10 of the Meanest Board Games Ever Made
May 20, 2021 7:46 AM   Subscribe

10 of the Meanest Board Games Ever Made [SLYT 13min 8 sec] Collaborative board games are the norm, but outright combative, nay vengeful, and/or mean ones, can really test the boundaries of a social circle. "We accept no responsibility for any friendships ruined after watching this video."

Here is the full list with timestamps: What are the deceptive / combative / downright mean board or card games that you love to play and/or avoid?

[Also for the sake of civility, let's all just pretend that Cards Against Humanity Never Existed.]
posted by Faintdreams (108 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh Diplomacy is outright diabolical. I mean, it's all about betrayal. We never finished a family game, someone always stormed off in tears.
posted by Zumbador at 7:50 AM on May 20, 2021 [11 favorites]


Diplomacy seems like it's probably fun if you have a big group of people who are really invested in it who will play it again and again. My experience is always that there are 3-4 people who are really into it who recruit another 2 who are kind of into it and 1-2 who don't really know how the game works in order to have a full game. Then the most invested people immediately manipulate and betray the more clueless ones in order to compete with each other, the betrayed parties then have to wait through like three more hours of gameplay where they're completely powerless before they can actually lose.
posted by little onion at 7:53 AM on May 20, 2021 [27 favorites]


Memoir '44 seems to bring out the worst in people around our place. I've had some board-flipping episodes with Risk. Watched a hilarious Christmas rage quit by Jr Robots over a steal of Boardwalk in Monopoly.
posted by No Robots at 7:53 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Cosmic Encounter has a ton of different alien species you can play, all of which have unique mechanics; the Filch have the power to cheat, to the extent that you can grab, say, the entire discard and draw decks into your hands as long as people are distracted.
posted by sagc at 7:57 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


I came in to check that Survive was included. It's a game that encourages ganging-up and cruel behaviour. I love it but won't play it with my kids anymore (or at least until they are a bit older and can take a beatdown without tears).
posted by joelhunt at 7:58 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Came to see if Diplomacy was #1 on the list. I think most board gamers either have a story about how they lost friends to Diplomacy, or they realised they were going to lose friends to Diplomacy and stopped playing it.

Here is why: Diplomacy is, at its heart, a game about teaming up with your friends, and then absolutely brutally stabbing them in the back. Not because you had a hidden role that meant you had to lie, not because of the mechanics, but because you realised it was easier to win if, even after a three-hour alliance, you lied to their face and stabbed them in the back. Even if your friends can put that in the past, there is a part of them that knows now that you're capable of lying to them without them realising, and they're never really going to be able to trust you again.

Also, Munchkin is just kind of tedious. It's alright to have a mean game if, when the knives come out, the game ends quickly, but it's genuinely hard to end a game of Munchkin.

[Huh, here's a weird link to a mean review]
posted by Merus at 7:58 AM on May 20, 2021 [12 favorites]


I once decided that my friend was making fun of my partner and used Munchkin as my tool of retribution. They weren't actually being mean, but I was. They're still a close friend, but they (justly) refused to play that game with me ever again.
posted by turtlebackriding at 8:02 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Battlestar Galactica is legendarily mean in our family, because when a cousin was dating her now-husband fairly early on, he took her to a game night in which she played a stunning long game, annihilating the whole party and revealing her Cylon status mere moments before they would have won the game, and the betrayal very nearly killed their relationship in its infancy.

Our household sticks to cooperative and casual games now because of stuff like that, and because bowties spouse is the first to admit he's a sore loser AND a sore winner.
posted by bowtiesarecool at 8:04 AM on May 20, 2021 [19 favorites]


A while back my wife and I bought City of Horror and wound up giving it away because there was something that wasn't explained in the rulebook and when we went online there were a million other people asking about the same thing, which didn't seem to be resolved or explained. It basically rendered the game unplayable, which maybe was for the best.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:08 AM on May 20, 2021


The thing about playing Diplomacy is that players will remember what you did the last time you played, so there is a certain value in maintaining your credibility from game to game. That's what makes Diplomacy so great: the constant weighing of short-term advantage vs long-term consequences.
posted by SPrintF at 8:09 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Caylus is one of the worst, as far as I know, because it's an entirely deterministic game with zero hidden knowledge - like chess - there is no guessing involved when it's time to screw over the other person.

For a game to be mean it has to meet these criteria

1. Interactivity - not possible for one person to plan and execute their moves in isolation - every action taken affects other players.
2. No randomness
3. No hidden knowledge

This means that if someone is in the lead, you either screw them over, or if you don't, then you're screwing the other players by extending their lead. Basically no matter what you do, someone will be mad at you.

The lack of randomness and lack of hidden knowledge just serves to remove all pretence that it was luck that screwed you over.
posted by xdvesper at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


For anyone interested in Diplomacy, the "virtual face-to-face" (website for moves + Discord for voice chat) community has exploded over the last year for obvious reasons, and there's now a YouTube channel for the Diplomacy Broadcast Network, which regularly covers the games as if they're sporting events, along with other special theme episodes. The coverage is really impressive and I find it very entertaining. I played in a league game a couple of months ago and enjoyed seeing it reviewed live later that evening.

The best way to discover the current scene is probably to check out the Resources link at The Diplomacy Briefing.
posted by dfan at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


The Resistance, a deductive-reasoning card game that has very similar mechanics as Among Us. Very popular to play as a family, which includes me, my 2 sisters, my niece and 2 nephews, and then whomever is over at the time. The kids especially get heated when playing. Bonds have been broken because of this game. I am very good at it, but I am also the "best loser" in my family (aka I get the least amount upset when I lose). My family hates lying, so there's lots of trying to ... tell the truth without telling the truth, and asking questions in specific ways to try and out someone. Whenever a new person plays for the first time, there is no hope for them.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:11 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


I refuse to play the 'party game' "Werewolf" because it causes me discomfort having to consider that all my friends might be lying to me, or that I have to lie to all my friends *about my identity.*.

On the other hand I really enjoy Coup Rebellion because I can morph into a Spectacular spinner of untruths, when given a Defined Role to play, and besides it's really a game of Politics.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:12 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


It's been a long time since I played but IIRC Illuminati has legal cheating (or maybe this is just for one of the factions?).
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:18 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Ticket to Ride:Nordic Countries.

