Risk: The Board Game

I really like E-Bay. It is fun looking at and reminiscing on the old toys and games I had as a kid, and sometimes even buying them too. I recently went looking to replace my old Risk board game, which is lost in the ether somewhere during some move many years ago. I think at some point enough beer was spilled on it that I had to pitch it perhaps. I originally planned on buying a really nice used version with complete parts because I feel the new games out today are flimsier and much cheaper. Sometimes I wish they’d just charge an additional couple of dollars and give you a premium product instead of something that’s going straight to a landfill.

Upon searching, I found something more desirable than a premium Risk board game, and that is the original 1998 version I had still in its original packaging. I quickly snatched it up. As a teenager, I loved Risk. I played the board game with friends through college and we had some epic games. They often involved long nights of drinking and chain smoking, and tons of shit talking, backstabbing, and cut throat competition. It got to the point where we had to make up side rules to calm everyone down when they had too much to drink.

One of these was a process called “the big book of treaties”, although it morphed into something more. I think it started as one by using a notebook, but people would thumb through it and create espionage, so we needed an alternative. We eventually got an empty pretzel bucket that you’d write a treaty up with and throw into it. The rule was that nobody could see it. I don’t know why we did it, as a record? To hold people accountable? I do remember it had to be specific and for a set amount of turns. At the end of the night we’d read all of them and laugh and call the people out who clearly broke them. Sometimes it was really funny, sometimes it would just piss people off again. We always had a good laugh though.

I honestly didn’t play many games outside of Risk. They could never hold my attention long enough. For whatever reason, I really liked it then. I hope to introduce my sons to it soon enough.