Building a new gaming group is always a struggle because it's difficult to get a good balance of player personalities that all enjoy the same style of play. Maybe it's more difficult for me than for others specifically because my style of play isn't incredibly common.

I'm more of a story-oriented player. Sure, I enjoy the occasional hack and slash, but I do not relish the never-ending onslaught of random monsters that have no point to the story. Contrasting the two games that I've participated in over the past year, one game started out as much more story-oriented than its current incarnation, in which we're stuck in a terrible place, looking for something/someone I can't remember the name of, just killing everything that shows its head in long combat sessions. In the other game, which was much too short-lived, the story drove the adventure, and even the few encounters between interacting with local NPCs were oriented at furthering the story. The players of both games preferred these play styles.

Actually, it's not so much that the players prefer specifically different styles, just that they're satisfied with the the style of the game that took place. Being the only storytelling player among a group of power-gamers is tough.

Another very important aspect for me is the stereotype of the gamer players themselves. This is probably more important to me in terms of selection of new players than the gaming styles, really, because as a GM, you can always make accommodations to different styles of gamer in the same party.

When I used to play at the store, there were a handful of groups to play with. There were a lot of traditional "gamers". You know the kind I'm talking about, the fat guys with lots of facial hair that bathe less frequently than everyone would like, and tend to prattle a bit more than anyone else about their favorite fantasy/fiction worlds and characters. Mind you, I think it's possible to be a geek without completely going gamer, and it's a little safer to geek out when you're amongst other geeks who will understand, but there is a limit.

In college, we somehow interested a group of girls in playing D&D with us, which was great. They weren't "gamer girls" (which can sometimes be ok, but sometimes not) so they didn't have preconceptions and could bring their own ideas of fantasy to the game, which is pretty cool. The best thing was that they weren't unkempt and brutish. This brings me to my point about finding people to play with.

I find it difficult to look for gamers online, because it's hard to tell who bathes over the internet. I guess that's what it comes down to. Gamers who come off as too enthusiastic to play or too enthusiastic about a particular fantasy race (yes, if you speak some elven dialect, I'm talking about you) often trigger my warning signal for "too gamery". I think my criteria for choosing fellow gamers is more about whether I would choose to be with those people when they're not gaming than whether they'll play games with me. This makes for a surprisingly small crowd of potential gamer friends.

I've yet to play games with any cosplayers, at least that I know of, and that would be fine if they were otherwise normal people. It's just harder to take regular friends into gaming than vice-versa, and I think that the older I get, the less forgiving I'm becoming about weird quirks that gamerfolk have.

We stopped at Target this evening to look for something completely unrelated (a cake pan, if you must know - yes, a new shaped cake is incoming), and while passing through the toy section, I looked over their selection of board games. It was pretty poor.

I know I've mentioned that I'm a game junkie. I buy, uh, everything game related. I've come across a few pretty darn good games in my time, certainly enough to bother writing about here. And since I've noticed that my visitors are looking for such things, I thought I would take a little time to answer some questions and point to some real winners.

Before we get started, I'll answer the main question posed that leads people to my site: Is it ok to buy your boyfriend a boardgame? The answer is yes. There is a catch, though. Either you must know that he plays them already, or you must play them with him. If not, don't bother, or he'll end up with a really cool game he'll never get to play. Or maybe it would inspire him to find a group to play with. Who knows?!

Now, on with the games!

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is typical of the kind of board game I love to play. It's got a ton of pieces, rules that are reasonably simple to follow, capability for expansion, and tons of fun play potential.

The basic idea of Carcassonne is to construct a countryside made of farms and castles. The main pieces of the game are square tiles which are randomly selected one at a time during your turn. You place the tiles on the table next to existing tiles so that the edges match and extend either a castle wall or a road.

When you place your tiles, you can also place one of seven little tokens (in the shape of a wooden "man" of your player color) on the tile. If that man is on the castle section of the tile when any player completes the castle's walls, you get a certain number of points for each tile within that wall, and you get to reclaim your "man". You can also get points for road segments, cathedrals, and for farmland, depending on how you place your token within a tile. When you run out of tiles, you total the points, and the player with the most points wins.

It sounds complex, but once you play a couple of times, it's pretty easy. Strategy is high. This game is not Sorry and has no pop-a-matic bubble. It's actually very fun -- one of my favorites.

There are some great expansion sets available for it, too. Inns and Cathedrals, Hunters and Gatherers (technically, it's a full game, gut it's played the same), Traders and Builders, Abbey and Mayor, Princess and Dragon, King and Scout...

Backseat Drawing

If you're looking to level the playing field in your family Pictionary games for the people without great artistic skill, Backseat Drawing is your title. I first saw this game as it was being demoed at the Origins Game Fair.

In the game, two teams compete to be the first to guess the thing that is written on the play card. Like in Pictionary only one person knows the thing, but unlike Pictionary, that person does not draw. Instead, they give instructions to someone else using basic geometry to try to draw that thing. The drawer can guess, as well as any other teammates present.

The game has two levels of difficulty, and each topic card is translated into multiple languages, making it a good play even in multi-lingual settings.

The aMAZEing Labyrinth

There are actually two versions of this game. One is a "board" game, and the other is a card game. Technically though, they both have cards. And the board game doesn't really have a board. Anyway... I have the card game, and I assume the board game works similarly.

In the card game, you place square tiles with pictures of a Labyrinth (like Carcassonne!) on the table so that the edges match. If you manage to connect two tiles with the same treasure picture via a labyrinth path, you can collect that treasure. The person with the most treasure when the tiles run out wins the game.

Simple and fun. Abby (7) and I play this game now and then, and she has no trouble.

Cadoo

If you've ever been to Starbucks, you've probably seen the Cranium games. Cadoo is made by the same people, and is geared for kids. I've put it on this list because sometimes there are folks, even adults, in the family who won't or can't play board games because they're too hard. This one isn't "easy", but it's not reliant on endless trivia (Trivial Pursuit) or drawing skills (Pictionary) but it's not conversely random and devoid of interest.

Cadoo is your basic board game. You move the pieces around, land on color-coded spots, and do the thing that corresponds to the spot. Each color represents a different kind of activity. Sometimes you model with clay, sometimes you answer a simple question, sometimes you even have to go on a scavenger hunt in the house. In all, it's pretty fun, and easy enough for Abby to do. You will need to be able to read (or be on a team with someone who can) to play this game.

Risk

I worry about this recommendation. Risk is a classic game. It's something that you just don't mess with. But they have messed with the rules for the most recent edition, and I don't have it to know what the real differences are, since I'm married to my beautiful anniversary set with metal game pieces.

Nonetheless, Risk remains your classic world conquest game. You roll dice, gain troops, attack your enemies, make and break alliances, and rule the world.

Games typically take about 8 days to complete. Perhaps that's what they've changed in the new rules.

Risk is the classic "I've got nothing to do but play war with my buddies, eat jalapeno cheese dip, and talk trash about how I'm gonna kick your ass" game. Axis and Allies might be a better game, but Risk is an undeniable classic. Not owning this game is like not owning Monopoly. How do you live with yourself?

Settlers of Catan

Risk may be the classic game in this set, but Settlers of Catan says something completely different about you. Owning Settlers says, "Yeah, you play board games. I play Settlers. Therefore, you suck." Of course, being good at it is a completely different matter.

In this game, you build cities and roads in an attempt to monopolize resources on the small island of Catan. You spend resources gained by building your initial settlements on specific hexagonal tiles. You can spend these to build new roads or settlements, or to upgrade your settlements into cities. Do this while avoiding (and moving) the robber baron, who prevents a player from gaining resources derived from a specific tile.

This game has so many unique pieces to lose, you should buy two. You will also forget how to play between games. That's normal.

