've never played MoV, but the way stargazer talks about it I might have to buy a copy myself when the reprint comes out.

Now I'm nervous that you'll find it overrated.

About putting cards in sleeves, some friends put their Magic: The Gathering cards in them so that they can still play the game but keep the cards in good condition.

I won a game auction today! Two separate games, in fact. The first one is World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game, which I'm reasonably sure only Fantasia_Kitty might play with me . The other I think everyone here would probably enjoy a lot. It's called The Adventurers: The Temple of Chac.

Basically you're an Indiana Jones type of explorer (among several other players) and you enter the Temple of Chac to retrieve a treasure deep within. Once you have the treasure your job is to escape as the booby-traps of the temple try to take you out, including a giant rolling boulder. This game is loaded with plasticy goodness and tons of bits that you can paint up if you so desire to make the game even more attractive.

Those walls there close up and squish you if you don't get out in time

*squish* Ouch

You have the option to pick up treasures as you're fleeing the temple, but if you dawdle too long the traps will get ya'. Whoever gets out with the most treasure wins. I have really wanted this game for a long time. Anyone want to play a match?

Resurrecting this topic to see if people have some suggestions for good family games that work for 4-16 people. My husband and i are trying to do a game night every other month and we've played Apples to Apples, Headbandz, and the next on the list is Clue. We're open to pretty much anything.

Board game times are so much fun!

My suggestion for fast-paced games:
*Dutch Blitz (you can play also with regular cards)
*Bonco, a fun and easy dice game (some people call it Bunco) ... but it would not work with 4 people; you need at least 12. 16 or 20 is preferable. (We'll definitely be playing Bonco at the Moot.)
*Zilch is a blast too (again, with dice).

A couple of slower-paced games we like are Yahtzee and Paper Battleship. The former can be a lot of fun, depending on the group. If you're interested in Paper Battleship, I can scan a copy of ours and send it to you so you can print it out. It's just a homemade thing amongst my family and involves a certain degree of strategy.

Two games we've discovered recently that work for groups are Once Upon a Time and Fluxx.

Once Upon a Time is a storytelling game in which everyone collaborates to tell a story using the different fairy tale cards in their hands. However, each player is also trying to reach the ending on his/her own ending card, which no one else knows. It's fun and wacky.

Fluxx is a card game whose rules constantly change as players play new rule cards. It takes a few rounds to get the hang of, but it's very addictive because you never play anywhere close to the same game twice. It can be a bit daunting with all the changing rules, but as long as you've got one player who's good at keeping up with them, you're okay. They have lots of fun themed sets as well, like a sci-fi set, an Oz set, and more.

We've played a few versions of Fluxx (argh, Pirates!) too. Fun!

In addition to the above suggestions, another game we like is Catch Phrase (a word game; a similar one is Taboo). One player knows a 'secret' word or phrase and has to get those on his team to guess what it is. He can't say any of the words in it, and there is a timer. (Though we often play it in what we call party mode, with no timer and no teams, just people guessing the word).

You don't actually need the actual game to play; for years we had a homemade version in which everyone wrote words on scraps of paper and put them in a hat to draw.

Another game we've enjoyed (especially around a campfire) is Telephone Pictionary. Everyone has slips of paper (about 4x6) equal in number to the number of players. Everyone writes a word or phrase on the first sheet, then passes it to the left. That person draws it (hiding the first sheet with the words on it) and passes it to the next person, who writes what he thinks it is, and so on. At the end each person shows how the initial word morphs into the final result. Some are close and others change a lot.

This is a great game for lots of players. We've had some hilarious results, such as the Cliffs of Insanity (from The Princess Bride) becoming a house (Imagine Vizzini saying, "See? A HOUSE!" )

Ooh, goodness, good call, stargazer. How could I have forgotten about Telephone Pictionary. One of the best! Crazy fun!

Resurrecting this topic to see if people have some suggestions for good family games that work for 4-16 people. My husband and i are trying to do a game night every other month and we've played Apples to Apples, Headbandz, and the next on the list is Clue. We're open to pretty much anything.

That's quite a range There are many games that work with 4-6 players and others that work better with larger number of players (10+).

For larger groups, you'll mostly find social deduction games like Werewolf, Two Rooms and a Boom and others, if you don't care for that style of game it might probably be easier to split into multiple different games.

For larger groups I'd suggest Charades and Pictionary, and if you're up for more active games, Spoons and Four on a Couch. There are also the larger group games such as I Never and Mafia, but those are definitely not board games.

There's also Who, What, When, Where, Why where everybody has a piece of paper and each writes a Who on the paper, folds it over, and passes it to the person next to them who writes What, folds it over, and passes it on, and so forth. It'd probably work better with a smaller group rather than a larger one, but it's an option.

I second Stwin's suggestion of Once Upon a Time. Loads of fun.

A couple of games that my family plays a lot at game nights are The Resistance and Coup.

The Resistance is a 5-10 player bluffing game that is sort of similar to Mafia and Werewolf but there are no eliminations.

Coup is a 2-6 player bluffing game set in the same universe as The Resistance. This game does have eliminations, sometimes by way of assassinations, and sometimes by way of a coup. I think there's even more opportunity for bluffing in this one.

Resurrecting this topic to see if people have some suggestions for good family games that work for 4-16 people. My husband and i are trying to do a game night every other month and we've played Apples to Apples, Headbandz, and the next on the list is Clue. We're open to pretty much anything.

Some of our old favourites include the following:

1.Trouble, a simple game for up to four people, it is based on Ludo or Pachisi, but has a bubble in the middle which encloses the dice. You press the bubble to get your turn. So far we haven't managed to lose the 16 plastic markers.

2. Monopoly is another favourite. You can get different versions apart from the classical London board game. We still have a battered Australian monopoly board, though I can't find the at least six tokens to play with, the cards or the dice.

3. Trivial pursuit is a good game for up to six people. So is Scrabble

I think if you were entertaining with Trivial pursuit you don't need an actual board, though we found the board fun. All you need is a few bits of paper per person and a lot of questions. Our questions are probably out of date.

You can play these games online, but they are also the sort of games that can be installed and played on a PC without Internet.