Glossary - tablegrok.com

A glossary for common board game terms. Please note that there is still an ongoing discussion for some of these terms, and people may have slightly differing views on their exact definition, we’ve tried to keep the explanations to the common consensus of board game terminology. Also note that when it comes to example games for different game mechanics, many board games combine several different mechanics in their gameplay, which is why example games for mechanics may appear in several places.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 0-9

A

Abstract – If a game is an abstract, or has a high level of abstraction, this generally means that it does not have much theme added. Some examples of this would be; Chess, Go or Shobu. However, games like; Hive or Azul are also considered more abstract than thematic even if they have some theme.
Action selection – This is a board game mechanic, where the player has a limited number of actions they are able to take on their turn, this creates a decision space where the player has to choose both the order and which type of action to take, leaving some actions unused.
Admin – The part of the board game that requires administrative work, for example resetting components, revealing cards and “cleanup”. I.e. the part of the game that does not involve actual gameplay.
Alpha player – May be a negative or positive description of one player at the table. In the negative sense this refers to a player bossing other players around and telling them how to play or pointing out optimal moves before the other player has had a chance to make a move themselves. This is a fairly common issue in coop-games. As a positive descriptor, this would mean a player that listens and guides the other players at the table, making sure they are working as a team without limiting player agency. Also known as “quarterbacking”.
Ameritrash – Slang for American style board games, while previously used in a derogatory sense, nowadays it’s simply a descriptor for a certain style of board game, since there are plenty of good Ameritrash games! An Ameritrash game is generally a game that involves a high degree of luck and dice rolling combined with a very strong theme and player conflict. Some examples of Ameritrash games would be; Zombicide, Horrified, Axis & Allies, Arkham Horror.
Analysis paralysis – Abbreviated as AP, this refers to over-analysis of the game state and player options that leads to an inability to make a decision. A game with a high level of analysis paralysis will lead to longer player turns, i.e. downtime.
Area control / Area majority – A type of board game where win conditions or scoring is based on how much of the board area you control or how long you hold it. Generally the concept of control is based on the number of game pieces a player has in an area. Some examples; El Grande, Star Wars: Rebellion, The King Is Dead.
Auction game – A game where the main mechanic involves bidding for areas, resources or victory points. Some say every board game involves some kind of auction mechanic at it’s core. Also called bidding games. Examples of auction games would be; Ra, Modern Art and For Sale.

B

Balance – The level of balance in a game relates to equally skilled players chances of winning regardless of player position, turn order or faction differences.
Beeple – A play on Meeple, but it’s a Bee..
Beer and pretzels game – There are some differing opinions on what defines a “beer and pretzels” game. Our view is it’s game that doesn’t require much effort or long term strategy, a game with low stakes with more focus on fun rather than, for example, efficiency and “thinky” gameplay. Examples: Kakerlaken Poker / Cockroach Poker, Skull, That’s Not Lemonade!
Benny / Beni – We’ve only ever heard this on the excellent “So very wrong about games” podcast, so we’re unsure of the spelling (promise to update once we’ve verified with SVWAG). This is short for benefit, it refers to any perk, bonus or other benefit a player may receive in a game, it can be both a temporary benny or permanent benny.
BGG – Boardgamegeek/boardgamegeek.com, the ultimate resource for board games. This site has an extremely impressive and extensive database of board games, where you can find all sorts of valuable information, like player count (both official and community voted best player counts), release year, links to reviews, forum discussions and much, much more!
Bidding game – A game where the main mechanic involves bidding for areas, resources or victory points. Some say every board game involves some kind of auction mechanic at it’s core. Also called auction games. Examples of auction games would be; Ra, Modern Art and For Sale.
Bits – This is slang for board game components, like meeples, miniatures, tokens etc.
Blind bid – This occurs in an auction/bidding game, when players bid secretly and only reveal their bids once everyone’s bid is locked in.
Brain burn / Brain burnery – The measure of the mental toll of decisions or considerations in a board game, if a game is “brain burnery” or has a high level of “brain burn” it’s gameplay will include mental effort and a lot of thinking to perform well.
Broken game – When a game is severely unbalanced or has a greatly overpowered strategy/faction. Or when a significant part of the gameplay is not covered by the games’ rulebook.

