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Appreciating games and becoming a better gamer

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02 Aug 2017 16:24 #252018 by Msample

Erik Twice wrote: [i
- Getting angry because you lost: This is, I think, the most clear player-problem: If you get angry because you lost or because something went wrong you are bound to have a poor experience, regardless of how good the game is. Learning to be more calm and not taking it personally leads to having more fun and being able to appreciate the value behind many of these "negative player experiences"..


I get this, but at the same time I get angry when I lost due to poor design . For instance, there was a mulitplayer war/euro a few years back called 1714: Case of the Catalans. It had a turn order system that through no fault of your own, could put you in pretty much an endless feedback loop of going last. That pisses me off, wasting my time with something like that. Life is too short to play shite games.
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02 Aug 2017 16:27 #252019 by RobertB
san il defanso wrote:

To be clear, this seems to be a situation where it's a group that plays together regularly. In those situations I'll be more open when I don't enjoy something, for the reasons you state.


True. In situations where it's a gang of strangers picking a game, sure, don't get in some guy's face and tell him his favorite game is ass.

I guess I'd rather preferences (or hates) be known up front, rather than someone wasting time playing a game they don't like.

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02 Aug 2017 16:38 #252020 by RobertB
When I lose I try not to cry more than proper decorum allows.
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02 Aug 2017 16:38 #252021 by Michael Barnes
I can't imagine walking into a game group and not being willing to happily play anything out on the table in front of me.

There are two "well known" gamers that I have played with that would pitch a bloody fit if they didn't like the game or type of game. One would get loudly vocal about their dislike. The other would refuse to play and would sit in another room on his phone until the game was over. I do not understand this at all.

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02 Aug 2017 16:43 #252023 by RobertB
Michael Barnes wrote:

I can't imagine walking into a game group and not being willing to happily play anything out on the table in front of me.

There are two "well known" gamers that I have played with that would pitch a bloody fit if they didn't like the game or type of game. One would get loudly vocal about their dislike. The other would refuse to play and would sit in another room on his phone until the game was over. I do not understand this at all.


I dunno, I really don't like Bolide. I'd sit in the corner to avoid it.

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02 Aug 2017 17:04 #252026 by san il defanso
The single best game-playing skill I think I can impart to my kids is the ability to find failure amusing. We have been playing a lot of Survive with both of my sons (ages 7 and almost 5), and it's been really valuable. It's teaching them that it's really important to get picked gracefully, and that competition in a game should be good-natured from both directions. The older one understands this, and doesn't seem to really care if he loses as long as he can destroy other people's stuff. The younger one, who has only played once, started his game sad whenever his boats would sink, but he learned by the end to at least deal with it. A lot of gamers never accept that losing is basically how you spend almost all your time in gaming.

The older one is an absolute maniac in that game. He wants to hurt the most people the most often. Once when threatening his own mother he said, "I'll sink my own boat if I have to."
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02 Aug 2017 17:04 #252027 by OldHippy
- Getting angry because you lost:

I'll admit to being a little different than most on this one. I can't stand people who never get happy or angry at the game table... 'can't stand' might be too much actually, but I do want some emotion. Some real anger and some real joy. It lets me know that you're really invested in the game. I game with some people who never seem to get emotional and it kind of drives me nuts at times.

- Game prejudice:

There's no game, time willing, that I won't try at least once. Probably twice.

Approaching games with the wrong mindset:

I'm not very familiar with this since I mainly play with the same people and we usually all know what's going on before the game starts.. but I have to admit that at times I've intentionally tried to play a game differently than it's supposed to be played just out of curiosity. But I see how this could be an issue. Sometimes people will legitimately get angry about how a game must be played compared to how it seems to be advertised and I can understand that. Dudes in a Hall games that turn into basically just run away from the danger games can really piss people off and I get that.

Making games more playable:

Highly dependent on the group. I have done things in RPG's just 'for the lols' but our group was into it. In fact we kicked people out of the group that were too serious. I have a friend that still does this at times and will ruin our games of cutthroat caverns (for example) by intentionally trying to kill the party if he thinks he can't win. I'm ok with this and so is the group. Different strokes you know.

Deeper involvement is more fun:

Usually. I definitely prefer playing games multiple times and I usually enjoy them the most once I've played them a half dozen times or so. I also usually prefer when people get into the character but there are times I'm less into it as well. You can be a good role player and work hard with prep and learning as you say but you could still do some killing and fucking too. There's no reason it has to be an either or situation.

Nice write up though, good points and good topic.. that said. I hesitate to say that there is one particular way to become a better gamer. The key is to find the right people to game with for your style.
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02 Aug 2017 18:43 #252032 by Dr. Mabuse

JonJacob wrote: - Getting angry because you lost:

I'll admit to being a little different than most on this one. I can't stand people who never get happy or angry at the game table... 'can't stand' might be too much actually, but I do want some emotion. Some real anger and some real joy. It lets me know that you're really invested in the game. I game with some people who never seem to get emotional and it kind of drives me nuts at times.

Our last game of Earth Reborn made me pissed. I and you on the ropes at one point, I think it was Vasquez, and due to shit rolls and your skill, you managed to outgunned me and win the game. PISSED!!!!
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02 Aug 2017 19:13 - 02 Aug 2017 19:15 #252035 by wadenels
There's an other side to these as well...