At least the way my partner plays it. She keeps the lowest value routes and just builds random trains as quickly as possible to end the game before I can connect my long routes.
posted by hwyengr at 8:21 AM on May 20, 2021 [11 favorites]


Intrigue is just so mean...
posted by Windopaene at 8:24 AM on May 20, 2021


I was just about to mention Illuminati. Although in all the games I ever played cheating wasn't allowed because either you had to spend 10 minutes auditing every turn or someone would just win the instant you weren't looking.
posted by justkevin at 8:29 AM on May 20, 2021


Diplomacy was introduced to me as a simple, easy to learn game with lits of intrigue. Love it!

Tried something first turn and a TWELVE page "unique interactions" booklet came out. No thanks.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:32 AM on May 20, 2021


I'm friends with a couple that's an enthusiastic gamer and a less-enthusiastic gamer. The less enthusiastic partner is not all that vicious, but she's sometimes been dragged into some vicious games. At a social event, when she was getting to know my wife, she decided to drop the story of the time I was Truly Terrible to her during a game. I expected to hear about the time I convinced everyone playing Battlestar Galactica that she was a Cylon, which was surely my most potent memory of brutality towards her. Nope. It was the time we were playing Agricola, and I was eyeing a growing pile of claimable sheep with nervousness and, even though I didn't have anywhere to put them, took the claim-sheep action and denied her all those fluffy beasties (which she did have room to store, so it was arguably a bit spiteful on my part).
posted by jackbishop at 8:33 AM on May 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


Shut Up and Sit Down would probably want this list to include Tigris & Euphrates.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Intrigue is quite correctly #2 to Diplomacy.
posted by Sand at 8:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


For Diplomacy (and the meanness thereof), read David Klion's essay on playing the game as a teenager with a guy who later became a major figure in the Trump administration. Frightening stuff.
posted by Cash4Lead at 8:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


I feel like my experience of Diplomacy is a bit different from many people's because "a cut-throat game of temporary alliance and devastating betrayal" would also describe how my family played, say, Monopoly. So Diplomacy seemed pretty par for the course.
posted by kyrademon at 8:37 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


Eponhysterical:
It basically rendered the game unplayable, which maybe was for the best.
posted by The Card Cheat
posted by doctornemo at 8:44 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Legal cheating is an optional rule in Illuminati. There's plenty of ganging up on people as it is, no need to make it worse!

The video nails the real meanness in the Diplomacy entry: There is outright betrayal--lie convincingly, get someone to help you or do something, then renege on your deal. It's different than simple bluffing games or surprise attacks: You're making a deal as a person then going back on it. If it's a short game I roll with it. In a long game that chews up the entirety of our monthly game day? And even if I won my friends would all be miserable? No. So Diplomacy: Have played it, never again.

Munchkin and Citadel I haven't had much problem with. Citadel is not targeting a player, 99% of the time, so while I've wailed and whined and called friends assholes playing it there are no hard feelings. I think Munchkin is so silly it's hard to be angry, and it also helps that I think half the time I'm playing with family during holidays and we just play until when the potatoes need peeling or something.

For some reason, Lifeboat sounds perversely fun and now I want to try it.

Things I'd consider adding: The Game of Thrones boardgame is DIplomacy lite. At least it ends. Dune, which has a slightly less evil version of Diplomacy's player alliances, then adds in traitors as a game mechanic. I play it once every five years thinking it'll be fun. I never have fun. Cutthroat Kingdoms you play nobles trying to backstab each other and there are some cool mechanics but you need to piss off at least 3 other players to win.
posted by mark k at 8:44 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


The lack of randomness and lack of hidden knowledge just serves to remove all pretence that it was luck that screwed you over.

On the other hand, Citadels features a fairly dense fog of war that can just as often lead to you, intending to target the player in the lead, accidentally kicking the person in last place further down. Being taken down a peg because you're in first place is one thing, but I rate being mere collateral damage far meaner.
posted by pwnguin at 8:47 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Diplomacy was introduced to me as a simple, easy to learn game with lits of intrigue. Love it!

The rules are pretty simple its just as mentioned there, the rulebook covers all sorts of edge cases. I like the simplicity of the game setup itself too. Just a board and some army pieces and some navy pieces. No dice since this is not a game of chance.

I played in a friends backyard one summer. The most memorable moment was suggesting to a potential ally a plan so mean and cynical (both lying to a third person pledging our support but instead attacking him from both sides and carving up his land) that they pushed me into the swimming pool.

I also like that the most devious person does not necessarily win. Sometimes a group of players backstab each other to death and the winner is someone who just managed to avoid being noticed by the others - until it was too late.
posted by vacapinta at 8:47 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


There's no betrayal in Munchkin, the PVP is as predictable as a sunrise. The first player to approach winning gets dogpiled by every other player with screw-you cards in their hand. The second player to approach winning gets the leftovers. If they don't withstand the barrage of debuffs, then third attempt takes the win. Honestly, the absolute unchanging regularity of the gameplay arc is the number one reason not to play.

(The Binding of Isaac card game is like an infinitely better Munchkin, largely because it limits the cards you can play a turn drastically so you have to decide whether it's better to play two cards that benefit yourself, or hold out on one to mess with someone else, or save that one in case someone messes with you. There's a number of other tweaks to the formula, but that one alone removes the weary predictability that haunts every game of Munchkin ever played.)
posted by FatherDagon at 9:02 AM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


I frequently played Diplomacy in my final year at university. I did not keep in touch with those people for long afterwards.
posted by dowcrag at 9:05 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


My one experience playing Diplomacy was in high school with turns once a week over the course of several months. It's bad enough when a turn is less than an hour long so your time to plot is limited; week-long turns mean that plots and alliances get formulated, betrayed, changed, rethought, re-betrayed, and finally executed with enough time that nobody really knew what to expect either from the game or from each other. Adding to the problem is that the person with the obvious lead after a while was (a) the one who suggested we get together and play a long-form game of Diplomacy, (b) the only one who had ever played Diplomacy before, and (c) the only one clearly enjoying the experience. We all quit mid-game after it became clear how one-sided this was. I have no idea what happened to that guy.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:09 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Thanks for turning me on to this channel. Love learning about different boardgames.
posted by Quajek at 9:12 AM on May 20, 2021


The meanest game I ever played (just the once) was a horrible party game in the 90s where the idea was that everyone would submit mean things to say about a given player each round and then everyone would vote on which of the mean things was most true about that person.

