How about Gibberers ?
2 Likes
Gosh. I wasn’t aware of this one. It looks remarkable. Even though I’m kinda struggling to picture quite how it works, it looks like a social game to me. Perhaps the purest distillation of the idea of a social game I’ve ever heard of (although as I say, I don’t really understand how it works, so I might very well be wrong!).
1 Like
We love this game!
1 Like
So, what isn’t a social game? Games that are multiplayer solitaire?
I didn’t want to poke this one at all as it’s even vaguer than the academic discussions we’ve been having.
Some elements:
- Games where the point is to laugh more than win
- Games where talking or negotiating is a primary mechanic, as opposed to decisions and board moves
- Games where the “winner” is wildly out of your control
- Dexterity games
But I can think of counter-examples for most of those. I’m happy defining this by “feels.”
1 Like
Using the model of attractors, I think for ma a “social game” is one that’s more social than anything else—bearing in mind we’ve already talked about negotiation games, and they’re a different thing.
Are social deduction games social games? They’re showing on up several people’s lists. To me the key there is that you don’t have enough information to solve the puzzle, so you have to work on your reading of other people to fill in the gaps. But they’re not the sort of game where you can have an ongoing conversation, and over to the side the game gets played.
The way I play Crokinole is very social, but I bet that’s not true for more serious players.
In a wider sense, I suspect I’m not the only person here who can’t abide general undirected socialising - the sort of party where you’re expected to chat to strangers for only a few minutes at a time then move on to someone else is a thing I abhor. That’s not why I started boardgaming (or role-playing or SF conventions), but there’s a desire that they all satisfy: something approximating a common reason to be there, and enough time that one can have an interesting conversation about something rather than just superficialities.
3 Likes
I think I’d agree with that list.
Although I have been accused of being able to turn any game into a party game.
Incidentally we had a great game of The Gang last night
4 Likes
Playing catch-up with a few topics tonight: forgive me.
As a soloist, I seem to have a fair few social games as well. While I rarely see those recent friends who we played a few of these titles with, I have had more play with these than with almost all of my “duel” games.
My social titles include:
- Anomia
- Articulate!
- Cards Against Humanity
- Codenames
- Confident?
- A Fake Artist goes to New York (PnP rules)
- The Fuzzies
- Love Letter (PnP version)
- The Mind
- Monikers
- Mysterium
- No Thanks!
- Pitch Car
- Ransom Notes
- Sheriff of Nottingham
Of the few games we tried the real successes with that group were Articulate!, Codenames, Monikers and especially - yes, really - Cards Against Humanity. With the right group (in this case, several middle-aged touring musicians) it really clicked to their sense of humour but no, it’s not a game to introduce to a new group early on. Sheriff of Nottingham was a disaster as nobody but me wanted to even try to bluff/lie. I’m looking forward to trying out Confident? and Pitch Car with a new group when (if) we find one.
6 Likes