We have put out a few calls now for guest bloggers. Here is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts from writers who've not posted on Gone Gaming before.
Boris Dvorkin responded to one of my posts looking for guest bloggers. Strangely, it was a post in the "Women and Gaming" forum on Boardgamegeek which has netted the most interest. More strangely, perhaps, none of the interest has been from women.
I like the new twist Boris puts on this familiar term. Please comment on his post to inspire him to write for us again!
---
What sucks worse than having an awesome game and no one to play it with? Lots of things. Getting hit in the nose with a mallet, for example. But most of us gamers don't even own a mallet, let alone someone who might hit us in the nose with it, so we spend most of our time bemoaning the lack of companions for our cardboard adventures. This is why some gamers are obsessed with the idea of "gateway games" — games that will turn their boozing socialite acquaintances into insatiable Puerto Rico fanatics.
Of course, most people realize by now that gateway games are a myth. Like all good myths, the "gateway" concept is built on a fleck of truth: outstanding members of a hobby can indeed generate widespread interest in that hobby. Chess participation skyrocketed in the 70's when Bobby Fischer became the first American world champion. But this burst of enthusiasm for chess was not accompanied by similar spurts in Go and backgammon. Fischer's phenomenal chess play only generated interest in chess. Thus, when you teach your friends how to play Settlers, a phenomenal board game, the best result that you can hope for is that they'll become interested in Settlers. Hence the common cry, "I taught my friends how to play Settlers and now they won't play anything else!" Well, duh. Serious gamers may accuse Princes of Florence of being multiplayer solitaire, but to the average Fred it seems more like multiplayer chess — bewildering, difficult to learn, and boring.
For most people, spending twenty minutes learning a complex set of abstract rules and then the next hour and a half perusing decision trees is torture. You have to be a very, very special kind of person to want to do this kind of thing in your spare time. I once taught Puerto Rico to a guy who had never played Settlers in his life, and he loved it. He was just that kind of person. Conversely, my Settlers campaign back home was so successful that a number of my friends bought their own copies plus expansions — yet they won't touch Puerto Rico with a twenty foot shark.
The result of all this is that the term "gateway game" is still being used in discussions but contributes nothing meaningful to them. People either cling to the phrase with dewy-eyed dreams that their sweater-knitting girlfriends will be brainwashed into adoring Caylus, or decry it as a hopeless folly and ignore all mention of it altogether. I think that's a shame, because with a bit of tweaking, "gateway game" can be made into a useful term.
Now, as an English major, I know better than to try to impose my will on the way that language is used. People are funny about language. If you ask them how important it is to them, they're likely to say "not much." And yet, if you tell someone that a word they're using is wrong, or that it shouldn't be used at all, and the person happens to disagree, you're likely to face such a brutal retaliation that a passerby will wonder if you didn't just try to shoot their dog. People are extremely attached to the way they use words, which is why attempts to regulate the language by prescriptivist linguists (aka Grammar Nazis) are usually utter failures.
But what the hell.
Here's how many people think of the term:
Gateway game: a game that can make non-gamers interested in gaming.
And here's how I prefer to see it:
Gateway game: a game that both gamers and non-gamers are willing to play.
The second definition makes down-to-earth, immediately useful discussion about gateway games possible. For example:
— Puerto Rico is a bad gateway game because the rules are hard and it requires a lot of thinking, so non-gamers won't like it.
— Cranium is a terrible gateway game because its 5.9 rating on BGG indicates that most gamers aren't thrilled with it
— Settlers of Catan is a great gateway game because many people who refuse to play any other remotely serious game, still play Settlers.
The above analysis may not seem very useful because everybody already knows intuitively which games are gateway games and which ones aren't. But the pie-in-the-sky vagueness of the first definition ("Will Ticket to Ride make my friends like other board games? Well, I don't know...") casts a pall of doubt on any game labeled as "gateway." With the second definition, there is no doubt — a game is either generally tolerable to non-gamers, or it isn't.
— Boris Dvorkin
Showing posts with label guest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guest. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Morgan Dontanville Returns
Pub Life
By Morgan Dontanville
Here’s Egg in Your Face (Part II)
Or the Continuing Story of How I Fell in Love with Eggert-Spiele.
Flirting with Neuland
When I first read about Neuland I associated it only with the strange creature that was Essen’s Spiel ‘04. I had known that Spiel was a big convention that showcased a bunch of games, but for some reason it wasn’t until I actually went to it that I realized it is just a big trade show. The reason why my initial impression of Spiel is even relevant is that for some reason I thought that there was some sense of exclusivity to it, rather than the reality of what makes it special. It is the polar opposite. There are a ton of people there, many of whom are ‘randoms’ that just wander in on a Saturday because there is nothing else going on locally.
What was confusing for me was that I misunderstood the market. I had heard about rare games coming out at Essen, but as it is a Mecca for the masses, gamers in Europe flock there to buy special things. In my recent experiences with Essen there were multiple times where I’d sit at a table to game with locals. In small talk there is always a discussion about where everyone is from. When I’d tell people that I’m from America, they’d ask if I was working in the area for business. After revealing that I was there for the convention, the general reaction from most people was, “Really? You came all the way from America for this?” The reason that small print runs on games do well at Essen isn’t because there are a bunch of rabid buyers that pick up one of everything, but that there are just so many people there buying that even if you tap into a small percentage of the buying public, you are bound to make some healthy sales. If you print a small enough run you will be able to sell out and not have to worry about any inventory until next year.
Word trickled back from Essen about Neuland. At that time, I was solidly at a point where I understood the value of following designers and their methods but was just beginning to recognize the relevance of following publishers. This became sort of a parallel to my indie rock high school years when I first realized that the people that ran record labels had as much influence on the music that came out as the bands that made the music itself. Because of the lack of buzz on Eggert-Spiele’s Global Powers the year before, I had no context for Neuland. To me, there was no association to make. By 2004 Global Powers was all but forgotten, and Neuland seemed like it was a small indie game coming from an unknown publisher.
One of the great things about being a gamer is that there is a small percentage of people within the community who have deluded themselves into thinking that their opinion matters (as can be seen by the fact that I’m taking the time out to write this - how’s that for breaking the third wall). Because games are for the most part social and in order to play them we need others to participate, knowing what others like is important. So we look to others to tell us what they like. As a result, all the people who feel their voice is important enough to be heard become important.
As usual, I digress. Word got back from a number of these trusted people that this was a good game. Word also got back that the game is too heavy, too much of a brain burner, too prone to A/P, too chaotic, had too much downtime and could lock up. In addition to that, one thing that I knew for sure was that it was beginning to get too expensive, especially considering the feedback it was getting.
After hemming and hawing over whether or not to get the game it rapidly went out of circulation. In a very short time it became near impossible to get. It certainly ranked as a “try before you buy” game but no one I knew had a copy.
