Board and other traditional style games

After watching the Giant Bomb guys play Cards Against Humanity a few years ago and more recently Avalon I'm curious about what other board games some of you guys would recommend. I've only started playing both recently (CAH around a year ago and Avalon only a month) but I'm starting to lose interest in CAH and I think a good rotation would be nice either way.

So what games would you recommend with a similar barrier to entry as these two?

First of all, Shut Up and Sit Down is the website for all your board and card game needs.

Skull (formerly Skull and Roses) is an super simple game of pure, distilled bluffing.

Werewolf or Ultimate Werewolf is essentially the precursor to The Resistance. It can go a bit long and includes player elimination, but it makes for a great party game.

Two Rooms and a Boom is a great party game if you have a lot of people and two rooms. It's currently available at a print and play.

Going Going Gone is an ultra simple auction game, good for a smaller group.

Betrayal at House on the Hill & Quarriors are a couple of my favourites.

Dominion is pretty great.

I really enjoy playing Carcassonne. It's simple enough that my four year old daughter can play with me but it's got a good bit of strategy to it.

Agricola is probably my favorite game at the moment. It's not super difficult to learn (you'll have a pretty good grasp on it by the end of your first game), but it's incredibly deep. I've been playing it for years and still feel like I have a ton of ways I could improve.

I only got into board games about a year ago or so and have found I specifically really enjoy deck building games like Legendary (Marvel Comics, Alien, and soon Predator themes) and the Cerberus Engine games from Cryptozoic (Street Fighter, Lord of the Rings movies, and DC Comics themes). Dominion, mentioned above, is the first DBG, I believe.

I've also really enjoyed the Pathfinder card game from Paizo publishing and the Gears of War board game and LotR Living Card Game, both from Fantasy Flight Games. Though that LotR game can get a bit complicated and it and Gears can really kick your ass.

I'd highly, highly recommend the site Board Game Geek. It's been invaluable to me a a newcomer in finding information or just discovering new games. It's the closest thing to a game wiki I've seen.

Dominion is probably the best deck building game out there, but some people don't like that the theme and the art are very bland. I think it sort of works in the game's favour in some ways, since people who may be intimidated by the theme can basically ignore the medieval stuff.

I like 7 Wonders quite a bit too, which is a card drafting game for up to 7 people that's sort of like a board game version of Civilization. It's interesting since you interact directly with the people sitting next to you at the table but still have to worry about what other people are doing too, and it plays much differently with 3 or 4 players than with 5+, though more players don't make the game longer, which is cool.

Love Letter is a cool game that is very simple, you pick between 2 action cards every turn with the aim to be the last player standing or have the highest value card when the deck runs out. Each round takes only 2 minutes or so, and the game is very affordable.

Lords of Waterdeep is a popular beginner game, it's a worker placement game like Agricola but with a D&D theme rather than farming and you spend a little more time interacting with the other players. If you don't like the idea of a D&D theme, Stone Age is also popular and has you improving a hunter-gatherer tribe.

Pandemic is pretty cool too, it's a co-op game where you're trying to cure diseases before the population of Earth is totally ravaged by them. You can customize the difficulty and it can get pretty stressful at the higher levels.

If you want something heavier, Battlecon is a 2D fighting game board game and it is really good. It's a really good value too, the Devastation of Indines set that I have has like 30 characters that all play differently as well as cards for all sorts of things beyond the standard 1v1 battles.

Woah, there's a Predator theme coming?! I enjoyed Legendary: Encounter (Alien Themed version) but it's a bitch to first set up right out of the box so learn to play the game first and do research before you open that thing. Really want to try the hidden agenda variant of it at some point.

Dominion's a great starter game, could recommend it to anyone, i own all but the newest expansion (Adventures)

The golden rule of getting into board games, i find, is to head to you tube and watch people play them. Nothing kills the mood like busting out a new game and having to decipher the rules first. Other Giant BOmb members guided me to a site called The Dice Tower and i've been going through a lot of their stuff to get an idea of what to look for.

@sin4profit: Yep, it's releasing this August. Here's the Board Game Geek page for it. It has human vs predators play like normal and a PVP mode where each player is a predator hunting humans and fighting each other.

Also, great call on recommending The Dice Tower. It, Board Game Brawl, and Watch it Played are three great youtube board game channels. Watch it played unique as the dude who runs it doesn't review games but plays through them to show they work and explain things in more detail if needed. I usually watch a playthrough of his before buying a game or starting one for the first time.

Here's a review for Dominion and 7 Wonders since they've both been brought up and are classics:

https://vimeo.com/28789564

They are a substantial step up in complexity from CaH and Avalon, but fairly simple compared to the overall population of board games.

@bane122: With the backwards compatibility i wonder if there will be an Aliens VS Predator mode. i 'haven't played any of the LE Aliens PVP stuff so i don't know how well that works with the Legendary games but i can't pass up a Predator board game.

I'll have to check out those other you tube channels, thanks for the recommendations

Forbidden Island and its follow up, Forbidden Desert, are both really great co-op board games.

I play a decent amount of Dominion, Carcassone, Ticket to Ride etc. with friends. I even printed out my own CAH cards. However my favorites are still Risk and Monopoly. It just sucks that most of my friends hate those two.

It's expensive (if you want to buy the extras which you will) but X-Wing is excellent

@hayt: i only bought the starter set for X-wing, played by the most basic of rules and wasn't too into it, then i heard you have to expand on it a lot to get anything out of it and now i'm wondering if Star Wars: Armada might be the better game at this point.

I just played a bunch of Flashpoint and, holy hell, that game was good.

Citadels is an excellent card game with role selection and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Easy to get into and very replayable!

Tales of the Arabian Nights is less a board game and more of a storytelling machine, and it's awesome.

Suburbia is basically SimCity the board game.

My favourite deckbuilder right now is Shadowrun Crossfire, with Valley of the Kings right behind it.

Armada will be just as big of a money sink as X-Wing is. If you didn't care for the core rules of X-Wing or how FFG monitizes its expansions, I'd watch or play a few games of Armada before buying it.

For the OP: If you're looking for quick, easy games, there's also King of Tokyo, which is sorta like Yahtzee. There's also Zombie Dice. Flux comes in every flavor under the sun and is easy to learn and play.

If you like the traitor scenario, there's Battlestar Galactica and Dead of Winter. The later is apparently somewhat difficult to find. I bought a copy of it on Amazon for $70, though it was over $100 when the Dead of Winter Tabletop episode came out. I've seen it as low as $49 at a local game store.

Catan is probably the easiest one to convince others to play because it has got the most mainstream exposure. Also it's still quite fun.

Munchkin is another favorite among my group of friends. Creates a lot of opportunities for backstabbing and petty grudges which is fun.

diplomacy is the absolute best.

it's essentially a world-domination game with very simple rules. there are no dice rolls and no chance is involved. you win by convincing others to work with you, and then betray them at the most opportune moment (but bear in mind, everyone has the same motivation).

the only caveat is that you need a decently sized group of engaged people (i believe 7 or more is ideal). it would be INCREDIBLE to watch the bombers play it, but the A/V demands would be too great i think.

Small World, Pandemic, Dead of Winter, and Descent are some of my favorite board game. All are fairly straight forward except perhaps DoW.

@zelyre: to be fair to X-wing, we didn't really play by the rules when we played it, just moving and rolling, we didn't involve the point system to buy-in characters and ship parts so i'll have to give it another try before i'd write it off. though, what i saw of Armada seemed a little more interesting which is why i've come a stand still as to whether i want to expand on X-wing. I also have Wings Of Glory i've yet to try out.

Snakes and Ladders