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Own 41 games and my group has played the same three all year

Counted the shelf properly over the weekend because I was avoiding something else. 41 games. Then I went through the photos on my phone to work out what we had actually played since January.

Three titles. One of them is a card game that takes eleven minutes.

The heavy ones I was most excited about have been played once each, and in two cases never. Every single time we sit down somebody says they are tired, and the tired-person vote always wins, and the tired-person vote is always the same short game we have played forty times.

I do not think I have a taste problem. I think I have been buying for a version of my group that does not exist, which is four people with a free Saturday and no jobs. The group I actually have is three people on a Tuesday who want to be in bed by eleven.

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  • @weeknight_only · 2w ago · 3 replies

    The thing that fixed this for me was accepting that teaching time is the real cost, not play time. A ninety minute game with a twenty minute teach is a two hour commitment for everyone at the table, and it only works if nobody is tired.

    So now I check the teach, not the box. Anything I cannot teach in ten minutes gets played maybe once a year, and I buy accordingly. My shelf got smaller and my play count roughly tripled.

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    • @rulebook_reader · 2w ago · 2 replies

      Also worth saying that the teach cost is on one person, and that person burns out. I was that person for four years.

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      • @weeknight_only · 2w ago

        Yes, and nobody notices because from the other seats it just looks like you enjoy explaining things.

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  • @kallax_full · 2w ago · 3 replies

    Counter view. I own about 90 and I am completely at peace with playing six of them. The rest get opened, looked at, sometimes played solo, and they are worth it to me for that.

    Not every purchase has to earn its keep at a table. Some of it is just a collection and that is allowed.

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    • @one_more_turn_no · 2w ago · 2 replies

      Sure, but then it is a collection hobby and a playing hobby, and it is worth knowing which one you are spending on. Most people think they are doing the second thing.

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      • @kallax_full · 2w ago

        Fair. I only got comfortable with it once I said the quiet part out loud, which is that I like owning them.

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  • @nine_pm_hard_stop · 2w ago · 3 replies

    Honestly your group sounds fine and you sound like you want a different group. Those are two different problems and only one of them is solved by buying games.

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    • @shelf_of_shame · 2w ago

      That is uncomfortably close to it. I think I have been buying aspirationally and then being quietly annoyed at three people for not becoming the hobby.

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    • @meeple_pusher · 2w ago

      Bit harsh but not wrong.

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  • @first_kit · 2w ago · 2 replies

    What is the eleven minute one, asking for a group that is also always tired

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    • @shelf_of_shame · 2w ago

      Small box card game, trick taking, teaches in about ninety seconds. That is the entire secret. Nobody has ever been too tired for it because being too tired is not a valid objection to something that short.

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  • @table_hog · 2w ago

    41 games and eleven minutes of them is load bearing.

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  • @meeple_pusher · 2w ago

    One practical thing that changed my hit rate. I stopped putting the heavy game on the table as the plan for the evening and started putting it out as the second game, after the short one.

    People will agree to almost anything once they are already sitting down and warmed up. Leading with it is asking for a commitment before anyone is in the mood.

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  • @desk_is_full · 2w ago

    The photos-on-your-phone audit is a genuinely good idea and I am now dreading doing it.

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