Using Discord to Pick What Game to Play (Without the Chaos)

Polls are broken for game selection

Someone posts a poll with four games. Results come back 3-2-2-1. The game with 3 votes wins, but that means 5 out of 8 people didn't want it. Hardly a group consensus.

Or worse: someone posts "what should we play?" and gets fifteen different answers in a channel that moves too fast to track. By the time you scroll back up to count, the conversation has moved on and someone's already launched Valorant because nobody decided.

Discord is great for talking. It's terrible for deciding.

The bot approach

PickThe.Games has a Discord bot that handles game selection without leaving the server. The idea: instead of debating in chat, everyone swipes through games independently and the bot figures out the overlap.

Setting it up

Add the bot to your server and run /gameboard setup. You can either create a new board or link an existing one. Pick the platforms your group plays on. Done.

Getting everyone involved

Run /gameboard invite to generate a link. People join, pick their platforms, and they're in. Or if they already have an account on pickthe.games, the bot links automatically through Discord OAuth.

The voting round

When it's time to decide, run /gameboard round minutes:10 and the bot posts a message letting everyone know voting is open. Each person swipes through games (right for yes, left for no, up for maybe, down to ban). After the timer, run /gameboard results and the bot posts the top matches as an embed.

The whole thing takes 10 minutes if people actually do it. Usually less.

The embedded activity

If your group is already in a voice channel, there's an embedded Activity that runs the swiping experience directly inside Discord. No browser needed, no tab switching. Open it from the Activities shelf in your voice channel.

Same swipe mechanics, same results. But everyone can see each other swiping in real time and there's a round status showing who's done and who's still going.

Why this works better than a poll

Polls give you a winner from a fixed list that one person created. That list is biased toward whatever that person was already thinking about.

The swipe approach works differently:

• Everyone sees the same large pool of games (thousands in the database)
• Nobody knows what others are voting, so there's no groupthink
• Platform compatibility is checked automatically
• Crossplay status is factored into the results
• A ban from any member removes a game entirely
• The results are ranked by actual group fit, not just vote count

Commands cheat sheet

• /gameboard setup - Create or change which board this server uses
• /gameboard invite - Generate an invite link
• /gameboard round - Start a voting round (optional timer)
• /gameboard results - Post the top matches
• /gameboard pick game:Name - Pin tonight's game
• /gameboard suggest - Let the bot pick randomly from the top matches
• /gameboard list - Show all your boards
• /gameboard help - Full command list

One server, multiple boards

If your Discord server has different gaming groups (the weekend crew vs the weeknight crew, or the competitive players vs the casual ones), you can create separate boards for each. Run /gameboard setup to switch between them.

Get started

Add the bot to your server. Takes about 30 seconds. Run /gameboard setup name:Friday Night Games platforms:pc,ps5,xbox and you're ready.

If you want to see how the swiping works before setting anything up, try it on the website without an account.

You can also browse the full game database or check crossplay compatibility for your group's platforms.