At that time, I was going through a backlash phase in gaming that bucked against the cold heartless designs that the euro format of gaming seemed to grind out. I was trying more new games than ever before, so of course stumbling upon games I didn’t like would be more frequent. I had a resource of multiple game collectors to tap into, as a result I played a number of average games that I’d never considered picking up.
I kept seeing an overwhelming amount of duplicated mechanics “with a twist” repasted with a “new” theme. This time it’s in Egypt instead of Renaissance Italy, this time it is in Renaissance Italy instead of Egypt.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback that I got from folks that talked about Neuland was that it was the best example of how heavy you can push a Euro and still remain entirely Euro. What is important for me, though, was hearing that this was pushing design to an extreme level. That meant this wasn’t going to be a bland family game that kowtowed to the masses. This had no desire to be SdJ material. The more negative feedback that I was reading from this, the more fascinated I was becoming with the game.
Doing more research, which at this point meant pressing one button and clicking the publisher link on the boardgamegeek, I realized that both Global Powers and Neuland were from the same company along with some other crazy games that I’d never heard of. The point at which I was resolved to buckle down and just buy the damn thing was the point where the likelihood of even finding it was absurd.
First Date
A friend of mine who is a trading fanatic ended up with a copy of Neuland. Without a doubt he loves to play games, but I think that most of all he loves the act of acquisition. The thrill of trading something rare for something else that he can manhandle far surpasses sitting down and actually playing it. As a grail collector he will often times trade games he’s never played just to get the next one in his possession. One may say that this is the old story of “The Dog and The Bone”, but the joy he gets out of pawing new games is real. Anyway, I knew that as soon as he got this I would have to get it played quickly otherwise it would be traded into the ether.
He didn’t seem all that interested in playing it - he was more concerned with the condition of the box - but he was kind enough to lend it to me with a promise that if I damaged it any more than its split corners I would have to buy it from him at what I considered an ungodly cost. Mortgaging my soul, I ended up walking home with a copy.
I think the level of patience that people have with others when it comes to lending out items is directly related to their memory. From experience we have all lent things out to people and eventually forgotten who we gave them to. I think we have an internal alarm clock that eventual gets set, measuring our own capacity to remember who has our stuff. The shorter our memory, the shorter the patience of the lender for fear they will forget again. Needless to say I was taking too long trying to get this on the table.
Finally, I brought it to a friend’s game day and found some hapless souls to move some pieces around with. If I had thought about it at the time, it was possibly the worst combination of people to try this with: one player, a wargamer that hates perfect information logistics games, a relative newbie who mostly plays Ameridice games (her favorite after playing a number of games still is Monopoly), and an intense eurogamer with an extreme case of A/P. Normally this would be a formula for failure, but they all strangely wanted to play Neuland. Two of the other gamers recognized that this might be their only opportunity, so they wanted to get in while they could and the other just liked hanging out with us (I have to give her props for having good taste).
After muddling through the rules we were off and running. I was surprised at how much conflict this had without anyone’s ability to directly attack each other. It turned out to be a very antagonistic game.
If you can move to strengthen your position and screw someone in the process the game have some really satisfying moments. You have to watch what other people’s goals are and push yourself to get first to the spots where others may block you out. Thematically, I felt it was very strong as the logic of what you are doing makes sense; shearing sheep for wool taking the wool someplace for clothing, etc.
Truly the most exciting thing about the game is the action point system. As usual in innovation, multiple people birth ideas simultaneously; both Neuland and Jenseits von Theben use the concept of taking any number of action points you need (to some limit of course) but then allowing people that take less to get more turns. In JvT actions are measured in time. With Neuland it is more abstract and actions are measured in work. In JvT there is a racing aspect to the game and timing when you will begin the race is where the game is. In Neuland there are workers that you need to maintain, to actually do their jobs you get them to a place and they have no real identity other than what they are currently doing. If you don’t keep them constantly moving they lose their identity, so there is a sense of urgency, as you have to move workers around turning something ephemeral into something concrete. I liken it to those crazy plate spinners who constantly have to run back and forth tending to each pole in order to prevent one of the plates from flying off and crashing to the floor.
By the end of the game the Ameridicer decided that she wasn’t going to win and did everything in her power to stop me from ending the game. She planted all her workers on the spots I needed and left me in the lurch. This essentially allowed another player the win. Call it kingmaker, if you will, but I made some moves earlier on in the game that buried her behind the curve. I have to say that the person who won played a more honest game. In a game that is this interactive… well, there is a saying in the music industry that is often bandied about: “It is important to remember who you are stepping over on the way up because they are the only ones to catch you on the way down.”
So, I think at the end of this I was the only one that really loved it. The eurogamer appreciated it, the wargamer saw its value but would certainly rather play something else and the Ameridicer decided that she was happy to play games with us (so status quo for her). We all agreed, though, that this seemed that it would be better with three players.
The owner of the game got his copy back in hand as “pristine” as he had lent it, and my soul was returned. Later that week he traded it away.
A year later, a friend of mine in Germany found a copy for me and hand delivered it. I skipped around and giggled like a little girl. It had become a holy grail. I had no problems paying the price to recoup his expenses.
Of course, my copy still remains unpunched. I’m trying to do something about that.
This actually wasn’t the first Eggert-Spiele game I’d played, but the second. By the time I’d gotten to Neuland I’d already gotten to first base, but this brutal beauty sealed the deal.
(End of Part II)
~~~~~~~
This will be the last post from sodaklady. I’ve had a great time being part of this wonderful blog group but my game time has all but disappeared for various reasons so coming up with something to say has become more like work than the fun it should be. I want to publicly thank Brian for including me in his dream of a group blog, and thank all you readers who have taken the time to make comments. It’s been such a lot of fun and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Mary
By Morgan Dontanville
Here’s Egg in Your Face (Part II)
Or the Continuing Story of How I Fell in Love with Eggert-Spiele.
Flirting with Neuland
When I first read about Neuland I associated it only with the strange creature that was Essen’s Spiel ‘04. I had known that Spiel was a big convention that showcased a bunch of games, but for some reason it wasn’t until I actually went to it that I realized it is just a big trade show. The reason why my initial impression of Spiel is even relevant is that for some reason I thought that there was some sense of exclusivity to it, rather than the reality of what makes it special. It is the polar opposite. There are a ton of people there, many of whom are ‘randoms’ that just wander in on a Saturday because there is nothing else going on locally.
What was confusing for me was that I misunderstood the market. I had heard about rare games coming out at Essen, but as it is a Mecca for the masses, gamers in Europe flock there to buy special things. In my recent experiences with Essen there were multiple times where I’d sit at a table to game with locals. In small talk there is always a discussion about where everyone is from. When I’d tell people that I’m from America, they’d ask if I was working in the area for business. After revealing that I was there for the convention, the general reaction from most people was, “Really? You came all the way from America for this?” The reason that small print runs on games do well at Essen isn’t because there are a bunch of rabid buyers that pick up one of everything, but that there are just so many people there buying that even if you tap into a small percentage of the buying public, you are bound to make some healthy sales. If you print a small enough run you will be able to sell out and not have to worry about any inventory until next year.
