I think in most cases there is going to be a game that you don’t like come up when you play with a group of people.  I try to do my best to play along and give others a chance to play titles they really enjoy. Conversely, I also don’t see any harm in a sit out now and then even if its just to rest your eyes after a few games in a row. 

Sitting out is also a much better option to what some do - I have a good friend that always makes me angry when we play a game “he doesn’t want to.” - He makes a stink over the title refusing to play...or worse..tries to end the game as quickly as possible!

Case and point:

He does not dig Tsuro but other players in the group were into it because it was a light filler to play after playing a few heavy games.

He smugly commits suicide and takes out 2 other players - then gets up to go outside to smoke a cigarette.

I’d rather someone sit out than do that.

Lou Reed, Henry Clay, and the Rolling Stones - brilliant!

Kris,
Precedent--that’s the problem with the opt-out option.  You may think that your reason for opting out is justifiable.  Someone else will use your precedent to opt out for some other reason.  Then another person will do the same… Each person will believe that his or her reason is perfectly justifiable and pretty soon your spending your valuable gaming time trying to pick a game that perfectly satisfies all rather than playing.

I think opting out in certain situations is fine, but not, in general, when there is only one game being played by the group. When you opt out of the only game in the room, it often can come across as rude and unreasonable. I’m not saying that’s the case for you or anyone else who would do the same thing, but it creates that perception. I say this as a finicky game player who would rather play nothing than spend further time playing the numerous games I dislike, but who often indulges people for the sake of making them happy or just spending gaming time with them, regardless of the actual cardboard on the table.

If it becomes a regular issue, where you are frequently wanting to opt out of games, then I usually take that as a sign that the group isn’t a good fit. This has happened a couple of times in different contexts, and I’ve been happier, at the end of the day, simply not being members of those particular gaming groups anymore. It saves me the hassle of having to play things I don’t like, and saves them the similar hassle of having to put up with someone who never wants to play anything shorter than 2 hours long :-)

If this is literally a situation where there is one game you hate and don’t want to play, and have made that known, I don’t see how anyone could turn that into a big deal though.

I think a big part of whether opting out is poor sportsmanship is the way in which it is handled. If you choose to opt out and it is understood that you don’t hold it against the others for going forward with the game they’ve chosen, I think opting out is entirely acceptable. On the other hand, if opting out is just a passive aggressive power play to get the others to play something else, then it is poor sportsmanship. As long as the one opting out isn’t trying to diminish the fun of the ones who’ve opted in, I think it is fine.

As I think about it, though, it seems that maybe it’s more complicated than that: Opting out when there are plenty of players, for example, is different from opting out when your absence will make the game of choice unplayable.

Actually, small groups create some interesting questions on both sides. It may be poor sportsmanship to opt out when doing so means the others won’t have enough bodies to play the game, but it seems to me that if someone really doesn’t like a game then there is some poor sportsmanship in trying to wheedle and cajole them into playing anyway.

Human interactions always seem to end up being more complicated than one would guess, don’t they?

I am that finicky player.  The list of games I’d rather not play is filled with the games that most of the people at the groups I attend like playing (middle-weight family-style German fare).  No, I don’t want to play Tsuro or Pandemic or Cuba or Notre Dame or Fist of Dragonstones or Year of the Dragon or Brass or Pillars of the Earth or Stone Age or Dominion or Tower of Babel or Power Grid or Age of Empires 3 or For Sale or Beowulf or Race for the Galaxy or Santiago or Euphrat und Tigris or Amazonas or Tinner’s Trail or High Society or Canal Mania etc etc etc and yes, I’d rather sit out and wait for something better to start.  (Hehn, I don’t think I’ve written such a run-on sentence since grade school) And in fact I do sometimes sit out; roughly three times a year. 

The point of not-being-the-group-for-me is well taken but in practice irrelevant.  I primarily attend open gaming groups with 30-50 players attending.  Within such large populations I can usually get a table together to play something I find interesting without undue difficulty.  It also works on the occasions when I attend smaller private gaming events as everyone knows what to expect long before they get to the decision of whether or not to invite me.  If they want to play games I won’t play, then they don’t invite me.  If they’re interested in playing something I like, they consider inviting me.  If they’re unsure, they ask first.  The key element however is transparency and predictability: I make it quite clear where my preferences lie and what my cut-off points are.  They know what they’re getting, or not, up front and so it works out.

JC - I respect the idea of transparency and I see why you would fair far better at a larger gaming group.

Conversely, I bet this trend of gaming doesn’t fair well for you when folks want to try a newly released or purchased game...I’d imagine you don’t get a call. I know I wouldn’t bother.

Tom: That is certainly one of the reasons I mostly attend larger groups.  The new game bit is simply not a concern.  I’m more interested in playing a familiar favourite than a new game, no matter what the expectations and hype are.  If the new game is good I’ll get around to it eventually; this year, next year, whenever—it doesn’t matter much as there are plenty of good games to play and there’s no rush.  As happens, I do get called for new purchases when they know I’m particularly interested in them.  It doesn’t happen often but it is also uncommon that I’m particularly interested in a new game and am not the first local owner.  (It helps that I’m usually mostly interested in very small print-run games from very small publishers)

Kris, opt outs are rarely an issue with us because we very rarely play games that everyone doesn’t want to play.  With hundreds of titles available to us at most of our gaming venues, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to have someone involved in a game that they dislike, even mildly, when there’s bound to be a choice that everyone is happy with.  Sometimes, that means we wind up playing a compromise choice that no one is passionate about (but everyone at least likes) and yes, it can take some time to choose what will be played next, but we all seem to feel that’s preferable to sitting through an unloved game.  And unless one of the hosts has chores to do (like putting kids to bed), making someone sit out a game just seems rude, even if they volunteer.  Obviously, if someone shows up late and a game is already in full swing, that’s one thing, but not when we’re deciding what to play next.  Every once in a great while, a player will leave a little early to facilitate a game that the rest want to play, probably because they’re tired anyway, but even that is pretty rare with us.

