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A Newbies Guide to BGG Terms
J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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We were all new once. Here's a guide to help get you up to speed.
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Ding and Dent
During the '40s and '50s, Richard Ding and Alvin Dent established themselves as the top game design team. Their games were so beloved, that their names became synonymous with highest quality.
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Con
Exactly as you think of the word now: Tricked. Scammed. Fooled. Still,every August, hundreds of dupes show up in Lancaster, PA, expecting to play games. Every November, it's Dallas, TX. When you hear there's going to be a con, there's going to be a con.
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3.
Board Game: Alley Oop
[Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]
J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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OOP
I goofed, big time (hence the CAPS.) We leave off the s as an inside joke (get it? even the oops has been botched! Ha!) "Unfortunately, this game is OOP. Hey, Z-Man, I'm begging you here. Can you reprint this?" Z-man is an admin and has editing privileges to other peoples' posts, but you almost have to beg to get his attention if you've made a mistake on something you've entered into the system.
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Backstab
Ever try to stab someone with your back? Unless you're an acrobat, you're far more likely to hurt yourself than your target. Use this term to convey a desperate effort in a nearly hopeless situation. "Sorry, Fred, my position was crumbling in Austria-Hungary. I *had* to backstab."
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5.
Board Game: Poker
[Average Rating:6.76 Overall Rank:494]
J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Blind Bidding
If you've played poker, this won't need much explanation. Each round, without looking, the first player must play one extra card; the second player, two extra cards.
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Multiplayer Solitaire
A favorite around here is *Multiplayer Solitaire*, a variant of the Solitaire game you've probably played, but better. Much better. When someone wants to praise a certain game, that someone often gives a respectful nod to this classic. "This is like multiplayer solitaire."
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Brainburner
A difficult game that causes your brain to "burn". However, good BGG form demands you use this sarcastically. It's accepted that the writer is using it this way, so no emoticons or italics are needed--it's insulting and patronizing if you do. "Wow, this one is a real brainburner." (To which you silently add after you read, "ha ha, good one. Maybe I'll pick it up for my non-gaming elderly in-laws.")
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J.D. Berry
United States
Springfield
VA
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Thumb
Like a thumbprint in the sense you've visited a place. Please mark every page you visit by clicking the thumb so that the admins can track where you've been. Common courtesy.
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Justin
United States
Michigan
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When talking with others about games a lot of time you'll see abbreviations like A&A or WotR or Soc. These are all code words that inside organizations (fake game makers, drug smugglers) use. Unless you wanna be caught reading their posts by the Geek Nazis that patrol the forums, I would avoid these posts at all costs.
OtSS!
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Mike Cooper
United States
Flower Mound
Texas
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FLGS - Family Living/Garage Space
Some people are lucky enough to have their own location that holds their games for them. Occasionally, someone will spontaneously make new games available, or add-on space to play games. Heck, I walked into my FLGS the other day and found a bunch of kids there, already playing!
Anytime you see someone complain about an FLGS, it's just because they're jealous that they don't have one, or theirs isn't as nice. Some people complain that their FLGS is overpriced, but that's the real estate market for ya! If you don't like someone else's, you're free to build one of your own!
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Graham Smallwood
United States
Santa Ana
California
Delve : the Dice Game Buy for iOS!
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Fiddly
A virtuoso fiddle performance is a thing of beauty. Just one person, one instrument, and infinite possible emotions to evoke. When a game is "too fiddly", it means that there is too much of that elegant simplicity.
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Germán R. Gómez
United States
Chula Vista
California
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Grognards
From the word GROG, a mixture of rum and water, sometimes sweetened with lime and sugar. Issued on British Navy ships from the mid 18th Century to the late 20th Century.
People who are pirate and/or sailing game aficionados call themselves grognards.
Some of the classic pirate  board games they love include:
Dread Pirate
Pirate's Plunder
Pirateer
Tip the Ship
Pirate Island
Captain Bones Gold
LEGO Pirates Treasure Game
Grognards are also known for mangling their posts in a graphic manner so as to indicate "pirate talk."
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Rich Croton
United Kingdom
Reading
Berkshire
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Miniature Wargame
This term refers to the length of time it takes to play the game - any wargame that takes less than 45 minutes to play fits into this category.
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Richard Irving
United States
Salinas
California
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Game Weight: refers exclusively how many pounds a game weighs so you can calculate shipping costs, figure out how many games you carry to a game gathering, etc.
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Max Pips
United States
Lititz
Pennsylvania
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Tom Vasel
As gamers age, they are often afflicted with an overwhelming sense of compulsion, obsession, and possession, ultimately becoming enslaved to games, hence the term Vasel, meaning slave or servant. Since all individuals are prone to this condition, a generic Tom is applied to the terminology. The name Tom is also a substitute for game.
Essentially, a Tom Vasel is a game slave or servant.