I also refuse to play any of the Asshole variants that have "the poor stay poor" mechanics where everyone just gleefully pushes down whoever got unlucky early and there's nothing that person can do.

City of Horror - there was a legendary game of it in my circle where one player blew up the water tower on the first round out of pure spite.

At least the way my partner plays it. She keeps the lowest value routes and just builds random trains as quickly as possible to end the game before I can connect my long routes.

This, unfortunately, is a very viable strategy in almost all TTR variants. You don't have to score a lot, just make sure that your opponents all take massive penalties (and it does tend to lead to not very fun games, particularly if everyone else wants to play the "normal" way). The European map helps with this to an extent by allowing you to use other people's connections.
posted by Candleman at 9:17 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


I love how as soon as Diplomacy is mentioned, the stories start coming out.

My freshman (sophomore? don't recall exactly -- it was early enough that I still had time for this sort of thing) year of college, a bunch of people in my dorm decided to play Diplomacy in what is either the best or the worst way to play, or possibly both at once. All of the players lived in the same building, and we took one turn every two days or so. The theory, of course, was that we'd be able to play a notoriously long game while still managing our coursework and such. In practice, of course, what this meant was everyone playing obsessed over each turn for days. Players engaged in hushed, covert conversations in dorm rooms and social lounges, glaring suspiciously at anyone passing by. Even non-players were targets of suspicion as there were rumors that some had been enlisted as spies. Two of the players were best friends and roommates, and everyone eyed them with deep suspicion as an obvious alliance, which indeed grew quite powerful quite quickly -- until one of them stabbed the other in the back in a surprise maneuver several weeks into the game, completely crippling him and essentially forcing him into a sideline role for the rest of the game. Their friendship never recovered.

On the one hand, the game is brilliant. Its mechanics are ingeniously simple, its premise straightforward. But my god, what it does to its players' psyches. Don't play this game with anyone you like.
posted by biogeo at 9:21 AM on May 20, 2021 [11 favorites]


My one experience playing Diplomacy was online with a group of Mefites and my god will I never do that again. I'm not wired to handle the conflict between my desire to win and my genuine chagrin at betraying people; I don't think I've ever spent more time typing out apologies.
posted by COBRA! at 9:25 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


Our gaming group hates screw-your-neighbor games but does play Citadels; nobody gets angry because you never know for sure who you're targeting. There's (basically) always plausible deniability.
posted by demonic winged headgear at 9:32 AM on May 20, 2021


Clicked to see if Survive would be on this list. Survive has been our family top favourite since the original came out in 1981. We now play with the newest version with my kids.

It is always the first choice by everyone for board game night. When only two people are playing we always use two colours per person to up the carnage.

No sure what that says about 3 generations of my family.
posted by fimbulvetr at 9:33 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I have a German board game called Alles für die Katz? that my sister got me at a yard sale, knowing nothing about it (but knowing I'd be able to read the rules). It's dead simple -- roll the die to move your four mice along the track, try to get them to the safety of their mouse hole, and don't let them fall in traps. The box says "Ages 7 and up".

But, two things. First, the mice tokens can sit on each other, so that only the top mouse on a given square is free to move. So you can suppress your opponents' relatively safe moves and force them to move the mice they don't want to move. Second, the mice that fall in traps are dead. They can't get out, they're just gone, and once you start losing mice, you have no hope except for your opponents to lose more mice. And once a trap has a mouse in it, it's deactivated, and other mice can safely scramble over the body.

Nestled among the Serious Games in our cupboard, this one probably gets the most play. And it is definitely the meanest.
posted by aws17576 at 9:34 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


I'm not a big board / card game player, partially because if I'm going to take the time to meet with people to play an in-person game I would prefer it to be a TTRPG, and partially because I've been burned by overexposure to whiny self-pitying losers and 5D chessmaster turn overthinkers who take a thousand years to recalculate the entire game tree before they make a move.

But a game I love to bits and always love to play, online and offline, is Dominion. It's a drafting card game with a lot of cards combining into lots of possible unique game permutations, and has just the right balance of luck and skill for me to enjoy it.

In any given game of dominion, depending on the card selection, there may be any number of viable winning strategies, some of which may involve attack cards -- cards which, as the name suggests, do horrible things to the other players. I always find it amusing to see how quickly a game can descend into a cycle of revenge (not always to a vengeful player's actual benefit!) as soon as one person chooses violence by buying the horrible card that everyone swore they weren't going to buy.

But the games are quick, especially in digital form where you don't have to tidy up the cards, so there are usually no hard feelings.
posted by confluency at 9:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


My friends and I started playing Mille Borne as teenagers after I found a deck in the back of my parent's closet. We used to play for beer shots: Pain Card = beer shot; Coup Fourre = a double shot for the offender and a single shot for everyone else, etc. We could easily go through a case of beer in a few games.

40 years later, we no longer play for beer shots, but it's vicious with trash talking and cutthroat play. We warn new people of that, but they are often shocked by how we talk to each other.

That's what friends are for. ;-)
posted by ITravelMontana at 9:48 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Then the most invested people immediately manipulate and betray the more clueless ones in order to compete with each other, the betrayed parties then have to wait through like three more hours of gameplay where they're completely powerless before they can actually lose.