C

Card drafting – A game mechanic where players acquire cards by picking them from a shared display, or alternatively, from a hand of cards that is passed from one player to the next. These cards are then used to form a hand or deck of cards. Examples of games that include card drafting; Sushi Go Party! 7 Wonders and Point Salad.
Casual gamer – A player that enjoys simpler games or does not play very often. A hardcore gamer would be the opposite of this.
Catch-up mechanism – A game mechanic that allows other players to catch up with the leader, or gives them some sort of benefit that the leader does not receive.
CCG – Collectible Card Game, a card game where you typically buy boxes, starter sets or booster packs of cards and then form a deck from your pool of cards to play with. Generally there is a basic ruleset that governs the gameplay but new editions of cards may alter, build or evolve upon this ruleset. Also referred to as a TCG (Trading Card Game). Examples are; Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!
Chit / Counter – A small token used to represent units or elements in a game.
Chrome – Something that has been added to a game, like components or mechanisms, that are basically unnecessary, but they add to the theme of the game.
Closer – A game that’s fitting to end a gaming session with, usually it’s short and does not require much from the players.
COIN – Originally, this refers to the Counterinsurgency Game Series, but these days it’s often used to refer to a wargame with asymmetric factions.
Components – A catch-all term for board game pieces, this includes the actual game board, the dice, meeples, tokens and miniatures.
Con – Short for convention.
Cooperative game / Co-op – A board game where the players work together to beat the game system. Examples; Pandemic, The Siege of Runedar, Spirit Island.
Core group – The group of people you usually and consistently play games with.
Crib sheet – A quick reference sheet/card, commonly lists important information or available actions for player convenience. Also called a “Reference card”.
Crunchy – If a game contains tough and interesting decisions it’s considered crunchy. It’s also used to refer to games that feature advanced calculations. So just like “brain burny” games they generally require plenty of mental effort. The opposite is when a game is referred to as “fluffy”.

D

Decision space / scale – The measure of meaningful decisions available to you during the game. Both in variety of options and the complexity of them.
Deck building – A mechanic where the player builds a deck of cards, commonly via drafting, with a high rate of discarding and reshuffling of the deck. Examples; Dominion, Dune: Imperium and Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game.
Dexterity game – A game where the main mechanic is based on physically manipulating the game components (simply rolling dice does not count), where a player can flick components like projectiles, place or remove components or balance things on each other. Simply put, plenty of physical interaction with the games’ bits. Examples would be; Rhino Hero: Super Battle, Meeple Circus, Jenga and Klask.
Dice drafting – A game mechanic like card drafting, but the players draft dice, usually from a common pool. Examples; Twice as Clever! Roll Player and Grand Austria Hotel.
Dice manipulation – A game mechanic where players are able to modify or re-roll their dice results.
DM – Short for Dungeon Master. In a role-playing game one person is the Dungeon Master, this is the person that knows all of the rules (or most of them hopefully), controls the world and the non-player characters within it, and generally tries his or her best to keep the story on track.
Downtime – This is a measure of how long a player must wait for their turn. A board game with zero downtime means the players act simultaneously or are allowed to make some limited actions on another players turn. A board game with a lot of downtime usually means a game with a lot of brain-burny, crunchy decisions where it takes a while before a player may take their next turn due to other players turns taking a while.
Drafting – A general term for selecting an entity from a “common” pool, it could be cards, it could be dice, it could be tiles. The “common” pool could be visible to all players at all times or semi-hidden, for example, drafting from a hand of cards being passed around.
Dry – A dry board game is very low on theme, and very mechanics focused. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Dudes on a map – DOAM games are generally conflict-focused games, but the term itself refers to games where the gameplay involves the placement of a large amount of figures, meeples or miniatures on the game board. Examples; Kemet: Blood and Sand, Axis & Allies, Inis.
Dungeon crawl – A term more commonly used in connection to RPGs, but there are board games that are classified as dungeon crawlers as well. This means a scenario where the players are navigating a dungeon-like environment, encountering monsters, treasure and traps while exploring rooms and the corridors connecting them. Examples; Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Mansions of Madness.
D6 / D20 /DXX – The “D” is short for dice or die, and the number indicates the number of sides on the die, so a D20 is a twenty-sided die. If you were to refer to multiple dice, the “D” would be prepended by the number of dice, i.e. 3D12 would be three twelve-sided dice.