Word trickled back from Essen about Neuland. At that time, I was solidly at a point where I understood the value of following designers and their methods but was just beginning to recognize the relevance of following publishers. This became sort of a parallel to my indie rock high school years when I first realized that the people that ran record labels had as much influence on the music that came out as the bands that made the music itself. Because of the lack of buzz on Eggert-Spiele’s Global Powers the year before, I had no context for Neuland. To me, there was no association to make. By 2004 Global Powers was all but forgotten, and Neuland seemed like it was a small indie game coming from an unknown publisher.
One of the great things about being a gamer is that there is a small percentage of people within the community who have deluded themselves into thinking that their opinion matters (as can be seen by the fact that I’m taking the time out to write this - how’s that for breaking the third wall). Because games are for the most part social and in order to play them we need others to participate, knowing what others like is important. So we look to others to tell us what they like. As a result, all the people who feel their voice is important enough to be heard become important.
As usual, I digress. Word got back from a number of these trusted people that this was a good game. Word also got back that the game is too heavy, too much of a brain burner, too prone to A/P, too chaotic, had too much downtime and could lock up. In addition to that, one thing that I knew for sure was that it was beginning to get too expensive, especially considering the feedback it was getting.
After hemming and hawing over whether or not to get the game it rapidly went out of circulation. In a very short time it became near impossible to get. It certainly ranked as a “try before you buy” game but no one I knew had a copy.
At that time, I was going through a backlash phase in gaming that bucked against the cold heartless designs that the euro format of gaming seemed to grind out. I was trying more new games than ever before, so of course stumbling upon games I didn’t like would be more frequent. I had a resource of multiple game collectors to tap into, as a result I played a number of average games that I’d never considered picking up.
I kept seeing an overwhelming amount of duplicated mechanics “with a twist” repasted with a “new” theme. This time it’s in Egypt instead of Renaissance Italy, this time it is in Renaissance Italy instead of Egypt.
One of the biggest pieces of feedback that I got from folks that talked about Neuland was that it was the best example of how heavy you can push a Euro and still remain entirely Euro. What is important for me, though, was hearing that this was pushing design to an extreme level. That meant this wasn’t going to be a bland family game that kowtowed to the masses. This had no desire to be SdJ material. The more negative feedback that I was reading from this, the more fascinated I was becoming with the game.
Doing more research, which at this point meant pressing one button and clicking the publisher link on the boardgamegeek, I realized that both Global Powers and Neuland were from the same company along with some other crazy games that I’d never heard of. The point at which I was resolved to buckle down and just buy the damn thing was the point where the likelihood of even finding it was absurd.
First Date
A friend of mine who is a trading fanatic ended up with a copy of Neuland. Without a doubt he loves to play games, but I think that most of all he loves the act of acquisition. The thrill of trading something rare for something else that he can manhandle far surpasses sitting down and actually playing it. As a grail collector he will often times trade games he’s never played just to get the next one in his possession. One may say that this is the old story of “The Dog and The Bone”, but the joy he gets out of pawing new games is real. Anyway, I knew that as soon as he got this I would have to get it played quickly otherwise it would be traded into the ether.
He didn’t seem all that interested in playing it - he was more concerned with the condition of the box - but he was kind enough to lend it to me with a promise that if I damaged it any more than its split corners I would have to buy it from him at what I considered an ungodly cost. Mortgaging my soul, I ended up walking home with a copy.
I think the level of patience that people have with others when it comes to lending out items is directly related to their memory. From experience we have all lent things out to people and eventually forgotten who we gave them to. I think we have an internal alarm clock that eventual gets set, measuring our own capacity to remember who has our stuff. The shorter our memory, the shorter the patience of the lender for fear they will forget again. Needless to say I was taking too long trying to get this on the table.
Finally, I brought it to a friend’s game day and found some hapless souls to move some pieces around with. If I had thought about it at the time, it was possibly the worst combination of people to try this with: one player, a wargamer that hates perfect information logistics games, a relative newbie who mostly plays Ameridice games (her favorite after playing a number of games still is Monopoly), and an intense eurogamer with an extreme case of A/P. Normally this would be a formula for failure, but they all strangely wanted to play Neuland. Two of the other gamers recognized that this might be their only opportunity, so they wanted to get in while they could and the other just liked hanging out with us (I have to give her props for having good taste).
After muddling through the rules we were off and running. I was surprised at how much conflict this had without anyone’s ability to directly attack each other. It turned out to be a very antagonistic game.
If you can move to strengthen your position and screw someone in the process the game have some really satisfying moments. You have to watch what other people’s goals are and push yourself to get first to the spots where others may block you out. Thematically, I felt it was very strong as the logic of what you are doing makes sense; shearing sheep for wool taking the wool someplace for clothing, etc.
Truly the most exciting thing about the game is the action point system. As usual in innovation, multiple people birth ideas simultaneously; both Neuland and Jenseits von Theben use the concept of taking any number of action points you need (to some limit of course) but then allowing people that take less to get more turns. In JvT actions are measured in time. With Neuland it is more abstract and actions are measured in work. In JvT there is a racing aspect to the game and timing when you will begin the race is where the game is. In Neuland there are workers that you need to maintain, to actually do their jobs you get them to a place and they have no real identity other than what they are currently doing. If you don’t keep them constantly moving they lose their identity, so there is a sense of urgency, as you have to move workers around turning something ephemeral into something concrete. I liken it to those crazy plate spinners who constantly have to run back and forth tending to each pole in order to prevent one of the plates from flying off and crashing to the floor.
By the end of the game the Ameridicer decided that she wasn’t going to win and did everything in her power to stop me from ending the game. She planted all her workers on the spots I needed and left me in the lurch. This essentially allowed another player the win. Call it kingmaker, if you will, but I made some moves earlier on in the game that buried her behind the curve. I have to say that the person who won played a more honest game. In a game that is this interactive… well, there is a saying in the music industry that is often bandied about: “It is important to remember who you are stepping over on the way up because they are the only ones to catch you on the way down.”
So, I think at the end of this I was the only one that really loved it. The eurogamer appreciated it, the wargamer saw its value but would certainly rather play something else and the Ameridicer decided that she was happy to play games with us (so status quo for her). We all agreed, though, that this seemed that it would be better with three players.
The owner of the game got his copy back in hand as “pristine” as he had lent it, and my soul was returned. Later that week he traded it away.
A year later, a friend of mine in Germany found a copy for me and hand delivered it. I skipped around and giggled like a little girl. It had become a holy grail. I had no problems paying the price to recoup his expenses.
Of course, my copy still remains unpunched. I’m trying to do something about that.
