8 Game Night Disasters
By Marc Kenobi
No matter what you play, you’ll experience a game-night disaster at some point, souring an otherwise wonderful evening and turning it into something you shudder to remember, or talk about in solemn tones as a warning to others. These are eight of the worst, each with handy tips on how to avoid them.
Table Space Crisis
Nothing is quite as frustrating as turning up with a great new game to play, only to discover it doesn’t even fit on the table. In the worst-case scenario, you have to put it back in the box and don't get to play. Or you struggle to play in less-than-ideal circumstances. grasping a stack of cards rather than laying them on the table and forgetting what some of them do as a result, and holding onto a fist full of resources and eventually dropping some of them.
Avoid this by… having a great, dedicated, and extendable gaming table like the Ironside 2.0. The base table gives you plenty of room, but if you’re playing something truly epic in scale, this table can be expanded to meet your needs.
Lost Piece Scramble
You hear the ‘plink’ as it hits the floor, everyone freezes, and then you’re all scrabbling about under the table, searching for the errant piece. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it quickly. If you’re unlucky, however, you’ll painfully find it at 2 a.m. with bare feet, or just after you finish expounding your thesis on the Bermuda Triangle, lost socks, and missing pieces all ending up in the same place, someone will point out it’s been under your chair the whole time.
Avoid this by… playing on a table with a recessed surface and using bit holders designed to safeguard your components. You won’t have to fear pieces getting lost, and even the most careless player won't send them flying across the room.
Fire and Flood
Unless you’re playing indie RPG Ten Candles, where burning your character’s attributes is a requirement, you’re unlikely to come across many fire hazards playing games. Floods, on the other hand, are unfortunately all too common. Red wine leaves you with cards and boards stained a purplish color no matter what you do, and you’ll be washing components again and again, to rid them of the stickiness of a soda spill. But even if you’re lucky enough for it to have only been water, you’re still going to have quite the time cleaning up before you can play on.
Avoid this by…using cup holders to keep drinks secure and off the playing surface.
Set Up Slog
Some games are amazing, but the setup can be longer than the game, and who wants to waste all that time during game night laying out all the pieces? This can be enough to ensure one of your favorite games never makes it to the table.
Avoid this by…playing on a custom gaming table that allows you to set up everything ahead of time and still have a table you can use for other things.
Food Time
We all love food, but anything greasy, sticky, or messy can quickly destroy key components, leaving us with a stained and dirty-looking copy of a treasured game. From a practical standpoint, food also takes up a lot of space and is a huge distraction.
Avoid this by… using table toppers to cover up the game while you eat if it's a full meal. This will protect the games and allow you to enjoy the food. If it’s just snacks, those same toppers can be used as side tables to stash your favorite candy where only you can reach it.
Rulebooks Review
Nothing kills a game night’s energy as quickly as watching someone start to read through the rulebook for a game they just asked you to play. At worst, they’ll read the rulebook word for word, and half the table won’t have absorbed enough of what they've said to play. At best they still run a serious risk of making a mistake that spoils the fun for one or more players.
Avoid this by…making sure you’ve read the rules before you get people around the table, or send everyone a ‘how to play’ video ahead of time.
Unexpected Guests
You’re planning your game night and inviting people, aiming for a table of five. Dan and Sarah don’t reply (as usual), so you invite Alan and Peter. At the 11th hour, Dan and Sarah message you to say how much they’re looking forward to joining you and that Abbey (their friend whom you like) said she wants to come too. Is that okay?
Avoid this by…having a purpose-built gaming table that can be expanded. This will let you get everyone around the table and might even be enough space for two games side by side. Alternatively, you can grab one of your higher player-count social deduction games off your perfectly organized shelves.
Time Warp
You look up after finishing your turn and spot the clock in the corner. You watch it for a few seconds, wondering if you’ve forgotten how to read a clock face, so you check your phone. Yes, it really is 3 a.m., and you have no idea where you entered the time warp. Suddenly, the bleary eyes and a numb posterior make sense, but you can't believe you’ve been playing that long, and you know work tomorrow is going to be a struggle. Do you bring up the time and end the game before it concludes, or press on and suffer the consequences?
Avoid this by… having a rule that you don’t start any game if the box suggested play time (+1 hour because we all know they fib) takes you past when you want to stop. Or if you have a table with toppers, you can safely pause the game where it is and keep everything secure and tidy for when you can next pick up your adventure...