How to Sit Back and Revel in the Mayhem

This one’s for all the family agitators out there. And you know who you are…..

You didn’t come to play—you came with a silent but massive chip on your shoulder.

There’s nothing quite like getting the family together on a cold, snowy weekend and “winding down” by cracking open a wholesome-looking board or card game that will, within 30 minutes, expose unresolved childhood trauma, simmering grudges, and leveling distrust and suspicion only found in Agatha Christie novels.

In my house growing up, the objective wasn’t to win. It was to win by crushing the spirit of everyone else at the table.

These games weren’t entertainment. They were a socially acceptable arena where we could weaponize childhood grudges, passive-aggressive commentary, and that one family members fragile ego without technically starting a fistfight. A cardboard coliseum where alliances were formed, betrayed, and immediately denied.

Grandparents were usually spared. Not because they weren’t capable, but because they love us unconditionally and occasionally hand us cash, and you don’t bite the hand that slips you a twenty “for snacks.”

Now, let’s light the fuse.

1. Hearts

The undisputed home-wrecker of card games. On paper, it’s about avoiding points. In reality, it’s about deciding who you hate the most and punishing them quietly.

Nothing bonds a family like deliberately dumping the Queen of Spades on someone who thought you were “just playing defensively.” The real joy comes when you pretend it was an accident while maintaining eye contact.

2. Mensch ärgere dich nicht / Sorry

Translated loosely from German as: “Please destroy your sibling emotionally.”

This game teaches children an important life lesson early: No matter how close you are to success, someone can and will knock you back to the start—usually laughing at your slowly reddening face.

The moment you send a family member home after they’ve been building momentum for 20 minutes, you’ll witness rage in its purest form.

Bonus points if they shout: “I was almost there!”

Yes, that’s the point. And maybe that’s why most Germans almost always sound angry.

3. Monopoly

Aka….Capitalism: The Board Game. Monopoly doesn’t start fights. It finishes relationships.

This is where Dad becomes a slumlord, Mom discovers she’s terrifying with hotels, and one sibling is bankrupt by turn four but forced to sit there for another two hours “just in case.”

House rules don’t save you. They only delay the inevitable.

The game always ends the same way: Someone storms off, someone flips the board, and someone smugly says, “That’s business.”

4. Screw Your Neighbour

Aptly named. Refreshingly honest. This game doesn’t even pretend to be about skill. It’s about targeted cruelty. You can watch players go from casual to vindictive in seconds as they realize the entire goal is to ensure someone else loses harder than you do.

This is where alliances form, collapse, and are never spoken of again—except during Christmas ten years later.

5. The Game of Life

On the surface, TGOL looks like a safe, wholesome family game. In reality, it plays like existential warfare.

Someone gets a great job immediately. Someone else becomes a struggling accountant with six kids and a beige sedan.

Arguments break out over marriage, career choices, and whether spinning the wheel “too hard” is cheating. And the moment someone shrugs and says, “Well, that’s just how life goes,” the table collectively considers violence.

It’s adulthood with fewer consequences—but just as much resentment.

6. Battleship

If there was ever a game that pushed the concepts of trust and fair play to their limits, this is the grand-daddy of them all.

Battleship is less about strategy and more about lying with confidence.

Did that ship really fit there?

Did someone move something “by accident”?

Why is your grid always suspiciously lucky?

This game teaches kids an essential truth: Never trust anyone who smiles after saying “Miss.”

7. Scrabble

No board game collection would be complete without this legendary word game. But Scrabble doesn’t test vocabulary. It tests how badly you want to argue about dictionaries.

“You mean to tell me ‘ass’ is a word but ‘arse’ isn’t?”

This is how wars start.

The only way to play Scrabble without bloodshed is to agree on which dictionary to use beforehand.

But even then, someone will accuse someone else of “playing garbage words” and question their moral character.

8. Risk

Nothing says “family fun” like global domination.

Risk starts with strategy and ends with one person controlling half the world while everyone else plots their downfall like a low-budget coup.

Alliances are made. Promises are broken.

And someone will absolutely say, “I only attacked you because you left yourself open.”

Sure you did, Napoleon.

9. Uno

The Trojan horse of family games.

It looks innocent. It lies.

The first +4 is where things turn dark. Accusations fly. Rules are suddenly very important. Someone insists you can’t stack cards, someone else insists you’ve always stacked cards, and Grandma quietly learns new swear words.

Uno ends friendships faster than Monopoly, just with brighter colours.

10. Clue (Cluedo)

A murder mystery that becomes a character assassination simulator.

Nobody trusts anyone.

Everyone accuses aggressively.

And someone takes it way too personally when they’re blamed repeatedly.

By the end, you’re not solving a crime—you’re relitigating Thanksgiving 1998.

How to Revel in the Mayhem

If you’re a true shit disturber, remember:

•           Play dumb. It infuriates people

•           Smile politely while ruining plans

•           Never apologize immediately—pause first.

•           And when someone finally snaps, lean back and say: ”Relax. It’s just a game.”

It’s not.

And that’s why it’s beautiful

written by Rob Herholz