"Important" is a lofty adjective that I rarely use to describe board games. That's not to say that I think games are unimportant; play is a fundamental part of being a person, and there's a reason we've been doing it since time began. To call a game "important", however, implies something more is happening beneath the lid of the box. It hints that the design will change the way you think about board games entirely.
2024's Molly House is a very important game.
When I play a board game, I don't expect the game to play with me. The typical player-product relationship is one where I believe myself to be master of the house, a driving force whose actions the board state must react to. It's a privileged, emotionless, vaguely imperialist idea of progress that underlies many strategy board games.
Molly House, a game about preserving queer community in the face of persecution, doesn't care much for cold, strategic thinking. It's still a complex, challenging game, but it immerses you in its theme so completely that you cannot separate your actions from your emotions.
Emotions themselves are a currency in Molly House. Players take on the role of the titular mollies, gay men and gender non-conforming people of 18th-century London. If you want the Molly Houses you frequent to thrive, you must create joy, both for yourself and the wider molly community.
Each turn, you're compelled to tour London's provinces, choosing one of many possible actions. You might pick up a desirable companion, shop for items, or visit your favorite Molly House for a social event. Joy is generated by meeting with other mollies, throwing lavish parties, and indulging in your deepest desires. The nuanced social life of a molly is represented by an elegant trick-taking-inspired mechanic.
The 'Vice deck' is composed of four suits of cards, each matching one of the Molly Houses in the four corners of the board. There are three types of cards: the numbered Desire cards, the Molly cards, and the Threats. Adding a Desire card to your reputation (your personal player board) increases your standing with a certain Molly House, and it sends you soaring up the joy tracker. Mollies act as a multiplier for Desire cards you play to your board, adding two, three, or five additional points of joy if both Mollies and Desire cards match suits.
Desires are acquired by taking the Cruise action in spaces adjacent to your preferred Molly House, while Mollys are secured by scoring the card during a festivity. Festivities are unique actions taken at a Molly House, where players must work together to build the highest-scoring set with cards from their hand. Anyone whose card is included in the winning set scores a little joy, and if you can include the card contributed by the community, you'll boost the community joy score even further.
These parties are crucial for upping the joy of the community, which you must push to a high enough score to ensure a 'Community Survival' ending. The alternative is 'Community Atrophy', an end-game scenario that takes place after five weeks (or five times emptying the Vice deck). If you haven't met the community joy threshold by then, everyone loses.
Community Survival means that the molly with the most joy wins, so there's plenty of incentive to get merry. The early turns have a naive kind of ecstasy about them as everyone charges towards happiness. As a fresh-faced molly, London is your oyster. You hop from house to house, collecting beaus like flowers and revelling in the chants of 'Party! Party! Party!' as you arrange another extravagant gathering. You find fellowship with mollies that show loyalty to your favored houses, and you might develop a friendly rivalry with the queen of the ball at another establishment.
No party lasts forever, though. Before long, reality arrives to spoil the affair.
Beyond Community Survival and Community Atrophy, there is a third way for games of Molly House to end: 'Community Infiltration'. This is where those Threat cards come into play. The Vice deck also includes Rogues and Constables who, if they encounter any public gossip about the Molly Houses, will expose their members.
Gossip is represented by the 'Gossip Pile', a discard pile that fills up in a variety of ways. When a Threat is publicly sent to the Gossip Pile, it exposes a player, removing cards from their reputation and replacing them with cubes. You still have a reputation in your preferred houses, but you can't benefit from the multipliers of Molly cards.
At the end of the week, when the Vice deck is depleted, the Society for the Reformation of Manners will investigate the Gossip deck, revealing a portion of it. Threat cards found there are matched with Molly and Desire cards of the same suit. Each Threat generates one evidence for each matching Desire or Molly, with that evidence targeting the Molly House of the same suit.
With enough evidence, a Molly House is raided. It can no longer host festivities, and it becomes more dangerous to cruise nearby. Additionally, the players with the most reputation in that suit gain a major or minor indictment.
Until 1861, homosexuality was a capital offence in the United Kingdom. The punishment could vary, but in extreme cases, a molly could be executed for the crimes of buggery or sodomy. They could also be thrown into prison, but many would die there anyway due to poor conditions.
As investigations began in my first game, our initial delight became dampened. Indictments made their way to players' hands, and the occasional noose illustration became a somber reminder that Molly House is a historical board game. Its houses and the named figures that visited them were real. Many of them died for the so-called crimes of love and self-expression.
In the board game, a player with an indictment is given a choice. They can secretly pledge their loyalty to a nearby Molly House, and they can turn their joy into a revolutionary act. Alternatively, they can betray the mollies. Instead of placing a token of loyalty on a nearby Molly House, they can secretly add an informer token. This means that they will spy on behalf of the Society and do all they can to see that house raided.