This actually wasn’t the first Eggert-Spiele game I’d played, but the second. By the time I’d gotten to Neuland I’d already gotten to first base, but this brutal beauty sealed the deal.
(End of Part II)
~~~~~~~
This will be the last post from sodaklady. I’ve had a great time being part of this wonderful blog group but my game time has all but disappeared for various reasons so coming up with something to say has become more like work than the fun it should be. I want to publicly thank Brian for including me in his dream of a group blog, and thank all you readers who have taken the time to make comments. It’s been such a lot of fun and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.
Mary
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Guest Writer
Pub Life
By Morgan Dontanville
If there is one thing that you can say about Eggert-Spiele games is that they are not for everyone. Imperial has a fragile opening game that can leave a player hanging with nothing to do from turn one; Neuland is a dry, clinical logistics puzzle; Space Dealer is an absurd frantic storm of chaos; Die Dolmengötter is a whacked out abstraction of semi-blind bidding area majority game; and Antike is a sterile game of jockeying for position as you elbow your way to a drawn out end game. I've heard that Global Powers boils down to who has the most overpowering cards as it devolves into a take that game; Tacara has a run away leader problem; John Silver is unintuitive; Flößerei is “broken” and well Duhner Wattrennen is just so hard to find I can’t get enough information to even parrot a brash criticism. These guys are the real underdogs of the industry. All in all I've loved every game of theirs I've played and really look forward to playing anything I can get my hands on and anything they put out in the future.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
The Quality of Fantasies
I’m happy to have another great article by Mikko Karvonen for you today. Clap if you believe in Orcs and Dwarves.
I love fantasy as a genre. I enjoy it in books, comics, movies and tv-series and, of course, in games. I have to admit that fantasy-theming alone is often enough to get me to take a closer look at any given boardgame. However, partly because I am so strongly attached to the genre, I also tend to be rather critical towards it. A bland generic fantasy with your average orcs and elves does very little to impress me, while an original take on the subject can be enjoyable in itself. So I thought I'd take a look at some of the latest fantasy boardgames, the way the genre is implemented into them and how it affects the playing experience.
To narrow my scope, I'll focus on selected games of different types published after the year 2000 with fantasy worlds developed solely with non-computerised gaming in mind. This excludes games like Warhammer Fantasy Battle, HeroQuest, World of Warcraft: the Boardgame, Game of Thrones and War of the Ring. Some of them I like, some of the I don't, but I want to make sure I'll actually be able to finish this piece at some point. So, on to the games. Please note that I focus only on the fantasy elements of the games, not the quality of the game otherwise.
I'll start with Wizard Kings, even though it's a bit older game than my other examples, as it offers the most generic and bland implementation of fantasy I could find. This is mostly due to the way the game is put together: no background information, no personalities, no special powers. Nothing to add the meat to the bones. Just a bunch of units with fantasy-themed names and pictures. There are some interesting elements in various different armies, like the boarmen, but they are not utilised at all. Even the maps consist of your average environments, with only the stone circles to add a touch of otherness to them. Rating (1-10): 2
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare does not fare much better. The developers have, perhaps wisely, declared that they have intentionally avoided publishing any information about their game world to give themselves room to develop it more, but they have also given the players a little motivation beyond traditional fantasy clichés to create their own scenarios and vendettas. This hasn't exactly been helped by the selection of the first armies: humans, orcs, undeads and, as the first expansion pack, elves. The last have a bit of unique twist to them thanks to elk-riding cavalries and animal-commanding wolfkin and bearkin, but other races have just copied the regular strengths and weaknesses of their equivalents from other miniature games. Rating: 3
Another example of badly developed fantasy world can be found in HeroScape. It does have a vague background story about angelic beings recruiting warriors from various times and spaces to fight for them, but frankly, it's just an excuse to include all sorts of fantasy and science fiction characters in one game. Luckily, the developers have had the courage to go all the way and really come up with lots of different flavored units and even get a bit of personal touch into the miniatures here and there. This helps to save HeroScape's face a bit, but still I would have loved a bit stronger environment to encourage certain kind of combinations instead of throwing practically anything into the battlefield together. Rating: 4
Magic: the Gathering is a bit trickier customer in this analysis. In first glance, it does seem to have the same problem as HeroScape: you can throw almost anything together if you wish. However, MtG has a couple things to support its cause. First, various theme-decks are actually a fun, and sometimes even viable, way to play the game. Second, the colour-scheme makes sure that usually most cards in any given deck are at least thematically linked. Third, there is actually some interesting story-information in the art and the flavour text of the cards. Fourth, the developers have not been shy about making unusual twists to old fantasy favorites or creating new ideas of their own. Some cards have actually made me say 'Wow' when I've seen their art or flavour details. Rating: 7
So far I've been quite critical about old, familiar fantasy clichés, but sometimes they actually work. All you have to do is give them a touch of personality, a game where they fit the basic idea really well, and be really honest and sincere about it. A good example of this is Runebound (and Descent, which takes place in the same world). It's got all the traditional elements you can think of: big heroes, treasures, magical items, nasty monsters, evil necromancers and powerful dragons. But since the idea is to create the ultimate, quintessential fantasy adventure, it's all good and workable. There is enough originality and details to make them work. The magical sword is not just a magical sword, but the mighty Sword of Light! The enemies are not just average zombies but a temple of evil necromancers! And the heroes are not quite your usual fantasy types (despite the Red Scorpion and Her Amazing Levitating Boobs! -act), but wizards are a bit crazy and warriors either not-so-pretty non-humans or suspicious looking über-males. Various expansions help the cause as well by adding different spices to the usual fantasy mix: Island of Dread a touch of Cthulhian monsters, Midnight (based on FFG's own RPG) a world where the ultimate evil has won the great war and the upcoming Sands of Al-Kalim a shade of Arabian nights. Rating: 7
Yet the most impressive fantasy worlds are filled with unique or unusually well-developed ideas. One of my personal favorites is found in the miniature game Warmachine and further developed in it's RPG-version, Iron Kingdoms. It mixes an original take on many fantasy races with a world going through it's industrial revolution that is fueled not only by coal and iron but also magic, allowing the creation of huge machines of war, steampowered robots called steamjacks. It's an impressive vision filled with lots of background detail, rich and well-thought versions of old favorites like elves, religion and undead, and heaps of very, very cool opportunities for gaming. The only small problem with Warmachine (if you don't mind the ridiculously large shoulder pads many characters choose to wear) is that it actually fails to utilise the potential of the world as so much extra has been developed for the purposes of Iron Kingdoms RPG. But I know several people who own the core rules and some miniatures of Warmachine just because steamjacks and other unique aspects of the world are so awesome, so it's clearly doing many, many things right. Rating: 9
Perhaps a bit ironically, the most original and charming fantasy world in the current boardgaming scene comes from the man often blamed for dry and thinly themed games: Reiner Knizia. I am, of course, talking about Blue Moon (and BM City). It's main attraction are it's different races and characters. In Blue Moon, we don't get elves, orcs, centaurs or even minotaurs, but a set of definitely unique, yet still familiar enough to be understood, people. Knowledge-preserving technomages, reckless birdmen, passionate traders, spiritual guardians of different elements and gangs of childlike people that get everywhere. I've never been able to decide which of them I like more. Okay, it has its race of (half)-naked amazons which, admittedly, is a bit cheesy. But even that works, since the women in the cards are portrayed so strong, spiritual and capable that they are much less objects and more emancipated than you'd expect. Which brings us to a very important point, sadly overlooked by some of the other games on this list: the world of Blue Moon is enhanced by stunning art. Impressive visuals go a long way in crafting a truly unique world with a clear sense of wonder, fantasy and otherness. Rating: 9,5
Finally, let's take a little peek at the future and the game that may be the Next Big Thing: BattleLore. Of course, we don't know everything about it yet, so I won't make a final assessment. Based on the current information, it seems to be taking a very traditional approach on fantasy. We get the holy quartet: Warriors, Rogues, Wizards and Clerics. We get very, very traditional races and monsters from dwarves to hill giants. And we get them all mixed up with historical events. Frankly, I'm not very impressed by this. Medieval Europe had a wide range of folk stories, mythologies and legends that would have offered an excellent, yet rarely used background for supernatural and fantasy elements that would fit the history well. Instead they seem to use the bland, D&D-ized version of fantasy with a bit of local colour. It may work, but at this point, I'm quite skeptical.
