So recently my friends have learned a fun new word that they don't use sparingly at all, and that word is "pact". It is usually used in sentences such as "Let's make a pact until Ellert has been eliminated." or "Care to make a pact to eliminate Ellert ?".

Now before you make worried faces I should mention that the intention is not to eliminate me as a person but me as a player in whatever games we play. We've been playing a lot of card and board games lately and it's always great fun however there has been a re-occurring theme in the games we play lately where we are against each other that I tend to win the first few games. And now they've resorted to making alliances to take me out and then they will fight it out in a big free-for-all once I am gone or even in some cases if the alliance is not working properly they will resort to self sacrifice so that at least one of them can win like in a recent game of Risk Legacy where despite their efforts I was still with the upper hand so they decided that one of them would grow by attacking the countries of their other pact members who would leave their countries defenseless as to maximize the personal growth of that player until he or she is just too big to lose.

Now obviously I'm quite bummed but I'd rather not just resort to sitting in a corner sulking yelling "unfair" over my shoulder every now and then. Instead I want to find a way to persuade them to desire personal victory more so that they won't make an alliance if it means they themselves won't win or make myself seem smaller in games to promote more turmoil amongst them as they have to interact with each other but not me to advance the game any. So here are a few solutions I've come up with...

1. Give myself a bad head start, keep myself low at the start of the game and play badly so that they will start looking at each other but not me as the weakest players usually go the most unnoticed in most games.
2. Only keep fortifying myself in most games to begin with to create a sort of wall that can't be breached but leave the more aggressive play to the others until later.
3. Only focus on one player in the group I play with even if it would be more advantageous to strike at another player when he or she is down so that only one of them will pay any great attention to me.

But I can only view this from so many angles which brings me to you guys on the forums. If you were in a similar position what would you do ? Or even if you were once in a similar position then what did you do and how did it work out ?

I'd continue to win, if I lost I'd sulk in a corner muttering "cheats" over my shoulder for a laugh.
Just play something else you're not so good at, or opt out of playing the games you're too good at so they can practise among themselves.

I would see their ganging up on you as a challenge. It wouldn't be as fun if it was too easy.

Every year when I get together with my mom's side of the family for the holidays, we play a massive game of Boggle where it's everyone else versus me, and I have yet to lose. The largest team I've beaten so far was 10 people. Bwa ha ha

My best friend(who I thought was long gone..) was always incredibly good at *any* game he played, and fighting games were where he really excelled at. Made a lot of people jealous of him and often would not bother playing against him in games. Despite all of his, he never changed his ethics nor "lowered" his strengths for them.

Simply put, keep beating peoples asses.

Quit while you're ahead.

Then he'll never possess the powers of the world in his palms!

1. Convince friends to play a PnP RPG

2. Be the DM/GM of said game

3. Totally destroy them in the first 20 minutes

4. Laugh maniacally as they are being slaughtered and occasionally yell out something about revenge

5. There is no step 5

Step 5: make them play though that settings version of hell/evil alignment afterlife/whatever after you kill their characters, then repeat steps 3-4 with their souls.

Build a big wall, A big army, thing, whatever, wait for idiots to die, win.

Camp Australia in risk. They'll need the entire world to beat you. When they've expended their forces, crush them all. Also being the villain of the group in board games means yhou get to act superior and awesome. So put that smug factor up +10 and get working on some creative ways to burn them after their feeble attempts to defeat you. When you finally win,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4E3_2E0Qaw&context=C313237bADOEgsToPDskJbNxrxFPtc8eQrLO3rgjOU will be that much sweeter.

Edit
This happens to me a lot too. I tend to go into passive mode, and diplomacy mode. My favourite tactic is to at the last second help the person who is being beaten upon by the other x amount of players. I swoop in with a gigantic army, take them out. Politics, basically.

I think I will try and defeat them as usual making actual victories even more satisfying. And as for camping in Risk that doesn't work so well because we're playing Risk Legacy. In Risk Legacy the win condition is not to take over the world but to get 4 tokens you can get through various ways but mostly through fighting so I'd just lose even if I didn't get eliminated Also in Risk the more land you got the more troops you get, so if you just camp a small area you will get overwhelmed in the end.

We are not only playing Risk BTW, they also pull this off in other games like Magic: The Gathering when we play free for all (which we do most of the time so we can all play at once). We also do P&P but I won't be the DM of that. The guy who is our DM is actually a guy who tends to cheat when we duel 1 vs 1 in Magic and then he brags about how he cheats. Now I realize those guys might sound like massive *beeps* but they're really quite okay they are just also quite competitive and we play to have fun but not to win (although that is fun too ). There is really isn't any board or card game we play that I am bad at but every now and then we will play versus matches in the Naruto games (I can't get them to play Tekken with me anymore ) on the PS and I can't play those for the life of me. They tend to be better at games that require speed and precision where I tend to do better in slow paced thinking games so perhaps we should play some more video games. But I usually go with their suggestions and they usually suggest board and card games XD

In any case I'm still listening to points of view and stories on this subject.

I say enjoy the spotlight while it lasts.

Divide Et Empira.

Systematically elimate the weaker ones until only the 'better' ones remain, drop off the radar and let them pick fights amongst themselves, then take down those left.

Ply them with alcohol and distract them with strategically placed images of scantily clad women.

My brother and I do this to my cousin a lot when we play board games or a 3 way magic game.
Also with our friends.

Sleep with their girlfriends.

Up the ante, sleep with their mums as well.

While their dads are home.

I remember playing the Civilization board game with my cousin, brother and uncle. I was in the way of my brother and uncle gaining territories they needed for a strategic advantage. I was getting bombarded by both sides and held my own. I wiped out half of my brother's army, and nearly all of my uncle's army before I eventually lost. It was a sad day for Ethatopia.... All their lives will be remembered. BUT! Since I destroyed nearly all of my brother and uncle's units, my cousin easily won. So my defeat was not in vain!

Anyhow what I did was just wherever they were attacking me I would focus all my energy on that spot. It did me good, and the only reason I lost was me being an idiot at one point and focusing on another spot in hopes of being able to attack my brother's army. It didn't work... My brother destroyed my northern army quickly...

But that is all the fun of the game. If you're friends are plotting against you since you kept winning the first few games, then that means you are doing something right. If it really bugs you just don't play and tell them that you aren't playing because they always gang up on you, then go and do something else like play video games or something.

I like the way you think

It's no fun for just one person to DM, taking turns is the best. You should say you want to try your hand at DMing and then bring on the chaos

Confront them about it and tell them that it svcks playing anything with them b/c of it. If they are real friends they will listen.

OR

Ignore it and get really really really good at these games by learning to beat all of them when they gang up on you.