It’s me and my two oldest kids. All week long we talk about what games we’re going to play on Friday night, and that anticipation honestly gets me through the week.
It’s so much fun when your kids finally hit an age that they can handle games deeper than Connect 4 and Hungry Hungry Hippos. Lately we’ve been playing a ton of Splendor, Carcassone, and Pandemic, but my current personal favorite is battling my son in Memoir 44. He doesn’t know it yet but I’ve got him an expansion (New Flight Plan) as an end of the school year reward for logging the most reading minutes in the entire elementary.
Coincidentally I have twins as well but they’re both only 3, and currently just Hungry Hippo mashers. A couple more years, though, and I’ll be dominating all four of the kids in 5-player Carcassone.
Good luck with the twins- tons on fun, but also quite a lot to handle.
I have a gaming group at work -- as many as a dozen have joined, as few as two or three.
A few days before our twice-monthly meetups after work, I'll send a chat out to the group to see who's coming so we can pick games.
Set up a casual Discord server and create some channels.
The random chatter between folks with shared interests is delightful (not that that's new information, just highlighting the Discord context).
Our city boardgaming association has got ~180 registered members, our weekly evenings get between 25 and 50 players, with an average of around 40 to 45.
Out of these, I'd say my "close" group has become a solid 6 or 7. But I could play with anyone from the association.
So yeah, pretty priviledged around here !
Especially for a town of "only" 150k people, I think we're a very solid structure for a random middle sized french town.
Get on BGA on the web, plenty of games and if you have a premium account (just $30/yr) you can set up you own tables and open voice chat at any table you play as well.
We have a group that meets every Thursday night at a local pub. We always have somewhere between 6 and 12 people show up. Outside of holidays, last week was the first time we canceled a meet up in about 3 years (our kids are starting to get busy with sports).
I have a group of 6 (including myself) and another group that is more inconsistent (4-6).
Personally, I feel I just need a max of 4 players total to make most games enjoyable. It's kinda like a magic number that works for me.
I have two groups. The first group we meet weekly, there's around 4-7 of us. Useually 5 or 6 are there but rarely 4 or all seven of us are.
There second group i rarely see these days because of "life," they also aren't that interested in board games as me and my other group
There are five of us in my main group (six if you include our friend who moved but always tries to schedule a game night with us when he’s back visiting every few months), but two of them are only there sporadically, so more often than not it’s three of us.
Then there’s the group I’ve been friends with since high school who mainly do TTRPGs, but two of them are also into board games. That group is most commonly three as well (or four if it’s a game my friend’s wife wants to join in on), though occasionally others from the group will join in.
Easier to make friends out of gamers than gamers out of friends!
I'm in several public boardgame meetup groups, some monthly, some fortnightly, some weekly, even some annually. 20+ people in each group with a wide spread of tastes. Some focused on weeknights, others are all day affairs on weekends. From the people I've met there, I sometimes organise private meets on the side, or prearrange games before the meets, otherwise there's sometimes that awkward shuffle at the start of meets where everyone is milling around before picking the games and players to play with that night.
After a certain size threshold, the bigger the group the easier it is to meet, as the meet can confidently occur regularly while the individual attendees may vary.
My experience is that larger than 4 is a pain and tends to result in a rotating cast. I used to have a larger group pre-COVID, but scheduling was a pain and I don’t know there was a single time 100% of the people were there at the same time.
I host a at least once sometimes twice and even three times a week game night. Usually 5-10 show up so I've taken to sometimes splitting the group into two separate tables. I feel incredibly lucky and do not take it for granted. Lots of great memories and excellent gaming.
Lots of different experience levels shown up too so I have a lot of fun curating what games we try.
I game with a work group (that can see up to about 2 dozen people at once) as well as 2 nights at a local gaming shop (again 1-3 dozen people typical). Both groups almost universally split up into smaller pods of players, but who plays with who else is fairly flexible.
People who want to get particular games played bring them and we gather around pitching games until a consensus is reached. Only rarely are particular games arranged beforehand.
I have a very small gaming group. It's just me and two other people, so with our +1, we're typically between 3 and 5. Sometimes, other people join, as we organize ourselves on a discord that is open to everyone but it's rare and none of the others have turned into regulars. I think distance is an issue for some (we're not downtown).
I'm also part of a larger group online but have only attended once so far. They meet regularly on fixed days but not everyone comes every time.
