There’s something about board games. Maybe it’s quiet tension or shooting the shit while someone takes way too long on their turn. It feels more present than most forms of entertainment. It helps you enter flow state better. It demands your attention for it to work. You’re not half-watching.

And yet, I rarely play them.

Getting people together is impossible. Somehow coordination has become a nightmare, mostly because people have gotten obsessive about rationing time. Everyone needs to be available at the same time, in the same place (or at least committed to showing up somewhere). As people get older, schedules tighten, priorities shift, and suddenly organizing a game night starts to feel like planning a performance of Peter Pan.

Then there’s the rules problem. Usually the person who wants to play knows the rules. They try to explain it, but people don’t get it that quickly. Some vaguely remember how to play, some skimmed the rule book five minutes ago, and some rolled in drunk. Teaching a complex game can take as long as actually playing it.

The problem is some of the best board games are the most demanding. It requires tracking resources, points, phases, conditions, and a dozen other variables. The flow breaks as everyone double-checks rules, counts tokens, or rewinds a turn.

Digital versions of board games do exist. They’re incomplete, clunky, or missing key aspects. Not every game gets an online adaptation, but it’s likely locked behind platforms that not everyone in your group uses.

I have a monthly game of Terraforming Mars with some friends from school who now live across the country. Logistically, it shouldn’t work as well as it does. We’re juggling time zones, busy schedules, and the inherent clumsiness of everyone being down to struggle learning new strategy every time a new DLC drops.

There’s something delightful about it though. Frankly, we just wouldn’t talk to each other all that much if we didn’t do it.

It’s horribly inconvenient. But we meet up every month to do it. It serves the same purpose as Thanksgiving.