Session reports and house rules from a small weekend board game group.
We finally got the full table together. The canal era went fast; the rail era did not. Lesson learned: build your coal early, and do not let one person own every brewery on the map.
Final scores were close enough that we recounted twice. Next time we are trying the two-hour time limit someone suggested.
For deck builders with more than four players we now keep one shared market instead of two. It slows down the leader and keeps the newer players in the game. Not perfect, but everyone agreed it was more fun.
Our current list of fillers that take under twenty minutes and teach in five: a trick-taking card game, a quick roll-and-write, and a bluffing game that works with up to eight.