The Most Common Words in Board Gaming

Measuring and analyzing the most frequently used words in BoardGameGeek game descriptions.

Posted on 5/24/2017 by Tim Rice

Language is a fascinating aspect of the human experience. Each of the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language have unique meanings, histories, and connotations which, when combined, can represent everything humanity has ever known. Pretty amazing.

You can learn a lot about a culture by studying its language. As a member of the hobby gaming community, I thought it would be interesting to measure words that are common in the board gaming subculture and compare them to a general list in order to identify the most game-centric terms. This project is the result of that curiosity.

Method

When it comes to board game data, there's no better source than BoardGameGeek. The site is a giant community-driven database home to a wealth of information about thousands of board games, which makes it the perfect place to collect game-centric words.

In order to create a list of the most common "board game words", I wrote a program that utilizes the BGG XML API to access descriptions from a large sample of board games in the database. The program then parsed the descriptions into their individual words, removed punctuation, converted all letters to lowercase, and kept track of each word’s number of occurrences. The result is a list of words that are used to describe board games, sorted from the most frequent to the least frequent.

Source code: bggwords.py

Results

The BGG column of the table below shows the top 100 most frequent words from BoardGameGeek descriptions. Here is the list up to 1000: bgg-top-1000-words.txt. For some perspective, the right column shows the general list of the top 100 most frequent English words. The right list was taken from Peter Norvig’s website, who used an n-gram frequency analysis of Google’s Trillion Word Corpus to gather the data. See the full list of ⅓ million words here.

Rank	BGG	General
1	the	the
2	of	of
3	a	and
4	and	to
5	to	a
6	game	in
7	in	for
8	is	is
9	on	on
10	you	that
11	player	by
12	with	this
13	for	with
14	players	i
15	are	you
16	cards	it
17	or	not
18	each	or
19	that	be
20	from	are
21	as	from
22	one	at
23	your	as
24	by	your
25	it	all
26	card	have
27	be	new
28	can	more
29	their	an
30	this	was
31	all	we
32	board	will
33	an	home
34	play	can
35	at	us
36	have	about
37	if	if
38	they	page
39	which	my
40	has	has
41	will	search
42	two	free
43	first	but
44	other	our
45	but	one
46	up	other
47	points	do
48	turn	no
49	move	information
50	his	time
51	rules	they
52	there	site
53	when	he
54	dice	up
55	more	may
56	out	what
57	who	which
58	most	their
59	must	news
60	then	out
61	not	use
62	them	any
63	games	there
64	also	see
65	number	only
66	get	so
67	may	his
68	time	when
69	three	contact
70	different	here
71	pieces	business
72	into	who
73	played	web
74	wins	also
75	only	now
76	was	help
77	he	get
78	take	pm
79	new	view
80	four	online
81	set	c
82	any	e
83	playing	first
84	so	am
85	die	been
86	where	would
87	war	how
88	over	were
89	roll	me
90	same	s
91	no	services
92	use	some
93	some	these
94	end	click
95	battle	its
96	deck	like
97	win	service
98	color	x
99	make	than
100	based	find

As you can see, most of the highest ranked words are prepositions, conjunctions, and determiners. This is expected; these words are often required to logically connect ideas together, and that's just how English works. Interestingly, we do see words on the BGG list (game, player, card, board, play, points, turn, move, rules, dice, etc.) which don’t appear on the general top 100 at all.

This table is interesting, but I would not call the the most game-centric word as a result. In order to develop that list, I gave each of the 1000 words collected from BGG a score. A word’s score is equal to a word's general rank (from Norvig’s list) minus its BGG rank (determined by my code). Therefore, a positive score means the word appears more often in BGG descriptions than in general written English, and higher scores represent larger differences. The 200 words with the highest score are shown in the table below.

