That said though, for harmony within a gaming group one needs to be either adaptable, or be willing to just miss the occasional gaming session when you know a disliked game is coming to the table.
That was the case for me when it came to playing the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
Typically, role playing games fall nicely into the rather diverse field of games I enjoy.
It was D&D 2nd edition I cut my role playing teeth on and it remains a well-loved game.
The initial role playing experience with D&D 2nd edition has been followed by enjoyment of other role playing games notably Shadownrun and Cold Steel Reign.
So when 5th edition arrived I was game to play, only to find it a homogenized ruleset where every character was much the same, generally over-powered, boring, ultimately generic and lacking a modicum of individuality.
Needless to say the new edition soured my joy and I simply tossed in the towel leaving the group to it as I stayed home on those nights watching something on TV where a 10th re-run of Frazier was a better choice for fun.
Of course there are other clunkers through the years of playing.
Stone Age comes to mind as a game that actually mimics the likely hardships of life faced by humans of the Stone Age, but that doesn’t mean it offers an enjoyable gaming experience.
In this case I didn’t like some of the mechanics within the game from the outset in spite of how well they might have fostered realism.
It was a view that over a couple of plays the group generally came to realize, although perhaps not as ardently as this writer.
Another that is actually an outlier for our little gaming group is XenoShyft: Onslaught.
The game is a deck-builder, and our group is generally ardent fans of the mechanic.
Without actually polling the gang I feel confident in writing that Dominion would easily be on the top-10 games list for each of us, and that says a lot given my propensity for abstract strategy games.
Other deck-builders such as Lockwood’s Asylum, Arctic Scavengers, Dale of Merchants, Vikings Gone Wild, Flip City, Clank In Space and several others are always welcome on our table, because we love the genre.
It’s also why we have played/own around 50 deck-builders.
When I rate those 50, XenoShyft comes last. It may not fall that far down on all of our group’s list, but again generally it falls well-short of being much fun.
What that means is no one is suggesting XenoShyft when it comes time to decide on a game to play.
Not every game purchase is a winner. You will end up with duds and stinkers too. It’s part of the hobby.
So pick your favoured games and play on and banish the bad to a shelf you threaten to sell, but being game hoarders you probably never will.