Talisman

Games Wordshop made Talisman, but now it's produced by Fantasy Flight Games. The new version has "cross-graded" art -- it doesn't look like Games Workshop style anymore, but that doesn't make it "better". I haven't seen the new version first hand (since it hasn't been released yet), but it seems to have all of the same stuff, even if things have changed a bit. The 2007 version in the black box seems quite a bit different, and perhaps lacking.

The premise is simple. There's a dragon. It's your job to slay it and rule the world.

You pick a character at the start of the game. Each character has certain unique abilities. You use these abilities to travel the world (move your piece around the board) defeating monsters in battle to increase your abilities and eventually kill the dragon. Straightforward fun.

I enjoyed painting the original set of miniatures that came with the game. I'm not sure what comes with this most recent edition. Even if there isn't an opportunity to paint the minis, the game is pretty good fantasy fun.

Quandary

You may have a hard time finding this game. It's simple, fast, and fun, and that's why it's a classic during the Holidays when family and friends that aren't as hard-core as me want to play a game.

In this game, you lay down tiles with numbers, setting the value of different types of colored tile bars. With each number tile played, you take a tile bar of any color. When all of the number tiles are played, the game is over. The last number played for each color is the value of that colored tile. So if the last blue number played is 4, then each blue tile is worth 4 points. Whoever has the most points wins.

What's great is that it's really easy to explain (perhaps easier when you can see the board and pieces), but it leads to some interesting dynamics of brief alliances and fleeting logic. And it's so easy to pick up and play, anyone can pick up on these nuances within the first couple games.

Descent - Journeys in the Dark

Descent is almost not a board game. It's almost a role-playing game. In fact, it takes the pretense out of roleplaying by kind of ignoring it. Still, it leaves behind a nice miniatures game.

The game comes with characters and monsters in statistics and hordes of miniatures. There are adventure books, player books, and scads of dungeon tiles. The books explain how to use the figures to go on a dozen or more adventures. Expansion packs give you more miniatures, more dungeon, more adventure books.

The game is of very high quality, but pretty dense. I've yet to find anyone willing and able to put the time in to figure out the game and play it with me. Still, it looks like a lot of fun, and come highly recommended within my secret worldwide cabal of underground game playing enthusiasts.

Star Wars Pocket Model Collectible Card Game

This is not exactly a board game. I suppose that you could say that a couple of the other games in this list aren't really board games either. But this one is definitely not a board game. Nonetheless, it's the only game on this list that you can stuff in a stocking. It's also the only one with a Star Wars theme.

The Star Wars Pocket Model Collectible Card Game is a game in which you use little plastic cards with cut-outs in them to build models that you can use to play a tabletop game of space battle.

The "technology" that makes this game possible is the cool thing about this game, even if the game is really playable. If the recipient of this game doesn't ever play it, just assembling the Star Wars ships is a blast.

There are different types of packs that offer different vehicles, each with different powers. If you're not familiar with collectible card games (CCGs) you should know that each pack has something different in it, just like baseball cards. Each pack has enough for one person to play, but different packs have different stuff. So you might have to buy a few (heh, a "few") packs of cards to get a Millennium Falcon card.

If you're not into Star Wars (that would be me), then you might consider one of the other games by WizKids that uses the same card system. Pirates of the Spanish Main is the original game of this type but with really cool card-constructed pirate ships, and Rocketmen is a Buck Rodgers-like space game with faux-futuristic ships.

Bonus: Guillotine

Guillotine is a card game, but not a traditional kind. In this game, you line up various historical figures at the guillotine to have their heads chopped off. Playing certain cards allows you to reorder the line so that on your turn the head whose historical figure is worth the most points is the one to fall into your point basket.

Fun and creative gameplay and an amusing concept make this a great game to give or to receive.

I've been playing tabletop pen-and-paper roleplaying games since fourth grade. Since then, I've been kind of a junkie, collecting whatever RPG that looks interesting that I can lay my hands on.

