One of the best parts of our jobs at Polygon is recommending awesome new games to play. Whether it’s indie games, cozy games, board games, or just the best of the year, we’re always trying to introduce readers to new and exciting picks. Lists are a great way to share a variety of great tabletop games in a short amount of time. But sometimes it’s fun to do something more personally curated.
That’s why we have this regular open thread dedicated to helping you, our dear readers, find the perfect board game, card game, or tabletop role-playing game to play right now. Want to start a month-long campaign with a close-knit group of friends? We have options, to be sure. Hoping for something short and sweet to kick off a longer night of gaming? We’ve got something that meets that need as well.
From 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. EDT, I will be in the comments section down below answering your questions and fielding requests for what you should play. We previously programmed this as a weekly movie column but will be moving that version to a monthly schedule with more non-movie recommendation threads coming your way week over week, including video games, comics, TV, and now tabletop games as well.
I should add that this is also a great place to share what you’ve been playing, if you want to talk about that with your fellow Polygon readers! Participation is very welcome, even without questions.
A little bit about me, your curator for this go ’round: I’m Charlie Hall, Polygon senior editor and the first and only tabletop editor at a major media publication here in the United States. I’ve been writing about board games, TCGs, and TTRPGs since before I even worked here — more than 12 years at this point. I haven’t played everything, to be sure, but I have my head on a swivel for the newest and the best in just about every category — from solid roll-and-writes to dark and stormy solo journaling games.
What am I playing right now? Well, Dungeons & Dragons night is Tuesday here for my group in Northern Illinois, and we’ve been playing together every week for close to a decade at this point. But that’s not all! I just kicked off a campaign of Arcs: Collapse and Conflict in the Void, the latest from Leder Games due out later this year. I’ve also been doing lots of reps of Life in Reterra, the latest from Diana Jones Award-winning designer Eric M. Lang. In between painting up more of my beloved Dark Angels Space Marines after work, I’ve even managed to get in a few rounds of Disney Lorcana’s newest set of cards with the kids.
Now it’s time to turn it around to you. What kind of tabletop game would you like to play this weekend? Maybe you know what you’re playing and want to share how much fun that game is! Are you painting anything that you want to show off? Leave a comment or a request below and I’ll get to it soon as I can. Details help, of course. Let me know a little bit about the other players at the table and what they might be into, the last few games y’all have enjoyed playing together or apart, and any other relevant info you feel like sharing.
Here are two examples of good queries from last week’s comics edition:
