It can happen to anyone: a friend of a friend joins for the evening and suddenly Catan is not an option.
What are your goto games in those situations?
These are my go to games for larger groups:
- Codenames: A modern classic! Works best with 6 or 8 people.
- Decrypto: For a more gamey version of Codenames.
- Wavelength: Fun party game that spikes interesting conversations
- Concept: Don’t play to win, just play to have fun guessing
I really like 7 Wonders, for 3-7 players and one round is also not too long with about 20 minutes ^^
With the Cities expansion it goes up to eight too. Pretty simple to explain and as turns are simultaneous the extra player doesn’t add any time (unless they are particularly slow)
Quest, which is an evolution of Avalon. It’s a quicker game, because the voting phase has been eliminated. Instead, if the evil team win, the good team have a final chance to find the bad people. If you do play this game, I highly recomment playing with the “Director’s Cut” rules. It can take 4-10 players.
Libertalia can go up to 6 players, and it’s one of my favourites. I slightly prefer the new Winds of Galecrest version from Stonemaier Games, but any version of this game is fine.
Another game I’m on the lookout for is Feed The Kraken, which seems to be an improved version of Secret Hitler, but with a pirate ship.
If you want to end up hating your friends - The Resistance. I love it but it definitely is not for everyone.
A lot of hidden role games are good for large groups. Lots of interactions, simple rules. Mascerade is great too.
For us:
- Bang!: spaghetti western with secret teams, up to 7 players
- Fuji flush: easy card game, up to 8 players
- Exploding Kittens: silly cards where drawing may make you lose, up to 10 players (with the expansion)
- Secret Hitler: a kind of werewolf where you have to create governments and pass laws, up to 10 players
I prefer Bang! The dice game over the regular Bang!, because it eliminates the early game where nobody shoots. There’s almost always someone getting shot in every round even if you have no clue about the roles yet.
Deception - Murder in Hongkong - for up to 12 people
Ethnos - area control/ set collection/ push your luck with very short turns; hard to get to the table with my group because of the art, but once we play, everyone liked it so far
Cosmic Encounter - classic game with a lot of diplomacy
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18/roborally - chaos & mayhem, aka. a lot of fun; can drag a bit if players don’t get the mechanics
At 6 players we mostly switch to party games.
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Just One is by far our favorite, works great with all sort of crowds.
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Secret Hitler is another we tend to play, doesn’t work well with the more casual folks.
Always interested in expanding this list, it’s hard to find something outside word games and social deduction that don’t have a ton of downtime.
My go to would have been Deception: Murder in Hong Kong which I think needs between 6 and 9 players to really shine, but discounting social deduction, I’d look at Captain Sonar. The downside there is the player count is brittle… I do agree with @Zipheir that Bohnanza works well from 4-7. If 6 is acceptable, Point Salad is fine and that means you don’t have to sort cards as you use them all.
Really, after 6 people, we break up into two groups. I mean, sometimes we break up at 6…
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For larger groups, we’ve had success with these:
Diamant
Bang:The dice game
Citadels
Skull
CamelUp
Just One
Fake artist goes to New York
Sushi Go:Party
Sidereal Confluence is a game that really starts to get exciting at 6+ players. It’s not for everyone, but for the right group it’s a blast!
Love this game too but you need medium heavy gamers or the rules may go over their heads
Blood on the Clocktower, but you kinda want 8 to 12 players for that.
Very similar, also suggest werewolf!
Catan has an expansion that supports more players. It makes the game longer, but I personally enjoy the change of pace.
Otherwise, there’s plenty of good suggestions on this thread already. Those that are of similar(ish) complexity and that I also enjoy:
- Bang! (Has player elimination, so make sure your friends are okay with sitting out for part of the game)
- 7 Wonders (Turns are taken in parallel, so much less down time. Great if you have slow players.)
- Sheriff of Nottingham
- Codenames (It’s marked as 2-8 players, but realistically, you can play with as many as you want.)
- Concept
With larger parties, you’ll often be waiting for that last person to arrive. Some simpler games if you want to fill that time:
- Coup/Complot
- Sushi go (Good warm-up to 7-Wonders if your group is new to the game)
Codenames isn’t really my type of game, since I don’t like abstract games and party games. And yet I have a lot of fun every single time I play it.
It’s a Wonderful World (up to 7 players with the expansion )a kind of 7 Wonders with resources and combos. Actually, we don’t play 7 Wonders anymore.
Condordia Venus (up to 6 players) very euro-style, move your workers on the map to build warehouses to gather resources to build more stuff and buy more actions…
Root (up to 6 players) very asymetric strategy game. It’s so asymetric that each faction plays a different game.
Demeter and Cartographer (almost illimited number of players) like tons of other roll and write, they are the perfect games when there are too much players for other games and you don’t want to play a party game.
Also, lots of games are fine if you add extra players with a few tweaks: Mansions of Madness, Pandemic, Res Arcana…
A good question and an interesting thread. At five, our group sometimes tries a substantial game like Viticulture or Power Grid. Knowing the game is critical, however, since many complex games are not at their best with five players. When our group hits six, we’ve recently been playing Mysterium, which is an excellent, simple investigation game with evocative art and a great deal of replay value. It’s surprisingly accessible for new players.
With even larger groups, we sometimes play Mascarade. This Bruno Faidutti social deduction game is similar to his later Citadels, but easier to get started with. Another hit has been Bohnanza, although its wheeling-and-dealing style may not appeal to quieter folks.
When we have players who are easily overwhelmed by lots of rules, we tend to fall back to Sushi Go. This is entertaining enough–though beware of playing it with hate-drafting Magic players.
EDIT: It’s “Mascarade”, not “Masquerade”.
I love draft games (Magic player here, but I don’t hate draft a ton). Been thinking about picking up Sushi Go but my current living situation severely limits my ability to play board games.
6 players is usually the threshold where I split into two games, so 5 is usually the mex I look for a game to support. Others have listed some great games in this slot.
One more obscure one Ill add is Veiled Fate. Great twist on thehidden role game, and supports up to 8 players.