E

Economic game – Games where the gameplay centers on modelling the economy of industry, cities, transportation and so on. Usually the game-engine involves generating resources, gaining income and re-investment while developing your own player engine. Examples; Puerto Rico, CATAN, Agricola.
End-game – The final phase of a game, when the game is near it’s resolution and the winner will be declared. Many games have end-game strategies that differ from the mid- and early-game.
Engine builder – A game where you are building an “engine” that (hopefully) feeds itself, some games you may have a degree of automation, others you have to manually activate your engine, in any case the objective is to grow and evolve your engine in order to win. Examples; Terraforming Mars, Splendor, Everdell.
Euro / Eurogame – Refers to games that are more focused on mechanics and less on theme, however, this does not mean there is no theme, simply that it takes a backseat to the mechanics of the game. The origin of this genre is Germany, which is why they are referred to as Euros. Generally there is much less focus on conflict and player elimination, and they are not as luck-based as Ameritrash / American-style games. Examples; Brass: Birmingham, Kanban EV, Gaia Project.
Eurotrash – A derogatory term for European-style games, may also refer to a European game trying to emulate Ameritrash games, with high level of theme, player conflict and luck-based mechanics.
Experience game – These are games where the goal is not winning, but rather the shared experience when playing. Party games, story-telling games or Role-playing games fit in this category.

F

Face – Side of a card, face-up is when the information on the card is shown, face-down is when the information is hidden.
Fart factor – This is a measure of the sound emitted by a board game box when closing.
Fiddly / Fiddliness – If a game is fiddly this usually means there is a lot of smaller physical manipulations, minor calculations or the like that have to be made while playing a game.
Filler / Filler game – This is a game that is light and fast to play, a game that you play in between larger games in a gaming session.
FLGS – Friendly Local Game Store, support them!
Flip the table – The board game equivalent of rage-quitting, it doesn’t need to be literal, but generally involves disrupting an ongoing session in some way when quitting. It’s considered bad form.
Fluff / Fluffy – Games with simpler rulesets and rich stories, where the focus is on the theme and story rather than tough decisions. The opposite would be “Crunchy”.
Follow action – This is when a player takes an action during another players action on this other players turn. Usually a “follow action” will be a weaker version of the action that the active player took.

G

Gamers’ game – A heavy, mathy, crunchy, less accessible game may be called a “gamers’ game”. Usually requires repeated plays to learn and master.
Gateway game – A game that is accessible and easy to both learn and teach, perfect for non-gamers getting into the hobby! Examples; Ticket to Ride, Codenames, For Sale, Carcassonne.
GM – Game Master, another term for Dungeon Master, since not all Role-playing games are Dungeons & Dragons, GM is more fitting in those cases. May also refer to the person who organizes board game nights or tournaments.
Going nuclear – When a player sabotages another players chances of winning, at their own expense.
Grok – To grok something is to profoundly understand it, intuitively or through empathy. In the case of board games, if you grok a game, you have a deep understanding of it’s systems and mechanics and you excel at it.

H

Hand management – Mechanic where the order of the cards played is important, often due to cards having combo effects that require one or several cards to be played in a certain order. Examples; Ark Nova, Spirit Island, Jaipur.
Hardcore gamer – A gamer that likes heavier, longer more crunchy games, or a person that plays a lot of board games. Opposite of “Casual gamer”.
Hate drafting – This is when a player drafts a card (or similar) to deny it for another player.
Heavy / Heaviness – This refers to games with a high degree of complexity, both in mechanics and rules, and generally take longer to play. Games involve “crunch” and require a lot of the players.
Heft / Heft factor – The actual weight of the board game, a high heft-factor generally means a lot of components.
Hex – Hexagon, a six-sided shape often used in war-games since it can cover a surface while adjacent hexes have all sides touching a side of another hex rather than a point (as squares would).
Hidden movement – Games where a players movement on the board is hidden from the other players, usually tracked by laying cards face-down or simply noting their location each turn. Often the other players that are moving in the open are the hunters, and the hidden player the hunted. Some examples; Letters From Whitechapel, Sniper Elite: The Board Game, Captain Sonar.
Hidden role – Games where one or more players are assigned a secret hidden role, perhaps as a traitor who secretly works against the other players. While a key component in social deduction games, there are other games where the goal isn’t to deduce or reveal the hidden player, but rather win in spite of them. Examples; Nemesis, Unfathomable, The Resistance.
House rule – This is a term for unofficial rules added to a game by individual groups of players. This could mean adding new rules or modifying existing ones. Usually the purpose is to make a game more fun, balanced or account for scenarios that the official rules do not cover.
Hybrid games – These games combine American-style mechanics with European-style mechanics, where a strong theme is present, but it still has tight and engaging mechanics. Sometimes referred to as “Eurotrash”.

