About Cardboard Appendix
Resources for Learning, Teaching & Playing Boardgames
Cardboard Appendix is a companion site for board gamers, a place to find rules references, teaching guides, and supplementary content that helps you learn, teach, and play the games you love.
Why it exists
If you play board games, you know the pattern: you crack open a new box, spend an hour reading a rulebook, teach it imperfectly, and then spend the first play flipping back and forth looking for the one edge case nobody can agree on. A week later you pull the game back out and have to relearn half of it all over again.
Rulebooks are written to be comprehensive, not usable at the table. Teaching a game well is a different skill than knowing the rules. And the supplementary content that would help, like quick references, teaching scripts, errata, and clarifications, is usually scattered across forum threads, BGG posts, and Reddit comments, if it exists at all.
Cardboard Appendix is my attempt to fix that. I want to make playing boardgames a better experience.
What it is
Cardboard Appendix is a growing library of supplementary content for board games. For each game we cover, you'll find some combination of:
- Official rules content. The publisher's rulebook and any official errata or FAQs, in a format that's actually searchable.
- Teaching guides. Scripts and outlines designed to help you teach a game clearly, in the right order, without burying new players in detail.
- Quick references. Turn structures, phase summaries, and lookup tables for the stuff you need mid-game.
- Clarifications and edge cases. The answers to the questions that always come up, pulled together in one place.
The goal isn't to replace the rulebook. It's to be the thing you wish came tucked inside the box.
Who it's for
Cardboard Appendix is built for the people who do the heavy lifting at the table: the person who reads the rules first, teaches the group, and keeps the game moving. If that's you, or if you'd just like learning a new game to feel less like homework, this site is for you.
How I'm building it
A few principles guide what goes on the site:
- Highly usable content. Every page is designed for the moment you actually need it, whether that's mid-teach, mid-game, or mid-rules-debate. Clear structure, scannable layouts, and no fluff between you and the answer.
- Respect the source. Official rules and publisher content are presented faithfully and clearly attributed. Original content created to support a game is labeled as such, so you always know what you're reading.
- Focused on accessibility. Readable type, strong contrast, semantic structure, and keyboard-friendly navigation. Board games should be welcoming, and the resources around them should be too.
- Built for any device. Most rules lookups happen at the table, on a phone, with one hand. The site is built mobile-first so it works as well next to the game as it does on a laptop.
Who's behind this
I'm Jon Morris. I've been playing board games for over fifteen years, with a focus on heavier titles and a curated collection of around a hundred games in regular rotation. I've worked professionally on the web since 2009 in design, development, and product roles, and Cardboard Appendix is the project where those two threads come together.
Help Shape What's Next
Cardboard Appendix is in beta, which means the people using it now have real influence over where it goes. If you've got feedback, requests, or a game you'd love to see in the site, fill out this feedback survey.
Get started
Browse the game library to see what's covered so far, or sign up below for occasional updates when new games and content go live.
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