That's pretty much my absolute do not want for games. I don't mind playing the occasional backstabbing vicious game as long as it's short, but games where not only do you get screwed, but then you can do nothing while the game drags on are my absolute nos. Even games that aren't intended to be vicious; I don't usually play Puerto Rico at my usual game night because there are usually players who several rounds out from the end can look at the board and say who is going to win, and it's just tedious going through the motions after that.
posted by tavella at 9:53 AM on May 20, 2021


I refuse to play the 'party game' "Werewolf" because it causes me discomfort having to consider that all my friends might be lying to me
It looks like this is similar to "mafia," which is the name I knew it by. I think I must be too much of a sociopath to enjoy it. It isn't hard to lie to people about real things that matter if you decide it's ethical to do so. Lying about made-up things that aren't real is exactly as easy as telling the truth about made-up things that aren't real. I don't really understand what it means to tell a lie about a fictional thing in a game, or why anybody would find that at all challenging. I've played tens of hours of it among friends, and have been fascinated by their engagement; however, I genuinely don't understand how it is a game, except in the sense that throwing dice is a game. (Cheers to those who enjoy it. I don't claim it's objectively bad in any way.)
posted by eotvos at 9:54 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Carcassonne is like this, too, once you realize how easy it is to sabotage your opponents.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 9:55 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Regarding Illuminati, there is a story I refuse to believe isn't true, related to the New World Order version. During a tournament, one player openly offered another $50 (out of game money) to make a move that would throw the game. Of course there was some heated discussion as to whether that's cheating, but the judge ultimately ruled that in Illuminati New World Order it is allowed. The opponent accepted the terms, at which point the briber played the card "I lied".
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 10:00 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


Diplomacy with teenagers: Not Even Once.

I feel like now that I'm in my 40s and am a much calmer person, it would be fun to try Diplomacy with other people at a similar point in their lives. It's the only game I can think of that needs an "ages 35+" on the box.
posted by phooky at 10:05 AM on May 20, 2021 [9 favorites]


I betrayed my best friend at Risk over 45 years ago and she still gets mad about it. Thank god I never knew any of these games.
posted by InkaLomax at 10:06 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


so there are usually no hard feelings.

Hah. I've been cursed at more in Dominion Online than any other online board game I've played, almost always by not-so-good players who made poor choices than got screwed over by the luck factor. The higher ranked players are generally polite about it.

The opponent accepted the terms, at which point the briber played the card "I lied".

There was a similar backroom deal in a game of Illiminati still referenced by my friends that was scuttled at the last minute when a rather socially clueless person involved with it asked, "Are deals binding?"
posted by Candleman at 10:11 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


You can tell the gaming generation of these lists when they don't include Kremlin.

For a fun variant on the theme, I also recommend Lifeboat. A completely different (as far as a game telling the exact same story) take from Lifeboats.

For more wheeling and dealing in your betrayal, try I'm the Boss! As one review is titled, a Rorschach test for whether you are a sociopath.
posted by meinvt at 10:14 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


When I was a kid we used to play a game which I think is out of print now called Trust Me. It had a very '80s premise - on your turn, you'd try to convince other players to invest in a company, which would either make money, break even, or go bust and take their investment with it. You'd know which was the case as you made the pitch, but everybody else had to make their decision first - then your action basically revealed the answer.

It wasn't mean, at least as we played it, but it generated some great "Wait, aren't you going to invest?" "God, no, are you crazy?" type moments. And it was great for encouraging extemporaneous over-the-top sales pitches which were typically hilarious.

Survive was a game we played a lot around the same time; I've been meaning to see if it's still available...
posted by nickmark at 10:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Special mention for the meanest single-player boardgame I've ever played: Chainsaw Warrior from 1980's-era Games Workshop.

This was a game you played by yourself, and if you actually survived long enough to pull up the card for the end boss, you had to roll a 12 on 2d6 in order to win. One chance, very few or no bonuses to the roll possible. Rolled an 11? Game over, you lose.

The fact that I saved up allowance money to purchase this and played it multiple times despite the terrible odds of success... shakes head and chuckles
posted by FallibleHuman at 10:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


The only reason that I can think of for Monopoly not to be at the top of the list is that it's too obvious. I have literally lost a friendship over a Monopoly game; my friend proposed a partnership--a house rule involving holding properties jointly in order to develop them; essentially, it's a way of reducing a multi-player game to a duel--and, when I refused, he sold all his properties to our mutual friend for a dollar, just to throw the game to him out of spite. I think that the friendship was kind of rocky already (I'd gone away to college and he'd stayed at home), but after that, well, I just kind of stayed away.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:57 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I used to have a copy of Diplomacy. I last played it (by email) in the 1990s. It's vicious.

I won't ever play Monopoly again either: the last game I played devolved into a horrible argument.

On the other hand, Cosmic Encounter is great fun because the alien powers are so silly - it's not really a betrayal if, say, your ally discovers that they can't share a planet with you because you are Fungus.
posted by tallmiddleagedgeek at 11:04 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Although in all the games I ever played cheating wasn't allowed because either you had to spend 10 minutes auditing every turn or someone would just win the instant you weren't looking.

I loved Illuminati back in the day.Our two inviolable rules were: a) if you were caught cheating you had to fess up immediately and undo whatever shenanigans were attempted; and b) any cheat that made it one turn around the table unnoticed was considered made. Statute of limitations as it were.

The sweetest win was when you engineered a joint victory but betrayed your collaborator(s) at the last minute for a solo!
posted by 4CFCFF at 11:12 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Diplomacy is in the hall of fame, the undisputed champ. Lists like this one should be "10 of the Meanest Board Games Ever Made, After Diplomacy Of Course."
posted by Gelatin at 11:18 AM on May 20, 2021


The greatest game of Cosmic Encounter that my friends and I ever played was when they successfully engineered a move where everyone won except me. I was too impressed to be upset.

I never really liked Diplomacy as a game. Not because of the backstabbing, but because after a few turns there is someone who is pretty much out of the game (frequently me) and there's not much they can do. They sort of hang out, making pointless moves, not really affecting the outcome of the game at all (unless they team up with someone else). In a well designed game (IMHO), someone who can't become king can still help be king-maker.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:22 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Hands down the meanest game I've ever played is True Colors aka "Friendship Ender." Players vote on questions like "Which other player would you most like to be stranded on a desert island with?" or " "Who would you have taste test your food to see if it was poisoned?"

Its tag line used to be "Find out what your friends really think of you!" which is obviously the worst idea ever. Gave it away two play sessions both ended in tears.
posted by lumpy at 11:26 AM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


Monopoly or GTFO
posted by StarkRoads at 11:30 AM on May 20, 2021


My greatest screw-you move in a game was Settlers. I had 10+ wood cards after some lucky rolls when my turn hit, and everyone else was pretty flush with goods to. So I engineered a series of trades that gave up all my wood cards but left me with a collection of hard-to-produce resources.

