Welcome to TabletopRecommender.app
Enter your boardgamegeek, rpggeek, or videogamegeek username above to get personalized game recommendations based on your ratings.
Your recommendations will be formatted like this sample list of popular games:
| 1 | 9.7 | Moria: Through the Doors of Durin(2024) The One Ring (2nd Edition) Campaign Setting (game world) Scenario / Adventure / Module |
| 2 | 9.5 | Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread(2025) 1-4 players Cooperative Game Solo Play |
| 3 | 9.4 | Balatro(2024) 1 player Single-player |
- Blue entries are role playing games.
- Gold entries are board games.
- Red entries are video games.
- Click or tap the thumbnail image to see the full size cover.
- The decimal number is the recommender's best guess at what you would rate the game.
- Use the Filters # menu on your recommendations page to customize the recommendations list.
A lot of thought and care has gone into the accuracy, usability, and aesthetics of TabletopRecommender. Thank you to the rpggeek regulars for your invaluable suggestions and feedback.
Have fun!
FAQ:
How long will it take to get my recommendations?
The first time your recommendations are generated, it could take up to 24 hours--or even longer for a very large collection. On the other hand, updating your recommendations may take anywhere from 10 seconds to several hours depending on the size of your collection. Feel free to contact me if you have trouble getting your recommendations.
Why am I seeing games that I own or have rated in my recommendations?
Use the Filters # menu on your recommendations page to filter out games that you own, that you've rated, and to access other filtering options.
How does it work?
The recommendation algorithm places a strong emphasis on objectivity, discoverability, and surprise. It uses a direct form of collaborative filtering--gathering the other users who have rated games in your collection and using their preferences to inform your recommendations. The recommender is blind to factors like genre, game mechanics, or series associations--instead relying purely on preferential associations derived from the game ratings of other users. The goal of the recommender is not necessarily to recommend games that you're already interested in, but rather to recommend the games that you would most like if you played them, based on the experiences of users with preferences like (and in opposition to) your own.
The recommender gathers your 'board game', 'RPG item', and 'video game' ratings, the ratings of related users, and game information using the BoardGameGeek API. Note that if you have only rated RPG systems on RPGGeek you will not receive any recommendations--the recommender uses 'RPG Item' ratings.
What does the number next to each recommendation mean?
The decimal number is the "recommender score" and represents the recommender's best guess at what you (or the user whose recommendations you're viewing) would rate the game in question.
Why are scores able to go over 10.0?
All else equal, the more ratings and associations a game has in the recommender the lower it's average score will be. For this reason the recommender uses a custom Bayesian model to determine how much games scores are penalized at certain popularity levels (more accurately, association count levels) and compensates with an equivalent score bonus. This is necessary for the recommender to be able (potentially) to accurately estimate what a user may rate a game. If a game has a score over 10.0, it's because the game had a very high recommender score before the score bonus was applied, in most cases suggesting a very strong recommendation.
How do board game player counts work?
The player counts for board game entries are derived from boardgamegeek's community recommended player count polls. If there aren't enough votes (at least one for each player number), the game's "box" player count is used instead. The recommender counts a player number as valid if the combined boardgamegeek "best" and "recommended" votes are greater than the "not recommended" votes.
Contact:
Do you have a bug report, feature request, or other feedback? Send me a message on boardgamegeek!
Latest updates:
Mar 5, 2025
- Added a 'True solo' board game filter
Mar 4, 2025
- Added filter tags to the top of the recommendation list so that active filters can be viewed without opening the filter window.
Mar 2, 2025
- Major update: The rating threshold for generating a game association from another user (aka: the 'like' threshold) has been changed from 8+ to 9+. This means that recommendations will be faster to generate, as the pool of associations is smaller. You will have fewer games in your recommendation list but they should be more accurate. Getting or updating recommendations will take a very long time (days--potentially weeks in some cases) until the database is repopulated. Side note for clarity: this update has nothing to do with your own ratings or how they affect your recommendations. All of your game ratings (1-10) are taken into account and affect your recommendations in kind.
Feb 25, 2025
- Added video game recommendations. To see yours, update your recommendations. Video game recommendations can be hidden in the Filters # menu.
Feb 11, 2025
- Fixed a bug where unowned games could sometimes show as "owned" (recommendations will need to be updated for the fix to take effect).
- Removed the username submission form from recommendation pages--there's no reason for it to be there in most use cases.
Jan 29, 2025
- Board game expansions are now filtered out by default for a better first-time user experience.
Jan 26, 2025
- Rated games are now filtered out by default for a better first-time user experience.
- Scores are now allowed to go over 10.0 to reflect true recommender scores (and because it's more interesting than a long list of '10.0' ratings).
- Added detail to the "How does it work?" FAQ, with intent to provide a full overview of the algorithm in the future.
Jan 13, 2025
- TabletopRecommender.app is live!