At the start of a game, a number of pieces are placed on the board.

For your convenience on the journey, we'd like to point out that there are a number of facilities available on board.

I thought of a number of names right away: the owner of our local bookstore, who let me and my little son in before the store opened and offered to play his favorite songs; our babysitter, who dropped off a bag of old board games for our kids to play; ...