So, it is obvious that the same theme can be implemented into a boardgame for better or worse. When I look at this list of games, all of which I happen to like, I know I'm far more likely to play the ones that do this thing well. It's an extra layer of dedication put into the development of the game and thus adds it's own bonus to my gaming experience as well. I don't mind playing an abstract game, or one with a thin theme and good mechanics, but when I'm looking for a strongly genre-influenced game, I prefer one that does its theme well.
It's also worth considering: would spending a bit more time on adding extra bits of theme to more German-styled games be worth it's while. After all, there are several good examples of this paying off very well. Havoc: the Hundred Years War is basically a variation of poker, but it has gotten a lot of praise for its medieval art and historical tidbits. Funny Friends owes a lot to its non-politically correct approach, part of Reef Encounter's charm is just its strangely captivating theme and I'm fairly certain that Ticket to Ride wouldn't have been the hit it is on a generic map and cities A, B, C...
I love fantasy as a genre. I enjoy it in books, comics, movies and tv-series and, of course, in games. I have to admit that fantasy-theming alone is often enough to get me to take a closer look at any given boardgame. However, partly because I am so strongly attached to the genre, I also tend to be rather critical towards it. A bland generic fantasy with your average orcs and elves does very little to impress me, while an original take on the subject can be enjoyable in itself. So I thought I'd take a look at some of the latest fantasy boardgames, the way the genre is implemented into them and how it affects the playing experience.
To narrow my scope, I'll focus on selected games of different types published after the year 2000 with fantasy worlds developed solely with non-computerised gaming in mind. This excludes games like Warhammer Fantasy Battle, HeroQuest, World of Warcraft: the Boardgame, Game of Thrones and War of the Ring. Some of them I like, some of the I don't, but I want to make sure I'll actually be able to finish this piece at some point. So, on to the games. Please note that I focus only on the fantasy elements of the games, not the quality of the game otherwise.
I'll start with Wizard Kings, even though it's a bit older game than my other examples, as it offers the most generic and bland implementation of fantasy I could find. This is mostly due to the way the game is put together: no background information, no personalities, no special powers. Nothing to add the meat to the bones. Just a bunch of units with fantasy-themed names and pictures. There are some interesting elements in various different armies, like the boarmen, but they are not utilised at all. Even the maps consist of your average environments, with only the stone circles to add a touch of otherness to them. Rating (1-10): 2
Battleground: Fantasy Warfare does not fare much better. The developers have, perhaps wisely, declared that they have intentionally avoided publishing any information about their game world to give themselves room to develop it more, but they have also given the players a little motivation beyond traditional fantasy clichés to create their own scenarios and vendettas. This hasn't exactly been helped by the selection of the first armies: humans, orcs, undeads and, as the first expansion pack, elves. The last have a bit of unique twist to them thanks to elk-riding cavalries and animal-commanding wolfkin and bearkin, but other races have just copied the regular strengths and weaknesses of their equivalents from other miniature games. Rating: 3
Another example of badly developed fantasy world can be found in HeroScape. It does have a vague background story about angelic beings recruiting warriors from various times and spaces to fight for them, but frankly, it's just an excuse to include all sorts of fantasy and science fiction characters in one game. Luckily, the developers have had the courage to go all the way and really come up with lots of different flavored units and even get a bit of personal touch into the miniatures here and there. This helps to save HeroScape's face a bit, but still I would have loved a bit stronger environment to encourage certain kind of combinations instead of throwing practically anything into the battlefield together. Rating: 4
Magic: the Gathering is a bit trickier customer in this analysis. In first glance, it does seem to have the same problem as HeroScape: you can throw almost anything together if you wish. However, MtG has a couple things to support its cause. First, various theme-decks are actually a fun, and sometimes even viable, way to play the game. Second, the colour-scheme makes sure that usually most cards in any given deck are at least thematically linked. Third, there is actually some interesting story-information in the art and the flavour text of the cards. Fourth, the developers have not been shy about making unusual twists to old fantasy favorites or creating new ideas of their own. Some cards have actually made me say 'Wow' when I've seen their art or flavour details. Rating: 7
So far I've been quite critical about old, familiar fantasy clichés, but sometimes they actually work. All you have to do is give them a touch of personality, a game where they fit the basic idea really well, and be really honest and sincere about it. A good example of this is Runebound (and Descent, which takes place in the same world). It's got all the traditional elements you can think of: big heroes, treasures, magical items, nasty monsters, evil necromancers and powerful dragons. But since the idea is to create the ultimate, quintessential fantasy adventure, it's all good and workable. There is enough originality and details to make them work. The magical sword is not just a magical sword, but the mighty Sword of Light! The enemies are not just average zombies but a temple of evil necromancers! And the heroes are not quite your usual fantasy types (despite the Red Scorpion and Her Amazing Levitating Boobs! -act), but wizards are a bit crazy and warriors either not-so-pretty non-humans or suspicious looking über-males. Various expansions help the cause as well by adding different spices to the usual fantasy mix: Island of Dread a touch of Cthulhian monsters, Midnight (based on FFG's own RPG) a world where the ultimate evil has won the great war and the upcoming Sands of Al-Kalim a shade of Arabian nights. Rating: 7
Yet the most impressive fantasy worlds are filled with unique or unusually well-developed ideas. One of my personal favorites is found in the miniature game Warmachine and further developed in it's RPG-version, Iron Kingdoms. It mixes an original take on many fantasy races with a world going through it's industrial revolution that is fueled not only by coal and iron but also magic, allowing the creation of huge machines of war, steampowered robots called steamjacks. It's an impressive vision filled with lots of background detail, rich and well-thought versions of old favorites like elves, religion and undead, and heaps of very, very cool opportunities for gaming. The only small problem with Warmachine (if you don't mind the ridiculously large shoulder pads many characters choose to wear) is that it actually fails to utilise the potential of the world as so much extra has been developed for the purposes of Iron Kingdoms RPG. But I know several people who own the core rules and some miniatures of Warmachine just because steamjacks and other unique aspects of the world are so awesome, so it's clearly doing many, many things right. Rating: 9