I think it was in high school that I realized that not all RPGs were created equal, after trying to play a game of Cyberpunk with my friends. The game talked a lot about skills and character attributes, but didn't say anything good about the actual gameplay. After we were done creating our characters, we didn't really know what to do. I suppose that epiphany led to being a bit more picky about the games I bought and played - although never too picky.

I've accumulated some favorites over the years. Most of my favorites are so for a similar reason - They allow free play with limited rules, or rules designed to be very malleable. So here's my top-of-the-head list of role playing game favorites:

Risus

Risus started out as just a small obsession I had with things borne of stick figures. Actually, it started before that, but seeing that the game was fun was pretty helpful. One of the great things about Risus is that it's all available online (the very good expansions are available for a fee).

The system is simple: Dream up a knack, assign dice to it form a pool. Roll that many dice and try to reach your target.

The system doesn't come with a world, but that's another one of the interesting things about Risus -- it's really just a pickup game. You can apply it to any known world. I believe that with a little creativity you could replace d20 with Risus and have more fun.

Unknown Armies

I was sure I had raved before about the joys of Unknown Armies, but it's really just me interjecting little bits here and there and no solid effort to say good things about it. Unknown Armies has great character construction, including a Cthulean fear/madness meter. The world in which Unknown Armies takes place is one that is very original to me, and one that I enjoy playing in.

The system is an interesting thing with Unknown Armies. You can see the influence of Robin Laws on the game design in how open it is; how in can better accommodate players that are willing to lose themselves in a role. The magic system is great - using modern sources of power (money, sex) instead of vague occult candles and sigils.

And the construction of story is great. I especially like that all of the pre-packaged adventure give low, middle, and high road options for many of the characteristics of the non-player characters involved. It gives flavor to the game based on what the players will like, which is why we all play.

Everway

Everway is a sort of misbegotten child in RPGs. I think it was commissioned by TSR recently turned Wizards of the Coast almost Hasbro, as a way of both luring girls in to playing RPGs and doing something with their overabundance of fantasy art. But saying that's all it's about is a misstatement.

Everway's uniqueness is in many things, but two things come to mind. First, character creation is based off of using baseball card-like fantasy art cards to create a background for the character. The game actually encourages coming up with a background first, which sounds very strange, but when you really think about it, the first thing you'd do to create a character in D&D is... roll.

The second unique thing is the magic system. After building a character based solely on background, applying abilities to the character that fit that background would be difficult outside of this system. The way powers work is so flexible, it's very easy to be very powerful at the beginning of the game. It lets you dispense with growing in power and get down to growing in character, which I've always thought would be more interesting.

Everway also has a rich world to explore, although there are not enough details provided, it's enough of a glimpse into this specific fantasy setting that you can build plenty of fun stories.

Dragonlance 5th Age

Everyone laughs at this choice, but I love this game. I should say, of all the games in this list, I bought copies of this game and Everway for everyone in my gaming group because they were so good that I needed to play them. I walked into this game without knowing much about Dragonlance at all - that's not what drew me to it.

5th Age uses the Saga system, which is a system based on cards. It's one of the most interesting developments I've seen in system in my years of playing RPGs. There are so many advantages to using cards instead of dice that it's hard to list them all. One of my favorite ideas is that you have a hand of cards, and as you progress through the game, you are forced to make a choice about how much effort you want to spend on tasks. As a result, this simulates fatigue, which is what happens when you spend all your good cards and you've got nothing left but 2s.

5th Age's magic system is a lot like Everway's, but it's a bit more detailed. It's a kind of open point system. Assign a number of points into each of several categories based on what your magic effect is designed to do. Although there are some canned spells, you can create any effect you want just by figuring out how many points it costs and spending them. This freedom is very appealing to me.

I was going to pick five things, but the fifth item is too difficult. My contenders were these:

TFOS

Teenagers From Outer Space feels to me like what Big Eyes, Small Mouth should be. It's fun, irreverent, and includes a light, easy-to-use system. The illustrations from the original version are superior in every way to the later ones, if only for that one girl in the sweatshirt. You'd know what I was talking about if you saw it.