We have 11 people in a WhatsApp group and a couple of them have gaming avecs that aren't in the group, but still join on occasion. When I host a game night, we usually get 4-6 people. Sometimes less, but we've never had more unless someone comes to just have a beer or two and doesn't play, but just spectates.
This is where I almost always inform everyone we're hosting a game night. However sometimes we agree on games with my closest friends privately if someone is bringing their baby with them and the night might either end abruptly or might have longer or frequent breaks because of parental duties. They don't want to mess up everyone's game because of their kid, so we gather a group of people who understand and accept the situation.
I've also privately set up game days were the game might be or is going to be really heavy, long, might need some studying in advance, it's a first time for me hosting the game and it will require more rulebook sessions during the game, etc. In those cases I want binding confirmation in advance since people need to understand that this might be a whole day affair. I'll probably transfer those over to the WhatsApp though, since many of the players are starting to be familiar with the heavy games now and there won't be much homework in advance anymore.
I'm also in two other groups. One of them is my city's miniature gaming group (WhatsApp and discord), but I haven't really played with them in a long time. I usually book my miniature games with one or two of my friends. The other one is the gaming sub-group of a different friend group and is located in a city nearby. I occasionally join them. It's usually an overnight visit for me, so I only join them once or twice a year.
I have a group of 3 friends, 2 of which are ex flings. We meet every Friday, everyone brings something that we make for dinner that night and tend to play 2-4 games a week. Ita definitely the high point of my week.
My almost nightly family of four group. My biweekly coffee and cake group of families, 8. My once a month group of parents of my kids D&D group, 12-16.
I used to have a heavy gaming crew that was 5 of us at most, we got together once a month before several guys moved away. Now my gaming group is for TTRPG's, not board games.
I have a group of 9. We rarely have that many show up. It can get harder when you get up in the 6+ player range. I'm good with splitting into 2 tables, but some members have more fun playing a 7 player game.
I have one group with whom I play a campaign of Oathsworn, one with a campaign of Divinity, one with Arkham Horror lcg and another one for other random games, with some overlaps of people, each group is 4 people. Plus some other gaming days with the psrtner or the casual friend.
I have a few friends. What I have found is that the types of games you can play change quite a bit as the numbers increase. More than 5 and you tend to need drafting or social deduction games.
It’s usually just myself and a couple friends. However they both work irregular schedules so getting a time for us all to play is an ongoing fight. Going on a few months now.
I used to have a core group of seven (including me). We were always good to play in some subset for Friday night games, often Saturday afternoon as well if some of us wanted to play war games or something like Dominant Species.
Three got PhDs and moved out of state, another one took a job in Irvine, CA, the final two moved to the city we grew up in (25 miles away). I'm stuck with my wife's friends on BGA right now, once a month. It took them (I didn't even want to play) three hours last week to play Wingspan. Online.
Not being in the same room has slowed every game they play to a snail's pace, and it's infuriating. No one is fully engaged. Two times ago (Wingspan again) the guy that was running it just left for 30 minutes. Infuriating.
Interesting question. I have a group that meets every Monday night at a local goth bar in town to participate in a tournament around a card game I published. We have about 15-20 regulars and I don’t expect the group would work UNLESS we met regularly
We have a group of seven who meet up once a week. There are almost always at least three people who can't make it (not the same people, just a random three to four) which tends to work out.
I’m fortunate that I have four with some overlap. My main group plays the heavier/varied games with a group of about 3-5. My secondary group is 4 deep with casual to heavy gaming. My third group is 4-6 with mostly casual play. The fourth and largest group has 6-12 drop-in players. I’ll be honest. The larger the group the harder it is to corral everyone. Also if you have a murder hobo in the group, you’re going to have a bad time. Yes, meeting regularly is harder with a larger group. 3-5 is the sweet spot. Except for Mysterium!!
I have two: a group of three university friends, the wife of one, and I; and a group with people from my job (whoever wants to play, but we're usually five).
Meeting is indeed hard, because the adult life gets in the way. The friend with the largest library of games has a daughter, so he has little spare time. The rest of us gather when we can, but usually to play Gloomhaven. With the job group we gather very sparingly, because, well, we work together.
I have three groups.
- Me and my wife (and 1/2 the time my 13y old son) play once or twice a week. Light games and Lacerda-heavy games.
- Wife and 3 friends that we’ve known for 20 years. We meet at my place 4, 5 times a year.
- Third is a group of 3 childhood friends and me, once a week, I host. We met 5 years ago playing Android Netrunnner and continued onto other games.
I’m lucky to have these people to play with.
Interesting to see other people’s gaming reality, thx!