As the affliction progresses, most Tom Vasels tend to become prolific game reviewers, furthering the cause of the disease by spreading virus-laden writings and beliefs. It is at this stage that they become stars of the BGG (Big Gamer's Guild) community.
Most Tom Vasels soon come to recognize that this world is not their home, hoping for a better hereafter. The picture to the left is a depiction of a Tom Vasel prior to gaming ascendance.
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A. B. West
United States
Beech Grove
Indiana
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Shill
When a person posts to a thread or list (like this one!) and uses a really high pitched voice when typing - which some find annoying. "Hey! Quit being so shill!"
The right thing to do is go ahead and click on the game and see what the person is so noisy about. It's the only polite thing to do. Maybe they need some help and that's why they're so shill!
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Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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  GEEK GOLD! How to get it, what to DO with that once you have, and generally, WHY you ain't 'gots' any!
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Chuck Carroll
United States
Fishers
Indiana
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Eurogame
Any wargame set in Europe, but especially those which are highly detailed re-creations of the European theater of World War II, involving large maps and hundreds of counters.
(Note: do not confuse with €urogame, which are primarily economic games, often involving auctions, and are named for the currency. True Eurogame fans abhor such games.)
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vincit omnia amentia
United States
Howard County
Maryland
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Ameritrashers
The term is new, but the idea has been around for a while, since early Avalon Hill games made America the villain in several WWII games (and eventually their pro-Nazi stance forced them to shut down).
The term refers to gamers and games (called "Ameritrash" games) that openly attack ("trash") America or Americans, and not in the friendly "constructive criticism" way but in a way designed only to incite hatred, anger, and flamewars.
If you see anybody discussing Ameritrash or Ameritrashers the best thing to do is flag/hide/delete/red-button the thread so it disappears, and do not respond to their goads.
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CCG
Con Card Game. Con card games are what they sound like - cons (see definition of "con" above). They lure you in with their interesting game play, cards that increase in value every year, and popular appeal (it's easy to find opponents for these games).
However, sooner or later true-blood Board Game Groupies realize they've been conned - they spent all that time playing card games when instead they could have been playing "real" games (meaning board games, of course).
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train game
Light, popular games - so light and popular that you can pull them out in any group (gamers or non) and everyone will have so much fun that they will ask to play them all evening long one game after another (hence the term "train"). Like party games, but funner and lighter.
Age of Steam was the original train game. It is it often confused with "games about trains" but as you can see from the picture here, there are no train pieces at all in the game. The picture also illustrates the brightly colored pieces and simple design, which endears it immediately to kids. If you're having non-gaming relatives over for the holidays, Age of Steam is an ideal choice.
Since the popularity of Age of Steam, other games have appeared that attempt to hitch a ride on its coattails. These games have met universal scorn from Board Game Groupies, and have all gotten well-deserved low ratings. The best example of these "pretender" games is Ticket to Riding, with its 120+ minutes of game-play, heavy resource management, and agonizing decisions. Newbies who make one mistake are out of the game immediately. To make matters worse, it muddies the waters by having actual train pieces, unfortunately adding to the confusion between "train games" and "games about trains." (Luckily for the publisher, Days of Wonder, their profits have soared in spite of the expensive failure of TtRiding, due to the popularity of some of their other games, which I can't remember at the moment.)
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David Kahnt
United States
Upper Gwynedd
Pennsylvania
It's fun, it's healthy, it's good exercise. The kids will just love it. And we put a little sand inside to make the experience more pleasant.
You know, they say there was a man who jumped from the forty-FIFTH floor? But that's another story...
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Aldie
The Aldie is the sites main bot for fixing bugs and what-nots.
You can also GeekMail the Aldie at anytime to let the site's Admin's know what's going on and to ask for microbadges or free .
While generally nice and well-meaning... the Aldie bot sometimes can be a bit negative.
-DK
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Greg Berry
United States
Unspecified
Virginia
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Elegant
An adjective denoting favor. The use of the word elegant is universally appreciated by all other BGGers in any context. Apply this adjective to any noun and the BGG community will immediately know you are a hip geek.
Sample Usage - "Man this is an elegant geek list."
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AP
Short for "Grade A player." Only slightly lower than an "A+ player."
Basically, someone who is tons of fun to game with. AP players are universally sought-after opponents by Board Game Groupies.
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The Puerto Rico Scandal
The fact that this remains the number one ranked game on this site is a subject of heated controversy. Basically, it was given ridiculously inflated ratings a few years ago by people who have since left the site. However, due to a bug in the Aldie-bot each attempt to correct the error in the database has been met with a 24-hour site outage.
As any Board Game Groupie will tell you, Puerto Rico is a despicable game about slavery, oppression, and exploitation during the benighted era of colonialism.
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Posted Thu Dec 6, 2007 9:41 pm
for that. (Could help with the constipation too).
(did someone notice that I like the emoticons)
Certainly NOT to be 'confused' with "diddly"! 
you roll.
