Backgammon
A descendant of the royal game of Ur. Backgammon is an ancient board game, where you throw dice and move pieces accordingly. The word itself is said to have come from the words "back game", as this marvelous piece of entertainment was commonly played in the back rooms of seedy taverns and cheap whorehouses.
It's also the oldest known board game, with 5000 years of archeology behind it (although a lot of that is for the Royal Game of Ur (a.k.a. The Game of Twenty Squares, because the board had twenty squares on it), a slightly different game that used somewhat odd d4s rather than d6s). Fun fact: The word for Backgammon in Azerbaijani is "Nərd", which is what you are if you think said fact is in any way fun.
Generally considered a "trash game" (although not Ameritrash). As in: Something everyone has played at one point of their life but didn't pay that much attention to it; like Monopoly or tic-tac-toe.
TL;DR it's Parcheesi on a short U-shaped track and four times as many pawns.
The horrible, horrible violence[edit | edit source]
Being the favourite game of Central-Asians. This simple buttons and dice game sparks wild bouts of anger and violence. It is thought that image of jagged teeth ignites the animalistic portions of the brain and encourages the individual to a frenzy of uncontrollable rage. This is accentuated by the fact that a complete idiot is able to win against a veteran by sheer luck.
Many have lost their lives over this horrible amusement, which is why you should steer clear of it and play something else.
Doubling cube[edit | edit source]
In case the casual violence wasn't good enough for you: try throwing some money on the table, raise the stakes and risk losing your left floating rib.
How it works: the cube starts the match with the '64' facing up, but that counts as '1'. Let's say you bet a beer on the outcome of the match. You win, you get two beers: 1 of yours and 1 of the other guy's. At any time, a player can take the cube, change it so '2' faces up, and give it to the opponent. Either the other guy accepts it, or forfeits the game and the beer. Now both players are betting two beers each. Whoever's holding the doubling cube can advance it to the next highest number and give it to the other guy, who must accept it or forfeit the game (and the 2, 4, 8 or however many beers were on the cube before you gave up). Technically, you can go past '64', but at that point whoever wins will be carrying at least three cases of beer away from the backgammon table from a single match, and that is fucking heavy.
| Board Games | |
|---|---|
| Classics: | Backgammon - Chess - Go - Tafl - Tic-Tac-Toe |
| Ameritrash: | Arkham Horror - Axis & Allies - Battleship - Betrayal at House on the Hill - Car Wars Clue/Cluedo - Cosmic Encounter - Descent: Journeys in the Dark - Dungeon! Firefly: The Game - HeroQuest - Monopoly - Mousetrap - Snakes and Ladders - Risk Talisman - Trivial Pursuit |
| Eurogames: | Agricola - Carcassonne - The Duke - Settlers of Catan - Small World - Stratego - Ticket to Ride |
| Pure Evil: | Diplomacy - Dune (aka Rex: Final Days of an Empire) - Monopoly - The Duke |
| Others: | Icehouse - Shadow Hunters - Twilight Imperium - Wingspan |