Seconding this. My boys love their tablets and their Xbox, which I play with them and don't discourage (video games have their positives), but our real quality time is playing board games. It's wonderful to watch my four and six-year-old "get it" while interacting with them on a personal level. Earlier this year I discovered thrift stores are a wealth of games and I'll bring home a stack of new ones to try out every couple of weeks for less than $20. We try them out and it's like trying out novel ways of thinking much of the time. I highly recommend this as a way of connecting to your kids.
https://boardgamegeek.com/ has an active second hand market where you can find less mainstream games. I've personally bought a couple of games on there.
I got started with Stratego around age 7-8 after my dad taught me.
I showed my friend group and we got bored of the base game very quickly, so we started modifying it and making custom versions.
We had a double-wide version (just a hand drawn grid hanging off the side and custom pieces made out of cardboard and stickytape), rivers, boulders, tanks (2x1 pieces), 1v1v1, custom scenarios, etc.
We eventually moved on to HeroQuest and then discovered Warhammer (but couldn't afford it so we used to play our own DIY version with LEGO and dice).
Those rapid prototyping and iteration skills I learned at an early age massively helped me in life and they're used daily in my role as an Infra/Ops Engineer.
I also have a published board game (and hopefully more to come)!
For me, it's always a challenge to play board games with my kids.
They are now 8, 6 and 4, and none of them wants to lose. It always ends up with someone crying, sometimes with all of them crying (including the winner).
For other parents who have the same issue: I was able to "fix" this situation by declaring the winner as the person who is able to take defeat without crying. After that I mostly can declare all of them winners. Sometimes I'm able to end the game nicely like that.
Just saying that playing a board game with small kids is not always as easy as your imagine it to be.
EDIT: One more thing: there are some nice co-op games for kids, and with those I never have a problem. A real recommendation!
I believe dealing with your emotions (especially frustration in the case of losing) is one of the big teachings of board games.
At least, this believe is my only reason for playing certain games with my kids like Snakes-and-Ladders. I fail to recognize them as actual games because there are practically no decisions to be made. With most games, I can let my kids win by making stupid decisions. With Snakes there is no such option. The dice can force me to win and my kids have to deal with losing.
If they cry that means that they are invested and you are doing something they care about. I can't think of a better way to learn about how emotions can control you than surrounded by family in a safe environment where nothing truly important is on the line. You are doing grade A parenting right there.
For playing with kids try Forbidden Island. Has elements of Pandemic apparently (I haven't played Pandemic) cooperative, games typically don't take more than about half an hour.
When playing games, my children somehow never cared when they lost (we never made a big deal of it). They were enjoying the game itself (and sometimes ended up upset one on the other, but not because they lost but because the other one laughed, cheated, breathed the wrong way or whatever). Two boys, 2 years apart, from 5,7 to now (11,13).
They were astonished when they played with their cousins (whom they like a lot) and the cousins started to cry when they lost. Mine told them that they (the cousins) can "take the victory" if they want cause this is just a game.
Years ago when I was younger and overseas, I played Monopoly with a group of European 20-something girls and one of them ended up crying as defeat became clear.
Pandemic is THE classic of the group. Other things to try, keeping in mind this is for kids (or I'd suggest Legendary Encounters: Alien and Shadowrun: Crossfire) might be:
Forbidden Island (or Forbidden Desert, they're similar)
My favourite by far is defenders of the realm. Apparently it's very similar to Pandemic (which I've not played), but with an '80s D&D theme. In my experience it really sparks the imagination.
Thanks for sharing the anecdote. I think you should ask yourself why are they crying. Is it because they are hurt or because they expect something to happen by doing it, like you declaring them winners? I'll bet they still playing the "game"...
In this case, they won't get anything out of crying, so I guess it is purely out of frustration.
A lot of times, the winner also enjoys rubbing it in, and making the others cry. Kids have all the survival emotions, and none of the social skills to hold back on them. But that's probably our job as a parent, to teach them the social skills.
Better they learn it now, that when that colleague got that manager job they thought they were entitled to.
