My Surreal Afternoon Spent Explaining Scythe to my Boss.

Today my boss came into my office to "Speak" with me. That's "Speak" with a capital "S." So, of course, I stopped what I was doing and gave him my undivided attention.

"Have you heard of Scythe?"

It was not quite what I was expecting him to say."

"The board game?" I replied, feeling a bit confused. I mean, it could have been the name of some new computer language or application.

"Yes, what do you think of it?"

"It's less fun than it looks like it should be," I answered honestly.

"My son wants it for Christmas. Should I get it for him?"

*pause, deep breath*

"Weeellll," exhale, "It's a rather expensive and complex economic engine builder with a 4X vibe, but less fighty than you would expect."

"What's an engine builder? What's 4X? How expensive?"

"This might take a while maybe we should take this conversation into your office."

So then I spent a chunk of the afternoon trying to explain engine builders, worker placement, resource management, why the Mechs were less cool than expected, 4X, Kickstarter, who Tom Vassel is and why on earth he would make 20 minute video about a game, why Gloomhaven is $130 (discovered while looking up prices for Scythe) and why games cost 30% less online, but are all out of stock now, so we are going to have to call the FLGS.

Also, got to have a fun phone conversation on speaker with the store clerk of one of our FLGSs.

My boss: Is Scythe appropriate for a 15-year-old?

Clerk: *pause as he chooses his words carefully* Well, there is nothing in it that is inappropriate for a teenager. But it is a fairly complex engine builder...

My Boss: He plays Pandemic and Dungeons and Dragons.

Clerk: Well, it's a bit more complicated than Pandemic. But there's definitely no inappropriate material in Scythe.

Undaunted, my boss continued his research. Which means we all got to hear him swearing at his computer for the rest of afternoon, as he discovered that our work's net nanny blocks every board game site, store, and review on the internet except for Amazon, Youtube and part of CoolStuff.

My final recommendation was that he should probably get it for his son if that was what his son wanted. For all we know his son had played it with a friend and really liked it. Worst case scenario, if his son cracked the shrink and didn't like it, they could sell it for about $40 on our local trade board.

I think Seal Team Flix would be a more "appropriate game" for my boss's son.

The decision has been made. The Boss is giving his son cash. The kid can use it to buy Scythe if he wishes, but before doing so, they can confirm that the kid realizes it's more of an economic game about building factories, and less of an area control game about fighting robots.