Well, I'm actually interested in continuing the conversation. I've been a board gamer for 5 years and have played 150 different games across 20 genres and met hundreds of board gamers through conventions. So I find it interesting that a fellow board gamer can defend mass market games so hard when they're clearly badly…

The problem is, your assumption that he forgot Monopoly is a) baseless and b) if true, means absolutely nothing. Monopoly is not a game with subterfuge. It is not a friendship killer. It has absolutely no place anywhere in the most remote vicinity of this list. The reason these are better choices than Monopoly or Risk…

That's an invalid argument. Millions of people eat McDonald's and drink Coca-Cola every day. Does that make it gourmet? Popularity should NEVER EVER be used to judge quality for ANYTHING.

"Your opinion is that they are poorly designed - they are not poorly designed to the millions upon millions of people that have bought and played them."

I dunno, have you ever played the five games up there? Risk may cause some tantrums, but unless you've played the five above, I'm not sure you're qualified to say the list fails without Risk.

That's like saying the list is invalidated because it doesn't include the car bingo game. That game will make you hate people too, because you're trapped into playing it with no escape for hours. It's not the mechanics of the game that make Monopoly players turn on each other, it's that no one (or only one of you)…

And once again, it goes right over your head. Its friday and I have wine and GTA V. Enjoy your weekend.

Im going to gamely attempt to explain this one more time:

Yeah, Cosmic Encounter adds a lot of options for the kind of evil and surprise that works perfectly in a group of friends. Just try playing a game where one player pisses off the rest of the group enough that they conspire to all reach 5 colonies at the same time. Effectively, this means the game doesn't have a…

Yeah I stopped doing the free-parking rule when I got older as I realized it really breaks the game.

Fantastic list! I would also nominate:

Why does picking more popular games make the list better? How does that add credibility? Why focus on games that don't fit the criteria?

Most of these board games aren't that obscure, Twilight Imperium and Diplomacy are fairly well known amongst board game players.

The above image is a picture of an actual game of Merchants & Marauders I played with my wife and a couple friends. The giant yellow frigate is my wife's fully decked-out ship, and the tiny black sloop is a random NPC pirate ship. Due to it's maneuverability and some lucky roles, that little sloop disabled, boarded,…

Monopoly is a game that ruins games— not friendships. I still have friends that won't play board games (even good ones like Power Grid, Small World, etc.) because they were forced to play Monopoly as kids.

As nopun said, Monopoly most often doesn't work because people change two rules that make the game much longer.

Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game can be played in singleplayer mode.

No, they really shouldn't. These games are better at ruining friendships than Monopoly. The point of the article wasn't to name the most popular bad board games, otherwise sure Monopoly and Risk would be up there..

You can play the D&D board games single player. :)

Play Mage Knight the Board Game. Amazing game, beautifully designed mechanics, and it plays fantastically solo. Other great solo games include the new Pathfinder card game, Lord of the Rings the Card Game, and Friday. But seriously, Mage Knight. So good.