I've been pondering what the point [nowadays] is of all these board games I played as a child. Risk, Axis & Allies, Colditz, Monopoly, Stratego (I played all these games below the recommended game). As well as PnP RPGs, card games, and collectible card games. My problem is that, at an older age, I don't regularly meet friends anymore in physical space "just because", and on a birthday this doesn't fly either. Things like Friday evening RPG night? No way. Heck, I don't even have the friends anymore who are into that. That's what makes an electronic game much more accessible be it single player or MMO.
The answer is that as a teenager, we didn't have mobile phones etc (or well, barely) and we resorted to physical games such as card games. And as a kid, it was part of being friends with schoolmates, or (as you put it) playing with my parents. So we were already enforced, pretty much, being in physical space, overcome out boredom, and bended that to pleasure in such a way that we enjoyed being with each other.
The point being, that these games are still solid for youth and parents playing with youth. Heck, its partly even my problem that I don't initialise card games on a birthday.
Being autistic and opposite sex of my kid poses challenges though. Its still a long way down the road but while teaching them to become competitive in games and learning to win and lose seems invaluable, with a girl I'm inclined to not bother with violence or war-theme (or WWII) games. There's tons of these available, but it does pose limitations.
> I don't regularly meet friends anymore in physical space "just because"
We regularly invite some friends for a "game evening" not "just because". Have dinner together, bring the small kids to bed, then have a round of Dominion, Alhambra, whatever.
That does not work for long games like Axis & Allies, because you would need a whole day, though. Fortunately, there are plenty of shorter games as well.
Wow, I had no idea Phil Eklund was such a superstar! I met him waaaay back in 1990 when he still lived in Tucson and would bring his whacky home made games to the “Historical Games Society” club at the U of A. Way to go Phil!
I know Phil Eklund primarily from hard-core science simulations such as High Frontier and Biosgenesis. I do know him, but I wouldn't rank him among game design superstars such as Uwe Rosenberg or Reiner Knizia. His games are not exactly mainstream.
Speaking of which, this article suggests that boardgames are niche, but games like Siedler von Catan, Agricola, or the many, many games by Reiner Knizia, are absolutely mainstream. At least in Europe. I spent 1997 giving everybody Siedler von Catan for their birthday (and later the Dutch translation), so I would hope everybody vaguely interested in boardgames has it by now.
This does kind of happen. I have a friend who used to drag us to play Camelot in some strange bar. Fast forward 10 years, he translated or edited most of titles I play these days. As in, his name in credits of every other box.
I know it's not the main thrust of the article but to note: monopoly is supposed to end with one winner by a landslide because it was created as a critique of capitalism without land value tax. The original game had two sets of rules, one that was sustainable and one based on the current insanity you can find outside your window.
Since the article mentions Monopoly in passing: it is NOT fine for children; it was created to teach about inequality; it is a horrible game even for children (or especially for children).
It would be an okay game if it taught about the "X of Y" in which X is anything and Y is anything. But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland. (Of course, the players do have to play "correctly", which means "purchase everything you land on".)
> But really it's just a game of "who can roll the dice best?" where the players influence the outcome of the game as much as in Candyland.
That's mostly true, but deciding what to buy, how to bid, and negotiating for properties are all important parts of the game.
Part of the purpose of the game is showing how capitalism is unfair because it exploits people by randomness of birth and circumstances rather than their ability to work.
It teaches that property breeds property, and by the laws of compound interest, whoever gets a big lead first usually wins.
Everyone who's played Monopoly more than a few times quickly understands that:
1. If it's early and you have an opportunity to acquire property, you take it
2. If you are out of cash and land on an unbought property, it's usually best to mortgage your other properties. This teaches the lesson of how leverage and debt, judiciously used, is to the capitalists's advantage.
3. If it's getting later in the game, usually nobody should willingly grant someone else a monopoly unless they themselves get one in return.
My kid is 3 and loves Monopoly Junior. Every time anyone lands on one of her properties, she launches in to this apologetic refrain about how next time you can stay for free. She's gonna be a handful as a teenager.
TL;DR
1) Acquire cheap monopolies
2) Build 3 houses everywhere, no hotels
3) Deprived of houses, your friends lose without an economic engine.
4) Buy a better game (don't skip this step)
Can confirm that a game of Diplomacy will take a group of happy friends and turn them into scheming backstabbers who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives.
