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My game group went from silent to chatty after I added a 10 minute rule
Six months back, my weekly group in Austin would just sit and stare at the board. We'd play something like Terraforming Mars and you could hear a pin drop. It felt more like a library than a game night. I read about a trick on BGG where you start each session with a quick, silly game that forces talking. I bought a copy of Just One for $20 and made a rule we play it for exactly 10 minutes before the main event. The change was instant. Now people are laughing and joking before we even set up the big game, and that energy carries over. We actually talk about our moves instead of just making them. Has anyone else tried a warm-up game to break the ice?
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iris_barnes874d ago
My old group in Denver needed two warm-up games, Codenames and then Skull. The first one got words flowing, the second one got everyone laughing and calling each other out. @fionanguyen is right, it strips away that need to be the smartest person at the table. Once that pressure is gone, the quiet strategic types actually start talking about their plans instead of just keeping them secret. It turns the whole night into a shared thing instead of just parallel play.
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the_robin4d ago
Honestly that sounds like a genius fix, like you basically tricked your friends into having a personality. My old group was the same, just the sound of people thinking SO hard you could smell the smoke. We tried starting with a round of that game where you draw terrible pictures, and suddenly everyone's a comedian. It's wild how a little dumb fun can loosen people up.
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fionanguyen4d ago
It's less about tricking them and more about removing the pressure to be smart. Some people just freeze up in social settings. The games work because they give everyone the same silly task, so no one has to perform. It's not a personality switch, it's just letting people relax enough to show what was already there.
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