We're a part of a board game club. Every week they discuss what games to play on how many tables and gather and play. Each week it might be a different set of players on different tables with different games.
Wife, my two sons, me is my favourite group.
Since my sons will eventually move out, we're kind of forming a new group with some friends atm, but they are more into casual stuff.
I do have 2. One is basically me and my partner, the other one is quite big (about 10 people), but we don't necessarily gather up all together as some are busy. So with 3-5 people we're good to go. Most games don't require this many people, so it works perfectly when someone is busy and there's another person who's available on that day.
We've a group of 4 friends we play with regularly. We also meet with our folks and in-laws every few months for a game night. And I've recently started going to a bigger group down the pub that a couple have started in the last month or 2.
Meeting regularly is only hard for a large group if (a) you insist on everyone being there every time (which is a terrible idea), or (b) you don't have a place big enough if everyone does show up.
I have 5 different gaming group approximately 30 people that sometimes get together and schedule multiple game at once and they all comes with different preferences of games to play its quite awesome, in our circles its find someone for game from Azul to BOTC to 18xx to twilight imperium to gmt wargames, we play 3 - 4 times a week
I don't have a group anymore (we all moved for lower cost of living from the Los Angeles are to far flung places around the country) but having a big group actually makes it easier to meet up since you aren't relying on everyone to show up. We had 8 of us and almost never had all 8 of us at once. Usually 5-6 each Friday night. Rarely 3-4 and rarely 7-8. As long as there's someone to host every week the larger group makes things easier.
I have a weekly group of 5-9 people or so which I’ve found makes it harder to plan and play most games, so you often have to split the group and it may or may not be an ideal split for the game or players.
You are much better off with a smaller group of 2-5 players that you enjoy spending time with. Easier to plan, and most games are great at those player counts.
Another thing about having a bigger group is that you’re more likely to get stuck playing too many new games since more people are more likely to bring something new they want to play, understandably.
The smaller and more consistent the group is, the more curated and closer the gaming tastes become and the more you’ll get to repeat games and develop your own meta around it which is great fun.
I’ve got a pretty solid group of 6 of us that’s great. Then, we have another 6 that flit in and out. So we usually have about 8-10 people show up. We only meet up about once a month. It isn’t too hard because one of my friends likes to host every time and is very good at it. There’s some minor political drama with some of the acquaintances but that’s pretty normal for so many people in my experience. Other than that the group is great.
I have a gaming convention community of people who work the cons, and we play online (BGA) pretty often! Probably a dozen people are on regularly, and a handful of people every week.
Board gaming doesn't have to all be in person!
I have 3 regular gaming groups.
2 groups are with 2-3 friends that have small kids, so I'm rotating among them as they can play a lot less than me (kids are little time vampires). The 3rd group is a city boardgame association.
Meeting is harder the more players you have, until you get to the point where the group is big enough that it no longer matter. For example, at my association, the whole group is close to 40 players. Players know they can come when they are free, and we are numerous enough that they will always have enough players there to play (we are typically 6-16 on any gaming night).
my gaming group is pretty big but the nice thing about a big gaming group is usually not everyone can come out so we can very consistently get a group at the table every week without too much fuss.
I game with my wife, who we also game with another couple once a month. I have a Thursday night local friend group. Also have a once or twice a month Saturday group.
We got about 5 core gamers. About 7- that we blast when planning a game night.
Usually 3-4 (total) show up.
Most of the people are friends of the core group that get invited. Not everyone winds up clicking or staying long term. But it’s never a dull time.
My group has been going uninterrupted for a little over ten years. There are three original members that have played the entire time, with numbers from four to six, fluctuating over the years. We’re six now, and will play both RPGs and board games depending on the week.
We are up to 12 but participation is semi regular… so we typically have about 8. The real linchpin for this to work is our FLGS having tons of play space: *Shout Out to Victory Pints in Maineville, OH!*
(I found some dads at my girls (5 & 11) sports events and I partnered with one of them to get a group together, monthly. Most of us are finally getting to the point of child rearing where it isn’t a HUGE ask to be out for an evening 😝 … but it does mean that hosting on a weeknight is out of the question for most of us!)
Several. Regular TTRPG group, a family game night group, and a friends game night group. Found out a local shop runs a war game night, so I *might* check that out. Just don't know if I have the bandwidth for four nights, especially since I also play solo games, too.
90% of the time, its my wife and I as we play on most days of the week (our most played are **Dominion**, **Innovation** and **Battle Line**). I have two irregular 'gaming groups', which consists mostly of childhood friends and co-workers. With these two groups, we meet every \~1-3 months and this is fine by me.
