The 10 Meanest Board Games Ever Created

 1. Diplomacy

Of course. I mean, the game unofficial tagline is Ruining Friendships Since 1959, it’s brutal. In Risk in order to conquer a country you roll dice, Diplomacy takes dice out of the equation, meaning the only way to move into a region is if the attacking army has more support than the defending army. Players can support themselves from neighbouring areas, but way more likely, they’ll rely on the support of their biggest-airquotes-ever-written “allies” and man, no betrayal plunges a knife deeper into your soul than a Diplomacy betrayal. The game depends on you breaking off and having private chats with people, investing serious time and emotional weight into a plan, then you write down your orders, reveal them all at the same time, and act them all out right there and then . Hey maybe your ally will help you this time, maybe they’ll do what they promised, and maybe the next time, and the time after that, until that one time, where they completely abandon you and side with your opponent who’s actually been pulling their strings THE ENTIRE TIME, and it breaks your heart, unless of course you ditch your ally first, the little idiot. Diplomacy is a long, unforgiving game, where if you lose a bunch of territory you spend AGES fighting from underneath. The idea of spending all that time crafting a plan, only for it all to come crashing down at the whim of a chucklehead, to some, that’s the most thrilling a board game can get. To others, that is the blueprint to a messy breakup or grievous bodily damage.