Next to every game in our results there is a weight out of 5. It drives the Experience filter, and it is the single most useful number for predicting whether a game will work at your table. It is also routinely misunderstood, so it is worth ten minutes.
What it measures
Weight is a community average. Players are asked a single question about each game — how complex is it? — and their answers are averaged. That is the whole mechanism. It is not computed from rules length, component count, or playing time.
In practice raters are answering something like: how much work is it to learn this game and to play a turn well? Which bundles together several things:
- how long the rules take to explain
- how many things you must track at once
- how far ahead you have to think
- how badly a bad decision punishes you
Roughly what the numbers feel like
| Weight | What it feels like |
|---|---|
| 1.0 – 1.5 | Explained in two minutes. Codenames, Just One |
| 1.5 – 2.0 | One page of rules, one core decision. Azul, Ticket to Ride |
| 2.0 – 3.0 | A proper rules explanation, an hour or two of play. Wingspan, 7 Wonders Duel |
| 3.0 – 4.0 | Read the rulebook before people arrive. Terraforming Mars, Brass |
| 4.0 – 5.0 | A commitment. Gloomhaven, Twilight Imperium |
Our Experience filter cuts this into three bands: Beginner below 2.0, Intermediate from 2.0 to 3.5, Expert above 3.5.
The three things it does not tell you
It is not difficulty. A heavy game is not harder to win, it is harder to learn. Some of the sharpest, most cutthroat games in the hobby are extremely light — the whole skill is in reading other people, and no rulebook prepares you for that.
It is not quality. Weight and rating are close to independent. There is no floor of complexity below which a game stops being good.
It is not length. Correlated, certainly, but not the same. Plenty of weight-2 games run ninety minutes, and plenty of weight-3.5 games are done in forty-five.
Who is doing the rating
This is the important caveat. The people who submit complexity ratings are, by definition, people invested enough in the hobby to go and rate a game — that is, players with a large frame of reference. A game a hobbyist calls a 2.4 can be the heaviest thing your family has ever attempted.
A practical correction: if you are buying for people who mostly play party and family games, subtract about half a point from your comfortable ceiling.
How to actually use it
Pick your weight from the least experienced person at the table, not the average. Complexity is not something a group averages out — one lost player slows everyone down, and they usually stop enjoying themselves well before they say so.
Then use it as a range, not a target. Set the Experience filter, add your real player count and the age of the youngest player, and let the finder hand you the five best-rated games that fit all of it.