Perhaps a bit ironically, the most original and charming fantasy world in the current boardgaming scene comes from the man often blamed for dry and thinly themed games: Reiner Knizia. I am, of course, talking about Blue Moon (and BM City). It's main attraction are it's different races and characters. In Blue Moon, we don't get elves, orcs, centaurs or even minotaurs, but a set of definitely unique, yet still familiar enough to be understood, people. Knowledge-preserving technomages, reckless birdmen, passionate traders, spiritual guardians of different elements and gangs of childlike people that get everywhere. I've never been able to decide which of them I like more. Okay, it has its race of (half)-naked amazons which, admittedly, is a bit cheesy. But even that works, since the women in the cards are portrayed so strong, spiritual and capable that they are much less objects and more emancipated than you'd expect. Which brings us to a very important point, sadly overlooked by some of the other games on this list: the world of Blue Moon is enhanced by stunning art. Impressive visuals go a long way in crafting a truly unique world with a clear sense of wonder, fantasy and otherness. Rating: 9,5
Finally, let's take a little peek at the future and the game that may be the Next Big Thing: BattleLore. Of course, we don't know everything about it yet, so I won't make a final assessment. Based on the current information, it seems to be taking a very traditional approach on fantasy. We get the holy quartet: Warriors, Rogues, Wizards and Clerics. We get very, very traditional races and monsters from dwarves to hill giants. And we get them all mixed up with historical events. Frankly, I'm not very impressed by this. Medieval Europe had a wide range of folk stories, mythologies and legends that would have offered an excellent, yet rarely used background for supernatural and fantasy elements that would fit the history well. Instead they seem to use the bland, D&D-ized version of fantasy with a bit of local colour. It may work, but at this point, I'm quite skeptical.
So, it is obvious that the same theme can be implemented into a boardgame for better or worse. When I look at this list of games, all of which I happen to like, I know I'm far more likely to play the ones that do this thing well. It's an extra layer of dedication put into the development of the game and thus adds it's own bonus to my gaming experience as well. I don't mind playing an abstract game, or one with a thin theme and good mechanics, but when I'm looking for a strongly genre-influenced game, I prefer one that does its theme well.
It's also worth considering: would spending a bit more time on adding extra bits of theme to more German-styled games be worth it's while. After all, there are several good examples of this paying off very well. Havoc: the Hundred Years War is basically a variation of poker, but it has gotten a lot of praise for its medieval art and historical tidbits. Funny Friends owes a lot to its non-politically correct approach, part of Reef Encounter's charm is just its strangely captivating theme and I'm fairly certain that Ticket to Ride wouldn't have been the hit it is on a generic map and cities A, B, C...
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Finnish Connection
Things have been slow around the Weisbeck house, game-wise anyway, so no flashes of writing inspiration have struck. Luckily for you, I’ve found a stand-in so you don’t have to go away hungry for something game-related to read today. Mikko Karvonen, who is known by the username Gargoyle on the Geek, is from Turku, Finland and is my GeekBuddy because we share a love for games that let you make creative moves like El Grande, Stephenson’s Rocket and Blue Moon City. I was interested to hear about the gaming community in other parts of the world and Mikko kindly agreed to tell us about Finland and hopefully will return whenever the muse strikes again.
~~~~~~~
A while ago Mary asked me if I’d be interested in becoming a regular visiting blogger in Gone Gaming. The invitation was a huge surprise, to say the least, and a great honour, and I’m lousy enough at saying ’no’ even in far less flattering circumstances, so how could I have refused?
So, for now, you’ll be stuck with me every few weeks or so.
As can be expected on Gone Gaming, I’ll be writing about my personal thoughts, views and rants about the world of boardgames. But I’ll also try to offer a view to a bit different culture of playing than most of the other writers here by exploring the various aspects of boardgaming here in Finland.
Yes, Finland. The country of 5 million people, sometimes known as the land of sauna, sisu and Sibelius, midnight sun, polar bears and huge tracts of snow. Okay, I lied about the polar bears, but we do have all the other stuff. And we also have an emerging boardgaming culture finding its place alongside all the other geekish stuff. So this time I thought I’d offer you an overview on what the boardgaming scene currently looks like around here.
If there is one thing to know about Finnish people it’s that we love our organised societies. If three or more Finns find out that they share a common interest or ideology, they are likely to set up a society for it. We also love to arrange world championships in all sorts of things like cellphone throwing, wife carrying and swamp football (that’s soccer for you guys on the other side of the pond). But I digress.
So… given that we are Finns, we naturally have Finnish Boardgaming Society (http://www.lautapeliseura.fi/). It was founded couple years ago to actively promote boardgaming and offer the players chances to meet new people and try out new games. So far, the active members have done a great job with the society. It has several local branches that organise weekly gaming evenings open for anyone interested, a nice library of games, good contacts to Finnish game publishers and importers and an active forum of it’s own. The Society also runs a few conventions every year, including at least one that is getting so popular that they are careful not to advertise it to make sure that the crowd does not get too big.
In addition to Finnish Boardgaming Society, there are also lots of local clubs and societies. Many of them have originally been RPG-societies, that have, often after Settlers of Catan, started to branch out in boardgames. This is also true with Tyrmä (that’s Dungeon or Prison in English), the roleplaying and boardgaming society of the Turku University, in which I have been active myself for several years. We have about 40 members, a library of some 70-80 games, a day of gaming once in a fortnight with both RPGs and boardgames and a devoted boardgaming evening once a month.
Of other local societies the most notable one is Otaniemen RoolipeliClubi, or ORC, who game twice a week. Their most important claim for fame however is starting the gaming convention Ropecon back in the 1994. It has a long time ago become a completely separate entity with an independent society (here we go with societies again!) running it, but kicking off the show that has grown up to be the biggest Scandinavian and one of the biggest European gaming conventions around is not a mean task. Especially since Ropecon has been declared ”One of the best gaming conventions ever” by many Guests of Honour, including mister Bruno Faidutti (http://www.faidutti.com/index.php?Module=divers&id=440), who I think you might have heard of.
