10 Most Uncomfortable Board Games Ever Made 

came here to say this

inb4 they attempt to make #1 tolerable

How do you think it would work as a worldbuilding tool? Not to trivialize the game itself, but I genuinely think it could be good to bring some dark realism to the themes I always like to inject in my fantasy worlds, mainly those of the corrupt nature of those who hold power and the insidious reasoning behind oppression. But it could also not be particularly useful for that, so I wanted to ask someone who's played it.

@@MisterNym Can’t really recommend it for that. The actual narrative is fairly abstract. It’s more an exploration in the mechanical relationship between the players. My recommendation for if you want to worldbuild a colonial power is to identify a virtue of the native race that the colonial power considers a vice that they use as a justification for their oppression. Do NOT do the BioWare thing of “isn’t it terrible that they’re oppressed, but also they’re really really dangerous” a la the mages from Dragon Age. Colonial justification is inherently a fallacy. If you give an ACTUAL reason to oppress a race then your morals go loopy.

@@jessie-buns839 That's good advice, thank you! What's your opinion on a group that used to be oppressors becoming oppressed themselves? I don't think there's a real world version of the concept, but I've been using it in my homebrew D&D game with High Elves.

@@MisterNym As you said, there’s not really a real world parallel to draw on there, so this is more speculative on my part. Also be prepared for your players to never actually learn most of this stuff. The joys of worldbuilding! I’m going to assume that the “other race” in this example is humanity. Just for ease of writing. The kind of power exchange that leads to your situation could only come about via an external force. Either a third party or natural disaster, something that spared humanity but doomed the elves. If you want it to be caused by the hubris of the elves, perhaps their treatment of the humans was what unleashed said calamity. Be careful if you do this to not justify the “my abuse made you strong” trope. You’ll need a reason for humanity to oppress the elves from now on. Sheer bitterness over their previous enslavement is fairly flimsy, especially once the first few generations of either side have died. A more interesting dynamic I feel, especially given the elves longer lifespans, would be to have the elves self recriminate themselves into being a servile race as a form of atonement for their treatment of humanity, and for unleashing said calamity, with the younger elves chafing under this policy, having not witnessed the barbarity of their ancestors firsthand. At worst, they could advocate for the old ways of oppression, at best they’d be “I think it’s great that the lesser races are governing themselves now!” Oppression is usually so endemically written into the fabric of a society that even with sweeping changes to the status quo, the psychology of the establishment rarely changes. (For a good video on this check out Abigail Thornes latest video). I might be rambling now. This is all for a game of pretend with wizards and dragons. Feel free to ignore this lol

@@jessie-buns839 This is all honestly super helpful! I'll need to rewatch that new video now. Some of this stuff is established in-universe (There are some nuances but most of them are rooted in the fantastical) but a lot of this stuff helps me establish how the oppressor society chose to lash back and how some people can follow the villainous leader who kept himself living since the darkest days of the empire. For a little context, a group of elves basically ran a Rome style empire, and at their largest, a few events caused a change in leadership that was essentially if Augustus gave way to Nero. The result was a very low population of High Elves, many of who were actually unrelated to the empire itself. One nation in particular found profit in capturing High Elves and using them as slave labor. This nation has very loose laws on people as chattel, and they've exploited those to essentially allow for the kind of oppression they've inflicted. For the most part, I doubt it'll come up that much, but I wanna make sure they know it and don't just think all of them have supremacist leanings (like the villain who used to actually be part of the oppressive empire)

Idk that sounds great. They see you as a true equal who they respect. They wouldn't want you to be their boss cause that's not the dynamic you have. I would much rather be trusted as an equal than the boss thing

yeah, cards against humanity is very player specific. the friend group i usually play it with makes it a blast to play, we actually had neighbors that ringed at the door because the laughing was that loud. with family on the other hand, especially an uptight one... pro tip: only play it with people who you are sure have basically no lines comedy is not allowed to cross.

Ouch

​@@falsnamae3511 on one hand, I get it. On the other hand, game is ruined

Some people have the same issue with Freedom: The Underground Railroad, it's just way too tough for them to think about the cubes as slaves

@@ishoottheyscore8970 then there is This War of Mine.

YES!

Don’t forget sullutom

@@markcattigan4237 I'd like to see Tom or Jon with Rosie, so you get that mix of reserved/dry vs outright lunacy, but I think you can pair any two. The most normal RomCom one for me would be Luke & Rosie or Tom & Blair

Year old comment but still, after watching Adam and Sully play battleshots together, I reckon having them couple up would be superior. You want people who have great chemistry in real life to play together because it would drive them apart easier when they have to be selfish.

They sound fragile. Maybe good to not play games with them.

Yikes, that's real unlucky..

if they couldn't just laugh that off, it's probably mento illness luv

@@ramaya007 Not a single word was written about the person's reaction. They could've just laughed it off for all you know.

