Every now and then someone has a shot at ‘removing bias’ and ‘fixing’ the rankings on BGG to give a ‘more accurate’ view of the top-rated games, perhaps better reflecting their own views of what’s worthy.

We all know rankings mostly means squat except to fuel gaming conversations. If a game is top 1000 it’s going to be playable, top 200 piques interest, and that’s about it. If it’s in your wheelhouse, you’ll enjoy it regardless of ranking.

An argument I’ve seen is that most people rate lighter games lower and heavier games higher and this is a bias that needs removing. I rate games on how much I think I’ll want to play them again when the conditions suit (number of players, time available, depth and luck desired, etc). So I have no problems giving Bluff a 10 (as an opener, 20 years, still going strong), or the best card games 9s and 10s (end-of-night closers, lots of opportunity to play). Maybe most people don’t rate as I do.

Here’s an alternate view. Lighter games have a lower barrier of entry. Everyone and their dog has played them. There are plenty that love it, plenty that don’t, we get a wide and accurate average rating. Heavier games have a higher barrier of entry. If you know that Frosthaven isn’t your type of thing (especially if you tried Gloomhaven), you won’t play it, you won’t rate it. Only people who love it will rate it. High rating.

Let me proffer Alison’s Rankings Postulate #1: The amount that self-selection bias affects the average rating reduces proportionately to the barrier of entry.

I also feel recency bias and self-selection bias are often conflated. Self-selection bias means me not adding a likely low rating for Too Many Bones (which I have no interest in playing). Recency bias (to me) is rating New England an 8 when it came out and a 6 now, 20 years later. It was great for its time when we didn’t have better – it got an 8 due to recency. There are so many better games now, and so many I know I’ll enjoy more – if it were released now, it’d be a 6.

We intuitively take these things into account when we look at rankings. I will add one thing though: any revised ranking system that results in Quacks of Quedlinburg (perfectly fine game that it is) being in the greatest 30 games ever raises eyebrows.

New-to-me games played recently include …

BEER & BREAD (2022): Rank 731, Rating 7.4 – Almes

This 45 min 2p effort was better than I expected from reading the rules. I particularly appreciated that it wasn’t just 6 rounds of rinse / repeat. Alternate rounds had you gaining / playing cards using different approaches. There’s planning re what cards to use for resources, what cards to score VP recipes, and what cards to play for upgrades (and how many early vs late?). Some rounds you’ll swap hands so there’s luck in what comes back, as well as with what you draw and whether it matches your stored resources. But there are lots of interesting decisions and I liked the blend it had with making the best of what comes your way.

Rating: 7

CASCADERO (2019): Rank 2264, Rating 7.4 – Knizia

Place a camel, er, envoy on the map, but unlike Durch Die Wuste you can place it anywhere on the map. Your aim now (mostly) is to be second into an oasis, er, town because you move up that town’s colour track faster than if you’re first. Moving up the tracks give VPs, some important bonus actions and is a requirement for winning, but points also come from joining up towns of same colours and different colours. So there are races in a number of things to be mindful of but it’s so easy for big envoy group plans to be scuppered (given anyone can place anywhere) that I imagine your play experience will be shaped by whether your colleagues are focused on themselves or on others and what type of experience you enjoy most – that meanness possibility did mark it down a little for me, combined with being a little too samey, grindy and abstracty given its length.

Rating: 6

CASCADITO (2024): Rank 7973, Rating 6.6 – Knizia

The roll-and-write version of Cascadero which strangely I found more enjoyable, probably because map collateral damage was removed. Use a coloured die from the draft to fill in a space next to a same-coloured town on your own map. Aim to connect up same and different coloured towns and progress up colour tracks. Similar, but no one to mess with you, just the dice gods, but still lots of decisions to make, see how you go. There are 4 different maps with different layouts, goal-conditions, etc to explore for variety. It’s still not going to set your R&W world on fire – it’s simple stuff – but it’s fine and playable.

