Expanding Issues

Welcome back! If you’ve been following along, you may have noticed that I’ve mentioned in past posts that I have some issues with expansions to board games. No, I don’t hate them. In fact, I buy them more frequently than I play them. That’s not the problem, either, though.

See, when I’m trying to choose what to play, one of the things I’m doing (even if I’m not doing it mindfully) is gauging the hurdle I’d have to jump to get it to the table. Is it overly long? Is it overly complex for the group? What is the max player count, and is it fun to play with someone who can’t make decisions without a lot of pain?

Theses are all things I consider before I grab a box off the shelf (stored vertically, the correct way to store a board game). Most of these issues can be overcome or overlooked, given the right people and how much I want to play a certain title. I’ll stomach a three hour game if I have the time. I’ll teach something complex if the fun outweighs the teach. But there’s one thing I can’t seem to overcome.

I store my expansions in the boxes to the games they expand whenever possible. When I reach for a game with an expansion in the box, though, all I can think about is separating out the components. For some reason, this little job of determining what is in the expansion and what is in the base game stops me from choosing that game almost every time. It’s a mental hurdle I just can’t seem to get over.

For example: I love Istanbul. I think it’s a brilliant game of pathing and action efficiency. It’s fun to upgrade your cart and try to sell the perfect combo of goods to get that juicy gold to buy a ruby and win the turn before your opponent was going to. But since I got the Letters & Seals and the Mocha & Baksheesh expansions, I have been disinclined to pull it from the shelf. There’s just too much to sift through in that box.

And I’m not saying I won’t go through it. I’m not saying it’s too hard to be worth it or anything like that. In fact, I have the expansion bits in separate bags in the box. It would be easy to sort and play, honestly. But the mental block puts it behind other games, games that don’t have expansions to sort through in the box.

I love a good expansion, though. Maybe someday I’ll do a list of my favorites. That could encourage me to do the work and get them all played. Those Istanbul expansions might just make the cut!

Does anyone else have mental blocks when it comes to expansions? What stops you from picking a particular game over another?

Thanks for reading. As always, I appreciate your eyeballs.

~Justin