@@Oscar----- The fact that "deadname" is in there meant they were told that term and the person made something of it.

yikes...

I absolutely love secret Hitler. Although when you are Hitler for half the night people do tend to draw some awkward connections.

One woman I played with sabotaged her own team because she didn't want to be a fascist. Hitler was not the least popular person that day.

I've never heard of this one, so I had to look it up on Amazon, and it's got Wil Wheaton doing the commercial, it will be a hard pass for me, as I don't want anything to do with that wacko!!

@@CommodoreFan64 while I don't blame you for that thought, assuming the commercial was made around the time the game was released that would have meant it was made while he was also making his fairly popular youtube series 'table top' (a show where he would showcase various games by playing them with a rotating cast of internet celebs) and so i think it was mainly a "hey this minor celeb has a big audience that is interested in board games, lets have him promote our board game" instead of any support for any of his views on anything outside of board games. if you like the party game mafia (aka werewolf) or games like among us then you will most likely enjoy secret hitler and you should still give it a try. if you don't like those types of games though then you saved yourself some money.

The French? No wait, the Swedes again?

Do you mean 5D chess with multiverse time travel (which is an actual game on Steam)? Also have you tried anti-chess?

oh my god, i would not have been able to stop laughing at anyone who took offense to that question!

@@headphonic8 Yeah that's what I thought until it happened lol What makes it worse, in retrospect, was she made us pack up the game and do something else - just like the leader of a cult would. 🤣

It is time to go to Sweden.

This raises the question: if I visit Sweden, what percentage of the time must I wear pants? Asking for a me.

@@IceMetalPunk Hardly even outdoors!

@@IceMetalPunk your "asking for a me" caused me to choke on my drink, which considering the original comment is oddly fitting XD

@Brandon Uddstrom explains why WhatCulture went down the toilet

Somebody animate "now that is f**king saying something" where's Sam

... that is bleak yet hilarious

Loli anime and alt-right style nazis.... someone understands Venn diagrams.

I vote for Adam v Sully.

Heheh. Aw man. The prices of some of these board games are out of control. There are some that even look really simply made but the makers ask for $45 - 80.

has he done one about games where moving board parts are central to the game mechanic (e.g. mousetrap, haunted house,... both fairly crappy games, but interesting for other reasons). Titanic fits this category.

Exactly my thought. I've played my share of evil aligned characters in tabletop RPGs, bring it on. Let's get this tyranny rolling!

@@Reggie2000 So look at everything else about the game. Are you really inclined to give the creators of that game the benefit of the doubt when it comes to that depiction, never mind the way they're actually drawn straight out of a Ku Klux Klan publication?

I came here to say this

@@Reggie2000 reggie, look at HOW they're depicted not simply the amount of them. Surely you can see why this might be an issue

@@Reggie2000 My parents had the Public Assistance game. I wish they still had it. I played it when I was younger and only barely remember it.

To see more of that you should check Police Precint, where the tokens of criminals show a picture of black and latino men... yeah. And the policemen? Yeah, you can flip the character card to play ether male or female characters, but with 95% of them being white and one of the few black characters basically pulled out of Die Hard.

I wouldn't suggest either, to be honest... Trust me. I know. I'm still banned for Kew Gardens and that's not a paper cut you are gonna easily forget

Part of me wanted CAH and its many knock-offs to be on the list (or at least, an honourable mention) But then I figured that the game has Edgelordism is the be-all and end-all of the game (deliberately so), ergo it’s not really uncomfortable unless you’ve never played the game before and don’t like jokes about pederasty

@@MultiClassGeek like in the video, the participants can be what can cause uncomfortable situations rather than the game itself. If it's your friends who you get wasted/high with (not assuming anything about your lfiestyle) that you are playing with, CAH can be a great time.

I was a touch surprised that Tammany Hall didn't make the list, given it's mechanics of race baiting (basically) I don't know if enough people ever played Lap Dance for it to be considered, but I was glad to see Barbarossa get roasted. There is apparently a version of that game which uses WW2 photographs which does a really good of identifying just how tacky and tacked on the anime girls are

Is "this war of mine" a board game as well, didn't know that! Played a game on pc by that name, can confirm it was absolutely soul-crushing.

@@brennag7962 yeah they made a board game adaption a couple of years back, friend of mine has a copy.

The thing about Train is that you're not told what the train that you're trying to efficiently get from point A to point B is carrying - until it gets there. It's not a game in which the rules tell you to ship people to their doom.

Honestly same

I want a NRB of true colors, I bet that would be so funny

They could have done it for the recommended games like Fog Of Love and Nyctophobia at least, and maybe with pithy insults for people thinking of buying the others

@@ishoottheyscore8970 The link to the Vanilla Ice game just leads to the music video for Weird Al's White and Nerdy.

Actually now that I think about it, after lockdown, people might be up for some casual, trivialized sexual harassment.