Erik Twice wrote: - Getting angry because you lost

Try not to let other people being angry about losing bother you. Maybe they got a little more emotionally invested than they should have, but forgive/empathize with that and move on with your life too.


Erik Twice wrote: - Game-prejudice

If you know though experience that you're absolutely miserable when sat down with a negotiation game, then prejudice away. There are game styles I simply do not enjoy, and I'd rather not infect the other players with my miserableness. I'll play anything with my friends because I enjoy hanging out and interacting with them, but part of maturing as a gamer is not being the sulky gamer among strangers.


Erik Twice wrote: - Approaching games with the wrong mindset

Isn't this really just a failure of the game design and/or the person teaching it? If a person doesn't understand that Chicago Express isn't about having the nicest railroad then something fundamental went wrong before the game even started.


Erik Twice wrote: - Making games more playable

It's fun to experiment and try things out, and you'd have to take it pretty far to get into badwrongfun territory. The RPG dude may be an example of this, but the Netrunner player may have just been experimenting. I don't play Netrunner so I don't know, but I was once called an asshole during In The Shadow Of The Emperor because apparently I wasn't clued in to how the rest of the group likes to approach that game.


Erik Twice wrote: - Deeper involvement is more fun

I agree with this wholeheartedly but I also know people who enjoy "chasing the dragon" and trying to have a new experience with a new game each time they sit at a gaming table. I find that mentality exhausting, but who am I to tell them they're doing it wrong?




These came off a little more devil's advocate-y than I had planned. I actually generally agree with all of your points, but I guess I could have summed this up as, "Also be a reasonable person when you're on the other end."
Last edit: 02 Aug 2017 19:15 by wadenels. Reason: holy formatting batman!
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03 Aug 2017 08:54 #252054 by the_jake_1973
1. My group plays mostly games of the Ameritrash variety since those games do provide the most excitement for us. The flipside of that excitement is bad shit happening directly to you from the dice or another player. Bad results have gotten me angry before. That's just the way of things when results are at drastic odds with expectations/planning. Blood Bowl, more than any other game I've played, has really made me laugh at misfortune and continue playing in a good frame of mind. I don't think I have table flipped since I played Monopoly with my sister when I was 12 or so. That's a pretty good streak I have going for me.

2. I am prejudiced against worker placement games. They are not exciting for me. Some of it comes down to the passive-aggressive nature of actions in those games. Some of it could be misplaced prejudice against the people pushing forward those games at meets as well. 'I don't play aggressive games', people that trot out ones where you can block another player from acting indirectly. It could be I just hate Agricola and Splendor.

3. This point hampered my first play of Twilight Imperium. I played it again as it is a popular game at the one group I play with, but I'm still not a fan. Too long for one. As a noob to the game with seasoned players, I always felt back-footed. That sucks for 6 hours. I do recognize it as a top notch game.

5. My new obsession with Twilight Struggle is a good example of getting that deeper involvement in a game. I don't think that would have happened if I could only play it F2F. I like the digital implementation with the asynch play. However, this is certainly a game that will continue to get better, the more I play it.
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03 Aug 2017 10:16 #252061 by OldHippy

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

JonJacob wrote: - Getting angry because you lost:

I'll admit to being a little different than most on this one. I can't stand people who never get happy or angry at the game table... 'can't stand' might be too much actually, but I do want some emotion. Some real anger and some real joy. It lets me know that you're really invested in the game. I game with some people who never seem to get emotional and it kind of drives me nuts at times.

Our last game of Earth Reborn made me pissed. I and you on the ropes at one point, I think it was Vasquez, and due to shit rolls and your skill, you managed to outgunned me and win the game. PISSED!!!!


Ha... It was your rolling strategy that was missing, you have to roll high damage - just a tip for next time. I'll vouch for the good Dr. here. He definitely gets appropriately angry when things go wildly wrong... just enough that there is a brief moment of awkwardness but no so much that it hurts the game session. On the other side, like any good gamer, he knows how to rub it in a little too when he wins... just enough that you feel bad but not so much that you don't want to play again right away.
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03 Aug 2017 14:04 #252089 by Legomancer
There's a difference between not wanting to play something and not playing it. If you ask me if I want to play Star Wars Armada, I'll say no. If you just got Star Wars Armada and really want to get it played, I'll do it. I won't piss in your ear the whole time about how I hate it, and I won't just do random dumb bullshit to get it over with (I'll probably, however, do seemingly-random dumb bullshit because I'm not any good at that stuff).

I'll never want to play Trajan, Tzolkin, Russian Railroads, Le Havre, or other stuff like that, but my game group isn't the Dave show and if someone shows up with one of those and wants to play it, I'll do it. And again, I'll play as best I can and try to keep my opinion to myself. It really bugs me when people in my group say, "Nah, I won't make you play that" because I'll almost never veto something I don't like. I won't ask for it, but if you want to play it, that's fine by me.

In theory, this is because I'd like the same consideration. I don't want to never be able to play something I like because one guy who's always there will either veto it or grudgingly play it and then make the experience miserable.

In theory.

But that's another story.

Beyond social politeness, however, I don't feel any obligation to boxes of cardboard. I'm not interested in wargames, I don't want to play wargames, I'm not going to otherwise try a wargame. Maybe there's one I'd love. Hell, maybe there's one that would completely turn my opinion around on them. I'm okay with never finding that out. Both it and I will get through our lives okay without the other.
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