Successful informers reap many rewards. If the game ends in community survival, they discard any indictments they have rather than going to trial. Alternatively, in a case of community infiltration, informers are pardoned.
In fact, they're the only players who can win when infiltration takes place. An informer's joy is set to zero, and they instead score victory points based on how much evidence they gave against the Molly Houses. Any existing reputation they have among the houses is subtracted from their score, and the most helpful informer wins.
Unsuccessful informers are dealt a far worse hand. If your chosen Molly House remains open, you pick up an additional major indictment. Additionally, if your fellow players take an action to successfully accuse you of informing, you'll become a social pariah, with less sway in the houses and far less chance to get them raided.
By now, you'll see that every choice a molly makes is fraught with risk. The Threat cards are ever-present, ready to cause exposure at the market, at a party, or even in your hand if you hold onto one for too long. There are ways to temporarily banish them to a 'safe' pile, but opportunities are few. With every festivity, every cruise, and every shopping trip, time marches on. Even Lying Low, the safest action of all, shrinks the Vice deck and brings you closer to the Society's next investigation.
In Molly House, inaction isn't an option. When you roll those dice at the start of a turn, you must resolve the results. The market you choose cards from changes, with Threats edging closer to the Gossip pile. If your dice are all boot symbols, you must move on from your current position. Your every act is political, and even choosing which streets to walk presents risk.
Molly House isn't a traditional roleplaying game. The rules don't encourage you to build a fiction around yourself. You aren't a named character, and you aren't required to react with words to what's happening. At no point does the rulebook ask: "What would you do?"
And yet, through its mechanics, Molly House is always asking that question.
After three weeks of revelry, the worst happened to me. My beloved house, Mother Clap's, was raided by the Society. I was indicted, and I was offered the chance to inform on Julius Cesar Taylor's, another nearby Molly House.
Julius Cesar Taylor's already had a large, very public pile of evidence against it. Everyone at the table could see the writing on the wall. They openly decried me as a traitor, even before my decision was made. The fall of the house looked inevitable. Why would I choose to stand by Julius Cesar Taylor's, when infiltrating my own community was an easier path to victory?
In the real world, I identify as bisexual. A large proportion of my friends are queer, trans, or non-binary. Many of them are far more 'visibly' queer than I am. That lack of visibility comes with many challenges, but it also offers one clear privilege. When bigots threaten my community, I am not the first they will attack. I have a better chance to escape oppression - if I am willing to sacrifice my authenticity, my loved ones, my joy.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967, 30 years before I was born. The world of the mollies, who danced with danger every time they stepped outside, should feel worlds away.
But it doesn't.
Over in the US, the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety reports that the number of trans people who were murdered doubled between 2017 and 2021. Here in the UK, the number of reported hate crimes against transgender people increased by 71% between 2020 and 2024. Western media is repeatedly assaulted with headlines about 'the transgender debate', ideological arguments for why gender non-conforming people shouldn't play sports, shouldn't use public bathrooms - shouldn't exist.
When I was asked to betray a Molly House, it wasn't a question of winning or losing. The question was this: what - and who - would I sacrifice to survive?
I chose to stick by Julius Cesar Taylor's. I kept my mouth shut. In the modern day, from the safety of the gaming table, I chose the noble sacrifice. This was not chosen lightly. I was all too aware that, in reality, I was risking death for the sake of others. They might not do the same for me, and I had to make peace with the fact that, if my friends betrayed me, it was for good reason. They wanted to live at all costs.
As the weeks began to dwindle, our chances of success grew slim. The luck of the dice hindered us repeatedly. We simply couldn't find a safe route to the remaining Molly Houses to throw enough festivities. Atrophy seemed likely, but the Constables were just as hot on our tails. "At this point", a friend said resignedly, "I think I'd rather be arrested."
The threat of infiltration had spread like a poison at our festivities, but as the end came closer, we found an odd sort of solidarity. A social apocalypse was nigh. We had done all we could to flourish, but in the end, we would fade into the background of society, free but miserable.
Everyone stayed loyal to the houses, but our joy wasn't enough. If I had taken the chance to spy on Julius Cesar Taylor's, I would have run away with the win. I held victory in my hands, and I threw it away. I can't think of any other board game where I've chosen to torpedo my own ship.
Molly House is an intense exercise in empathy. Its figures are centuries old, but their conflicts feel far too current. When a game ends, you are left to sit with its tensions, pondering what the right answers are - and whether you would give them when asked. When the law decides it's a crime to be who you are, what will you do?
It may not have won as many awards as Cole Wehrle's other 2024 darling, Arcs, but Molly House is still one of the best board games of the past year. It reminds me of all the things that a board game can be. A historical text, a piece of art, a call to action - and a fantastic way to spend two hours. Play it. It's important.
For more on new board games, see our dedicated guide. Or, if you'd like to share your thoughts on Molly House, hit us up in the Wargamer Discord.