The solution is to only play Diplomacy with a group where everyone is a known scheming backstabber who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives! Have tried, can confirm it works. Good times.
If you want to play in one sitting, in-person you need 6 or 7 players for a good 6+ hours...So basically it's a game for college students (I played it a lot at uni).
As an adult you can try to online versions where you only do one move per x(usually 24) hours. The games last weeks but you can play remotely at your leisure.
I played Catan about 1000 times in 1997, and it did nothing to hurt my friendships. If your friendship can't survive this game, I wonder if there's any game it can survive. Well, there are friendlier games, but Catan is fairly middle of the road in how much you can screw someone over.
The only true dick move in the game is to trade away all of a certain good in lucrative trades, and then take it all back with a monopoly card. Most people have enough decency not to do that. Then again, at my house, we play it in a fairly friendly way and don't try to cripple each other unless we have to.
I regularly introduce new games to my extended family. They particularly enjoy Carcassonne and Cards Against Humanity although both engender certain playstyles; the uncle who dominates monopoly and risk loves to throw out a 4-sided connector against whoever is winning in Carcassonne. One aunt can't help but go for certain jokes regardless of whether they're the "best" jokes or not.
The one time we tried Catan I gave up not because the adults couldn't hack it but because my teenage cousins insisted on being involved but couldn't sit still long enough to set up the board and make it through a turn.
So for me the cultural conflict isn't about European vs American values reflected in game play as much as some people who need constant stimulation and have no patience. Considering the ubiquity of phones, ipads and the internet I'm not sure that ADD-like inability to focus is uniquely American. I think these games can also help teach kinds to slow down, decompress and pay attention if given a enough time but at least in my case I see these guys once a year at Thanksgiving which is not enough.
But glomming onto something mentioned in the article Mah Jong is popular with us because who wins isn't obvious until the game ends and who has the highest score may not be the person who declares Mah Jong. That makes the game more fun because everyone's involved to the end and it adds a layer of strategy as you're not just trying to up your score but block score-increasing moves by others.
Catan is still friendlier than many of its counterparts. In terms of the old marquee games, Catan is really most similar to Monopoly: buy property, barter with the other players, collect matched sets of things, and hope the dice make your property investments pay out. Obviously the topology of the game is completely different, but compared to the bloodthirsty game of Monopoly, Catan is quite congenial - youre not out to bankrupt the other players, just amass more VP than them.
Catan has significantly more adversarial aspects than Monopoly; Cutting off roads that players need, controlling the placement of the robber, choosing who to steal from, denial of trade of resources. I think one of the things that makes Catan so rage-inciting, is that it's quite common to take actions to deny the other players points, even if it has a negative effect on your overall position.
They are part of the game to keep it somewhat interesting for those who were unlucky in the early buildup. How would a game designed to minimize kingmaking not end up being an isolated race to the high-score?
Maybe you would not mind these forms of interaction so much in a game that is more upfront about them? On the surface, Catan seems to be almost cooperative, I could imagine the "politics" to catch some players by surprise, over and over again. Something with a darker theme might help to put some distance between personal relationships and gametable betrayals.
Junta for example, my all time favorite despite some really crude game mechanics is all about bought loyalties and backstabbing (or maybe I like it because of the crude mechanics, there is even an annoying Risk minigame that occasionally pops up to completely change the pace) Informal alliances sometimes rise and fall apart before the even first turn is over.
There's games that have less kingmaker impact - where your choices restrict the choices other players can make, but not to the extent that Settlers does. Consider just about any worker placement games where, say, five players compete for three three worker spots on a particular resource tile.
It sucks if you were one of the two players who didn't get a chance to place - but it doesn't feel quite as shitty as when someone occupies the only worker spot for a particular tile, just to spite you.
It's one of the most boring game out there. The losers and the potential winners are decided after a couple of turns. Then you're just powerless and waiting for the game to finish.
That's not really true, because dice luck is so important in Catan. You can have the best position in the world but if no one rolls your numbers there's nothing you can do to win.
Of course, this is still boring for a completely different reason.
We play a variant without the robber where a 7 means you just draw a resource of your choice. Much preferred if you aren't looking for a competitively enhanced game. :-)
We have a house rule that we re-roll 7s in the first two rounds. This after a 6 player game where the first round saw most people rolling a 7. It didn't particularly screw anyone, but it's just not a fun way to start the game.