Then I played the "Monopoly" card, which lets me collect all goods of one type. I asked for wood of course, getting everything I'd jut traded away and more. I must have had 30 cards in my hand at that point. The bitterness and sense of betrayal of my trading partners was lessened by their respect at the total destruction wreaked by my play.

The only reason that I can think of for Monopoly not to be at the top of the list is that it's too obvious.

I'd actually speculate that it's because most of the other games are kind of fun, if you can handle the meanness.

Monopoly, especially by modern standards of game design, is just a truly wretched game. There's limited strategy and it just becomes a war of attrition. I feel like there's not a game mechanic that forces to be mean other than "this fargin' game is boring and I am willing to destroy a friendship to see it end sooner."
posted by mark k at 11:32 AM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


Never heard of Diplomacy. In reading the rules linked above, though, I did sense an enticing simplicity that foregrounds the people & the (anti-)social dynamics.

I feel oddly conflicted over whether or not I want to try & play it. On one hand, nah, who needs to deal with people being mean and conniving. On the other hand... that's kinda how the world works. Treat it as a board game slash learning experience. On the other hand: who's got time for that as a "game"? Do something relaxing. On the other hand: how would I, predisposed to logic-based games, fare? I could learn a lot about myself. On the other hand, what would be the point of winning? Comfort in knowing I was the biggest jerk? On the other hand, what's the point of avoiding the game? Sticking my head in the sand and pretending that mentality doesn't exist? etc etc

Given the stories here of second-guessing suspect alliances or loyalties in the game, I sorta feel like I'm second-guessing my way into playing a mini-Diplomacy game inside my own head.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 11:39 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm not seeing Uno on this list.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]


It's been said above in as many words, but in a YouTube video about betrayal in board games, having the first item on the numbered list be Munchkin feels like the video's author deciding to choose violence. Not because it's off-topic (no doubt it was included because Munchkin has sold an embarrassing number of copies), but because there are much, much more interesting betrayals in store in other, better games.

The most unbelievable, jaw-dropping betrayal I've ever witnessed in a game I was a part of took place during a game of Junta, and I've heard stories of the soul-wrenching maneuvers that Dune has to offer.
posted by belarius at 11:46 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


I refuse to play the 'party game' "Werewolf"...

It looks like this is similar to "mafia," which is the name I knew it by. I think I must be too much of a sociopath to enjoy it.

My friends and I tend to play Werewolf around the campfire, and yes it really is pretty thin gamewise. But it's "fun" and requires no materials, so we do it for a laugh.

What's interesting is that as others have noted there are certain types who can play it without getting angry or emotional and others who can't. I love getting tricked by the werewolf personally, or if I mess up as the werewolf, getting pinpointed by a perceptive villager. It's all within the context of the game and to me is akin to someone making a slick move in a tabletop game — "damn, didn't see that coming, well played (you bastard)."

But others it seems can't separate the practice of lying and manipulating in the game with doing so in real life, so a "move" in the game (I'm the werewolf and I lie about it) feels like a betrayal by me the person, not me the player. Or being arbitrarily targeted by villagers with very little information feels like they're being ganged up on by their friends for no reason, not that they drew the short straw. I don't say this to denigrate or other them - it's just seemingly a fact that there is a real divide here that has nothing to do with skill at this game or others.

It's an interesting thing to witness, but can occasionally be hurtful to people.

I imagine others have experienced this, so I'd recommend (as I always do to my friends, who won't listen, the fools!) Resistance as an alternative. The main thing it does that pretty much fixes everything is it adds a bit more information and keeps everyone in the game until the end. This adds a bit of complexity but ultimately I think it makes a game that's only fun for some able to be enjoyed by far more. You don't even need to buy the game, it can easily be done with a few scraps of paper or a deck of playing cards.

Check out the rules and propose it for your next campfire. No more tears!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:47 AM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]


I think I played Diplomacy once and did poorly - it's not that enjoyable IMO but what amazes me is that it is absolutely an immense milestone in the evolution of games. Every history of D&D talks about wargames and the history of kriegspiel but just as important is Diplomacy. It is, in many ways, the first role-playing game, predating D&D and even D&D's wargaming predecessors like Chainmail. Gygax himself wrote a few games that were Diplomacy variants in '69 & '70.

Hardcore wargamers in the 60's and early 70's who played Diplomacy had their minds melted. Reading Playing at the World people were absolutely into taking on roles playing Diplomacy and it opened wargaming up to a much broader audience because the game was so simple and abstract, unlike contemporary wargames which required terrain tables, miniatures and people who knew the rules both as written and as they were played.

Anyway, Diplomacy simultaneously sucks and is one of the most important games ever designed.
posted by GuyZero at 11:48 AM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


it just becomes a war of attrition.

Yes. I'm sure I've said before (almost certainly on here) that the problem with Monopoly is that it does what it was originally designed to do rather too well: it demonstrates that, in rentier capitalism, luck and a little bit of simple strategy will generally provide a minority of participants with an unassailable advantage, tending toward stagnation, which the rules of the game provide no means of correcting. The only winning move is to flip the board. And that, son, is why it's called a "revolution".
posted by howfar at 11:48 AM on May 20, 2021 [16 favorites]


Also, I feel like back in the day, as teenagers, we MacGyver-ed a game that was somewhat similar to Diplomacy. We'd play Risk with normal rules, except, between every turn, we'd write notes promising imminent invasions, or proposing truces and cooperation with the other players. All manners of alliances were promised and double-crossed on, in rapid succession. If it weren't for our shared bonds of fiery teenage angst -- and the quarts of Mountain Dew coursing through our bodies at 3am -- yeah, we probably would have come out of those games with some pretty hard feelings.

Somewhere back at my buddy's parents' house, there's a Risk box with tons of notes that would be fun to read through ~30 years later.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 11:52 AM on May 20, 2021


I probably had more friendships put at risk by Strange Synergy than Diplomacy. Like, they both feature player elimination, but at least the rules are clear in Diplomacy. In Strange Synergy, the real game is to win debates about power interactions, and they're all unbalanced and fun to cook up, so people get pretty invested. On the whole, lying is probably meaner than tendentiousness, but Strange Synergy is still a good contender that I've enjoyed.
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:54 AM on May 20, 2021


Given the stories here of second-guessing suspect alliances or loyalties in the game, I sorta feel like I'm second-guessing my way into playing a mini-Diplomacy game inside my own head.

