The Best Board Games for Parties and Large Groups (2023)

1 year 3 months ago
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Many of the best board games are geared towards smaller groups of players. So what's one to do when you have a party or other gathering of fun-loving people in higher numbers? Thankfully, board game and card game makers have not left these scenarios in the cold. If you know where to look, you can find some awesome tabletop experiences that cleanly and elegantly scale up to 10 or even more players, giving everyone something to do.

If you’re seeking a good board game to break out at your next party, these are the best board games for parties and large groups.

TL;DR The Best Party Board Games

Don't want to read a bunch of words? These are our favorite party board games.

Wits and Wagers

  • Players: 3-7 (standard), 4-18 (party), 3-10 (family)
  • Playtime: 25 minutes
  • Also at Target

Do you enjoy trivia board games, but aren’t very good at them? If you answered yes, then Wits and Wagers is the game for you. It’s a trivia game, but instead of using your own answer, you bet on who got the right answer. So if a football question comes up and you have no idea how many Super Bowl rings Peyton Manning has, you can bet on your friend who is a huge football nerd. If they get the question right you earn a point. It’s that simple. Because you don’t need to be versed in every topic under the sun, Wits and Wagers is the most accessible trivia game around. There are three versions of the game, with the party and family games having easier questions than the standard version. The party game, as the name suggests, also accommodates more players. You’ll have no reason to go back to Trivial Pursuit after picking up Wits and Wagers.

Codenames

In this approximation of a spy thriller, players are split into two teams, with one player on each team assuming the role of “spymaster.” It’s the spymaster’s job to make their team name the codewords that will earn them points. In any given game, there are 25 available codewords arranged into a five-by five grid, and the spymaster must, without actually speaking the words, use a code phrase to describe what words belong their team. For example, if three of the words are “fence,” “tree” and “door,” the spymaster might say “wood, three” to indicate that three of the words might have to do with wood. Codenames depends heavily on the spymaster to think quickly, and poorly thought-out clues can lead to some hilarious arguments. If you tire of seeing the same codewords after a handful of plays, Codenames has seen severalexpansions and reimaginings since its 2015 release, which can add a great deal of replay value.

Time’s Up - Title Recall

  • Players: 3+
  • Playtime: 60 minutes

Like all the best party games, Times Up builds a neat twist into a very simple premise, in this case by combining the best bits of pop culture quizzes and charades. You start with a pool of 40 cards showing the titles of famous films, TV shows and songs which are used over three rounds of clues and guessing. In the first round, you can say anything other than the title on the card. In the second, your clue has to be one word. And in the third, it has to be a non-verbal pantomime. This escalating series of restrictions keeps delivering the most hilarious associations that only work because players have an idea of what’s already in the pool after the first round. A fascinating combination of trivia and free-association wordplay, and all fun, all the way.

Snake Oil

  • Players: 3-10
  • Playtime: 30 minutes

Cards Against Humanity has come to dominate store shelves and nearly every online party game recommendation list, but for my money Snake Oil is an infinitely better option. It sticks to a similar formula as CAH, but injects a healthy dose of player creativity. On the active player’s turn, they randomly draw a “customer” card. The other players then take turns pitching a product to that active player by combining two object cards from their hand. For example, if the active player draws the cheerleader card, other players must combine two cards in order to make an item that might appeal to a cheerleader. The sales pitches are the meat of the game, and it’s an absolute blast to watch your friends scramble to sell a “meat bicycle” or a “puppet helmet” to a caveman. In a perfect world, Snake Oil would replace Cards Against Humanity on every game shelf.

The Resistance: Avalon

The original The Resistance was a sci-fi bluffing game in which a pool of players had to discover and out rogue agents. The Resistance: Avalon shifts the action to King Arthur’s court and ups the ante with some new roles and rules to enjoy. Everyone gets a secret role and then loyal knights have to try and complete five quests while keeping Merlin alive. The Merlin player knows who is loyal and who is not, but can’t reveal this without also revealing who they are and painting a target on their back. There are various other named roles with special powers like Percival and Mordred, creating an incredible, escalating soup of paranoia in which players have to stew for twenty or so minutes. After which it’s almost irresistible to deal some new roles and do it all again.

Sushi Go Party!

Sushi Go! Is a simple, compact card drafting game released in 2013 that sold a huge number of copies. Because of its success, Gamewright was able to expand on the formula with Sushi Go Party!, a larger and more varied version of Sushi Go! The gameplay remains largely the same, with players choosing a card from their hand, playing it, and passing the rest to the player next to them. Party! includes several types of cards not in the standard version that mix up your strategy in different ways, and the variable setup means that every game will play out differently. As far as simple and quick party games go, it would be a mistake not to take a look at this one.

Bang! The Dice Game

  • Players: 3-8
  • Playtime: 15 minutes

The original Bang! was long considered a party game go-to, but one of the major complaints was its length--it was too long for what it was. The dice game version fixes this in a big way, and is now the best version of Bang! you can play. Players are dealt secret roles, with the sheriff revealing themself at the start of the game. Everyone is also dealt a random character card that gives them a unique power. A turn consists of a player rolling five dice Yhatzee-style, then applying the effects to the table, but because nobody is sure of the others’ role, figuring out who to deal damage to and who to heal takes on the form of a logic puzzle. There are different victory conditions depending on your role: the sheriff wins if all the outlaws are defeated, the outlaws win if the sheriff is defeated, and so on. Because of Bang! The Dice Game’s easy ruleset and quick playtime, it’s a great game to play while waiting for the rest of the party to show up.

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