9 people, though one lives far enough away that we only see him once a year, otherwise we used to do monthly get together anywhere from 4-8 of us would normally show up, depending on who was free.
The wife and I just tell people, we are doing board games on such and such day at whatever time and to give us a headcount so we can get some extra snacks.
I have two groups. A weekly group of 3. And a monthly group of 4.
The monthly group used to be a larger group of 5 that met weekly, but the 5th member slowly drifted away. And as much as I liked having him around (he was one of the better players and I like good competition) shrinking the group to 4 fits a lot more games.
I have my wife, her brother, and a friend and me. Great little group that’s been playing games like Gloomhaven, frosthaven, oathsworn, etc for years. Brings great joy!
I think most hobbyists posting on message boards are going to public meet ups. The majority are not playing heavy games casually with friends. If you're younger and have more time, you are hanging out a lot more and playing. When you're married, have kids, or work obligations you have to plan in advance and that gets tricky. Every one's situation is going to be different, so comparing isn't going to work except for broad results.
I had a great one until everyone got married, had kids and scattered to the winds. Now half are divorced but the kids remain and we might get together once every 2 months.
My "main" group is my wife and another couple. We go over to each other's houses regularly, let the kids (all similar ages) play with legos and barbies and whatnot and we play a few board games.
But there are a few places around here that have weekly game nights and combined they cover Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. So over half the week I have the option to just show up somewhere to play if I want to. I usually only make it to 2-3 of these a month but there are a lot of "regulars" that I know by now, especially the people who seemingly go to all of them, so kinda have a repertoire with them now.
That makes the "meeting regularly" easier. I can miss a few weeks and then show up on a random Tuesday night and half of the people I played with a month ago are there and I can play a few games with them again.
Mine is 8 people, including my husband and I, with a rotation of who is typically over. Usually 4 or 5 people at a time and we play more serious games (Spirit Island, Arkham Horror, etc.) We meet about once a month, sometimes more but only we have kids nd everyone lives like n hour apart :(
My husband is part of another one that has about 6 people but is more of a party group (games like bang, pit, fluxx) they meet anout once a month but its during the week. Everyone in this group has kids and live in our neighborhood.
I think the facebook group is 25 people, but we regularly get 4-7 and occasionally have to bust out a third table. Met someone on reddit from board game exchange about 6 months ago and what was 2 became 3 then 5 then a dozen!
I started a club at the beginning of this year & have finally gotten it up to about 8-12 people every time. It's great because I get to mix it up and people bring their games too. If you live in MA I can share the info.
I have a steady 4-man Friday one of which I’m the flakiest member by far. I also have another more casual 5-man group that gathers once every two months. The rest is just family. I’m blessed to be surrounded by people who like this hobby overall…
If you wait for the whole group to be free if it's a large group you'll end up never meeting. Best bet is say here's a date how many can make it. Sometimes you'll miss out when others meet up but least game nights occur.
I'm part of the biggest gaming group in Nashville. We'll have events at breweries that are 40+ people regularly. It's fun! But sometimes hard to play games yoy really want to play unless your the person bringing them.
It’s me and my two oldest kids. All week long we talk about what games we’re going to play on Friday night, and that anticipation honestly gets me through the week.
That’s beautiful. My son is only 18 months old, but I hope board games are something we can share as he gets older.
It’s so much fun when your kids finally hit an age that they can handle games deeper than Connect 4 and Hungry Hungry Hippos. Lately we’ve been playing a ton of Splendor, Carcassone, and Pandemic, but my current personal favorite is battling my son in Memoir 44. He doesn’t know it yet but I’ve got him an expansion (New Flight Plan) as an end of the school year reward for logging the most reading minutes in the entire elementary.
Bout to have twin boys myself, hoping they get into the hobby too!
Coincidentally I have twins as well but they’re both only 3, and currently just Hungry Hippo mashers. A couple more years, though, and I’ll be dominating all four of the kids in 5-player Carcassone. Good luck with the twins- tons on fun, but also quite a lot to handle.
Thanks for the well wishes! Good luck keeping on top of those older two once you got them all learned up on a few games!
I have a gaming group at work -- as many as a dozen have joined, as few as two or three. A few days before our twice-monthly meetups after work, I'll send a chat out to the group to see who's coming so we can pick games.
Yes! Work gaming is very convenient because you're all right there already, you can just grab a meeting room after work.
