CW: article contains swears
Each one of these items and tokens and sheets is important. Each one of these pieces have been carefully considered by brilliant designers. Their role is clear. If I looked right now, I’m sure every token is explained somewhere in a game manual that unfortunately reads like a VCR repair guide that’s been run through Google Translate eight times. ‘Remember to put the second deck over the initial deck so the last piece from the regular meeples pool does not cross into the irregular meeples pool before the dice rolls a zero’. That’s not an actual line in the manual; I’m too lazy to dig through a board game box that’s larger than the ones I use to move furniture. Someone will get mad at me about this and, honestly, they are right.
I’ve come to the same realization with regard to campaign games like Gloomhaven, as well as any board game that takes more than about 3 hours to complete, like Twilight Imperium or War of the Ring.
I enjoy these games and admire their epic scope, but the stamina and commitment required to complete them is too much for me and my middle-aged group. Congratulations to those who can manage it.
We play almost exclusively euro-style games, and the sweet spot for us is about 2 hours, plus or minus 30 minutes.