Originally Ropecon included RPGs, CCGs and miniatures, but as the years have passed, it has welcomed all sorts of geeks, including renaissance faire -folk and anime-lovers. So the boardgames have found their place there as well. For several years they were sort of an extra amusement with few tables reserved for gaming, but after Finnish Boardgaming Society was founded, they got quickly involved and got the boardgaming a completely separate room. This year it was already very popular: you’d have to utilise some non-euclidian talents to find a space to play during the peak hours. This was partly due to the large selection of loanable games and volunteers constantly available to explain the rules of the games you were unfamiliar with. This year was also the first time one of the Guests of Honour in Ropecon (there are usually three every year) was related to boardgaming as Bruno Faidutti agreed to honour us with his presence. All of this speaks volumes about the updraft the boardgaming is having in Finland.
Of course, the rising popularity is also helped by the strong support of the local game companies. There are few companies publishing boardgames in Finnish and two of them are focusing on German-style offerings. The most prominent one is Lautapelit.fi, which is also the only Finnish store devoted to selling boardgames (and CCGs, but we’ll cut them some slack, right?). They are doing a great job supporting the hobby by a good website, nice enough selection of games and friendly and knowledgeable customer service.
During the last two or three years Lautapelit.fi and other companies have started to translate and publish German-style games in Finnish. The selection has been very good: the list of already published and upcoming games include Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Samurai, Tempus, Nacht der Magier, Mykerinos, Bohnanza, Himalaya, Puerto Rico, Doom, Einfach Genial and Hey, That’s My Fish! I’m not sure how well each of the games have been received, but at least the usual suspects, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride (Menolippu in finnish), have seemed to find their audience. Especially Carcassonne keeps popping up in random conversations about boardgames with non-gamers. So far the most sold game every Christmas season seems to be Winnie the Pooh -themed edition of Kimble, which is the Finnish version of Trouble, but maybe that’ll change at some point. Probably not, though.
Of other companies, also Fantasiapelit deserves a mention. They’ve been THE Finnish supplier of all things geeky for over 20 years now and have always had a good selection (actually in many cases the best I’ve seen in any country in Europe!) of RPGs, CCGs, miniatures, comics, fantasy and scifi books, stuffed toys... you name it. They have also always devoted a part of their inventory to boardgames. At first, it was mostly wargames and random Avalon Hill and SJG-stuff, but when the German-styled games started to trickle out, they were quick to catch on. Nowadays their main store has an impressive shelf full of boardgames very close to the entrance, so it’s clearly an important part of their business as well. With six other stores in smaller cities and a webstore, they are certainly making their part in getting the boardgames in the hands of anyone interested.
Together these two stores take pretty good care of the needs of the local gamers. Their selection differs somewhat, so checking both stores – and the couple decent online stores we have – allows us to get our hands on practically all common and many of the bit more uncommon games. In my personal collection, the only games I’ve had to go to other countries for are Waldschattenspiel, Edel, Stein & Reich, some Heroscape expansions, Pizza Box Football, Battleground: Fantasy Warfare and, perhaps most surprisingly, Diamant. For smaller publishers’ games we usually have to shop either in English or German online stores, but I guess that’s often the situation in other countries too.
However, despite the rather good selection locally, many of the most active boardgame enthusiastics tend to buy most of their games from German online stores, for one big reason: prices. The taxation in Finland is very high, so everything costs here a bit more than it does elsewhere. When you combine that to the usual lower prices of online stores compared to the traditional ones, the difference can get pretty big. While I personally buy all the games I can from the local shops, I can understand why many others choose otherwise. Still, it always feels a bit stupid to read about Americans complaining about high prices, when many things can cost 1,5-2 times as much around here!
For non-gamers the available selection of games changes a lot depending on the season. Before christmas a vast range of products can be found in all big department stores. They include all the usual stuff like Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly and various children’s games and party games, but thanks to the new wave of translated German games, some new recruits were seen on the shelves last year. Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Around the World in 80 Days, Ticket to Ride, Alhambra, Niagara and Karibia were all prominently displayed and locating Doom, Metro, Blokus Duo and Einfach Genial was also possible without too much trouble. On the other hand, during non-holiday season, only Carcassonne seems to have secured it’s place in the inventory of most department stores.
So, all in all, boardgaming as a hobby has a pretty strong foothold in Finland. There is also a lot of potential for its growth as many features in Finnish culture, like long, dark winter nights and our love for our summer cottages, offer a lot of opportunities for boardgames to root in. But there is also a long way to go, which was painfully proven in the recent Game of the Year -selection by our national toy association when many great and potentially non-gamer-compatible games were trumped by a game that is basicly a glorified Tic-Tac-Toe (http://www.nelostuote.fi/suomi/fp.php?id=suomi/2006/pentago).
Mikko Karvonen
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Say Hello to:
Gerald McDaniel, aka gamesgrandpa, who lives in Lakewood, Colorado. He retired in 1997 after 32 years working in human resources and automated systems. His current game group consists of his wife of 41 years, his son and daughter, son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter, with whom he plays almost every Saturday.
You've raised your children with games and now you're introducing your grandchildren to games. Did you grow up in a household of gamers?
Gerald: My parents were not really game-players. I had no siblings, and my earliest years were spent on a farm with no nearby neighbors with children. I do recall, however, that the first (and only) game my parents taught me to play was Crazy Eights, with a regular deck of cards, at about age 4 or 5. My next memory of gaming was with my cousins, uncles, and grandmother. Only one cousin was near my age; the others were adults. So, I began gaming (mostly playing cards) with adults. My grandmother taught me to play (and played often with me) checkers and dominoes. My uncles and cousins loved to play Pitch, and that is still my favorite card game. I learned the value of adults playing games with children from first-hand experience.
What games do you recommend for children in their early school years?
Gerald: My recommendations are certainly different today than they would have been about thirty years ago, when we were teaching our children to play games. With our grandchildren, we first went through the usual gamut of Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, My First Board Games, and The Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Game, among others. They also learned early to play Uno and a memory game of matching cards turned face-down (Rainbow Fish cards, but not the games listed on BGG under that name).
We suddenly became aware of Euro games about that time, and began playing Frank’s Zoo, Pick Picknic, Trumpet, Vampire, and Zirkus Flohcati. The grandkids learned these games quickly, and we all enjoyed playing them together. I highly recommend these Euro games for pre-school and early school-age children. I also think Uno is a good early-age card game that requires no reading or math knowledge; matching colors and numbers is a good skill to learn very young.
Our seven-year-old grandson consistently wins or scores highly in games with adults, such as Hunters and Gatherers, Settlers of Catan, Mississippi Queen, and Canyon. He also fares very well against his dad when they play their three-set games of HeroScape. These are good games for children. Our nine-year-old granddaughter has not caught the gaming bug to the extent the rest of the family has, but she and her brother recently learned Nertz, and that has become the game she wants to play every weekend (and she is very good at it). Note: Seven-hand Nertz is a wild and chaotic game!
