The Board Gamesbook
Introduction
An overview of the site
The Board Gamesbook is a site for rules for all publically
available (i.e. non-commercial) board games, as well as rules variants for
some of the more popular commercial board games.
The term "board game" is used here fairly loosely; but in this context it basically refers to general interest games played with a board, markers and other supporting bits-and-pieces (usually made of paper, card, wood or plastic). It excludes wargames, miniatures, computer games, role playing games, trivia games, play-by-mail/email games, solitaire games and puzzles (which are essentially the same thing), mechanical games (tiddlywinks, pool etc.) and most pure card games (unless they have board game "feel" to them). There are some links to other sites with these types of games.
This site has been deliberately kept small and focused: there are many different types of games around and it's too easy to get lost in a maze of weird web sites and misleading links...
The game rules located (or referenced) here have been roughly divided into a number of subject categories to make it more convenient for locating the type of game(s) you want to play. These categories have been (fairly) arbitrarily defined by me: the difference between an 'abstract' and a 'thematic' board game, for example, is debatable; essentially games with a simple, fairly regular board, and pieces of similar type have been called 'abstract', and the rest - even those whose theme is very thin - have been placed into a 'thematic' group.
An attempt has been made to present the rules stored on this site in a standard format (HTML text and GIF/JPEG graphics), but games referenced here which are located on other sites are presented in a variety of ways - caveat empor.
Well, lots, really! Seriously, though, if you are looking for rules for commercial board games (or would like to donate a set),check out The Game Rule Cabinet which covers many family and "standard" game rules.
Rule translations - for many commercial German and French board games - are best looked for at Ken Tidwell's Game Cabinet or at The Boardgame Geek.
Links to rules, or descriptions, for other types of games can be found in the Bits 'n Pieces section of the site.
The majority of these games will require a human opponent (or opponents). While some games require specialised components (such as sets of special cards), most can be played with standard components (pawns, dice etc.) and the boards printed or drawn on an A4 (or equivalent) sheet of paper. Each rule set will contain the necessary instructions.
Sources of information presented here include the Usenet, other Web sites, author's submissions, game books, and various individuals.
I must also point clearly to Val Katchner's lapsed "The Game Room" (was http://www.kdcol.com/~val/games/index.html) as the key starting point for this site. Although much of the subject matter is the same, I just found I needed to arrange things a bit differently...
All of the links at this site were working at the time that they were created. If you find links which have moved or are often down, please contact me so that I can update or remove the references for these entries or create new entries to other sites.
I am always looking to expand The Board Gamesbook with links to sites with games rules: conversely, if you have rules (especially for new games) and are looking for somewhere to put them, please let me know.
Some guidelines for rule submissions...
I have deliberately tried to keep these pages free of "personal" items (except for some of the stuff in The Lab), as I am sure most people are not really interested in my work (environmental information systems), my home life (married - with children), or my mother's star sign (Aquarius). If you're really desperate to find out more... drop me a line.
And so, let the games begin...
