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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Asmor" data-source="post: 4812299" data-attributes="member: 1154">While both great games (I prefer RftG, but SJ is good too), I'd say they're too complex for non-gamers to pick up and play.Apples to Apples is the quintessential "game for a bunch of people that just want to play, have fun, and not learn rules," IMHO. Definitely deserves a spot in every gamer's closet for such occasions.Fluxx is another good game, the only problem being that, while rare, it is possible for it to last way longer than its enjoyment... Personally, I prefer <a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/31016" target="_blank">We Didn't Playtest This At All</a>, which is vastly faster and, IMHO, vastly more fun. Games are frequently over before everyone's even had a turn, but they go so fast that that's not a problem.Citadels might be a bit much, but it is a great game. Plays fast with a lot of people, too. I really like No Thanks!, though I've only played it once. For Sale's also good.Carcasonne's one of my "go-to" gateway games. Simple, unique (to people not used to games), quick, and most importantly fun. Stick with the base game for new people, but the expansions do add a lot to the game.Ticket to Ride is another popular gateway game. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I don't mind it and it's really fast and easy to pick up, and has the advantage over Carcasonne in that it looks like a boardgame and might feel a bit more familiar.Werewolf is a classic party game, and I highly, highly recommend it. You can play it for free using a deck of cards.5 people is way too few for Werewolf... You need at least 7 I'd say, and that's not including an 8th person to be the moderator. And even then the game's not going to be terribly satisfying. But with 10 or more people, it's a hoot.Guillotine is really a great game, the cartoony style suits it really well. I've bought it twice, and both times ended up giving it to my mom because she and my sister enjoy it a lot and lost the first one in a move!Small World looks intimidating, but it's actually a surprisingly light and approachable game. The key is to tell people that to take a territory, you need a base of 2 chips plus one chip for every piece of cardboard already on the territory. It's really simple when you break it down like that. Also, I've only played it once as two players, but that game lasted about 50 minutes and that's with neither of us having played before, counting setup time, and counting me looking up rules frequently.Nexus Ops actually isn't a bad choice at all. It scratches the same itch as Risk, but I like the theme a lot more, the bits are way, way cooler (I mean, transparent neon plastic monsters that glow under blacklights? AWESOME!), and the game doesn't last very long at all.Now some of my picks...<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/20806" target="_blank">Three-Dragon Ante | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Great D&D-themed semi-poker-styled game. There's a tiny bit of complexity, but not much. One of my favorite games.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/12" target="_blank">Ra | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> The scoring in Ra is actually fairly complicated, but the gameplay itself is super simple. You either add a tile from the bag to the auction track or you initiate a bidding round.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/19237" target="_blank">Ca$h 'n Gun$ | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> This game is fun for one simple reason: you get to point styrofoam guns at your friends. It's way more satisfying than I can possibly describe. Oh, the game itself is good too, nice and simple, plays fast, but really this one's all about the guns.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/5782" target="_blank">Coloretto | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Very fast and simple, but very fun.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/3955" target="_blank">Bang! | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> A great, tense game. It's reasonably simple, but can be a bit daunting because the cards don't actually have any text on them; they use symbols. Most of them are fairly simple, and the more complicated are cards are suggested to leave out of the game until everyone's got a bit of experience.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/17025" target="_blank">Poison | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Fast, fun, light filler. Only skills required are the ability to add to 13 and to recognize colors or shapes (red, blue, purple and green liquids in differently-shaped bottles, so color blindness isn't a problem)<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/398" target="_blank">Loco! | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Another fast, fun, light filler, with a bit more depth and strategy to it, and a bit of the ol' screw-your-neighbor.<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/3270" target="_blank">Lamarckian Poker | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Fun poker variant playable with a standard deck of cards<a href="http://bgg.cc/boardgame/21632" target="_blank">To Court the King | Board Game | BoardGameGeek</a> Small amount of complexity in this Magic: The Gathering-meets-Yahtzee game of rolling dice to collect people who grant you powers.I think that'll do. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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