I

J

JASE – Just Another Soulless Eurogame, a derogatory term for uninspired and unoriginal Euros, often mimicking or copying both theme and mechanics from other games.

K

Kingmaker – When a player is in a position to determine the game’s winner they are called the Kingmaker, usually this player is not the one in the lead.

L

LCG – Living Card Game, while closely related to CCGs, LCGs do not contain a random assortment of cards in their packs, but rather, the contents are known.
Legacy game – A game that is designed for a limited number of plays, where permanent changes are made to the game, components are destroyed, the game board is modified, new components are introduced and so on. Often these kind of games feature branching story lines based on the players choices. Some legacy games can be restored after finishing them, but most require special component packs to reset the state of the game, or they can not be reset to their original state at all. Examples; Pandemic Legacy, The Kings Dilemma, Betrayal Legacy.
Light game – A simple games, with few rules and low complexity. Filler games are often light.
Luck mitigation – When a game provides options to minimize luck based outcomes, for example dice modifiers that add to your result, this is called luck mitigation.
Leeching / Leaching – When a player benefits off of another players hard work without contributing themselves.

M

Mathy – When a game requires math during gameplay or to calculate scoring.
Meaty – A game that requires a high level of mental effort, but does not necessarily have complex rules or mechanics.
Mechanics – A function within the gameplay of a game, there are plenty of different mechanics in modern board games, like drafting or worker placement. Most modern games implement several different mechanics that work together.
Meeple – This refers to figures or pawns used in a game, and it may take many different forms while still being referred to as a “Meeple” or “Meeples”. For example, in Survive: Escape From Atlantis there are, among other pieces, shark-fin pawns, these could still be referred to as “Meeples”.
Meta / Meta-game – This means applying knowledge or attitudes from outside of a games rules or boundaries. Adjusting your gameplay due to personal grievances would be an example of meta-gaming. In Role-playing games, it could be using knowledge you have as a person, while your character does not.
Min Max / Min Maxing – Optimization of play, sometimes to the detriment of gameplay and/or fun.
Minis / Miniatures – Generally this refers to figures that have a high level of detail and specifically made for a certain game or game system, and are expected to be painted.
MSRP – Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price, this is the recommended price for a board game sold in a store.
Multi-player solitaire – Refers to games where there is minimal or no player interaction, many see board games as a social activity, which is why Multi-player solitaire is often seen as a negative term.

N

Negotiation game – A game where the main mechanic is negotiation between players in order to trade resources, secure votes or make other deals with each other. Examples; Chinatown, Diplomacy, Panic On Wall Street!
Nis – If a board game is nis, it’s new and still in it’s shrink-wrap.

O

OLGS – Online Game Store.
OOP – Out Of Print, there’s a lot of older games that are no longer available, even some popular newer games may be hard to get a hold of.
OP – Overpowered, when a strategy, tactic, ability, action or faction in a game is unbalanced (in their favor) they are referred to as Overpowered.
Opener – A game to play at the start of your gaming session, with simple rules and mechanics that don’t require much from the players. A warm-up game.
Orthogonal / Orthogonally – This means right angles, i.e. up, down, left, right. If a game piece can only move orthogonally, it may not move diagonally.

