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A commonly cited advantage of the Tabletop Game medium is that it enables social interaction. A Social Game takes full advantage of this — it revolves around the interactions it creates between players. It can be anywhere from an intense Social Deduction Game to a simple Party Game that just wants to make you laugh.
As most games of this type have simple components, they often fit in small boxes and are convenient to bring to a meetup.
Converting them to Digital Tabletop Game Adaptations is a mixed bag — they're easy to implement thanks to their simple components (assuming no Dexterity Challenges), but the loss of face-to-face interactions between players is particularly significant for this genre.
Examples
- Apples to Apples
- Blood on the Clocktower
- Cards Against Humanity: A comedy game where the players make jokes about all sorts of taboo or otherwise awkward subjects. Its Tagline is "A party game for horrible people".
- Codenames: Two players use one word prompts to signal keywords to their teammates while avoiding the other team's words and the assassin, giving the opponents an Instant Win.
- Exploding Kittens
- Fluxx: A wacky, chaotic party game where the rules are constantly changing.
- Joking Hazard
- Just One
- Master Dater
- Muffin Time
- Secret Hitler
- The Mind
- Trial By Trolley Game based on trolley problem.
- Wavelength
- Werewolf (1997)
- Nona: Should we list Social Deduction Games, or is it a given that Tabletop Game + Social Deduction Game = Social Game?
- Maths: I'm unsure if we should list them here or just call Social Deduction Game a Sub-Trope of this.
- Maybe we should also make a Party Board Game sub-trope to cover party games, as the Party Game trope currently only covers video games that more or less follow the Mario Party formula.
- On second thought, maybe it would be better to just split this into Party Board Games and Social Deduction Games? It's not like there's that much overlap between them. Or is it still worth it to keep this for games that rely on their social nature while not really falling into either?
- Nona: I'll probably have to think on it, but off the top of my head, Lifeboats is a good example that doesn't fit either mold.
- Maths: Oh yes, the line between those and Party Games can be pretty blurry. That's definitely an argument for just keeping this. Still unsure about Social Deduction Games though.
- Maths: I think I've found a solution to the "list Social Deduction Games here or not?" question: make this an index and list them.
- mcgrew: Where do Parlor Games fit into this category?