Rating: 6

DICED VEGGIES (2023): Rank 2890, Rating 7.1

Pool all the dice using a billiards triangle type frame, but square. Your turn is to carve off dice that can slide out from an edge with a total value <=10 and use the gained dice to fulfil recipes for points. Gain extra points by satisfying bonus cards (which are usually linked to the dice values, whereas the recipes only care about colour). Do the best you can with the recipes available to you in the draft and whatever dice are left in the pool, hoping you can mesh the two. It’s easy to teach but a bit slow as dice choosing isn’t always easy, and slow doesn’t usually fare well with games that feature lots of luck, as this does.

Rating: 6

THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING: TRICK-TAKING GAME (2025): Rank 4131, Rating 8.1

It’s a co-op trick-taking game a la The Crew but for each chapter (aka mission) players choose from the thematically allowed set of characters, each with their own task (X tricks, X of a number or suit, etc). Choose a character that best matches your hand. Most allow a card exchange with other characters – there are no comms so the exchanges must do your work for you. Each player must achieve their task to proceed to the next chapter. Having played The Crew 350+ times and loving the theme here … just sign me up.

Rating: 9

HARVEST (1992): Rank 4166, Rating 7.3

It’s an older Japanese game that is both stupid and surprisingly fun at the same time. Place a board for each player, each made of 4 squares. You place a veggie card on one of your squares, or if there’s a card still on your board you can place it anywhere, aiming to get a row of 3+ of the same type at which point they’re removed and score for the players whose boards they were on. Continue on. Which means setting up yourself and your neighbours to score co-operatively as much as possible whilst taking the opportunity to play negative cards on other boards and getting those scored for those players whenever you can. It’s quick turns of play 1 draw 1 until the deck runs out which is about 10 minutes of thanks, curses, and laughs.

Rating: 7

RATS OF WISTAR (2024): Rank 1136, Rating 7.6 – Luciani / Sabia

This is clearly a good game and I’ll do my best to be fair; it’s just that I had a horrible experience with it on BGA where the playing time doubled and the interface had me in tears at one point after an ‘undo’ had me re-doing a 5 minute convoluted turn, scrolling up and down forever. It’s worker placement, 3 per round, 5 rounds. Each worker gets a main action and a bonus action and in an interesting mechanic, the sets of 1-3 bonus actions linked to each main action rotate along to the next main action each round. Turn order and look-ahead is crucial because if a main action only has 1 bonus action linked to it this round, only one person will get it. Actions are to get resources, gain/play engine-building VP cards, uncover your personal board, advance on the main board, etc. There are nice strategic decisions on how and when to boost your action strength and move that strength between actions. There’s luck with the cards. There are missions and objectives to race for which I always enjoy. I can see it being fun face-to-face, but I worry that I’ll be stressed by the tension of turn order rather than enjoy the challenge it presents.

Rating: 7

WAR OF THE RING: THE CARD GAME (2022): Rank 693, Rating 7.7

A nicely evocative game where each player draws and plays from their specific deck. Each deck represents an alliance (hobbits+wizards+elves etc) and the cards represent characters/hordes with the obligatory items, events, et al. (Kudos for the cards having print that older eyes can read without squinting btw.) I’ve only played the 4p partnership cards where you’re playing in turn to this round’s battlefield (cards with swords, that were thematically at that battle) or to the questing path (if the card is quest-capable and thematically allowed at that location). Alternatively play to your reserve for later use. Only drawing 3 or 4 cards each round and only being allowed to play half of those means it’s a lottery whether you can actually even play to either of these – there’s a lot of luck in the game. But as you learn your deck you’ll learn what to keep back in your reserve for later and improve, and it’s evocative enough to forgive the luck, being rewarding just to play and see how it all pans out this time.

Rating: 7

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Larry:  Let me see if I can assuage your concerns about Rats of Wistar, Alison.  Like you, my first play of it wasn’t that enjoyable, but that was mostly because I didn’t have as good a grasp on the rules as I should have.  It seemed like it was extremely difficult to get things done and it felt more frustrating than challenging.  But after having time to review the rules thoroughly, I recently got a second play in and I enjoyed it much more.  There are actually lots of ways to get things done, particularly if you explore the farm, and figuring out how to get the most out of your tiny number of actions was a very fun challenge.  Hopefully, you’ll feel the same once you get to try it face to face.