[VLM]

Sorry for the late post, but its a very stereotypical american board game vs eurogame difference that all the complexity in American board games is in the rules, not in the resulting gameplay, but in eurogames ideally the rules are as short as possible and all the complexity is in the gameplay. The ultimate extreme american game would have something like the entire code of federal regulations for rules, but gameplay would boil down to each player rolls dice and highest wins. The ultimate extreme eurogame would have two printed rules "1) each player flips over one card per turn and follows instructions. 2) First player to 100 points wins" and would come with 50 cardboard playing mats, an entire carpentry shop worth of brightly colored wooden counters, and probably a cuckoo clock.

Whats more complicated, Chess, or Go?

Its not the only categorization rule, of course. I think "Chutes 'n Ladders" would technically qualify as a eurogame solely under the "simple rules" rule, but it fails as having no social interaction, no strategy element, extreme influence of randomness, being designed and marketed extremely strongly toward the 5 yr old mind, etc.

[JoshTriplett]

Chutes 'n Ladders, much like Candy Land, is not a game in the strictest sense: the result is entirely random, and there are no decisions to make. In both cases, the game is only an exercise in following rules, counting, moving tokens around, and winning and losing graciously. There's value in that, but calling it a game is a stretch.

[VLM]

I agree with that interpretation. Unfortunately (old) American board games were mostly like that, resulting in Americans getting their minds blown when someone pulls out a copy of PowerGrid.