Rank	Word	BGG Rank	General Rank	Score
1	gameboard	684	136349	135665
2	cannot	493	106595	106102
3	wargame	485	69356	68871
4	rulebook	563	55369	54806
5	boardgame	979	54810	53831
6	pawns	324	52151	51827
7	marbles	907	25259	24352
8	pawn	442	23745	23303
9	spinner	398	21782	21384
10	checkers	987	22256	21269
11	cubes	919	18162	17243
12	discard	506	17665	17159
13	secretly	964	18092	17128
14	cavalry	821	17666	16845
15	armies	417	16537	16120
16	tokens	200	14979	14779
17	artillery	726	15082	14356
18	cardboard	727	14773	14046
19	dungeon	915	14799	13884
20	paced	814	14510	13696
21	themed	873	14280	13407
22	clues	751	13852	13101
23	miniatures	336	13410	13074
24	chooses	743	13220	12477
25	opposing	588	12575	11987
26	solitaire	560	12519	11959
27	monopoly	333	11934	11601
28	randomly	766	11860	11094
29	gameplay	737	11769	11032
30	whoever	658	11660	11002
31	hex	344	11232	10888
32	loses	888	11685	10797
33	decks	574	11367	10793
34	squares	272	10868	10596
35	variant	526	10860	10334
36	pirate	900	11071	10171
37	infantry	505	10664	10159
38	clue	961	11057	10096
39	pile	345	10302	9957
40	tactical	358	10297	9939
41	battles	243	10075	9832
42	sided	271	10097	9826
43	numbered	595	10357	9762
44	tiles	112	9738	9626
45	booklet	655	10183	9528
46	monsters	559	9988	9429
47	allies	790	10121	9331
48	opponents	185	9499	9314
49	warfare	770	10012	9242
50	opponent	118	9071	8953
51	draws	627	9521	8894
52	rounds	353	9206	8853
53	dice	54	8892	8838
54	token	486	9277	8791
55	terrain	599	9146	8547
56	fought	942	9434	8492
57	scenarios	284	8598	8314
58	dealt	579	8747	8168
59	rolled	586	8695	8109
60	tactics	647	8665	8018
61	markers	490	8453	7963
62	creatures	868	8808	7940
63	steal	773	8683	7910
64	reaches	783	8362	7579
65	combinations	928	8498	7570
66	answering	925	8476	7551
67	miniature	960	8410	7450
68	defeat	700	8135	7435
69	marker	827	7866	7039
70	abilities	545	7577	7032
71	trivia	315	7290	6975
72	timer	863	7651	6788
73	invasion	947	7722	6775
74	tile	213	6983	6770
75	allied	876	7637	6761
76	determines	999	7760	6761
77	rows	982	7725	6743
78	simultaneously	891	7598	6707
79	chess	446	7113	6667
80	trick	552	7167	6615
81	treasure	355	6968	6613
82	naval	661	7246	6585
83	captured	712	7253	6541
84	rid	878	7381	6503
85	mechanics	714	7215	6501
86	tries	663	7153	6490
87	flip	970	7356	6386
88	suits	957	7318	6361
89	reveal	872	7124	6252
90	landing	555	6770	6215
91	rolls	370	6566	6196
92	placing	483	6632	6149
93	spell	975	6986	6011
94	tanks	966	6973	6007
95	compete	577	6554	5977
96	collecting	659	6583	5924
97	soviet	735	6647	5912
98	scoring	298	6116	5818
99	scored	781	6533	5752
100	challenging	976	6722	5746
101	counters	156	5868	5712
102	scenario	491	6193	5702
103	colored	386	6087	5701
104	adjacent	641	6247	5606
105	bull	512	6069	5557
106	pairs	927	6457	5530
107	destroy	774	6266	5492
108	offensive	850	6274	5424
109	heroes	541	5885	5344
110	fleet	817	6013	5196
111	tricks	968	6163	5195
112	stack	517	5702	5185
113	complexity	896	5977	5081
114	holes	618	5554	4936
115	representing	500	5335	4835
116	stones	499	5206	4707
117	receives	759	5444	4685
118	opposite	786	5425	4639
119	spin	566	5184	4618
120	wins	74	4673	4599
121	correctly	439	4996	4557
122	wooden	388	4922	4534
123	chips	328	4815	4487
124	enemy	312	4784	4472
125	combat	124	4575	4451
126	hero	859	5294	4435
127	divided	587	4987	4400
128	lands	503	4843	4340
129	spaces	148	4427	4279