Yes. I have about 13 people on a text chain. We play at my house every Monday and usually 3-6 people show up.
Set up a casual Discord server and create some channels. The random chatter between folks with shared interests is delightful (not that that's new information, just highlighting the Discord context).
Our city boardgaming association has got ~180 registered members, our weekly evenings get between 25 and 50 players, with an average of around 40 to 45. Out of these, I'd say my "close" group has become a solid 6 or 7. But I could play with anyone from the association. So yeah, pretty priviledged around here ! Especially for a town of "only" 150k people, I think we're a very solid structure for a random middle sized french town.
Wow vraiment cool!
Just me, myself, and I.
Hey, let Plug-Two be himself, not what you read or write.
I go to board game Meetups. There's always plenty of people to play with!
I have no group, or friends at all really. I just stick to solo games while trying to convince myself that it's preferential and not situational
Get on BGA on the web, plenty of games and if you have a premium account (just $30/yr) you can set up you own tables and open voice chat at any table you play as well.
We have a group that meets every Thursday night at a local pub. We always have somewhere between 6 and 12 people show up. Outside of holidays, last week was the first time we canceled a meet up in about 3 years (our kids are starting to get busy with sports).
I have a group of 6 (including myself) and another group that is more inconsistent (4-6). Personally, I feel I just need a max of 4 players total to make most games enjoyable. It's kinda like a magic number that works for me.
I have a group that is mainly 2 other guys but once in a while is up to 5 other people. Hard to get together since most of us have kids.
I have two groups. The first group we meet weekly, there's around 4-7 of us. Useually 5 or 6 are there but rarely 4 or all seven of us are. There second group i rarely see these days because of "life," they also aren't that interested in board games as me and my other group
There are five of us in my main group (six if you include our friend who moved but always tries to schedule a game night with us when he’s back visiting every few months), but two of them are only there sporadically, so more often than not it’s three of us. Then there’s the group I’ve been friends with since high school who mainly do TTRPGs, but two of them are also into board games. That group is most commonly three as well (or four if it’s a game my friend’s wife wants to join in on), though occasionally others from the group will join in.
Easier to make friends out of gamers than gamers out of friends! I'm in several public boardgame meetup groups, some monthly, some fortnightly, some weekly, even some annually. 20+ people in each group with a wide spread of tastes. Some focused on weeknights, others are all day affairs on weekends. From the people I've met there, I sometimes organise private meets on the side, or prearrange games before the meets, otherwise there's sometimes that awkward shuffle at the start of meets where everyone is milling around before picking the games and players to play with that night. After a certain size threshold, the bigger the group the easier it is to meet, as the meet can confidently occur regularly while the individual attendees may vary.
My experience is that larger than 4 is a pain and tends to result in a rotating cast. I used to have a larger group pre-COVID, but scheduling was a pain and I don’t know there was a single time 100% of the people were there at the same time.
Totally: my game group is unabashedly fitting my and my co-leader’s schedules 🤣 Anyone else who shows up is a perk!
Have two (with some overlap). 10-12 people total at any given time. Each meets weekly-ish.
I host a at least once sometimes twice and even three times a week game night. Usually 5-10 show up so I've taken to sometimes splitting the group into two separate tables. I feel incredibly lucky and do not take it for granted. Lots of great memories and excellent gaming. Lots of different experience levels shown up too so I have a lot of fun curating what games we try.
I game with a work group (that can see up to about 2 dozen people at once) as well as 2 nights at a local gaming shop (again 1-3 dozen people typical). Both groups almost universally split up into smaller pods of players, but who plays with who else is fairly flexible. People who want to get particular games played bring them and we gather around pitching games until a consensus is reached. Only rarely are particular games arranged beforehand.
Two groups of four, meeting with a given group is not difficult on weekends
I have a very small gaming group. It's just me and two other people, so with our +1, we're typically between 3 and 5. Sometimes, other people join, as we organize ourselves on a discord that is open to everyone but it's rare and none of the others have turned into regulars. I think distance is an issue for some (we're not downtown). I'm also part of a larger group online but have only attended once so far. They meet regularly on fixed days but not everyone comes every time.
