Setup Time: Board Gaming's Secret Killer
And 11 games that get it right.
I love board games. You probably do, too.
But there are some drawbacks to the hobby. Especially when compared to something like video games. Board games take up a lot of space. They’re getting expensive. Rules can be hard to learn and teach.
But, after more than 15 years playing tabletop games, I’ve come to the conclusion that setup time is board gaming’s true killer.
You’re tired. You want to unwind either alone or with your partner. You both like Gloomhaven, rated the top board game of all time on BoardGameGeek for several years running. But you haven’t played it in a while. You dig out the box. After picking a scenario (and btw where were you in the campaign again?), you have to find the big cardboard pieces for rooms I1b, G1B, and L1B to set up the scenario’s play space. There are dozens of room tiles to flip through to find the three you need. And they’re double sided, so if you missed one you’ll need to slow down a little and flip through their opposite sides, more slowly this time.
You’ll have to set up the set decorations for traps, doors, debris, money, treasure, etc. inside the rooms. This will go more quickly if you bought a bunch of tackle boxes or another out-of-game organization solution to label and organize your pieces. It’ll take longer to find and open/close the baggies if you didn’t. You have to repeat this for the 3+ monsters in the scenario - after first taking care to check what level they will be and whether they need to be in the Elite or Normal standee holder.
You have to dig out your character and set them up as well. And configure the two decks of monster cards you have to shuffle and set aside. You’re getting close to being ready to play. There is more, but I’m growing a little tired of belaboring my point here and I suspect you are as well, so we’ll move on. In fairness it is worth pointing out here that Gloomhaven’s most dedicated fanbase will insist they can handle end-to-end setup - from the game coming off the shelf to play beginning - in 10 minutes. I am… skeptical. But just as I’m perhaps exaggerating for effect in one direction, maybe they’re doing so in the other.
The thing is, I really love Gloomhaven! Or, I would. If I ever got to play it. On paper Gloomhaven is everything I want and look for in a board game - it is ranked number one for good reason. I still recommend it to people and I remain hopeful I’ll get to play it more in the years to come. Its highish complexity isn’t the problem. Its ~120 minute play time isn’t the problem, either. The problem is a game with this kind of setup time kills so much of its own inertia and positive momentum in a house like mine, compared to if you could just sit down and go.
A lot of my more casual board gaming friends think they don’t like long campaign games or weighty, rules-heavy games. And of course they are their own people so in some instances they obviously know their own tastes. But I believe that if a lot of those same friends could just sit down at the table, slap down some standees and bam - they’re in the catacombs as Cragheart busting up Cultists - I am positive they would have a great time.
I think board game complexity, length, and overall game “weight” gets unfairly conflated with games with lengthy time-to-table requirements.
Thankfully, more and more board game designers and manufacturers are catching on. Both Dice Throne and Isle of Cats have run high-profile, multi-million dollar Kickstarter campaigns recently, making a major selling point of their ease and speed of setup. Both worked on me personally, too. I believe this also contributes to the rise in popularity of roll-and-writes in recent years. When you open the box for something like That’s Pretty Clever or Railroad Ink you’re basically ready to play immediately.
More and more board game manufacturers seem to be catching on that smart packaging with built-in organization systems isn’t just marketing - it’s an actual game design feature. Whole cottage industries of board game organization solutions (looking at you, Broken Token and competitors) have sprung up to keep games better organized, and the key selling point for consumers of all that organization is usually to drive down time-to-table.
Games like Dominion, with its built-in card dividers and labels, are looking increasingly ahead-of-their time. But on the other hand, I can personally attest that there are some games that I absolutely adore, like Marvel Legendary, that simply don’t get played very much in my house because they punted on providing any kind of organization at all - not even labeled card dividers.
One interesting consideration here isn’t just overall setup time, but setup time weighed against a game’s complexity and play length. 15 minutes of setup might be a reasonable time price to pay for something as involved as Gloomhaven. But 5 minutes of setup might be unjustifiable for a basic party game. Setup time is basically a cost you pay for a more involved, deeper game experience. Although again, smart player-first packaging design decisions have allowed certain games to be complex and involved while still staying fast and painless to set up.
I’m a firm believer that the momentum of an entire evening - what I’ll spend the next 3+ hours doing every night - can hinge solely on how easy or hard a single 60 second task can be. Case-in-point: my TV is one HDMI port short, meaning either my PS5 or my Xbox Series X is always not hooked up. It takes literally 10 seconds to switch. And yet, whichever one is already hooked up is the one I most often will sit down and stick with that evening, unless I have an explicit reason to switch. This is, incidentally, what I think makes Xbox’s Quick Resume feature so powerful.
So, now apply that same thinking to a board game that takes 15 minutes or more to set up vs. one that is open-and-go. Or, perhaps an even more apt comparison - apply that thinking to playing a board game with a somewhat lengthy setup vs. literally anything else someone could do with their time. Books, movies, and my Nintendo Switch don’t have this problem.
10 Games with Quick Setup Times
This is far from a comprehensive list. As chronic as I may have made this issue seem, there are obviously hundreds of games that hit the table quickly and without a fuss. Setup time is just a topic I wanted to highlight and shine a spotlight on in this week’s newsletter. If you’re in-the-hunt for something new that gets to the table quite quickly, without necessarily sacrificing depth or complexity, here are some suggestions. These aren’t necessarily easy or fast-playing games. They’re just notable for how quick they are to setup and start:
The Dice Throne battle chests I mentioned earlier are in my opinion the gold standard. They’re a perfect example of where game design meets storage design, and a perfect example of how game complexity doesn’t have to add to setup complexity. Each Dice Throne character comes with their own tray of materials. Pull out the tray and open it up. There is no step two - you’re now ready to play.
Carcassonne, as a tile-laying game where you’re building out the map as you go, is notable for basically having no setup.
Although there are exceptions, many 1v1 dueling games like Hive, Keyforge, Lost Cities, and Star Realms have little-to-no setup. Just sit down and start taking turns in an empty playfield. Even Magic: the Gathering falls into this category if you use pre-built decks.
As mentioned, reducing or eliminating setup time is basically the Roll & Write genre’s whole thing, although there are exceptions. That’s Pretty Clever, Super Skill Pinball, Fliptown, and Railroad Ink are good examples.
Azul, like Carcassonne, “sets up” in just a minute or two - there basically isn’t any setup.
What do you think? Do you consider set up time when buying new games? Does a lengthy time-to-table stop you from playing any games you love more often? Any other games using clever built-in storage solutions I didn’t mention? Let me know in the comments - I read them all.
You're 100% right on how discouraging setup time can be. My friends and I loved to play Axis and Allies back in the day, but the involved setup each time meant those sessions were far fewer than we would have liked.
I 100% agree that setup time discourages my choosing a game to play. Time is an incredibly limited resource these days. Unless I specifically designate a night to a more involved game or activity, I do something with the fewest barriers of entry. Whether that's board games, video games, or other entertainment.
Even within video games, long tutorials can be a turn off. I loved games like Mass Effect before I had kids and more responsibilities but now I find it hard to justify playing those games when I know my limited play time will be spent walking and talking even if that is part of what makes those games so great. It's no wonder game makers in general have been adapting to focus on shorter gameplay loops.
Mysterium Park vs regular Mysterium is an example for us. We enjoyed Mysterium but we have never gone back after playing Mysterium Park even if we like some aspects of the original better.