Ahhh, Scrabble. A good thinking game. We particularly enjoy a version of this called Quickie Scrabble, where you don't use the board ... only the tiles. Each person chooses 12 tiles, face down. Someone calls "GO", at which point we all turn our tiles over and frantically try to make our own individual Scrabble unit. If you need more tiles from the 'kitty' in the middle, you may take them, but be aware that those points will count against you if you don't use them. When someone is finished their 12 (or more) tiles into joined words, that game is finished and the points are counted (corners count as double). Any leftover tiles are subtracted from the total for each person. Very fun and quick and challenging.

I do like how this topic has been resurrected.

Quickie Scrabble reminds me of Bananagrams (except with points!)

Multiple Rack-O sets could be fun.

There's also Phase-10, which is sort of like Uno. (I haven't played this one with enough players to know how it goes in a larger group, but it's supposed to be good for more people.)

Well, I do know this one game that is for 2-14 players. I've played it with a few NarniaWebbers and they can attest to how great it is.*

Some group games that I have played are Outburst, Strategories, Encore, Humm...ble, Song Burst, and Balderdash. I know Strategories has a set number of players but this can be gotten around by playing as teams or sharing cards and using plain paper for some players.

I just got Hobbit Monopoly for my birthday. Now, to find someone to play it with me ...

*In case none of the NarniaWebbers, I've played with bite. Here is a more detailed review of the game.

Yes, the game Twig's mentions is...interesting. I think we were the original playtesters.

Dot, Coup and The Resistance are popular games among a few of my friends here (and there is another set in the same universe, I believe, called Avalon).

When we have larger groups for game nights sometimes we have several different games going at once. That just adds to the general hilarity.

I've not played The Resistance but I have heard stellar things about it elsewhere. It's just I have no one to play it with so that I can try it out

Four plus players is going to be difficult for anything but party games like Apples to Apples because they're gonna take a long time. Risk and Monopoly are especially egregious in this manner . Ticket to Ride runs just under an hour but only goes up to 5 players. You can do Clue but that only goes up to 6. Have you considered playing Rummy or even simple Draw Poker? All one needs is a deck of cards, a sheet of paper, and a pencil (for Rummy) and some cheap plastic poker chips for the latter. Draw poker's pretty easy and forgiving and rather fun, and the number of hours I've poured into Rummy with my family when I was younger cannot be counted And the bonus is you can put more than 6 players in there.

Has anyone else played "Stratego"? My cousin had the LotR version, and we have Narnia. It's the White Witch's army against Aslan's.

Some of my family's favorites are "Sequence" and "Wits and Wagers."

Sequence is like connect 5 using cards and chips for up to 6 players.

Whits and Wagers is a cross between trivia and moneyless-betting. Everyone makes a guess at the correct answer and writes it down, then all answers are displayed and the players put their pieces on the answers they think might be correct.

Thank you for the suggestions everybody. I've not even heard of most of them, so I clearly have some research to do.

Anfinwen, my Dad had an ancient, classic stratego game that I played a lot with him when I was little. Haven't played it in years.

Stratego is great fun and I love playing it! I've got two sets, both from the 80's and with the molded plastic (blue and red) with the gold and silver unit ID's. I was never particularly good at using the Spy but other than that I think I can hold my own at said game.

FK, you might could check out an older game called Scotland Yard. It is a very fun game which involves one player assuming the identity of Mr. X and attempting to flee the other players, who as detectives with the titular Scotland Yard, are working together to blockade and capture him/her. The game is set in London and there are a variety of ways for both parties to get around, be it taxi cab, the Underground, or buses. Whenever I have played in the past it seems that Mr. X, if played well, is constantly one step ahead of the detectives, and it can be pretty tricky to keep up with him!

Here's a pretty good (and brief!) review of SY and why I think this just may be what you're looking for. It's also not terribly expensive although you'd need to find it either at a thrift store (and hope all the pieces are inside) or on eBay, or some other such online auction site.

My family and I love Sequence, it's a favorite at our house. We have the original version (we're on our second set of cards/board, we use the first that much), Numbers, States & Capitals (it's educational ), and we use to have the kids version, but some of the cards were lost in a move.

Ugh, I hate Stratego. Several of my siblings are really good at it, including the younger ones. I'm not a very graceful loser, so I gave up playing the game.

SnowAngel

A board game I'm really into lately is called Pandemic. Has anyone played it?

It's cooperative, so it's everyone together against the game. The board is like a map and you have little cubes that are diseases. Everyone has their own role/job and you have to contain the diseases and cure all of them to win. It's more complicated than that, but that's the basic gist of it!

Pandemic is awesome!!! Personally I prefer to play the Medic, but really all of the different roles are useful.

I finally attempted to play Candyland with Evan the other night for the first time. He's almost four now so I was hoping he could do it.
It actually started off well! We turned over the first few cards of color and I showed him how to move his piece forward to the matching color on the board and he seemed interested!
But after about three or four turns each, he decided it was way more fun to turn over cards and lay the cards on top of the board with the matching color square.
Still, I have hope that one of these days he'll figure out how to play and enjoy board games.

Still, I have hope that one of these days he'll figure out how to play and enjoy board games.

Most likely he will in time.

I well remember having to adjust 'rules' for board games with our kids when they were young as they also became interested in another and rather random aspect of the game that appealed to them far more. And we ended up making some fun games of our own when the regular way of playing just did not cut it.

I well remember having to adjust 'rules' for board games with our kids when they were young ...

Indeed, I remember my parents doing the same thing for us as well. Monopoly being the primary example. I don't think I've ever once played a full game of that. I think we just played until all of the properties were purchased or something like that... Made a slightly faster game.

*blows dust off the games thread*

We spent a good part of this past weekend with friends, playing a game I received for Christmas but hadn't been able to try out yet. It's a deck-building game called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, and it has a base game as well as expansions that allow you to play a version of the game for each year of the books/movies. It was great fun and worked well for the experienced tabletop gamers and the less experienced in our group. I'm hoping to find another game with similar mechanics to try out. There's a Lord of the Rings deck builder called the Living Card Game I've been looking at for a while. There's also an expansion for the Harry Potter game that I'm hoping to pick up (or at least put on a Christmas list).