Games may help children with social skills and academic skills such as reading, math and even geography. Do you think the Euro-games are better at this than the typical games we grew up with like Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Clue and Yahtzee?
Gerald: Almost all games teach something worthwhile to children, even if it’s just learning to take turns or the fact that life can and will throw surprises at them. However, I do believe the Euro games are more interesting and challenging, and they help children learn a wider variety of skills and knowledge. Most (or maybe all) Euro games offer more control by the players, in my opinion, and this eliminates a lot of the “run of bad luck” found with primarily random dice-rolling, spinner-flicking, and card-turning games. These newer games require more thinking, more planning, more analysis, and more deduction and induction, and they are more satisfying. Many of them also require extensive social interaction, such as negotiating with other players (example: Settlers of Catan), trying to convince others to do something that will help you as well as them (examples: Hunters & Gatherers and Royal Turf), or learning to play cooperatively (example: Lord of the Rings). [Our grandson enjoys all of those games.] These are important skills for children to learn.
Our grandson is well ahead of his grade level in math. I think it is because of a combination of some innate ability he has and his experiences with games. He has amazed us from about age four with his ability to add and subtract double-digit numbers, usually to add up game scores. We used to quiz him to tell us how many points one player was behind another, and he could do the math in his head (he didn’t know how to write the numbers at that time). Our grandchildren learned to total their scores in Pick Picknic by grouping their cubes into sets of ten points. So, they were combining different-valued colored cubes into mathematical combinations (and counting by five’s and ten’s) before they were being taught math in school.
Both grandchildren are excellent readers, and we know their reading skills have been enhanced by games. Our grandson learned to play Magic: The Gathering before he could read, and he wanted to learn to read the cards himself as soon as possible, which he did. As I said, our granddaughter does not have the strong interest in gaming that we do, but she is an outstanding reader, writer, and illustrator, and I believe her language skills were increased to a great extent by her experiences in reading cards, game boards, and rules.
Many social skills are introduced or developed by playing games. One of the most difficult to deal with is the situation of losing. We taught our kids and grandkids to congratulate the winner of every game, and we still do “high-five’s” when they win and sometimes when we win. We observe other children their ages who just cannot gracefully accept losing in any type of competition, and we are grateful that playing games with the right attitude has helped our grandchildren deal with that situation at an early age. It does not teach them to “be losers,” but it does teach them to properly handle the inevitable competitive losses when they occur.
When I was growing up (in the 60's), the kids played games together while the adults were in the dining room playing cards. Do you think it's important for kids to play games with adults?
Gerald: I did play a few board games and card games with some neighborhood kids when I was in elementary school (and learned to play chess with a friend in high school), but most of my early gaming experiences were with adults. I believe gaming in mixed-age groups is an excellent way to teach children how to relate to adults; I believe it helps children mature. Of course, this is assuming the adults are “mature” and are good role models. Children can learn much more about interacting with people by playing games with adults than by being “set aside” to play only among themselves. They see how adults handle good fortune and “bad luck,” and how they communicate and negotiate with each other, and those examples can become models for their later lives. The experience gives them a good feeling about themselves -- that they are seen as “people,” not just as children, and that they can interact and compete with adults in a safe and fun environment. Finally, I believe playing games as a family (or with relatives or friend’s families) can instill worthwhile ethics and life values in younger generations.
You used to be a war gamer and still enjoy them but you haven't found a war gamer in your children or grandchildren. Do you think there's something that makes a person a war gamer?
Gerald: I wish I knew what makes one person enjoy wargames and another to have no interest in them at all. I know many wargamers are also interested in history and military history, but many are not. Many people who are fans of the Lord of the Rings books love to play the conflict games based on them, but many certainly do not. Many people who are history buffs have no interest in wargames. I do not see a direct connection there. The few wargame players I have known personally were intelligent and competitive. To be a successful wargamer, a person must have those characteristics, as well as others, such as dedication to learning about the conflicts and/or historical periods modeled by the games, the ability to analyze a significant amount of data and select the best alternative moves from a wide choice, and a lot of stamina. It also helps to have a good income to support the addiction.
I believe the nearest I came to playing wargames with my children was the game Battleship (not exactly the same category). Although I was really into collecting and playing Avalon Hill wargames when my kids were in elementary, middle, and high school, they never developed any interest in them (nor did my wife, who dislikes the idea of attacking other people, even in a game setting). My son-in-law does have some interest in wargames. He and I got out my old Wooden Ships & Iron Men and my Ace of Aces a couple of weeks ago (he learned, and I re-learned, how to play them). We hope to find some time to do so again.
I do not know whether my grandson will become a wargamer, but I do know that he has enjoyed Magic: The Gathering (with a somewhat similar theme), Risk, Dark Tower (which my son-in-law owns), Stratego, and now HeroScape (he has most of the character cards memorized and can recite the attack and defense numbers and the value of each of the characters, and he understands the relationship among those numbers). I believe he is on the road that could lead him to true wargaming.
I know you have to buy games to accommodate 5 or more players, but if that restriction was lifted, what games would you like to try?
Gerald: Oh, wow, how much time and space do you have? Where do I start? I’m a game junkie, and there are very few games that have a decent ranking on BGG that I would not like to try. It may be fortunate (for our bank account) that I have finally been able to force myself to not purchase games for fewer than 5 players (and now, with our grandson becoming such an avid player, I am beginning to look only at games that accommodate 6 players). Here are only a few of the games I can think of that interest me, but that I have not played and probably never will have the opportunity (some may accommodate 5 or 6 players, but for other reasons would not appeal to our family group): Acquire; Amun-Re; Betrayal at House on the Hill; Cosmic Encounter; Euphrat & Tigris; A Game of Thrones; the GIPF series; Icehouse; Power Grid; Puerto Rico; Reef Encounter; Roads and Boats; and RoboRally. Oh, the pain in the thought that I very likely will never experience these games!
Games currently on my “plan (hope) to purchase” list: Around the World in 80 Days; Australia; Boomtown; Cartagena; Drakon; For Sale; Goldland; Hare and Tortoise; Mu; Station Master; and Tongaiki. I am eager to see, and hear more about, Railroad Tycoon: The Boardgame, because I’ve enjoyed very much playing Railroad Tycoon on my PC for a number of years.
Is there anything you'd like to add?
Gerald: I believe that for the amount of quality time that is enjoyed, and the quite reasonable cost, playing games with one’s family has got to be considered one of the absolute best activities a person can undertake. It’s not only a current pleasure, but also an important investment in the future, and it creates many wonderful memories for all involved.
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I want to thank Gerald for being so wonderful to work with and for answering tough questions so brilliantly that I had to do very little editing.
Until next time, remember:
When you don't know where you're going, every road will take you there.
Mary
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