Even with that rule, we usually only use the robber to hurt the leader. During the early game when nobody is clearly ahead, we prefer to place it on poor production fields, and use it just to steal a card.
This is not just fuzzy feel-good pacifism, it's good sense, because an enemy is not an asset, and it's harmful to make yourself a target. Hurt people who deserve it, but otherwise just go for the card.
Actually hurting someone with the robber at the beginning doesn't make sense even economically - most of the time you need to be able to trade with them.
My father once caused a game-long shortage of bricks and nobody - including him - was able to do anything. Lol. :-)
Agreed - kind of - since even in Carcassonne (Original and South Seas edition) there are opportunities to 'steal' someone else's farming/fishing territory, which inevitably prompts my wife to call me a "meanie". But I still concur with the overall principle, that opportunities for attack/conflict in these games tend to be indirect and somewhat secondary.
We did play it a lot as kids, meaning my parents, me and one of my brothers - it's pretty popular in German-speaking countries (well, for obvious reasons)^^
Scrabble, at a top level, is a game of memorizing as many words and combinations as you can. Some top players in english don't even speak english very well. That's a pure memory game.
Monopoly is a perfectly fine game. The problem is no one bothers to actually play it by the rules (auctions, no dumb house rules like fines go to free parking).
Monopoly is in its core a flawed game, because it was created as criticism against capitalism. The 'cutt-throat' way to play it is buying 4 houses on your streets, but not getting a hotel. Since there is a limited supply of houses, you prevent other players from getting better, then win by attrition. The title of the game is about getting a monopoly on houses.
I don't think that's the problem! It's (as noted in many online articles) the last 2/3 of every game is the richest person getting more and more so, until too long later they win. Kind of a drag for everyone else. (p.s. I play it by the rules.)
That was kind of by design to illustrate the evils of capitalism and advocate for a land value tax. Bit of a pity it didn't work. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_Magie)
I think what TylerE means is: A well-known criticism of the game is it goes on too long after the winner is already clear - and though _part_ of that is the game's design, _part_ of it is house rules that make the game take longer, like not auctioning properties and putting fines on free parking.
There are better games to play, though. Machi Koro is a card game with a similar theme and mechanics, but it removes player elimination and ends much faster.
How do you copyright game ideas? Say one has a game idea, pretty worked out. What would be next best steps to take, without being copied/stolen in the process?
Unlike startups, with boardgames ideas matter much more than execution. Copyright is the only protection for successful games from being duplicated, since materials are so cheap.
Wow, this explains so well why I despise Eurogames. Instead of eliminating opponents, everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary score limit is reached (or turn limit or whatever).
I play Dominion or Catan and I'm working away and suddenly somebody says "game over! I won!" and I'm thinking, well that was a waste of time. I'm resentful and frustrated - what did I do all that for if it ends at such a meaningless point?
At least with Dominion, I'd say that predicting when the game is ending and adjusting your play is an important part of the game.
And unless it's really one-sided (which sucks, and maybe there is an argument that Dominion lends itself to develop one-sided games without recovery) or whoever you are playing against is keeping mental count of everyone's point (which wouldn't be impossible, but I've never met someone actually bothering to do it) they won't be able to say "I won" before everyone has counted out their points.
When I play I always count victory points - how do you know what to do if you don’t know how many points people have or how close the game is to ending?
Adjusting your play during the course of the game as the game gets closer to ending is a crucial part of the game. If you’re surprised when the game ends you weren’t paying enough attention!
Exactly. I was paying attention to people at the table, to activity, to eating and drinking and socializing. You know, what you do while 'playing a game'.
Given that points tend to come from provinces/dutchies/etc, it's pretty easy to keep mental counts. When you've bought half the provinces in a three player game, and are not behind on dutchies, it's often safe to predict that you won the game, before any card counting.
Assuming that you really consider the destination to be the goal rather than the journey, Splendor and Patchwork are two highly rated cheap games that while they don't eliminate players early have no hidden information and transparent scoring as you go, with quality iOS apps if you want to try that first.