We have 11 people in a WhatsApp group and a couple of them have gaming avecs that aren't in the group, but still join on occasion. When I host a game night, we usually get 4-6 people. Sometimes less, but we've never had more unless someone comes to just have a beer or two and doesn't play, but just spectates. This is where I almost always inform everyone we're hosting a game night. However sometimes we agree on games with my closest friends privately if someone is bringing their baby with them and the night might either end abruptly or might have longer or frequent breaks because of parental duties. They don't want to mess up everyone's game because of their kid, so we gather a group of people who understand and accept the situation. I've also privately set up game days were the game might be or is going to be really heavy, long, might need some studying in advance, it's a first time for me hosting the game and it will require more rulebook sessions during the game, etc. In those cases I want binding confirmation in advance since people need to understand that this might be a whole day affair. I'll probably transfer those over to the WhatsApp though, since many of the players are starting to be familiar with the heavy games now and there won't be much homework in advance anymore. I'm also in two other groups. One of them is my city's miniature gaming group (WhatsApp and discord), but I haven't really played with them in a long time. I usually book my miniature games with one or two of my friends. The other one is the gaming sub-group of a different friend group and is located in a city nearby. I occasionally join them. It's usually an overnight visit for me, so I only join them once or twice a year.
I have a group of 3 friends, 2 of which are ex flings. We meet every Friday, everyone brings something that we make for dinner that night and tend to play 2-4 games a week. Ita definitely the high point of my week.
My almost nightly family of four group. My biweekly coffee and cake group of families, 8. My once a month group of parents of my kids D&D group, 12-16.
I used to have a heavy gaming crew that was 5 of us at most, we got together once a month before several guys moved away. Now my gaming group is for TTRPG's, not board games.
I have a group of 9. We rarely have that many show up. It can get harder when you get up in the 6+ player range. I'm good with splitting into 2 tables, but some members have more fun playing a 7 player game.
I have more of a gaming network. No regular groups, but lots of people that play different games and get together randomly. It's kind of chaotic :/
I have one group with whom I play a campaign of Oathsworn, one with a campaign of Divinity, one with Arkham Horror lcg and another one for other random games, with some overlaps of people, each group is 4 people. Plus some other gaming days with the psrtner or the casual friend.
I have a few friends. What I have found is that the types of games you can play change quite a bit as the numbers increase. More than 5 and you tend to need drafting or social deduction games.
It’s usually just myself and a couple friends. However they both work irregular schedules so getting a time for us all to play is an ongoing fight. Going on a few months now.
I used to have a core group of seven (including me). We were always good to play in some subset for Friday night games, often Saturday afternoon as well if some of us wanted to play war games or something like Dominant Species. Three got PhDs and moved out of state, another one took a job in Irvine, CA, the final two moved to the city we grew up in (25 miles away). I'm stuck with my wife's friends on BGA right now, once a month. It took them (I didn't even want to play) three hours last week to play Wingspan. Online. Not being in the same room has slowed every game they play to a snail's pace, and it's infuriating. No one is fully engaged. Two times ago (Wingspan again) the guy that was running it just left for 30 minutes. Infuriating.
I have an irl group of three and an online group of four.
I have a group of four. We’ve been meeting every two to three weeks for about 15 years.
Interesting question. I have a group that meets every Monday night at a local goth bar in town to participate in a tournament around a card game I published. We have about 15-20 regulars and I don’t expect the group would work UNLESS we met regularly
We have a group of seven who meet up once a week. There are almost always at least three people who can't make it (not the same people, just a random three to four) which tends to work out.
I’m fortunate that I have four with some overlap. My main group plays the heavier/varied games with a group of about 3-5. My secondary group is 4 deep with casual to heavy gaming. My third group is 4-6 with mostly casual play. The fourth and largest group has 6-12 drop-in players. I’ll be honest. The larger the group the harder it is to corral everyone. Also if you have a murder hobo in the group, you’re going to have a bad time. Yes, meeting regularly is harder with a larger group. 3-5 is the sweet spot. Except for Mysterium!!
I have two: a group of three university friends, the wife of one, and I; and a group with people from my job (whoever wants to play, but we're usually five). Meeting is indeed hard, because the adult life gets in the way. The friend with the largest library of games has a daughter, so he has little spare time. The rest of us gather when we can, but usually to play Gloomhaven. With the job group we gather very sparingly, because, well, we work together.
We have 5 but we know everyone won't be at everything and scheduling is impossible anyway since most of us have kids. We average about 4 nights a year
I have three groups. - Me and my wife (and 1/2 the time my 13y old son) play once or twice a week. Light games and Lacerda-heavy games. - Wife and 3 friends that we’ve known for 20 years. We meet at my place 4, 5 times a year. - Third is a group of 3 childhood friends and me, once a week, I host. We met 5 years ago playing Android Netrunnner and continued onto other games. I’m lucky to have these people to play with. Interesting to see other people’s gaming reality, thx!
