Games

A board game is a game in which counters or pieces are placed, removed, or moved on a premarked surface or board according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve. Early board games represented a battle between two armies and most current board games are still based on beating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points (often expressed as in-game currency).

There are many different types and styles of board games. Their representation of a real life situation can range from having no inherent theme, such as checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as Cluedo. Rules range from the very simple, such as in tic-tac-toe, to ones which describe a game universe in great detail, such as in Dungeons & Dragons, although most of these are role-playing games and the board is secondary to the game, serving to visualize the scenario. The length of time it takes to learn to play or master a game can vary greatly from game to game. Learning time does not necessarily correlate with the amount or complexity of rules; some games, such as chess and Go, have simple rules that can still lead to complex scenarios.

Luck is introduced to a game by a number of methods. The most popular is using dice, generally six-sided. These can determine everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, such as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, such as in The Settlers of Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on the questions a person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having rather less of a luck factor than many North American board games.