I think the downvotes you're getting are unjustified, yours is a valid opinion to have. Player elimination games can be excellent, but IMO mostly only if they're short. Love Letter is a great example. King of Tokyo/New York and Loopin' Louie are two others I have. Player elimination is a pretty good mechanic for short games, so I'm reading your comment as more of a perfectly legitimate complaint about long games with hidden information rather than a lack of player elimination.
Splendor has a small bit of hidden info - when you blind reserve a card, you get to look at it, but it stays secret from other players. However, blind reserves are very rare, so you’re basically accurate.
I host a gaming club. We're in test for 5 games. They vary from simple card games to collectible sets to party games to complex deck-building board games.
They all have one thing in common: they're social. You play with other people, rather than in the same room as other people.
I've watched some family members play Catan every holiday for years. They sit in virtual silence for 2-4 hours, all looking grim, hardly speaking. When its over, they seem relieved and exhausted. Its depressing.
Our club games have people talking constantly, laughing, chanting, enjoying themselves to the limit. They're fun. And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'.
It depends on the group that you're playing with. Catan with my family is fun because we chat the whole time, try to get each other in trouble, etc. Quiet time is pretty rare in Catan for us.
Actually the one game that really tells you the character of a group is Codenames. In certain groups, the entire game is super serious and quiet with lots of time spent on thinking, while in other groups the game is fun and filled with discussion and jokes and so on.
I get your point, but allow me to offer a counterpoint. A game I can play (and win) without concentration or any real mental effort is a dull game. Sure playing the games can be a lot of fun with the right people but then they're fun despite the game and not because of the game. The game itself is just a catalyst for social interaction (which I guess in itself is a perfectly valid scale to judge a game on). However I believe that if it's a great game I should also be able to enjoy playing it in virtual silence against complete strangers.
Ironically I consider Catan a game that is mainly fun because of the social interaction the results from it.
And that seems to me to be a critical threshold to deserve inclusion in the category 'game'.
Because you aren't thinking about the game right. Victory is elimination. Watch the other players like a hawk, keep an eye on everybody's score, and orchestrate a pile-on when somebody gets a visible lead.
Try playing some of these group games like Carcassonne or Splendor in a 1v1 format. 1v1 strips away the chaos and makes every victory a corresponding defeat, and teaches you the mechanics in their barest form.
Then you come back to a big 4-player table with a newfound grokking of the game.
I think a good game lets everyone play till the end AND gives them the opportunity to win at any time. Otherwise you lose too early OR have to look at the rest of the crowd winnig...
Monopoly is like that, and your point dovetails with the tendency of that game to end abruptly when someone quits in a rage. Who wants to spend dozens of rounds slowly, yet inevitably losing?
Playing with at least 3 or 4 players most games become more about diplomacy and getting other players to do what you want than getting good roll / cards. A good trick is to get hit hard at the start of the game (when you win a lot it is not hard to be a target) then once someone start getting ahead focus everyone on them while retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on. When you get in a position to win start speaking less to not attract any attention, don't use flashy combos. Then win.
If you play a lot, learn how one game can help you for next one: if don't break your promises or help someone when they need it; you may get some help next game. Or people will be a lot more willing to trust you, until breaking this trust can give you a win.
I'd like to specifically advise caution with the "gang up on the current winner" strategy.
One the one hand, yes, it can make games more fairly balanced. It works well when a) all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is, b) players are all playing to win, and c) players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally.
It can fail hard, though, and make a gaming experience more miserable. "retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on" reinforces the negative parts of the game play experience, and eventually you get people arguing over who's been screwed over worse. You get players who've had a strong showing arguing that "I'm not really the leader", and feeling singled out and attacked when they inevitably get ganged-up upon. Except then it's not merely their perception - the other players have discussed ganging up on them!
My immediate family is almost entirely board game enthusiasts, but arguments of that variety have almost driven apart that board-game-playing shared interest. Games such as Settlers of Catan are effectively banned, since they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments.
> all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is
It is even more fun when they don't. You can spend a lot of time arguing about who's ahead or on the way to be ahead and explaining why. I think the interaction between players is the most important in those games. Bluffing, teasing, making and breaking promises etc. If you want to play with no interaction just start a solo game on your PC.
