Sharing an experience I had with my board game group in case it helps other groups.

I've been running a board game group in the Omaha area since I moved here in 2018. It started with a few guys I met at church. We usually had 4 or 5 people. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Over the years, some people moved away, other people were invited by some of the guys who still attended. Eventually we created a Discord group to keep everyone informed about our Tuesday night game nights.

As the group grew sometimes we would have 8 or 9 people. Even ten. We started occasionally putting up a second table and running two games, but the biggest problem we were having was that we would sometimes have people drop out or join at the last minute, which meant we were often playing the same games like Avalon or Not Alone, but it was hard to play 4p games with much strategy because our Discord group had group to 20 people, and we didn't want to spend the first hour of game night teaching people the rules because we always had at least one person who has never played the game.

A few weeks ago I was hanging out with a game night friend on a Saturday and we were discussing how to improve the game night experience. In short, we just weren't getting a chance to play games we wanted to play. All these 4p and 5p games, and we were always playing something else. We decided to bring the problem to the group with a possible solution.

I messaged the group and explained that many of us wanted to play more 4p strategy games, but we needed people to commit to coming to play them 2-3 weeks in a row so we could really get the game down and enjoy it before moving on. So we decided to use events on Discord for people to join, first come first serve, and when they join, they are committing to attend every week for the 2-3 week period. Other people are welcome to come as well and either watch us play or start a second game at another table.

Everyone loved the idea! They offered good feedback and solutions. It's only one month into the year, but we had two games of Great Western Trail (Argentine and NZ) going at the same time, and the same people showed up. Next up we will be playing Dominations, and then Star Wars Outer Rim. Everyone is still welcome to come each week, but they know if they don't or can't commit to making it for the run of the game, they can show up and play something else or just hang out.

TLDR: If you are having problems with your game group, confront the problem head on, explain what the issue is, offer solutions, and hear people out. Most people probably have similar issues but just aren't speaking up.