P

Party game – Games made for bigger groups of players, usually with lighter mechanics and a bigger focus on social interaction, communication and artistry. Examples; Decrypto, Pictomania, Telestrations.
Pasted on theme – A term used when the connection between the game’s mechanics and theme is very weak.
Perfect information – When all players have access to all available information, when here is no hidden information regarding abilities, player moves etc. Additionally there should be no randomness in the form of dice rolls and the like, so that any possible future move can be accounted for.
Player elimination – When a player can be permanently removed from the game, some games feature “partial” player elimination, where they may continue to participate but in a greatly reduced capacity (ex. as a ghost).
Player interaction – A measure of the degree to which players can affect each other, this does not necessarily mean direct conflict between players, it may mean negotiation or blocking worker spots in a worker placement game. A game with very little or no player interaction is commonly referred to as “Multi-player solitaire”.
Playtest – When a prototype game’s rules and gameplay is evaluated before a release-worthy product is reached. This is an iterative process, where improvements or changes are implemented after every playtest, and then re-evaluated.
Point salad – A term that refers to a game where there is a plethora of ways to score points, sometimes to the degree where the game lacks focus and strategies.
Print and play – A game in PDF (or another suitable format) that can easily be printed at home. In some cases they do require additional dice, or some other non-printable component, to be provided by the player(s). There are plenty of free ones available as well as paid ones, usually the cost is very low.
Punch a game – To prepare a game for play by removing the shrink-wrap and punching the tokens and other components from the punchboards, basically any preparation that involves getting the “bits” ready for play.
Push your luck – A mechanic where a player may repeat an interaction, but it involves higher risk of failure each time the interaction is performed. Usually failure means the earned benefit is lost.

Q

Quarterback / Quarterbacking – May be a negative or positive description of one player at the table. In the negative sense this refers to a player bossing other players around and telling them how to play or pointing out optimal moves before the other player has had a chance to make a move themselves. This is a fairly common issue in coop-games. As a positive descriptor, this would mean a player that listens and guides the other players at the table, making sure they are working as a team without limiting player agency. Also known as “Alpha gamer”.

R

Race game – A game where players, you guessed it, compete to be the first to reach the finish line. This does not necessarily mean roll a few dice and move, a game like The Quest for Eldorado for example, involves deck building in order to traverse the board. Examples; Downforce, Flamme Rouge, PitchCar.
Rage quit – To quit a game before it’s conclusion causing the game to be disrupted, one could argue that even if a player “rage quits” without being upset or frustrated this would be disruptive to an ongoing board game, since the game would immediately become unbalanced if the player count changes. It’s considered bad form.
RAW – Rules As Written is a term referring to interpreting rules exactly as they are written in the actual rulebook, without involving other sources or personal interpretations of their meaning, even if they seem illogical. For example, if there are several editions of a game and a certain rule differs between editions, players may be wish to compare the differences and come to a rules compromise. There is nothing inherently bad with either approach, many times groups implement “House rules” to make a game more fun or balanced.
Reference card – A quick reference sheet/card, commonly lists important information or available actions for player convenience. Also called a “Crib sheet”.
Replayability / Replay value – A measure of how much “staying power” a game has, if it will still be enjoyable after repeated plays. A game could have a higher replayability due to it’s depth or complexity, a large number of possible strategies or it could also mean that it’s modular in some capacity, where you would not see all the game has to offer in just one or two sittings.
Roll and move – Mechanism where the gameplay is driven by rolling a die or dice then move according to the results, since randomness drives the gameplay, this is generally used as a negative descriptor of a game.
Roll and write – A game where the players roll dice and then record the results on paper (or a dry erase board). Variants are “Flip and write” or “Draw and write”, where a card is drawn or flipped instead of rolling dice. Examples are; Cartographers, Welcome To.., Railroad Ink.
Rondel – A game mechanic based on a circle, where actions or resources are only available depending on the player position or the position of the rondel itself. Accessing certain areas of the rondel may require resources or incur some other cost.
Round – When all players have taken a turn this generally constitutes a round, however, some games allow the players to take several turns before a round is complete, for example as long as they are able to take actions they may take another turn. Some games have capped round limits, others have conditions that have to be fulfilled before the game ends.
RPG – Role-Playing Game, a game where the players assume character roles, where the expectation is for them to act out these roles, the game is run by a GM or DM who plays all the other parts and describes the world and the consequences of the players actions.
Rules lawyer – Someone who adheres very strictly to a game’s rules and often takes great care to avoid and correct any mistakes or misunderstandings. In the negative sense it’s used to describe someone who consistently tries to interpret the rules to their own advantage.

