Tabletop games!!

[strangenova]

So I used to play magic the gathering and mage knight miniature, and I recently picked up machi koro.

I'm looking for suggestions of other fun and simple tabletop style games to play. Especially for me and the wife. She never really got big into challenging tabeltops.

[Nemoide]

Do you and your wife like anime? If so, I'd recommend trying out Cardfight!! Vanguard as an alternative to Magic. First and foremost, the anime-style art on the cards is great; one clan are all animals, another is robots, another is cyborg dragons, another are interdimensional football players, another are mermaid pop-stars... THERE'S A LOT OF REALLY RIDICULOUS CARD-CHARACTERS! What I really like about it is that it's really simple, the character cards are the only types of cards. Furthermore, I had a lot of fun just playing with a basic premade deck (the game is sold as premade decks or as booster packs). My only real criticism is that the booster packs are SUPER EXPENSIVE and you need TONS of them to build a deck using certain clans. If you want to play with a mermaid pop-star deck, be ready to fork over some hefty dough.

I also think Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride are both great boardgames that aren't especially complicated.

[KalessinDB]

Playing two player only? Or with others as well? Top of my head, fun board games that are easy to learn:
Red Dragon Inn (meh for 2 player) - The adventure is over, now enjoy drinking with your party but make sure not to run out of money or pass out first!
Lunch Money (meh for 2 player) - Take the role of a kid in the playground beating the hell out of each other. Great game if and only if you like smack talking.
Once Upon A Time - Tell a story using the cards in your hand and make your way to your ending, but watch out because everyone else is trying to take over the thread of that same story (this is one of my personal favorites with 3 of my best friends, routinely leaves us in tears and gasping for breath from laughter, but I hear that some groups just don't know how to play it)
Dixit (unplayable with 2 players, meh at 3, best at 4-6) - hard to describe, but beautiful art and pick out what your friends are thinking.
King of Tokyo - Kaiju. Fighting each other. Make sure to get the first expansion, it makes it significantly better with the upgrades.

I have other favorites, but those are the easiest to learn I think.

[strangenova]

I've been reading about catan and traders of Osaka as some probable choices. And most times we have at least a third player but there are times when we just need two player games.

Also I'm not trying to get into tabletops that require collecting like magic did. A singular expansion for a game is fine, I'm really wanting the expansion to machi koro.

[KalessinDB]

Catan is excellent, though a bit odd with only two players. Perfectly playable though. It DOES have a bunch of expansions, but in my opinion the only relevant one is Cities and Knights.

[Markies]

I'm going to assume that you guys are looking for something lightweight, so that is what I'll focus on. Here are some recommendations from my own personal collection:

Ticket To Ride - Along with Settlers, this game really revolutionized board gaming. The game can be taught to be anybody and in less than 5 steps. However, it is different each time you play and just an absolute blast.

Carcassonne - Another classic European Style game that is fun to play and very easy to learn.

Dominion - Very much like magic, but much easier to pick up. These three along with Settlers really brought board gaming back to the forefront.

Guillotine - Very simple and fun

Forbidden Island/Pandemic - Great co-op games, Island is better to start with

[strangenova]

What does that one add in?
I looked at the seafarers and it looked like a good expansion to me. Of course I have no experience with it.
And have you played the star trek version? I'm a huge trekkie

[KalessinDB]

Absolutely agree with Markies last three suggestions (there's a million Dominion expansions, but it's perfectly playable with the base set, they just add variety, no change of the core mechanics). Carcassonne has never really clicked with me personally, but I know it's very popular... And I haven't played Ticket to Ride in so many years that I barely remember it.

Cities & Knights makes some very major changes to the core Catan gameplay. It makes Knights significantly more useful by giving them a Barbarian to defend against, and gives cards that make a significant difference in the game's play style. I personally have a hard time playing standard Catan after playing Cities & Knights. Seafarers always seems like it could be neat, but for some reason in my gaming circle (even at its largest a decade ago when I still went to the local university's club so there was literally dozens to play with) NO ONE played it, so it never really got in my brain. I have not played the Star Trek version, though I've seen it, and as I understand it's nothing more than a reskin of the standard set. Which is cool enough I suppose, but will make expansions... Weird.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I'm going to assume that you guys are looking for something lightweight, so that is what I'll focus on. Here are some recommendations from my own personal collection:

Ticket To Ride - Along with Settlers, this game really revolutionized board gaming. The game can be taught to be anybody and in less than 5 steps. However, it is different each time you play and just an absolute blast.

Carcassonne - Another classic European Style game that is fun to play and very easy to learn.

Dominion - Very much like magic, but much easier to pick up. These three along with Settlers really brought board gaming back to the forefront.

Guillotine - Very simple and fun

Forbidden Island/Pandemic - Great co-op games, Island is better to start with

I agree with all of this 100% I always use Forbidden Island to get people involved in games and is a perfect example of how tabletop games have changed and for the better. I always prefer the idea of co-operative gameplay where the players are fighting against the luck of the cards instead of each other. Other games, like Pandemic take it a step further.

Other games I would suggest are, Castle Panic, which is a tower defense style board game where you and the other players must defend a castle from oncoming hordes. The game is really easy with two players, but becomes much more complicated with more players and the difficulty gets ramped up nicely.

If you guys want to get involved in something that feels a bit more like Role-Playing game, but is very easy and accessible, I would suggest Mice & Mystics. The game can easily be played with 2 players, but supports up to 4 players and you are given characters, skills and equipment as you play out these storybook chapters, each a self contained game with objectives and maps that all contribute to the over-arcing tale.

If you have four people playing regularly, I would very much recommend, Betrayal at the House on the Hill, which is a great horror game where players explore a haunted mansion, recovering evil relics. At a certain point, it will be revealed that one of the players is a betrayer of the party. Whoever found the last relic and in what room it was found in creates a dynamic task for each side to try. For instance, one scenario had the betrayer be an immortal murderer, trying to sacrifice us all. The only way we could kill him was by using this giant stone statue to move through the house and hurt him while we tried to evade him.

Another time, the betrayer was in league with this enormous tentacled beast and kidnapped a little girl and through her into this underground lake. We all had to swim in the lake, trying to avoid the monster and the murder and attempt to save the girl before she drowned.

There are huge numbers of possibilities in what can be done in the game and I highly recommend it for larger groups.

[GSZX1337]

If you like Mage Knight, you might also like HeroClix by the same company, WizKids. It's basically Mage Knight with Super Heroes.