You do have a little choice there (unlike here), but I think the same appeal is present even without the choice.
The experience is a bit like reading fortunes from tea leaves.
The fun comes from assigning meaning to the outcomes. This happens, generally, automatically as a human instinct. In traveller, the process of character creation generates a kind of narrative in your head of who the character is.
I've been thinking about these kind of experiences a lot lately.
Is it a game? I don't think a discussion of definitions is very interesting, but I would call it a game by any casual meaning of the word. Certainty, in traveller's case, a roleplaying game. But I recognize the same appeal in these zero-player games.
You're playing something, just in your own mind. The primary game isn't what's on the table, but what's in your mind. You're not committing to choices in physical (or digital) space, you have no agency there -- but there's still a rich experience happening between your ears -- full of hopes, predictions, disappointments, elation, creativity. It's like reading but you're also part author. You're not reading from a book, but from pattern matching inside randomness.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around it myself. I have little more than the recognition of something interesting in this direction, but beyond that I can't articulate it.
The basic rules aren't hard to learn and official digital versions of the rulebook and addendums with some clarifications are available (at least) in English and German.
If none of the official releases are in your language of choice, translating them shouldn't take too long. During the campaign, should you decide to play it, you unlock some cards with text on them which explains the unlock conditions and the elements they add to the game. An example of those cards can be seen in the addendum on pages 2 and 5. There aren't too many of them, so it's quite feasible to translate them.
For the English version, have a look here:
https://pegasusna.com/Dorfromantik-The-Boardgame/PNA51240.US...
Rule book: https://pegasusna.com/NetiMedia/download?mediaId=018e5c292cd...
Addendums: https://pegasusna.com/NetiMedia/download?mediaId=018e5c29466...
Two Players:
- Backgammon: This is my favorite "classic" game. I think it is _way_ more fun than chess. Especially if you play it with the doubling cube. Backgammon is easy to learn and it is common across many cultures.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2397/backgammon
- Lost Cities: this is a card game for two players that does not require any reading, aside from numbers. The game is very simple to learn but has a lot of depth and it is a lot of fun. I usually recommend this a good game for couples.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/50/lost-cities
- Battle Line: This is like Lost Cities but a little more complex, it has great depth.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/760/battle-line
Four Players
- The Mind: This is a four player card game that won game of the year back when it came out. It has no words at all. This game is extremely popular and the game play is very easy to learn (even easy for a kid). It requires all players to work together as team.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/244992/the-mind
- The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine - This is also a four player card where you play as a team and there are no words. This game involves trick taking, which is gameplay mechanic that I was not familiar with before I played this, but you grandpa has probably played a card game in the past that does this (Bridge, Spades, and Hearts).
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284083/the-crew-the-ques...
Single Player:
- Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases - This game is entirely made up of reading words. It is a very clever game that is kind of like a choose your own adventure. You get multiple cases to try to solve and you have to try to beat Sherlock Holmes. It can be frustrating but also rewarding. I would recommend getting it in grandpa's native language.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2511/sherlock-holmes-con...
Sagrada [2] is a fun game as well. Can be played solo, but I find it more fun with others.
[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1472/five-crowns [2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/199561/sagrada
1. what languages does he know? there are boardgames that are localized into other languages. Probably the easiest route tbh.
2. what kinds of games does he like? for example, many boardgames have very little english on the game pieces. think any game that uses a standard poker deck, e.g. solitaire, or many others. Mahjong is another example though, as is dominos).
There are some modern boardgames that might also be fine, namely ones that discourage communication in the first place. It's common in co-op boardgames. For example, the Lord of the Rings trick taking game is 1-4 players, and during gameplay there is no discussion allowed. Game pieces can be separated into two categories
1. scenario-specific ones, which have text on them/must be read to be understood/played. You could maybe translate them? or it may have been localized for a language he's literate in. I don't know.
2. secnario-independent ones, which are (functionally) poker cards.
For this game you only need to share language when understanding the scenario-specific cards, and when planning strategy before each scenario starts. I would be comfortable playing the game with someone I don't share a language with if
1. we both know the game (this would be the hard part), and
2. we have two copies of the game, so we each can read our scenario-specific cards in our own language, and
3. we struggled through with a translation app before each scenario starts, if we want to discuss strategy.
Maybe also consider card games (like Solitaire)?
This game, as the title suggests, is pure luck, based on the cards you were dealt.
In RSB, it’s real-time, and as dice are rolled to move horses forward, you can place bets on a number of spots, based on how the dice are being rolled (always by a designated player that is either part of the betting or not — recommended that they don’t bet if you have enough players).
Obviously still a lot of luck, as with most dice rolling games. But a decent amount of strategy in timing your bets, especially since bets freeze once horses get to a certain line in the game.
[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/351040/ready-set-bet
It's interesting to explore the spectrum of what people find fun. In large groups, it seems like games that tilt heavily towards luck can be a great deal of fun for everyone, while "board gamers" (like me) enjoy games where you can learn and leverage strategies to gain advantage, and the role of luck is diminished (to varying degrees).
As a board game host, you have to get that spectrum, gauge group size and preference, and pick a game that will work for them. Strategic games, in particular, take learning the rules, learning the strategies, practicing them, learning your opponents... it can take a dozen games before you're competitive. And for a lot of people, almost none of those games will be any fun.
A few games kind of nail this with an unexpectedly even playing field, where strategy helps, but luck offsets it. If luck really offsets it, very strategic players will also find that it's no fun.
Some luck-based games I really like include Lords of Vegas (not to mention... just Vegas), Bunny Kingdom, and Flip 7.
A lot of card-based strategy games like Terraforming Mars and Wingspan certainly have some amount of luck in them, but it can be dwarfed by good synergy / strategy.
Luck/randomness is directly against determinism. A way of making feel less mechanical and opening up the combinatorial state space? Essentially increasing the fun/interest without introducing high complexity necessarily? As well as narrow the skill range as you say, but not necessarily over longer time horizons.
Like you can do a 2d matrix of luck and complexity.
Tic tac toe - low randomness, low complexity
Chess - low randomness, high complexity
Poker - med randomness, high complexity
Roulette - high randomness, low complexity
TFA's base game, however, is pure luck - you place no bets, you discard no cards, you make no decisions. Perhaps you influence things by how you roll, but probably not consciously. If the same die roll sequence and same card shuffle sequence is replayed, the game is the exact same.
You then have people roll the dice and move the horse one spot forward if the number on the dice match the horse number.
It's total luck but a great way to explain probability to the younger kids and probability distributions to the older kids.
Spectator sports are basically zero-player games.
Another classic is "LCR" (Left Center Right), and one that was popular a few years back is "Yahtzee Turbo."
Our game was shorter, and only had uhh 6 tracks I think. The odds rose quite a lot for the un-favored horses, like, a lot a lot. The horses/tracks all had names, but I can't remember their names.