S

Setup – The phase before the actual gameplay where all the components are placed, decks are shuffled, starting cards are passed to players etc.
Shelf of shame – May not be a literal shelf, but represents games in that have been in someone’s collection for a while that they still haven’t played yet.
Shelfie – A selfie taken in front of shelves filled with board games.
Sleeves – Plastic card sleeves used to protect cards from wear and tear.
Slog – Describes a game that is boring or a pain to get through.
Social deduction – A game where a major goal is to figure out players secret roles, and/or hide your own, which will generally help you win the game. Examples; Secret Hitler, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, The Resistance.

T

Tableau / Tableau builder – A game where you have a personal collection/”gallery” of cards, most often built over the course of the game that forms your tableau. This may represent your engine that provides you with resources, or actions that benefit you or perhaps punish the other players. Some examples; Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, Wingspan.
Table hog – When a game takes up an inordinate amount of space on the table it’s called a table hog.
Table presence – This describes how a game looks on the table, if it has high or good table presence this means it’s visually appealing. It could also mean it has impressive components.
Table talk – When players talk about non-game related subjects at the table. It’s also sometimes used to describe game related talk, where players refer too their hands or other players.
Take that – A mechanic or part of the game where players can take actions to punish or affect other players negatively.
Tap – To tap a card is to activate it, usually indicated by rotating it 90 degrees. The origin of the word is Magic: The Gathering.
TCG – Trading Card Game, a card game where you typically buy boxes, starter sets or booster packs of cards and then form a deck from your pool of cards to play with. Generally there is a basic ruleset that governs the gameplay but new editions of cards may alter, build or evolve upon this ruleset. Also referred to as a CCG (Collectible Card Game). Examples are; Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!
Theme / Thematic game – What the game is about in “real terms”, i.e. are you raising sheep, brewing beer, conquering Australia and so on. Generally a game that’s described as a thematic game has a very developed theme, high level of player interaction, luck-based mechanics. Yes, this is also called Ameritrash. The opposite would be an Abstract.
Thinky – If a game has strategic depth and makes you think, it’s considered thinky.
Tile laying – A mechanic where the players place components onto the playing surface.
Train game – A game where players build transportation networks or pickup and deliver goods along routes.
Trick-taking – When players take turns playing cards, where the winner of the “trick” receives the cards played during that round. Usually players have to follow suit and highest card wins the “trick”.
Turn-based – When players take their turns in order, one at a time, there are games that allow simultaneous turns.
Turn order – The order in which the player takes their turns, not all games follow a clockwise or counter-clockwise turn order, it could, for example, be based on the order of which players ended the previous round.
Turtling – If a player plays very defensively and does not engage with the other players this is called turtling.

U

Unbalanced – If a game, for example, has a faction or a strategy that is superior to others it would be considered unbalanced.
Under-developed – If a game has mechanisms that are disconnected, do not really add anything to the game, or they do basically the same thing, the game would be referred to as under-developed.

V

Variant – Alternate way to play a game, it could modify rules, add components or game-modes. For example a game may have a solo-variant (single-player).
VP / Victory points – Points earned during gameplay and/or the end-game phase that count towards the victory of the game.

W

Weight – A measure of a games complexity, boardgamegeek.com uses a scale of one to five, five being the most complex.
Win condition – The requirement(s) to win a game.
Worker placement – A mechanic where placing meeples or other tokens on locations gives you that locations benefit, which may be resources, income, actions or anything really. Normally this will prevent other players from claiming the location.

X

Y

Z

Zone of control – A term normally used in wargames to indicate the area where a unit can affect an enemy unit, this could mean attacking it, preventing movement and so on.

0-9

18XX – This describes a type of railroad-themed game with a stock market mechanic. There are a wide array of 18XX games, while there are plenty of variations the corner stones are trains, railroads and stocks.
4X – This refers too eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate. Strategy games that most often involves building a civilization, most commonly based in space, but may also be based on earth.