If I can gather sufficient geeks, a game of Munchkin is always fun, but my go-to these days for boardgaming with non-geeks is Pandemic. For a non-geek card night, Dixit. And for a quick warmup boardgame, Tsuro.
All of those have review episodes on Tabletop, BTW.
Pandemic is always fun.
I donāt know Dixit. Does its name come from the Indian surname?
Unlikely; itās French.
Itās a very unusual, visually gorgeous and highly creative game, where victory depends upon artistic appreciation, facility with metaphor and how well you know your opponents. Highly recommended.
There are Indian people everywhere. There are literally billions of them 
More likely from the French word for ten then.
But seriously, the game sounds fun.
I have a shelf full of old wargames that Iāll probably never play again until Iām retired, and boxes of miniatures in the closet. We have a closet full of board and card games that weāve played maybe once or twice. My wife even handcrafted a Thud set (from the Discworld series - handpainted wooden board and sculpted pieces). But we never actually play. 
Need to find some way to start a game night and make it stick. Weāve tried several times, but itās never quite worked out.
Yes and on much better cards these days which of course makes it not as cheap as before.
Iām banned from that game.
Oooh, I knew this thread was around here somewhere. Iām still playing Twilight Struggle obsessively after being introduced to it a few years ago. Never expected to feel nostalgic about the Cold War, but there you have it. An exquisite bit of game design - thereās a reason it was #1 on BGG for such a long time.
Descent is great as āD&D liteā - the campaign rules make for some persistence of character development. Games tend to be long and players really need to work together and be extremely cautious to have a reasonable chance of surviving. I havenāt tried Shadows of Brimstone, but one has to take their weird west where they can get it these days.
Ah, simpler timesā¦
And donāt forget BGGās annual gift guide!
https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Board_Game_Gift_Guide_2016
On the contrary. Yahtzee has never made more sense to me than right now.
Phānglui mglwānafh Cthulhu Yahtzee wgahānagl fhtagn!
Hmmnā¦
A few favourites, divided into light (casual gamers) and heavy (proper geeks).
RPG: light, It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show (b-movie comedy RPG. Bad monster attacking? Call in your stunt doubleā¦). Heavy, GURPS (comprehensive system that can handle almost anything, but requires an experienced GM).
Wargame: light, Small World (cheesy, fun, simple). Heavy (but not that heavy), Sails of Glory (gorgeous miniatures and simple rules, but a bit fiddly and requires a decent sized table).
Abstract tactical: light, Tsuro (fast and fun, enough luck involved that novices have a decent chance). Heavy, Khet (very simple rules, but chess-like depth; an experienced player will slaughter a novice).
Co-op: light, Forbidden Island. Heavy, Pandemic (these are basically two versions of the same game, but the first is faster, simplified, and has a more kid-friendly theme).
I had a copy of that, it may still be around in my stuff somewhere but I dunno anymore.
GURPS oh man. Yeah I liked that but very very fiddly. I have come to want a more beer and pretzels level to my game rules as I get older.
If it is like Wings of Glory/War/X-wing/etc yes it would be fun. Aeons ago when I hung out with a large game group we did a Limeys & Slimeys game at con which is a 1 page rule set for 15mm age of sail ships. Someone had built a big ship for it that the pirates actually sunk. The official boats were made from that expandable insulation foam forced into ship molds, it was a fun game but you definitely need a BIG table. I kinda like that era for ship to ship wargaming.
The WizKids pirates game was fun too but it suffered from oh new set way too often.
Fun game I played last weekend was The Red Dragon Inn where you are adventurers after the quest in the tavern with your loot celebrating.
Each turn is discard your unwanted cards. Draw up to 7. Play an action card which may force another player or all players to drink and increase your alcohol count, take a wound and lose stamina, or start a round of gambling. Then you give a drink to another player. Then you take a drink from your drink pile. There are interrupt cards of course which add to the fun.
You are out of the game if you alcohol count meets your stamina count or you lose all your gold.
You need to keep in mind that:
A) All GURPS rules are optional, and
B) Rule zero.
If youāre using every GURPS rule at the same time, youāre doing it wrong. The optional switches are only supposed to be activated when necessary.
See https://bbs.boingboing.net/t/gurps-banestorm-pbbb-narrative-thread/
(but, yeah; this is why I said an experienced GM is required)
I mean seriously beer and pretzels like Descent or the D&D board games.
Fairy snuff. 
Iāve still got an affection for simulationist gaming. But there aināt nothing wrong with an evening of Dread or somesuch.
Surely that game demands real-world ethanol consumption in parallel.
Adding a punch in the face whenever you lose a bar fight may be taking it too far, though.
