Before deciding on what board game to play with your family, you have to ask yourself the same question Meryl Streep asks herself before portraying any character. What is my motivation?
Depending on this, your choices will vary. Do you want to beat them all and show them who the boss is, as often as possible? Is domination your ultimate aim? Is this going to be an outlet for you to work out all that passive aggression, where you make them pay for all the things that made you angry but you never said anything about?
If so, you need to assess the opposition and gauge your competitive strengths. If your brain is sharp, try chess. If you enjoy impoverishing others, try Monopoly. If your vocabulary is good, try Scrabble. Scrabble provides the additional advantage of letting you have fun making up words, like Shashi Tharoor. The trick is to make them sound vaguely plausible, like pantalunacy, oversecretary or omnimpotent.
On the other hand, it could be that you as a family are unable to co-ordinate your schedules enough to have dinner at the same time, and are making one last attempt to establish some degree of family togetherness. Because the modern world is driving us all apart. This is true, and the fact that you can see it does you credit.
Before taking any hasty action, however, you need to sit back and think things through. It’s possible that your family dinners are not happening because the rest of your family is trying to avoid you. Does the same thing happen in the office? If so, board games may not be the solution.
Alternatively, your interest in family board games could be because you are going on a holiday to a place where there is no Internet. Such places often have board games available. It helps to ease the pain. But the more important question is, why would you go there? Let’s face it; even though people tell you there will be no Internet, you are not going to give up hope. You will be unable to enjoy the view, because you’ll be constantly checking for signal. There are other views elsewhere, where you will not face this problem. Try one of those.
Or your motivation could be entirely tactile. You want the family to get away from all the devices and the technology. You want them to touch and feel real things. In that case, I would suggest Warhammer. It’s like Game of Thrones without the sex. Each game piece is individually crafted. Dedicated players often have close relationships with them. They paint them by hand, and make little accessories. The game sets are almost infinitely expandable, and extremely expensive. A squadron of Space Marines costs 15k with shipping. Which means you will never be able to afford electronic devices again, neatly killing two birds with one stone.
The choice is clear. If you, as a family, want to fully commit yourselves to board games, Warhammer is the way to go.
In Shovon Chowdhury’s most recent novel, Murder With Bengali Characteristics, the Great Firewall of China is upset because no one will play games with him