Well, ‘beer and pretzels’ games will do – good as any other descriptor and covers fun games like ‘Pass the Pigs’, or card based games as well as games that have an actual physical board.
I like board and paper map based wargames too, but they’re more out of the remit of what I’m talking about here, although my actual favourite games of all time are probably mostly wargames of differing levels of complexity (‘Advanced Third Reich’ and ‘Pax Britannica’ being two all time favourites), it’s just very difficult to get people together to play those as the time commitment is generally ridiculously high.
This is another of those things that computers were supposed to be good for but there doesn’t appear to be a big enough player base to support decent development – Avalon Hill tried to produce computer versions of several of its titles, with mixed results before going bust after somewhat unrelatedly diversifying into girl’s magazines. The enemy AI/expert system seems to be the problem with computer wargames. Probably the best WWII stuff out there was Norm Kroger’s ‘Operational Art of War’ series.
Wargames are a different kettle of fish when it comes to ‘enjoyment’ too and are generally much more competitive, in that you have to focus much more if you want to do well and your goal is much more about defeating your opponent than winning the game, not something that everyone enjoys (I don’t always enjoy it, which is why I’m probably not that frequent a wargamer).
A game like Ticket to Ride (another great game) I’ll just play and enjoy it – I’ll enjoy it a bit more if I win or at least do well if I’m honest but in general I’ll have fun playing it, even if I’m last.
Wargames like ‘A World at War’* need concentration and time - it requires a fair amount of playing commitment just to learn the rules (196 pages). But if you’re playing against a decent opponent it’s an incredible game, tense, exciting and rewarding.
I think ‘Junta’ is probably my favourite mixture of boardgame and competitive wargame – just silly enough to be fun, serious enough to be challenging and a fantastic game when done with six players.
*I have just bought the updated version of this from the US for $Lots. Grand strategy global WWII, based on Advanced Third Reich game – simulates the European and Pacific wars at corps level, with counter level down to individual (named) capital ships. Any game that lets you sink the Bismarck is ok by me.