If you want a modern version, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game also does simultaneous many player action warfare, with plenty of opportunity for negotiation and betrayals. With a ton of optional rules to make it more / less complicated.

Battle for Rokugan is fairly similar in terms of simultaneous hidden movement, but the social dynamic is a lot less about betrayals and more "I spent my one dragon this game to level your home castle to the ground and salt the earth so nothing shall grow. I may not win, but you definitely won't." On the plus side, the game end is round based and not player elimination based, so it can be experienced in an hour or two.
posted by pwnguin at 11:57 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


In the 70s, there was a version of Monopoly called "Double Estate," which in my family was known as "Monopoly for Blood." Unfortunately, I can't even find it on eBay right now. It consisted of alternative Chance and Community Chest cards that allowed you to reward or punish other players. So a card might say "the player of your choice gets half of the money in the bank" or "the player of your choice gives half of his real estate to another player you choose." We only played it once, but I still own our family copy.
posted by FencingGal at 12:16 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I wonder which games would be the most difficult to play in a mean way. Parks? Tokaido?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:22 PM on May 20, 2021


Dixit? I guess there's some potential for acrimony if a close friend or partner doesn't get a clue that you think they really really should have got.
posted by confluency at 12:27 PM on May 20, 2021


Tokaido?

It's a competition to have the best vacation, and you block other players from taking the spot they might want.

All you have to do is engage in a little bit of roleplay and one-up others' vacation experiences. Who cares what the point values say. Just get petty and mean in the "spirit" of the game.
posted by explosion at 12:31 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


One thing I haven't seen mentioned so far is Junta, which is very much a game about being a back-stabbing bastard. It's a game of embezzlement and coups.

But maybe that's why: the game is very explicit about stating that you're expected to be treacherous and dishonest, and because of that, everybody is braced for it. That, and it's very silly in a dark sort of way (I actually created a homebrew variant of the game called The Trump Years in which you play a Trump lackey wheedling for money).
posted by LeRoienJaune at 12:43 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


Anybody else remember Interstellar Pig? That game was killer on a cosmic scale.
posted by nickmark at 12:52 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


I'm not seeing Uno on this list.

I have a friend who was banned from Uno by her roommates, who also warned me never to play it with her. The word "knives" kept coming up for some reason.
posted by Foosnark at 1:00 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


I've seen Tokaido go "mean" in a 2-player game... just use the neutral to block the other player's power, or money, especially money; takes all the fun out of the game.

Lighter games that I also found too mean to play would be Innovation (way too many "take that" cards that feel like they wipe out what you built up), and Arboretum. Beautiful game, but it's in your best interest to block your opponent from scoring, and fairly easy to do.
posted by Laura in Canada at 1:02 PM on May 20, 2021


Game of Thrones for my friend group. We still tell stories of the legendary Fat Man on the Boats, when my borderline-sociopath friend David convinced my good-hearted and trusting friend Dan that they needed to team up to combat the Starks' aggression (and they definitely did), so he would move his pieces *here* and then they'd both play zero cards and they'd retreat to *here* and that way both of them would be protected yadda yadda. Long story short, Dan played his zero. David played Tywin Lannister, the three card with two swords, murdering both of Dan's limited navy and basically removing him from the game the next turn.

My spouse, who hates confrontation and wargames, ended up being the most frequent champion of Game of Thrones by having perfected the Rabid Shark, which is a metagame strategy. You play all sorts of games with your group normally, but the second anyone does anything aggressive toward you, you abandon trying to win and instead focus solely on destroying them and everything they love. Eventually, other players will (consciously or not) learn that angering you means you both will lose, and soon no one wants to become the target of the Rabid Shark's illogical, self-destructive ire. Dorian favored the Starks in Game of Thrones because it was pretty easy to shore up defenses and wait for the southern bloodbath to finish, then move in for mop-up, and that paired nicely with their usual MO, reinforced by the aura of the Rabid Shark.
posted by Scattercat at 1:10 PM on May 20, 2021 [6 favorites]


The greatest game of Cosmic Encounter that my friends and I ever played was when they successfully engineered a move where everyone won except me. I was too impressed to be upset.

I've had that EXACT ending as well, with everyone else in a five-way tie just to prevent me from winning. I still count it as my greatest victory, hehe.
posted by FatherDagon at 1:18 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


the Rabid Shark[...]You play all sorts of games with your group normally, but the second anyone does anything aggressive toward you, you abandon trying to win and instead focus solely on destroying them and everything they love.

I'm exceedingly glad I've never played with anyone like that. Not only is that actively antisocial behaviour in most groups (your group dynamics may vary; I can imagine groups where this is treated as no worse than good-natured trash talk, but have never encountered one), but so many games only function if the players are at least trying to do their best instead of actively behaving irrationally.
posted by jklaiho at 1:21 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I will second Resistance as a good, not-mean game about betrayal. I think the fact that there are two roughly equal teams helps, and you don't target an "individual." And it's short.

Lighter games that I also found too mean to play would be Innovation (way too many "take that" cards that feel like they wipe out what you built up), and Arboretum. Beautiful game, but it's in your best interest to block your opponent from scoring, and fairly easy to do.

Innovation is a weird one. I played with a couple people who overthought every move, despite repeated warnings that it wasn't that kind of game, and it made the game 3 times as long and at that pace it was just a bad experience for everyone. Definitely get why people don't like it. But I love it if it moves quickly and has unpredictable wild swings, and everyone goes with it. And with my good friends we seem to not overuse the "screw you" cards repeatedly, just because we want to try other stuff and not be assholes.

I don't remember Arboretum being bad but haven't played it since the pandemic hit--it's one I'm really looking forward to in person. Maybe I'll notice what you're talking about.
posted by mark k at 1:22 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Innovation is wonderful. Get a massively broken combo and run it as long as you can. Until your opponent gets a massively broken combo and returns the favor...
posted by Windopaene at 1:28 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


I describe Innovation as Fluxx for grownups. The sheer randomness that occurs reminds me of it, right down to randomly having to draw and play a card that causes you to win unexpectedly.