All of us from time to time will compromise a bit and play a game that doesn’t appeal to us, because the other players do like it and it makes the next choice easier.  But thankfully, I don’t think this is a common occurence.  It probably happens a bit more with new games, but as you say, you can’t really be sure you’ll dislike a game until you try it (although in some cases, I’m 99% sure).  Besides, experience has shown that having a player play a game they don’t think they’ll like is usually a bad idea--their prejudice will often color their opinion of the game and can even make it less enjoyable for the rest of the group.

Now, as for your prejudice against Liar’s Dice…

I’m also not a fan and will usually veto it.  However, my reasons are different than yours.  If it truly was the math exercise you make it out to be, I’d probably love the game.  But it’s the exact opposite.  Success at the game is largely based on successful bluffing and sniffing out other players’ bluffs.  I tend to approach the game mathematically and get trounced every time.

By the way, the math involved is pretty trivial.  If the bid is seven 5s, count up the 5s you can see, and divide the number of unknown dice by three (since one third of them on average will show either a 5 or a star).  That gives you the expected number of 5s.  It’s useful information, but the other players’ bids and your hunches whether they’re lying or not are far more significant.  After all, the game IS called *Liar’s* Dice.  I don’t know if you’re a Poker player or if you enjoy other games that involve bluffing or double guessing, but if you do, you might want to approach LD from a different mindset the next time you play.  It’s possible you might actually wind up liking the game.  Just as long as it isn’t with me.  :-)

Our group has a guy that ‘opts out’ of speed games.  In a small group (one table) environment, we pick something else.  In a gathering with several tables, he goes to another table.

For a ten minute game like Liar’s Dice (of which I have fond, if deafening, memories) I’d play even if I didn’t like it.  Anything over a half hour, I’d say opting out is the best option.

My levels of gaming:
Almost all games
Less than favorite games
Not gaming
Killer Bunnies

(Occasionally Pokemon the CCG will make it to the bottom level if there are other available opponents.)

I opt out of games occasionally and our small group (usually 2 tables) seems to deal with it OK.  Sometimes it’s a game that I prefer (like Liar’s Dice) and sometimes it’s a game I don’t like (Zooleretto and, for a while, Coloretto).  Mostly it’s because I’m tired and want to contemplate the insides of my eyelids for a few, sometimes because my back hurts and I want to lie down, sometimes because I’m cranky and need to relax some—whatever.  I don’t see why people would get upset, even if it did happen regularly; as long as everyone’s happy, who cares?

I think opting out is perfectly fine. Even with a smaller group. I won’t sit through another game of Settlers of Catan. I’d sooner go home. I won’t begrudge the others if they really wanted to play it and I’d probably suggest a few other titles, but if they want to play that, I can sit out, not really a problem.

Actually, Larry...Liar’s Dice math is a little trickier. There is a degree of memorization--unlike Poker, you always get to look at what people are bidding on, and can start to work out some of their algorithms.

Someone who is strictly playing the averages is a dream come true, as you can quickly work out exactly how many of the bid dice are under his cup.
Not that the math is hard---but looking for trends and characterizing the player is rather tricky.

Frank, you have done an excellent job of explaining why I suck at Liar’s Dice!

The key to Laiar’s Dice for me is playing the bid patterns to target specific other players.  I want XXX or YYY to lose a die, so I bid at a level that attempts to ensure that the doubt happens between the XXX and YYY players (where-ever they are in rotation from me).  One of them will (likely) lose a die and the next time the bid gets around to me I try to set that up again.  In this way I’m often able to weed out the stronger players early and thus leave myself an easier field in the end-game.

There are a few titles that I won’t ever play, but most have been self-excluded in the groups I play in. If I know in advance that a game I’m not interested in playing (say, Twilight Imperium), is going to be the game in a small local gaming event, I’ll try to graciously pass on attending the event. If I’m at a bigger event (such as BGG.Con) and a short game gets settled upon that I am not thrilled about (The Great Dalmuti, for example), I’ll either find another table or find something else to occupy my time while it is being played.

In between, there’s the small invitational gaming gatherings I attend a couple times a year. If everyone is gaming at the same time, we’re usually looking at a couple of tables to a few tables, depending on the time of day. Typically, though, we’ve got enough people who aren’t actively gaming at a given time that we’re down to a full single table. At that table sits a with a group of players with very mixed gaming tastes. It is this point where the “I’ll sit this one out” factor gets old fast. Trying to find the next game, even in a mix of multiple hundreds of titles becomes a negotiation game of its own (and we have several folks who loath negotiation games, so it is a grueling process at best!).

When this is happening, I resort to playing almost anything, just to get a game going - though perhaps, still not Dalmuti…

There’s the negotiation game and there’s the I-don’t-want-to-play-with-XYZ-but-I-won’t-say-so dance.  I find the latter hilarious as a large-ish group of people try and squirm into exclusion sets.

This dance as JC aptly describes it can be fun if properly organized and participated in enthusiastically.  We’ve sometimes had several rounds of voting with the top X games making it to the next run-off elections.  Other times, we’ll have someone put games equal to the number of players and everyone else gets to exclude one.

These I enjoy, but the unspoken sidling around not stating opinion procedure drives me crazy!

That’s why I like the WBC.  I know when the games I like are going to be played, I know the other players want to play this game and if I don’t like it, I don’t show up to the event.  During open gaming I’m always playing games I only half want to play.