Nobilis

I have both editions, and although the second is probably the only flawless RPG ever made, it's density is a bit overwhelming. Nonetheless, it is one of the best written games I've ever seen.

De Profundis

It's a roleplaying game, told with letters, written as letters, playing the game. It's a great idea, and only $8.

In case you weren't aware, we celebrate my birthday on Wednesday this year, June 4th. My birthday is not actually on June 4th, but that's the day I've chosen to celebrate it. I think I've finally gotten everyone on board with the idea.

This year's event is on the Saturday after, and is a bit bigger than previous affairs. It's the culmination of two years' worth of home building, having moved in two years ago August. It's the first time that Berta will be inviting work people over for anything. I've been inviting everyone I meet to come hang out. We're inviting our neighbors all over, too, which is long overdue - I think they secretly think we're weird for not having done so already. So it's not just for my birthday, although that's how the date was chosen, but also just a general summer party, probably the biggest one we'll throw for a while.

As a result of such the event, we've arranged for some special food and events. We ordered a pig from Brandywine Picnic Park. Just today I obtained a small moonbounce for the kids to play on/in. Berta got lamp oil for use in my flaming juggling equipment. I even ordered more than a few miracle fruit for our guests to try, although I've not heard anything yet about their delivery, so I hope they arrive in time or I'm going to have a lot of miracle fruit to eat by myself.

But one thing that's been occupying some significant mental time lately is the Pirate Quest.

At some point I came up with an idea to keep the various child guests entertained that involved using a treasure map to find a hidden treasure somewhere around the house. Since then, things have gone completely nuts -- I think we've spent like $200 on supplies to fabricate the treasure and the map and clues that lead to it.

Yes, there is a good-sized treasure chest that looks like a treasure chest. Yes, the chest has real shells and starfish in it. Indeed, there are (faux) jewels and gold in the chest, along with various pirate-themes toys and candy. Oh, but what of the map and clues?

I got a tablet of the largest sized watercolor paper they had and a kit that is used to make things look deteriorated. I've been ripping bits off and dunking them in brewed tea to give it an old look, and then actually burning the edges. I have wax to use to seal the map to make it look more authentic.

And the clues... Well, the clues are something we've finally worked out at lunch today. Keep in mind that we're dealing with kids here from the ages of 3 to 12. Few can read, much less do as complicated puzzles as I'd like to construct. So to address the age span, we've decided to produce a basic cryptic map, and then hide clues around our yard.

What I hope to do for the clues is have a small envelope that is printed with a specific stamp that clearly indicates a clue. There should probably be quite a few of these so that there will be plenty of chances for the little kids to find them. Think "Easter egg hunt" but with a pirate theme.

Each envelope will contain a piece of paper with a symbol and a line leading off one torn edge. These symbols will also appear on the map. Some papers may have a riddle instead that indicates one of the symbols. The paper itself will look like it was torn in half and is missing its pair, as this will be the case. When the clue paper is paired with its matching mate, the line will connect the two symbols. Hopefully someone will get the idea (or eventually be given the idea) to draw the lines on the map.

The lines on the map itself won't be of any use. But with the help of something I've had the most trouble obtaining - a UV pen - the lines will indicate a location on a second map, embedded within the first. This will be revealed with the magic of a UV flashlight. The UV map will be real, and the lines will point to a place on the real map where the treasure (or one last clue!) is hidden.

This is the kind of elaborate puzzle that I secretly hope that people involve me in when I attend parties. I love that murder mystery-type stuff. Ah, this reminds me of the time Berta and I dressed up in black robes and brought a book of mature campfire/horror stories to the Halloween party across the hall in our apartment. They were not dressed up and were cordial in their acceptance of our "gift", but then got down to the business of handing out drinks. Yes, I still have hope that at some point I will find a place to fit in, even if I have to make the opportunity for myself...

Anyway, I hope that the kids appreciate all the extra effort on their behalf. Hopefully they're not just expecting to be handed "treasure".