Analysis Paralysis Kills Game Nights: Why It Happens and 7 Ways to Fix It

While I'm a huge fan of the "no phones at the table" rule that's common in board gaming circles, there's one situation where even I can sympathize with phones coming out: when someone is taking way, way, way too long on their turn. Hello, analysis paralysis.

Analysis paralysis is when you struggle to make a decision because you're stuck in a state of overthinking. You can't evaluate the "right" path to take and you constantly second guess yourself. You're frozen and unable to move forward, effectively putting a pause on the game.

Well, here's the cold hard truth: if you're doing this all the time, you might just be killing your game nights. Or if not, you're at least holding back those game nights from being the best they can be.

What's Wrong With Analysis Paralysis?

"Analysis paralysis" is not the same thing as "playing to win." It's more insidious than that. Trying to make the "best decision" on every turn may seem like a good and noble thing, but that's ignoring all the other aspects of board gaming and what makes this hobby special. In the grand scheme, analysis paralysis is a problem. Here's why.

It Extends Play Time

The longer you take on your turn, the longer it takes for the game to wrap up. That's just how it is. In a game of Viticulture, the average turn might take 1-2 minutes—but if you overthink it and spend 5-10 minutes on most turns, the overall play time can easily balloon from an hour to three hours. Now, instead of getting three hour-long games to the table, you're only able to fit a single game in the entire night.

It Snuffs Out Energy

Board gaming isn't "just" a social activity. For most game groups, a healthy sense of fun socialization is actually the highest priority. Competition, winning, scoring well, etc. are all secondary to that. So when you're playing a high-energy game like Ra or Camel Up but take extra-long turns, it drags down the pacing and dampens the mood. It's hard to cheer and laugh and banter when gameplay keeps halting to a standstill.

It Makes Players Check Out

Game nights are most enjoyable when all players are fully engaged and mentally present. Analysis paralysis is the enemy of that. When you're killing 10 minutes with a turn, you're also killing everyone else's enjoyment. They're bored, they disengage, they pull out their phones. Analysis paralysis is the ultimate act of selfishness in board gaming as it elevates your own needs and desires at the expense of everyone else at the table.

It Breaks Up Game Groups

When analysis paralysis becomes a pattern, it creates long-term friction between players and breeds resentment. It's no fun to play with someone who hogs time on their turns, so if you aren't able to rein in your analysis paralysis tendencies, people will stop wanting to play with you. And when it reaches that point, there are only two real paths forward: either they stop coming out to game night or they stop inviting you to game night.

It Doesn't Guarantee Success

The most deceptive thing about analysis paralysis is that it makes you feel like you're making optimal choices when you aren't. There are two assumptions here that don't always pan out: first, that you have all the information you need to make the best decision; second, that you can make full sense of the information you have. You can spend all the time in the world crunching through options, but there are diminishing returns after the first few minutes. Analysis paralysis doesn't just extend play time—it's a literal waste of time as those marginal gains are often negligible.

Why Analysis Paralysis Happens

At the heart of analysis paralysis is a fear of committing to a decision. You know your options, you've weighed them, and you've narrowed them down to the two or three that seem best... but you can't pull the trigger on which one to act upon. Why the hesitation? There are many possible reasons.

Inexperience

If you're a new gamer, even the simplest decisions can be overwhelming. You don't know what the "right" thing to do is, so you end up second-guessing yourself. But even if you've been in the hobby a while, this can rear its head when you play a new game for the first time. The lack of experience can leave you unsure and wondering what to do, paralyzing you and preventing you from choosing your actions.

Insecurity

As a social activity, board gaming comes with its share of social pressures. If you're the type who frequently loses or gets made fun of a lot, you may find yourself obsessing over perfect turns because you don't want to be seen as dumb or weak. This fear feeds into your negative psyche and locks you up, making you worried about every little misstep you might take.

Pride

On the flip side of insecurity, you have pride. You see yourself as a skilled gamer and maybe you've even built up a reputation as a consistent winner. You like pulling off clever plays, perhaps to the point where you're a bit of a show-off. You absolutely have to win, so you pour an enormous amount of time and energy into all your decisions.

Too Many Choices

Sometimes analysis paralysis is a fault of the game itself. One of the most notorious examples is Five Tribes, which has a constantly changing board state and dozens of possible moves. Another is A Feast for Odin, with 61 different action spaces. When you have that many options, it can take a while to consider them all, let alone evaluate the pros and cons of each.

