This discussion is very interesting to me as I found myself in a game store yesterday deliberating over what to buy for a 6.5-year-old boy that has problems with not winning, so games that are more in the 7-8+ range aren't good choices. In the end, I decided to get something he could play with his 3.5-year-old brother, namely, Don't Break the Ice. It was a big hit.
BTW, if you like Boggle or Scrabble and want something a little less competitive and/or friendly to people of various skill levels, I highly recommended Bananagrams.
My sister and I kinda cancel each other out at Balderdash. I can always tell which definitions are hers, and vice versa, but no one can tell ours apart.
I tend to play that game by aiming to be right, instead of aiming to fool other people, which isn't really the point. Perhaps with the fewer brain cells I have these days I'd change my angle. But I know my sister prides herself on getting obscure words too, even if we're both willing to play a slew of crap in Scrabble we can't even begin to define.
Oh, the argument about qis that we had on Saturday. The woman we were playing with (she was new to us and I think we exasperated her sorely) opined that there is no plural to qi, that there is only one life force, one that we all share. WhatEV. Scrabble don't get all that metaphysical.
My extended family are such disgusting competitors that I went through quite a phase with that. Now, I pull back a lot, and it takes a lot to activate it.
But once it's on, it's on.
I think it's good I didn't go to law school, cause there's no way in hell I could do that collegial thing where you beat ass in court and then go and have drinks. I'd be too busy looking up "Your mama," in Latin.
JZ is super competitive and can be a bad sport when she loses at board games. She grew up in a cut throat board game family.
I remember being totally surprised by this the first time I played games with her. Not that she was a bad sport (I have seen no evidence of this), but that she was so competitive.
I am like JZ when it comes to board games. I have been banned from games, mostly Trivial Pursuit, for my poor sportedness. We shall not speak of The Dance.
I'm good at games which require deviousness which I've found can throw people who don't strategize that way.
My favorite part of playing croquet is pitting people against each other. Doing that while getting tipsy is just the best!
Not that she was a bad sport
Well, mostly she just gets upset about losing now. But I have seen her stomp off in a huff more than once.
I almost always lose at Scrabble, because I don't play strategically (building off of other people's words to get more points, going for the triple word scores, etc). I always mean to, and then I get caught up in how awesome my words are, and then before I know it, I have, like 15 points to my opponent's 150.
In my family we almost always play Scrabble with no points, where the goal is to make the coolest words possible. It's much more fun that way, though actually we started it because of some not-very-wordy people (ahem, mr. flea) joined the family.)
I miss game days with megan walker.
I have told my parents that soon after the move I want to start having them over one set night a week for dinner and games. In prep, I am starting to play games with one of the babysitters one night each week.
ChiKat and I paired up for Trivial Pursuit at her NYE party. We kicked ass and were winning by so much that everyone else just cheated to get the game over.