130	symbols	902	5163	4261
131	deck	96	4329	4233
132	revealed	832	5060	4228
133	troops	643	4845	4202
134	collect	170	4363	4193
135	moves	216	4398	4182
136	balls	715	4891	4176
137	rolling	375	4537	4162
138	drawn	488	4609	4121
139	victory	165	4277	4112
140	puzzle	756	4785	4029
141	consists	317	4306	3989
142	turns	130	4117	3987
143	simulation	502	4317	3815
144	luck	405	4206	3801
145	quest	941	4737	3796
146	skill	597	4391	3794
147	adds	870	4591	3721
148	capture	297	4006	3709
149	throw	739	4404	3665
150	exciting	516	4180	3664
151	sides	472	4115	3643
152	escape	801	4430	3629
153	covering	952	4454	3502
154	represented	717	4209	3492
155	coins	767	4251	3484
156	monster	581	4049	3468
157	grid	325	3766	3441
158	soldiers	874	4313	3439
159	dragon	709	4086	3377
160	winner	110	3462	3352
161	represents	402	3730	3328
162	marked	745	4026	3281
163	corresponding	848	4118	3270
164	castle	664	3905	3241
165	draw	162	3350	3188
166	plays	287	3470	3183
167	suit	553	3709	3156
168	earn	528	3644	3116
169	depending	448	3555	3107
170	drawing	575	3671	3096
171	fighting	603	3676	3073
172	sheets	719	3767	3048
173	powers	648	3686	3038
174	empire	532	3547	3015
175	weapons	461	3444	2983
176	remaining	569	3546	2977
177	decide	613	3568	2955
178	starts	335	3286	2951
179	objective	465	3381	2916
180	pieces	71	2983	2912
181	attacks	741	3651	2910
182	tower	692	3599	2907
183	blocks	796	3703	2907
184	ages	253	3135	2882
185	scores	460	3309	2849
186	catch	792	3635	2843
187	chip	885	3712	2827
188	expansion	758	3557	2799
189	collected	789	3576	2787
190	lose	407	3169	2762
191	chosen	778	3519	2741
192	begins	614	3343	2729
193	attempt	360	3056	2696
194	don	322	2982	2660
195	ancient	633	3283	2650
196	challenges	836	3419	2583
197	represent	399	2976	2577
198	colors	289	2836	2547
199	continues	681	3193	2512
200	roll	89	2595	2506

Observations

Apparently BoardGameGeek users love to compound words that the general public would probably leave separate: gameboard, wargame, rulebook, and boardgame (really...?) all rank very highly.
Why is the general rank for cannot so high? Is it that uncommon of a word? I suspect it’s some sort of parsing bug where it’s treated as two separate words in some situations, but I don’t really have an explanation for that.
A common theme seems to be components that are found in a lot of games: pawns, marbles, spinners, cubes, miniatures, hex, etc.
monopoly makes the list at #27. According to Yehuda, there are currently over 2900 version of Monopoly out there, so that might have something to do with it.
There are a few more ubiquitous games that made the list as well (although these also have multiple meanings): checkers, clue, chess, and solitaire.
The highest ranking verbs are discard, paced (although I assume this was usually paired with fast to create an adjective), themed, chooses, and loses.
The highest ranking adjectives are cardboard, opposing, tactical, sided, and numbered.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m pretty happy with these results. Board gaming is an extremely open-ended hobby, so It’s interesting to see which words stand out and become universal "gaming terms", and to think about why.

Did you make any observations that I missed? Any surprises? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

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