But I agree with
> players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally.
and not only losing. I kinda like to be rough when explaining how someone missed some obvious better move than what they did (and this fucked-up what I had in store). But the colorful language is just for the game duration, out of it all is good.
> they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments
We ended making stats of attacks during some games to settle those arguments. Result: everyone was attacking everyone almost equally in fact. It was a fun experiment and explained why everyone felt as the only target during the game.
My friends and I used to play Risk a lot in high school. I won the first few games, and this strategy started being invoked on me from the very start of the game to just get me out. Made it decidedly less fun for me because I’d be eliminated then just have to sit there the whole night.
Eventually we discovered Catan and games got markedly better because of the game dynamics. Haven’t played Risk since those days.
Different people play games differently. On the converse, I find a game with elimination to encourage petty behavior and find the overall experience of longer games with big elimination mechanics to be arbitrary. I'm glad that Eurogames give me a chance to play without all of us attempting to specifically undermine the other.
A "build your own thing" game always needs a point at which you draw a line under it and count up and decide who won. The better games will find a way to at least vaguely integrate it with the theme - e.g. in Keyflower you play through Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter, in Barbarossa you play until someone captures Moscow.
Still, even for a straight "first to 10 points" or "play 5 rounds", to my mind the positives outweigh the negatives. If you play until all but one player is knocked out then a) most players are gonna lose in a very personal, direct way b) players who've lost have to find something else to do while the game finishes c) there's no way to predict or plan how long the game's going to go on for. A lot of competitions involve a fairly arbitrary limit - why run for 100m rather than 110 or 90? Why play football for 90 minutes rather than 80 or 100? Why do 18 holes of golf rather than 17 or 19? Why drive 3 laps in Mario Kart rather than 2 or 4? Sometimes all you can do is find a point at which to draw a line under it.
Sure its nice for everybody to be in it until the end.
I guess I object to a race that ends when somebody steps on a crack seemingly randomly, and the one with the most bling on their vest then wins.
Its the part about 'you have to come up with something to end it'. The theme breaks down then. Makes the game seem unfinished, like they couldn't think of some reasonable way to wind it up so they just gave up.
Pandemic ends when you contain the plague, or it kills everybody. You talk and socialize and cajole until the end, with everybody. There's a well-made game.
Couldn't you equally say that about games where everybody plays until the end after some arbitrary time limit is reached? Like uh football (of all kinds), basketball etc etc etc - most games/sports.
I agree with you to some extent, at least if the game does it poorly.
"Points reached, game over" is the only quibble I have with the two-player version of Agricola, "All Creatures Big and Small." The end game condition is reached far too quickly for my tastes so I wind up asking the other player if he or she would like to have a "house rule" of more points.
If you don't see the end of the game coming, you're not paying attention. In any case, the sudden end is better than the drawn-out torture that is Monopoly.
How is that meaningless ? Do you also consider races meaningless ? Do you consider most sports meaningless ? You probably don't like it because that's not how you learned to enjoy games, not because it's inherently worse than Ameritrash
Sports don't stop the race randomly because somebody has found 'victory points' under their chair. Payers' efforts are rewarded with clearly recognized progress (down the field/on the scoreboard). There are time limits and buzzers and some sense of tension. Not just grind along and then, randomly, 'its over, and you lost'.
It sounds like you just haven't properly learned to account for the strategy of the game, or are not correctly tracking win conditions and using them to inform decisions.
If you just blithely play out a self-centered strategy and are somehow surprised when Charlie claims the Longest Road card and declares himself the winner, then sure it might feel disappointing to lose.
Instead try to be aware that for the last two turns Amanda has been 2 ore away from completing her last city and winning, but someone would need to roll exactly a 9 to do it on her own, while Bob has already completed all his cities but is unable to build more roads and Caroline is staying one Knight ahead of his army size through the help of Amanda giving her resources for the greater good. Maybe your win-con is going to have to be to steal Amanda's longest-road card and build another settlement which is gonna be a long shot but maybe given Amanda's desperation for ore and everyone-but-you's unwillingness to trade with Bob, you can do it. Maybe you can beat the odds and come from behind, maybe you can't, but either way an abrupt "it's over you lost" can never happen -- only someone executing their win-con better than you did, with the table unable to stop them.
And hey having a 8 year old thinking about his Stratego setup, is a good thing!