Showerthought: I finally figured out why my game nights were dragging after a weird thing happened at a con in Portland.

4 comments

4 Comments

Yeah, that Portland con story is probably a textbook case of analysis paralysis. I read a blog post about how too many game options just kills the vibe because everyone's stuck in their head weighing choices. My group started picking the next game while we're packing up the last one, cuts the dead air in half.

avery_flores8d ago

Oh man, the Portland con story hit close to home. My group had the exact same problem until we realized we were spending forty five minutes just choosing what to play next. The trick that actually worked for us was creating a rotating list of like four to six games we all agreed on. Each session we just move to the next one on the list, no discussion needed. It sounds too simple but it honestly saved our game nights from becoming agonizing decision marathons. We even started playing deeper into games since everyone already knew what was coming and got invested faster.

lucasw841mo ago

Totally get that. We had the same problem where picking the next game took longer than playing. It just kills the energy in the room. Now we keep a short list of maybe three games we all like and rotate through them. It sounds simple but it made a huge difference. We actually finish games now instead of just talking about them.

tessaperry1mo agoTop Commenter

Love that idea of picking the next game while cleaning up. We started doing a quick vote between two options right at the end of a session. It keeps the momentum going and feels way less like a committee meeting.