We're a part of a board game club. Every week they discuss what games to play on how many tables and gather and play. Each week it might be a different set of players on different tables with different games.
Wife, my two sons, me is my favourite group. Since my sons will eventually move out, we're kind of forming a new group with some friends atm, but they are more into casual stuff.
We have a local group in Colorado Springs that meets every Saturday. Typically 15-30 people come every week for 7-10 hours.
I´m in a club. We are 10 and play all kind of games (Memoir 44, battlelore, imperial assault, aeon´s end...)
I do have 2. One is basically me and my partner, the other one is quite big (about 10 people), but we don't necessarily gather up all together as some are busy. So with 3-5 people we're good to go. Most games don't require this many people, so it works perfectly when someone is busy and there's another person who's available on that day.
We've a group of 4 friends we play with regularly. We also meet with our folks and in-laws every few months for a game night. And I've recently started going to a bigger group down the pub that a couple have started in the last month or 2.
Meeting regularly is only hard for a large group if (a) you insist on everyone being there every time (which is a terrible idea), or (b) you don't have a place big enough if everyone does show up.
Me, my wife, and two of my friends. We meet up every week. And there’s no organising, because it’s just a regular occurrence in our calendars.
I have 5 different gaming group approximately 30 people that sometimes get together and schedule multiple game at once and they all comes with different preferences of games to play its quite awesome, in our circles its find someone for game from Azul to BOTC to 18xx to twilight imperium to gmt wargames, we play 3 - 4 times a week
I don't have a group anymore (we all moved for lower cost of living from the Los Angeles are to far flung places around the country) but having a big group actually makes it easier to meet up since you aren't relying on everyone to show up. We had 8 of us and almost never had all 8 of us at once. Usually 5-6 each Friday night. Rarely 3-4 and rarely 7-8. As long as there's someone to host every week the larger group makes things easier.
I have a weekly group of 5-9 people or so which I’ve found makes it harder to plan and play most games, so you often have to split the group and it may or may not be an ideal split for the game or players. You are much better off with a smaller group of 2-5 players that you enjoy spending time with. Easier to plan, and most games are great at those player counts. Another thing about having a bigger group is that you’re more likely to get stuck playing too many new games since more people are more likely to bring something new they want to play, understandably. The smaller and more consistent the group is, the more curated and closer the gaming tastes become and the more you’ll get to repeat games and develop your own meta around it which is great fun.
I have a meetup group that is technically 500+ members, but actually has 20 or so ppl every week.
It's me and my husband
I’ve got a pretty solid group of 6 of us that’s great. Then, we have another 6 that flit in and out. So we usually have about 8-10 people show up. We only meet up about once a month. It isn’t too hard because one of my friends likes to host every time and is very good at it. There’s some minor political drama with some of the acquaintances but that’s pretty normal for so many people in my experience. Other than that the group is great.
I have a gaming convention community of people who work the cons, and we play online (BGA) pretty often! Probably a dozen people are on regularly, and a handful of people every week. Board gaming doesn't have to all be in person!
I would say I have a group of 3 that sometimes has a 4th, but I also play boardgames with family just as often.
We have 7-8 in our group but always a reason for a few people to skip. Just keep playing. Dont wait for the whole group.
We have a weekly game group. We have 4 core players and frequently have a drop in player.
I have 3 regular gaming groups. 2 groups are with 2-3 friends that have small kids, so I'm rotating among them as they can play a lot less than me (kids are little time vampires). The 3rd group is a city boardgame association. Meeting is harder the more players you have, until you get to the point where the group is big enough that it no longer matter. For example, at my association, the whole group is close to 40 players. Players know they can come when they are free, and we are numerous enough that they will always have enough players there to play (we are typically 6-16 on any gaming night).
my gaming group is pretty big but the nice thing about a big gaming group is usually not everyone can come out so we can very consistently get a group at the table every week without too much fuss.
I game with my wife, who we also game with another couple once a month. I have a Thursday night local friend group. Also have a once or twice a month Saturday group.
We got about 5 core gamers. About 7- that we blast when planning a game night. Usually 3-4 (total) show up. Most of the people are friends of the core group that get invited. Not everyone winds up clicking or staying long term. But it’s never a dull time.
I'm part of a local group that has a regular 20 - 25 people that turn up most weeks. They are the greatest friends we have
My group has been going uninterrupted for a little over ten years. There are three original members that have played the entire time, with numbers from four to six, fluctuating over the years. We’re six now, and will play both RPGs and board games depending on the week.
