I'm sick of people trying to promote the boardgame scene by bashing one of the games that I've watched people enjoy the shit out of, and is the perennial whipping boy around some nerdy quarters. The main barriers keeping modern games like Carcassone and Settlers from general appeal are the medieval trappings like knights, kings, castles, and dragons, and when those are missing, spaceships. At least, that's major barrier I have to overcome when I pull out one of the things. I have better luck getting people to play Acquire, even though bookkeeping is a barrier.

>Approach your average American and say you enjoy board games. I guarantee you, nine times out of ten, you’ll get a response something like: “You mean like Monopoly?” (And the other ten percent will challenge you to a game of Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne.)

He's got this wrong by at least two orders of magnitude. I can find 1000 people who LOVE Monopoly before one that has even heard of Carcassone.

It's a Mensa/BoardGameGeek delusion that people are as disgusted with games of chance as they are. People LOVE dice. Remember, people LOVE casinos. People may not love being dominated during an entire game, but people sure love dominating for an entire game, and if you play enough games, you get your turn. And contrary to popular Mensa/BGG belief, more people have completed a dozen games of Monopoly than have ever seen the front of a Settlers box.