A place I learned about several new board games was on Geek & Sundry's YouTube channel. Wil Weaton does a show called TableTop . They show off playing table top games and you can obverse how they play before actually purchasing them. I've ended up buying several of the games they have played (and enjoyed playing them with friends and family).

I've really enjoyed several cooperative games (Pandemic, Forbidden Island, etc). Games where either everyone works together and wins or everyone looses.

Ticket to Ride is another fun one. Relatively simple game play, but requires a lot of strategy (and luck).

It also occurs to me that I would need a plan to move things along smoothly when the students are learning the games. In other words, it takes time to learn the rules and I don't want confusion. I will obviously need to learn the games myself real well so I can tell them how to play without them having to read instructions from the box. Anything else anyone can think of to avoid snags?

You might want to analyze the rules a bit from a game design perspective before playing (why the rule exists, what effect it has on the game, what if it was different, does it suggest good way to play/solve the game etc.). That would both be aligned with your goals, and make students figure out the rules before playing. Of course when playing, the initial analysis of the rules might be found to be incorrect/incomplete (this is where learning can happen).

It also occurs to me that I would need a plan to move things along smoothly when the students are learning the games. In other words, it takes time to learn the rules and I don't want confusion. I will obviously need to learn the games myself real well so I can tell them how to play without them having to read instructions from the box. Anything else anyone can think of to avoid snags?

I think that the reading the rules would make a great homework assignment, especially with a focus on analyzing/critiquing the design. Students can come to class ready to play, and they can test their understanding of the design by devising strategies and seeing how they work during actual play. I think it's also a good idea to figure out in advance how to record the game's progress so that the whole round can be analyzed once it's over. That could be especially useful if student's try out modifications to the basic rules.

It also occurs to me that I would need a plan to move things along smoothly when the students are learning the games. In other words, it takes time to learn the rules and I don't want confusion. I will obviously need to learn the games myself real well so I can tell them how to play without them having to read instructions from the box. Anything else anyone can think of to avoid snags?

I think that the reading the rules would make a great homework assignment, especially with a focus on analyzing/critiquing the design. Students can come to class ready to play, and they can test their understanding of the design by devising strategies and seeing how they work during actual play. I think it's also a good idea to figure out in advance how to record the game's progress so that the whole round can be analyzed once it's over. That could be especially useful if student's try out modifications to the basic rules.

Yes, a homework assignment! Perfect! And they'd be motivated to do it so they wouldn't look foolish the next day in front of their peers. Thanks!

Just an amateur here, but an interested one who might have a mindset close to one of your students.

I'd certainly second "Settlers of Catan" as an example of a game that made me think hard about the interaction of the mechanics and what the implications of omitting any of the rules would be. Also a good game as players are not eliminated, which can help keep the interest levels high.

Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride are also good for similar reasons.

Personally, I'd be biased against "Fluxx", in my experience it feels very arbitrary, relying disproportionally on luck - seems to be more brand/themr driven than actually being a "good" game (though of can be fun). That said, it could serve an interesting counterexample as an mechanically unbalanced game (at least IMHO).

Monopoly is interesting - it is familiar but, as mentioned, most people do not play by the full, official rules. Studying various house rules could encourage participation, as does diving into the reasons why the full rules tend not to be taught. The history of the game is also relevant.

I'd recommend "Extra Credits" too. There were a couple of videos on "Hearthstone" - somewhat similar to Magic: The Gathering (I believe, I've not played either) - very interesting around mechanical balance.

I'd certainly second "Settlers of Catan" as an example of a game that made me think hard about the interaction of the mechanics and what the implications of omitting any of the rules would be. Also a good game as players are not eliminated, which can help keep the interest levels high.

What's great about Catan is it seems at surface level to be heavily luck-driven from the dice-rolls, but the game mechanics reveal that it's not really about luck, but about your capability of leveraging the good rolls - making the most of them, minimizing the problems from bad rolls, and calculating and planning for the results of future rolls.

Catan is a game of opportunity and risk-planning.

Monopoly is interesting - it is familiar but, as mentioned, most people do not play by the full, official rules.

Not to mention, even with the unofficial rules my family used, Monopoly take three hours or more (can't fit in a single class timeslot), and once you begin to lose, it's hard to recover and you just feel hopeless, as the leaders gain more and more steam.

Settlers of Catan on the other hand, is much more reasonable in length (45 minutes), and I've even speed-played some 4-player matches in under 20 minutes (cramming games between classes :P).
Settlers of Catan also (as you mentioned) doesn't leave losing players in the dust. Most games of Catan I've played, the winner was in 3rd place until the very end, but brought about sudden unexpected victory with several well-planned maneuvers he stored up due to his incredible brilliance and staggeringly handsome complexion. :ph34r:

Seriously, there are very few Catan matches that I remember, where the winner was 1st place throughout the entire game (only the sub-20 minute games). Very few where the winner was first place even 10 minutes before the end.

The Cities and Knights expansion changes that somewhat - the winners are more commonly in the lead earlier on - but Cities and Knights has other great mechanics worth enjoying and comparing and contrasting to vanilla Catan.

Another game of interest is Risk (Lord of the Rings Risk also adds interesting dynamics and is worth playing), but like Monopoly, matches last two hours or so, and would need to be paused and resumed over multiple matches. I do think it's well-suited to being paused and resumed, though, as you can get back into it very quickly and know right where you left of, strategy-wise.

The mechanics are fairly simple though - it's better suited for teaching strategy than mechanics, IMO, but can be used for both.

Not to mention, even with the unofficial rules my family used, Monopoly take three hours or more (can't fit in a single class timeslot)...

Indeed, a long game, but ifnalmost everyone has played it before, it could be used as an example without requiring extensive playtime.

... once you begin to lose, it's hard to recover and you just feel hopeless, as the leaders gain more and more steam.

Which is actually a fascinating discussion point, hence my reference to the history of the game.

From the wikipedia:

The history of Monopoly can be traced back to 1903, when American anti-monopolist Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips, created a game through which she hoped to be able to explain the single tax theory of Henry George. It was intended as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies.

So this is by design!

There are also some good print-and-play and/or open-licensed games (The Duke and Arimaa come to mind), or ones that use fairly standard equipment (e.g., Arimaa can use a standard chess set, many games use a Go board and tiles). The nice thing about an open-licensed game, or at least one where the creators are happy with people making their own sets, is that it opens up the possibility for you yourself to make a really nice set, potentially inspiring your students with the idea that they too can make nice things.

It might be a fun project for the students to design small expansions to Carcassonne or a Carcassonne-like game. Like they introduce 6 to 10 new tiles that implement a new mechanic, similar to one of the mini-expansion packs. Upsides:

• Carcassonne rules are pretty simple and quick to explain.
• The game length is pretty much fixed by the number of tiles there are to draw, so you can play it during a class session.
• It's fairly easy to add new tiles and mechanics to it, as the apparently endless racket of new Carcassonne expansions attests.
• Students can work on their own expansions independently, but combine them into bigger & more complex games.
• You can ask them to analyze, in essay form, how their new mechanics and tiles interact with the existing mechanics and tiles. (E.g., does your expansion make it easier or harder to complete cities/monasteries/etc.? Does it make it more likely that the furthest ahead person gains a bigger lead, or allow further-behind people to catch up? Does it make players more likely to cooperate, or betray each other? Questions like that.)

This is a key skill in game design (for any kind of game), thinking about how the introduction of a new mechanic interacts with other mechanics, and what effect that has on the players' experiences as a whole.