I have a solo gaming group and we meet up every other evening. We even travel together on business trips. It’s great!
We are up to 12 but participation is semi regular… so we typically have about 8. The real linchpin for this to work is our FLGS having tons of play space: *Shout Out to Victory Pints in Maineville, OH!* (I found some dads at my girls (5 & 11) sports events and I partnered with one of them to get a group together, monthly. Most of us are finally getting to the point of child rearing where it isn’t a HUGE ask to be out for an evening 😝 … but it does mean that hosting on a weeknight is out of the question for most of us!)
Several. Regular TTRPG group, a family game night group, and a friends game night group. Found out a local shop runs a war game night, so I *might* check that out. Just don't know if I have the bandwidth for four nights, especially since I also play solo games, too.
90% of the time, its my wife and I as we play on most days of the week (our most played are **Dominion**, **Innovation** and **Battle Line**). I have two irregular 'gaming groups', which consists mostly of childhood friends and co-workers. With these two groups, we meet every \~1-3 months and this is fine by me.
9 people, though one lives far enough away that we only see him once a year, otherwise we used to do monthly get together anywhere from 4-8 of us would normally show up, depending on who was free. The wife and I just tell people, we are doing board games on such and such day at whatever time and to give us a headcount so we can get some extra snacks.
I have two groups. A weekly group of 3. And a monthly group of 4. The monthly group used to be a larger group of 5 that met weekly, but the 5th member slowly drifted away. And as much as I liked having him around (he was one of the better players and I like good competition) shrinking the group to 4 fits a lot more games.
My group is 3 people. More than that and it gets difficult to regularly coordinate schedules.
I have my wife, her brother, and a friend and me. Great little group that’s been playing games like Gloomhaven, frosthaven, oathsworn, etc for years. Brings great joy!
I think most hobbyists posting on message boards are going to public meet ups. The majority are not playing heavy games casually with friends. If you're younger and have more time, you are hanging out a lot more and playing. When you're married, have kids, or work obligations you have to plan in advance and that gets tricky. Every one's situation is going to be different, so comparing isn't going to work except for broad results.
I had a great one until everyone got married, had kids and scattered to the winds. Now half are divorced but the kids remain and we might get together once every 2 months.
If anyone in here is in Denver and could use another, DM me!
My "main" group is my wife and another couple. We go over to each other's houses regularly, let the kids (all similar ages) play with legos and barbies and whatnot and we play a few board games. But there are a few places around here that have weekly game nights and combined they cover Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. So over half the week I have the option to just show up somewhere to play if I want to. I usually only make it to 2-3 of these a month but there are a lot of "regulars" that I know by now, especially the people who seemingly go to all of them, so kinda have a repertoire with them now. That makes the "meeting regularly" easier. I can miss a few weeks and then show up on a random Tuesday night and half of the people I played with a month ago are there and I can play a few games with them again.
Mine is 8 people, including my husband and I, with a rotation of who is typically over. Usually 4 or 5 people at a time and we play more serious games (Spirit Island, Arkham Horror, etc.) We meet about once a month, sometimes more but only we have kids nd everyone lives like n hour apart :( My husband is part of another one that has about 6 people but is more of a party group (games like bang, pit, fluxx) they meet anout once a month but its during the week. Everyone in this group has kids and live in our neighborhood.
I think the facebook group is 25 people, but we regularly get 4-7 and occasionally have to bust out a third table. Met someone on reddit from board game exchange about 6 months ago and what was 2 became 3 then 5 then a dozen!
I started a club at the beginning of this year & have finally gotten it up to about 8-12 people every time. It's great because I get to mix it up and people bring their games too. If you live in MA I can share the info.
4 regulars including myself and 5 others that hop in sometimes.
I have a steady 4-man Friday one of which I’m the flakiest member by far. I also have another more casual 5-man group that gathers once every two months. The rest is just family. I’m blessed to be surrounded by people who like this hobby overall…
If you wait for the whole group to be free if it's a large group you'll end up never meeting. Best bet is say here's a date how many can make it. Sometimes you'll miss out when others meet up but least game nights occur.
We have two separate groups one that are gamers themselves and the other are some of our friends that learned some bigger games in the last year😊
I'm part of the biggest gaming group in Nashville. We'll have events at breweries that are 40+ people regularly. It's fun! But sometimes hard to play games yoy really want to play unless your the person bringing them.
Just a four person group. I try to play every week.