High-Impact Decisions

When a wrong decision comes with heavy consequences, the stakes are much higher and it's harder to commit. For example, in Spirit Island, one mistake can snowball into an overwhelming surge of invaders, so every turn is crucial. If you're afraid of missing a subtle detail that could come back and bite you, you might end up stuck in a pattern of overthinking.

Perfectionism

Some people are just wired a certain way, and that's absolutely true for analysis paralysis. Maybe you just have an exceedingly analytical mind and you find joy in min-maxing every little aspect of every game. You have to find the "perfect" move every turn, otherwise it's unsatisfying—and this kind of perfectionist tendency can even evolve into a compulsive need.

7 Ways to Deal With Analysis Paralysis

If you've been told that you take too long on your turns, or if you realize this about yourself and want to nip it in the bud, there are some things you can try to help overcome your analysis paralysis. How do I know these tips work? Because I used to struggle with analysis paralysis and these are the techniques I used to break myself out of it.

Think on Others' Turns

Don't get distracted when it isn't your turn. Don't chatter, don't zone out, don't pull your phone out of your pocket. Pay attention to what the current player is doing (if it matters to you) and start planning your next turn. Sure, you might not be able to do this in games where the board state changes so much from turn to turn that planning ahead is effectively impossible—but in games where it is possible, do it! Then when it's back to you, incorporate any new information you learned and play your turn.

Make Peace With Suboptimal Plays

On a fundamental level, if you want to overcome analysis paralysis, you simply have to come to terms with the fact that mistakes are inevitable. Is there a theoretical "perfect turn" that you can take? Maybe. Can you figure out what it is? Probably not. And even if you could, is it worth spending 10 extra minutes to eke out a marginally better turn at the expense of everyone else sitting at the table? No! Aim for a turn that's "good enough" and allow yourself to let go of those mythical "perfect" plays.

Play to Explore and Experiment

There's more to a board game than winning. Do you believe that? Some people don't and use that to excuse their analysis paralysis. But I truly believe that board games are more interesting when the goal is to explore and experiment than simply to win. Try unusual strategies that go against the established meta. Play those cards that you'd normally throw away. See what else the game offers beyond the obvious. This mindset opens up a lot of possibilities while making it easier to swallow mistakes.

Use Turn Timers

If your biggest problem with analysis paralysis is that you tend to lose track of time and don't realize you've been overanalyzing things, what you need is a turn timer. Set it to some reasonable length—maybe 2 minutes, 5 minutes, or even 15 minutes if it's that kind of game—and start the countdown on every turn. If it hits zero, that's it. You have to make a play. If nothing else, a turn timer is an objective way to see how long you actually take on your turns, and that alone can make you more cognizant of time.

Flip a Coin, Roll a Die

What if you're good at narrowing down your options to just two choices, but you're indecisive and literally can't choose? Assign each option to heads or tails, then flip a coin. If you're stuck between three or more options, assign to a die and roll. (Or ask Alexa to pick a random number.) This is a good fallback solution if you use turn timers but still can't decide what to do when it counts down to zero. Flip, roll, do what it says.

Play Less Complex Games

If analysis paralysis has a tight grip on you and nothing seems to help, it might just be the games you're playing. Even the least AP-prone player will likely get brainlocked in a game like Five Tribes or Spirit Island, and that's just due to their complexity. If analysis paralysis is killing your game nights, one simple answer is to play games that aren't so prone to it. That doesn't mean you can only play lightweight kiddie games with zero depth! But it does mean being more selective about what to play.

Stick to Async Games on BGA

If you absolutely love super-complex games with sprawling decision spaces and epic scopes, there's one final solution worth trying: asynchronous play. Asynchronous play is the opposite of real time play.

Instead of everyone "sitting at the same table" and playing at the same time, you can play your turn whenever you want and take as much time as you need. When your turn is done, the next player is notified of their turn. When it comes back to you, you get an alert (usually via email) and so it goes. Async play is great for going at your own pace without slowing others down.

Board Game Arena lets you play hundreds of board games asynchronously. Just make sure you choose the "turn-based" option when joining a game (as opposed to "real-time," which is simultaneous play). Want to crunch through every possibility and spend an hour on every turn? You can! Async is the ultimate solution for board gamers who struggle with analysis paralysis.

That's all I have for now. Good luck overcoming your analysis paralysis! And even if you don't, I hope you'll be able to manage it better at least.