I've known many Rabid Sharks as well as an unpleasant variant where when it's clear they're going to lose, they switch to playing king breaker, but targeting a specific person (as in the same target again and again no matter what else has gone on during the game).
posted by Candleman at 1:33 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


Back when I had a regular board game gang, one of our favorite joke meta-strategies was essentially the Rabid Shark. We had one guy, Dan, was was (and is) extremely good at all these sorts of games and generally played either to win or, if that failed, to determine the winner through his actions.

Our motto was "Dan delenda est". Any time one of us couldn't figure out what to do, someone would be sure to suggest that the correct action was whatever hurt Dan the most. Generally he was ahead, so this was actually a pretty good strategy overall, but sometimes it was important to say "It's Never Lurgi, what is the prime directive?". "Dan delenda est". "Correct"

Munchkin did prompt one of our biggest arguments (maybe it's predictable that a silly game with minimal skill will raise blood pressure the most) where, I would like to point out, I was absolutely right and my friends were just being big ol' whiners who couldn't accept that I outplayed them.

The most painful game experience I ever had was with Talisman. I don't recall much about the game, but you progress through various rings with increasingly dangerous effects until you beat the Big Bad and then, in a twist, you become the Big Bad. Someone else can still come along and beat you and then they become the Big Bad.

We played with a guy who just would not admit that he was beaten. He kept getting pounded back to zero over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and would not quit. He wanted everyone else to quit so that he could be declared the winner, I guess. I don't recall how the game ended, but I do recall that it was over a decade before we played that game again. Too many bad memories.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 1:35 PM on May 20, 2021


The first time I played Werewolf was with a group of about ten people I'd just met, aside from two of them. I was the Werewolf in round one and don't remember what happened. Then I was also the Werewolf in round two, which was awkward as heck "killing" people I'd just met twice in a row. However, I did fool my friend at the end of that round since it was easy to suggest I couldn't be the villain again. I think we played a third round and I was mercifully not the werewolf for that one.

In my immediate family, Scruples is the worst game to suggest because of an incident with my sister getting mad because none of us believed her reaction to one of the scenarios and we outvoted her.
posted by soelo at 2:25 PM on May 20, 2021


>Special mention for the meanest single-player boardgame I've ever played: Chainsaw Warrior from 1980's-era Games Workshop.

This is available as an iOS app now, though without the tactility of the cards/chits/dice it isn't as much fun. (which is saying something.)
posted by rifflesby at 2:37 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Steve Jackson games (especially the card ones --- Illuminati, Munchkin, Chez {Insert Genre Here}) always had the potential for drama, as they tend to be "hose on the leader" games where whoever is ahead gets targeted, and the winner is basically the person who manages to be ahead when everyone is temporarily out of ways to attack.

This means there's usually one (or maybe two) people who everyone else is ganging up on, and while generally people accept it sometimes it just gets frustrating.

Diplomacy is of course the king, since there is no randomness and the game is all about dealmaking, which inevitably rewards betrayal.
posted by thefoxgod at 2:55 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


A little sad that Tongiaki, or, as it is known around here, "Death Beach," isn't on the list. A very good (simple but strategically complex) game about screwing over everyone whenever possible.
posted by BrashTech at 3:12 PM on May 20, 2021


I love Munchkin because it makes it very easy to tell who you should stop being friends with (anyone who still wants to play Munchkin after playing it once).
posted by Reyturner at 3:38 PM on May 20, 2021 [5 favorites]


I refuse to play the 'party game' "Werewolf"...

My SO's family like werewolf when gathered en masse, they also seem to have decided I have some sort of psychic power or something, since they consistently bump me off in the first two rounds. Makes it a bit underwhelming for me.
posted by biffa at 3:53 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


Some of my favorite memories of holidays with the in-laws involve multiple rounds of Family Business. It's ok with 3-4 people, but once you get to 6 players, then it becomes a lot more fun, especially when you can kill off a bunch of your rival gangsters with some well-timed cards.

The Dune board game is also a lot of fun. Battles, betrayals, and sandworms - what more could you ask for?
posted by mogget at 4:34 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


I haven't played board games since my first postdoc back in the mid-00s, but back then the meanest board game we played was Elfenland. It doesn't seem like it should be a mean game, but part of the game involved putting down tiles that allow you to travel via certain transportation. If the other players don't have that mode, they are effectively blocked from traveling that way. Boy, do people not like that! You can screw people over without even intending to!
posted by dirigibleman at 4:58 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]


BrashTech, OMG i had forgotten about that game, but boy howdy do I hate it. Every other player’s turn utterly randomizes my plans until my Order Muppet brain brain breaks down.

Further, my Chaos Muppet partner at the time *loooooved* the game for the exact same reasons I hated it. Because they loved it so, they would sing the most infuriatingly cheerful little made up song every time they sent my rafts off in completely the wrong direction.

Thank you for kindling this oddly affectionate hatred of a board game in me again. :-)
posted by FallibleHuman at 4:59 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


In my group, it was "Scattercat delenda est." I am not the greatest strategic mind in the world, but I tend to be the quickest to pick up on new games, so unless we're playing someone's old favorite, I win more than I lose and my groups generally decide that I am an unbeatable juggernaut and attempt to murder me.

My unethical metagame strategy is not Rabid Shark, but Helpful Advice. I never lie about the game state or about my intentions (unless the game IS about lying), and any moves I suggest or opportunities I point out are real and sincerely helpful, but it is possible by gathering data over a long period of time to notice that I do not necessarily always point out the *best* possible options, and never any that impact me negatively.
posted by Scattercat at 5:34 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


I'm not seeing Uno on this list.

well, that's a card game, but for card games, there's nothing more cutthroat than a nice game of hearts
posted by pyramid termite at 6:36 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Cosmic Encounter is about the most backstabby I will get. The whole Destiny Disc thing removes any worry about “unfairly” targeting someone else - this is who the tides of fate dictate is fighting this turn, make of it what you will.

