No tremendously deep thoughts today. I have a cold and another article I want to write more, so all you get is this listing of a few more turnoffs.

Too Expensive: I used to play Magic: the Gathering and Legend of the Five Rings. Both are good games, but staying current in these games can get very expensive, and playing only with older cards leaves you playing the same decks with just a few people. Only collectible games really suffer from this turnoff; other board games generally provide one of the best dollars/hour ratios of any form of entertainment.

Too Aggressive: Some people don’t like behaving aggressively in a game. My ex and some of her friends liked to play Settlers of Catan and “drown the Robber,” moving him to an ocean square instead of blocking off a rival’s resources. They didn’t appreciate it when ordinary Catan players engaged in the ordinary, aggressive tactic of locking an important hex. Settlers of Catan could be adapted to their style, but some games are totally hopeless; in Hearts, for example, dumping your points on others is inevitable.

Huge Learning Curve: Bridge is the worst offender I know of in this regard. Even without most conventions, there are dozens of subtle intricacies to the bidding and play. To make matters worse, it’s a partnership game, so it’s not always OK to just sit down and lose your first 50 games (like in Chess or Go).

Too Arbitrary: If all of your well-laid plans can be rendered meaningless with a small turn of bad fortune, too many such incidents can turn you off to a game. Finding examples of this turnoff was harder than I thought. Most games allow you to at least manage the risk, which greatly reduces the power of this turnoff. The worst offender I can think of is the TV show Wheel of Fortune with its BANKRUPT hazard. In the realm of board games, the otherwise-excellent Settlers of Catan can be very frustrating when a 9-10 long string of bad rolls sets you back a dozen resources. Robo Rally isn’t all that arbitrary, but the amount of unpredictability introduced in a game that’s otherwise all about careful planning grates on me.