Any good boardgames without 100 pages of rules? Please, no strategic war games or role playing games with 100 pages of rules. I'm thinking more along the lines of Risk, which I've only ever played once. The games have to be stimulating and a little challenging, but I don't want to get bogged down with rules, otherwise I'd just as soon slap on a CD and have a lie down.

I just thought of one - "Settlers" - great fun!

I think there are many good and great boardgames that don't bog down in 100 pages of rules. Or even 10. Which is not to say it isn't possible to write many more pages of analysis (e.g. for the game of Go), but it's not necessary just to explain the rules. Personally I'm a big fan of Pente. But based on your comment about "Settlers" (I assume this means Settlers of Catan and/or its many descendants), you may be interested in checking out other German-style boardgames. Carcassone is probably the best-known besides the Catan games, and a damn fine ame in its own right. The only other one I've played is Alhambra, and that's very good too.

Going off in another direction, I was recently introduced to Munchkin and its ilk. Great fun. An older game in the same basic genre is Wiz-War, also very fun, but with pretty crude production values. Both share a lot in common with Magic: the Gathering, the collectible card game that pretty much created the genre of collectable card games. Neither Wiz-War nor Munchkin are collectable, but other than that, they're all card games in which rules can be modified on the fly by the text on a card, and they all draw heavily on games & genres like Dungeons and Dragons for thematic inspiration. Wiz-War and Munchkin are both simpler than Magic: the Gathering, and much cheaper. And note that Wiz-War came out well before Magic: the Gathering, in 1985. If you have any fond memories of Dungeons and Dragons, but don't want to spend the time to delve into all the rules again - these games may well appeal to you.

How about Clue?

Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride
Ticket To Ride

Ticket to Ride has ONE page of rules, and those rules are easy, and the game is loads of fun, and you can play it with 2-5 people, and it is great. More info here.

Scrabble.
And I agree with Clue.

Its a card game, but I recommend Flux. The rules are simple...Draw one card, play one card. You are now ready to begin.

Sorry

Don't be.

For nerdy games, I really liked HeroQuest when I was a little kid. It was really simple and even my Dad was willing to play now and again.

Nerd.

Whatever, D&D player. That makes you Emperor Nerdius Maximus.

Othello (also known as Reversi) is a quite simple game, but can be surprisingly challenging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversi

That's the dorkiest name I've ever read. You'd have to be a real dork to come up with something like that.

Taft's got a ticket to ride, and he don't care.

Sorry was always the favorite in our family when I was growing up so it must not have been too complicated. My wife and I play Scrabble but she always wins. Those smart girls will get you every time.

Mom and I play Scrabble sometimes when I'm visiting. We're pretty well matched. She's a natural linguist who's great at morphing words, and I have a huge vocabulary that lets me take a brute-force approach to the game.

Scrabble™ is the correct answer.

Everyone should be playing Scrabble™.

it's ok, but not my favorite.

I like Balderdash, Scattegories, Yahtzee, Stratego, Monopoly, Sorry, and several others.

Flux is awesome.

Othello is a game I seldom lose so I can't find anyone to play me. Have to resort to playing my iPod Touch.

Scrabble's okay. Lately I've been preferring Boggle.

For logic skills building, I recommend Mastermind if you can still find it anywhere.

I don't know if it's technically a boardgame, but BOGGLE is all kinds of awesome.