I generally play with the personal victory condition of “attempt to make a move that requires serious debate about what exactly happens because it is in a weird corner of the rules currently in play”. Usually this is also an attempt to win the game or prevent someone else from winning but not always. And it doesn’t matter if the final ruling is in my favor or not; as long as I broke the game’s systems, I am content.

Winning after one of these plays is a pleasant bonus, of course!
posted by egypturnash at 6:55 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


But others it seems can't separate the practice of lying and manipulating in the game with doing so in real life, so a "move" in the game (I'm the werewolf and I lie about it) feels like a betrayal by me the person, not me the player.

played Arboretum followed by Blokus the other night & absolutely said out loud "Well I hope you enjoyed the most recent blowjob you got from me because I am too angry to ever give you another one," not proud of this but it happened

I don't remember Arboretum being bad but haven't played it since the pandemic hit--it's one I'm really looking forward to in person. Maybe I'll notice what you're talking about.

I genuinely love the game, there's never a lack of interesting choices, but if someone else winds up with the cards you need to score your best path & hangs on to them, there's literally nothing you can do about it, so the scoring portion can be a series of "fuck you, nothing you did all game counts for anything," which is hella demoralizing

(one time I brought a copy of Pandemic Legacy to play with taquito boyfriend's family over a long vacation & his stepdad, upon learning it was a cooperative game & not competitive, gave me a look like I'd promised him a puppy & scraped a single dead sea monkey into his hand off the bottom of my shoe; they're very nice people but I don't play Blokus with them anymore)
posted by taquito sunrise at 7:42 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


pyramid termite: well, that's a card game, but for card games, there's nothing more cutthroat than a nice game of hearts

CAME TO SAY THIS.
PAULINE (the computer opponent from the pre-installed Windows version of Hearts) is still my MORTAL ENEMY.
posted by wats at 8:01 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


If your games of Munchkin end in arguments or loss of friendships rather than barely finishing due to all players dissolving into gales of uncontrollable laughter from the overall silliness, then you're doing it wrong and/or at least one member of your friend group might be the sort of player that the game is satirizing in the first place.
posted by eviemath at 8:34 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]


I love how as soon as Diplomacy is mentioned, the stories start coming out.

Oh yes. For those who do not know the game, there are two rounds which alternate: the diplomacy round, where you all hustle off in twos or threes to confer and write down your moves, and the movement round, when all the moves are revealed.

I wound up once playing Diplomacy at the house of someone who had bugged one of the rooms with a voice-activated tape recorder. Toward the end of each diplomacy round, he’d go retrieve the recorder and visit the washroom or elsewhere in the house to skim the recording for anything juicy.

I have never seen anyone conduct electronic surveillance to win a game of Monopoly.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:03 PM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]


Never heard of Diplomacy. In reading the rules linked above, though, I did sense an enticing simplicity that foregrounds the people & the (anti-)social dynamics.

This is the thing: there is no luck and no hidden information. Everything you need is right there in the open. There is no random bad rolls or lousy deals of cards to blame misfortune on. Diplomacy is quite literally the name of the game. If you can persuade others, you will win. If not, you won’t. This is why it is a game that hits close to the nerve for many: if you do poorly at, it, it’s waaay more personal than losing at Risk or Axis and Allies or something.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:10 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]


You can tell the gaming generation of these lists when they don't include Kremlin.

Kremlin is an overlooked gem of that era. In the last few months of the Before Times, I blew the dust off my copy and it went into regular circulation again in my gaming group with three or four plays before the world shut down. Looks like by September or so, we should all be on the far side of our second vaccination, so perhaps it will come back into fashion for us.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:14 PM on May 20, 2021


Diplomacy with teenagers: Not Even Once.

I feel like now that I'm in my 40s and am a much calmer person, it would be fun to try Diplomacy with other people at a similar point in their lives.

I had exactly the reverse finding. As teenagers, we were all emotionally... limber? Unformed? Resilient? We had angst, of course, but it was about who we were going to the dance with or our marks in French class. Games were a way to get in some low-stakes drama. Diplomacy was largely no worse than D&D or whatever.

Several of the people I played games with at seventeen are the people I play games with thirty-five years on. I doubt I’d get any of them to play Diplomacy now, as there are decades of higher-stakes drama between many of us: A stiffed B on the price of buying a used car; B wooed away C’s partner twenty years ago; C and D used to be roommates and when D moved out, C got way behind with the utility bills that were in D’s name. Diplomacy would be a thin skein around some resentments that no one talks about, and I can easily imagine a refusal to support someone else’s army into Picardy leading to emotion raw and stark, with old wounds being reopened.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:29 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]


Haven't played Diplomacy in decades but the last time I did the ref, the "neutral reader of people's orders" warned everyone before the game not to trust me.
posted by Max Power at 8:38 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


Haven't played Diplomacy in decades but the last time I did the ref, the "neutral reader of people's orders" warned everyone before the game not to trust me.

posted by Max Power at 11:38 AM

Epony-something-something.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:30 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


You can tell the gaming generation of these lists when they don't include Kremlin.

Kremlin was out of print for a looooooong time, although the recent Kickstarter edition was lovely.

Nothing Personal is an extremely solid attempt at reworking Kremlin into a more Euro-ized version of the same game; recently, it was published in a more streamlined revised edition, which cuts down play time to a solid hour and cleans up some of the rules.
posted by mightygodking at 3:44 PM on May 21, 2021


pretty solid overlap with shadowkeeper's Friendship-Enders list.
posted by bruceo at 5:34 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]


I used to have a gaming group that loved mean games. Junta is the only game we played where I saw real anger over the betrayals and favoritism.
posted by surlyben at 8:50 PM on May 21, 2021


for games like Werewolf/Mafia, I tend to recommend as an alternative, either A Fake Artist Goes To New York, which replaces "lying to your friends" with "being the only one not on the same page and trying to pretend you know what we're all doing", or Blood on the Clocktower, which makes the game information-rich, so you don't have your friends turning on you because you said a word weird, but also injects so much uncertainty that you can actually get away with grand gambit lies.
posted by Merus at 1:23 AM on May 24, 2021


Absolutely hate Werewolf/Mafia, but am very intrigued by Blood On The Clocktower and really want to give it a shot. There’s an online version of Fake Artist, btw, but I don't know how good it is.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:07 AM on May 24, 2021


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