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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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The holidays are almost upon us: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and New Year’s. (Sorry if I missed any of them) For many of us, this means one thing: Playing games with folks who normally don’t play games, also known to some as eight hours of Apples to Apples.
Party games are a beast unto themselves. On the geek, there is a tendency to draw a heavy line between Euro family games and American theme games, with war games and abstracts poking their heads out from the corner. Party games, though, don’t fit into that classification system well. That just means our taxonomy needs some work.
Still, most of the people reading this blog probably do not focus on party games in their gaming life. Some of you, like a number of the folks I regularly game with, might even sneer at party games and consider them to not be ‘real games’. To that group, all I can say is “Sorry. Party games are here to stay and they have that dreaded mainstream appeal so there’s no escaping them.”
Sadly, this particular ramble is doomed to actually find a meaningful conclusion for one good reason. The definition of party game is so nebulous and loose that it’s hard to nail down exactly what it is. Sure, there is the helpful rule of thumb “I don’t know what a party game is but I know one when I see one” but that doesn’t apply to all cases.
There are some games, like Apples to Apples or Pictionary or Charades, that almost everyone will agree is a party game. It is worth noting that Charades is a public domain a game that doesn’t require anything at all, doesn’t necessarily have official rules (There may be a World Charades Federation that has annual championships out there and I just don’t know about it) and everyone knows how to play it. Party games run deep in our cultural heritage, even if we don’t want to talk about it.
Still, there are games that I consider party games, like Fluxx or Take It Easy or Winner’s Circle, that will make non-gamers back away from me cautiously before calling social services. And some of my friends consider Puerto Rico or Power Grid to be party games and anything lighter to not really be a game at all. (Yes, some of my nearest and dearest insist on living up to the worst of stereotypes)
Taking a look at Wikipedia, a party game is a game that is played as a form of entertainment (as opposed to for money, education or ritual sacrifice, I suppose) that can involve a large number of people, can involve teams and often includes humor. By that criteria, Advanced Civilization is a party game. (And my stereotypical friends all chime in “Now you get it!”)
Still, there are some generalizations that we can make. Party games, according to most people, call under the casual end of the playing spectrum and are meant to emphasize fun more than competition. People get divorced over Bridge and Diplomacy. If you get divorced over Balderdash, I’m sorry, that marriage was never meant to be.
So, in the end, I am sad to say that for those who will be playing with non-gamers for the holidays, you will probably end up playing games where dexterity, dramatic performance and knowledge trivia will be more important than strategy and tactics. Be careful not to let your guard down. You might slip up and have fun 
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