Monopoly is like that, and your point dovetails with the tendency of that game to end abruptly when someone quits in a rage. Who wants to spend dozens of rounds slowly, yet inevitably losing?
Playing with at least 3 or 4 players most games become more about diplomacy and getting other players to do what you want than getting good roll / cards. A good trick is to get hit hard at the start of the game (when you win a lot it is not hard to be a target) then once someone start getting ahead focus everyone on them while retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on. When you get in a position to win start speaking less to not attract any attention, don't use flashy combos. Then win.
If you play a lot, learn how one game can help you for next one: if don't break your promises or help someone when they need it; you may get some help next game. Or people will be a lot more willing to trust you, until breaking this trust can give you a win.
I'd like to specifically advise caution with the "gang up on the current winner" strategy.
One the one hand, yes, it can make games more fairly balanced. It works well when a) all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is, b) players are all playing to win, and c) players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally.
It can fail hard, though, and make a gaming experience more miserable. "retelling how everyone fucked you over early-on" reinforces the negative parts of the game play experience, and eventually you get people arguing over who's been screwed over worse. You get players who've had a strong showing arguing that "I'm not really the leader", and feeling singled out and attacked when they inevitably get ganged-up upon. Except then it's not merely their perception - the other players have discussed ganging up on them!
My immediate family is almost entirely board game enthusiasts, but arguments of that variety have almost driven apart that board-game-playing shared interest. Games such as Settlers of Catan are effectively banned, since they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments.
> all players are roughly on the same skill level, and can independently agree on who the current winner is
It is even more fun when they don't. You can spend a lot of time arguing about who's ahead or on the way to be ahead and explaining why. I think the interaction between players is the most important in those games. Bluffing, teasing, making and breaking promises etc. If you want to play with no interaction just start a solo game on your PC.
But I agree with
> players are willing to recognize that it's still just a game, and not take losing personally.
and not only losing. I kinda like to be rough when explaining how someone missed some obvious better move than what they did (and this fucked-up what I had in store). But the colorful language is just for the game duration, out of it all is good.
> they're really hard to prevent from devolving into "who got screwed over more" arguments
We ended making stats of attacks during some games to settle those arguments. Result: everyone was attacking everyone almost equally in fact. It was a fun experiment and explained why everyone felt as the only target during the game.
My friends and I used to play Risk a lot in high school. I won the first few games, and this strategy started being invoked on me from the very start of the game to just get me out. Made it decidedly less fun for me because I’d be eliminated then just have to sit there the whole night.
Eventually we discovered Catan and games got markedly better because of the game dynamics. Haven’t played Risk since those days.
