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Appreciating games and becoming a better gamer

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02 Aug 2017 06:11 #251982 by Erik Twice
I have some difficulty putting my thoughts on this topic into words so please forgive me if it's a bit confusing or sounds wrong.

Games are an interactive medium in which players take a central role in the creative process. Without them, games don't work, they need to work with them in oroder to produce enjoyment, interest and fun. Hence, I think that becoming a better gamer and a better player helps to produce better games and have a better experience playing them.
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I don't think that's very controversial, most people will probably agree. However, putting that into concrete actions tends to be very controversial indeed as nobody likes to be told that they play games wrong. And I think that's a shame because growing as a gamer has both made me enjoy the medium much more.
Here's some stuff that comes to mind when it comes to this topic. Give me your thoughts:

- 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".

- Game-prejudice: I think there are many games people won't try, not because they might not like them but because they have some kind of prejudice against them. The most common one is probably age, there's a ton of people who simply refuse to play an old game. And I think that's a shame because they are closing themselves to a lot of great experiences they would otherwise enjoy.

- Approaching games with the wrong mindset: I like a bunch of genres that are fairly niche, like shmups or train games, and something is that the biggest barrier for people to enjoy them are not the games themselves but how people approach them.

For example, many, many people approach Chicago Express and 18XX games as building games. They tend to take one company, invest heavily on it and try to run it better than other players do, like you would in an Eurogame. But these are not building games, they are stock games. So what actually happens is that they don't have fun with the building because it's too simple and they get frustrated by the stock market game because other players are using it to profit out of his back and block most of its moves.

- Making games more playable: I think that well-played games work better than games played poorly. For example, a recurring problem I had when playing Netrunner online were players who took insane amounts of risk: Blind Account Siphon runs against potential defensive upgrades, stealing agendas under clear Scorched Earth protection, turn 1 Inside Jobs as Leela to see if they can do the "nab agenda, siphon" play...

All this lead to a poor game experience. Games with these players were significantly more luck and matchup-based and required less of everything that makes Netrunner great: Planning, controlling the economy, timing, psychology...all of those fly bt the window if you play like that.

But probably the best example of this are RPGs. We have all been in games in which one player decided to play in ways that are simply not great, ruinning the game in the process. Anti-party characters (Eg. stealing from other PCs) or characters that do stuff "for the lols" ruin games.

- Deeper involvement is more fun: I think that boardgames are always more fun the second time you play them than the first and the more you play them, the better and more interesting they get. What makes games truly great tends not to be apparent after ten or twenty minutes and, yet, we often don't give games more than that.

For example, I used to be stuck in a routine in which I tried out a cool classic game, fiddled with it for a day and then moved on to the next. And while it was decently fun, it's nowhere as interesting nor as fun as taking the time to beat them. I have had more fun trying to 1 credit clear Magical Drop II than I ever did playing 20 puzzles games for five minutes.


Of course the elephant in the room is that becoming a better player requires effort. It's harder to learn to play one game well than it is to play a different game each week. Good roleplaying requires more preparation and learning and effort than trying to kill and fuck every single obstacle.

But I think it's worth it. I think most people who are "bad" at gaming are so not because they want to be, but because they are falling into common human pitfalls like lazyness, fear of the unknown or not accepting one's mistakes. I think all the talk we have had lately about clutter, "the lazy zone" or the thread on games that devalue the player is related to this topic.

And while my presentation of it might be messy, I would really appreciate your thoughts on it.
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02 Aug 2017 08:33 #251985 by Nodens
Good stuff, thanks for putting your thoughts out there. My 2c: most of these points are about the social contract that playing a boardgame is.

- Getting angry because you lost:
Very important point. It is undoubtedly annoying to invest time and brainpower and then get hosed. People have a right to get mad at me for stabbing them in the back. For me, that's part of the fun. If I'm on the receiving end, I have a right to be mad and show it. We all have to learn to deal with this kind of anger and frustration and boardgaming can help with this IRL.
Can partly be adressed by after-game discussion. If I see where I clearly made a mistake and gave the game away I might learn from the experience. If I just got hosed by misfortune or betrayal I will be mad. In any case, adresing this stuff in a meta discussion about how we want to play is important. This is a safe environment to try out behaviour that is otherwise socially unacceptable, so sometimes people cross a line and don't even realise it.

- Game-prejudice:
Of course it would be best if everyone would agree to try it at least once, but if I am determined to have a bad experience, I'll do everything to make it so. OTOH, experienced players tend to know well if something will be their cup of tea.

- Approaching games with the wrong mindset:
Huge problem. Can sometimes be easily fixed. A shit game of Fiasco once turned into awesome by one guy mentioning halfway through that we weren't playing against each other but for the story. Somebody just hadn't noticed yet.

- Making games more playable
:
Your Netrunner story is to me about online gaming. There is just no way to tell in advance if your opponents' mindset fits yours.

- Deeper involvement is more fun:
Agree. Not only more of the same games, but with the same people. I love sitting down and someone goes: "I'll get you back for last time."

I agree on your conclusions. To improve my personal experience, I avoid online gaming with strangers. The exception is roborunner, but I've been there almost 20 years and the community is tiny, so I feel like I know those people.
Also, I prefer gaming with non-gamers I like to playing with gamers I don't know outside of gaming, because of mostly bad experiences. There are so many fools in this world it can be frustrating.

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02 Aug 2017 08:43 #251986 by Legomancer
The problem here is that you're deciding that other people must not be having fun or experiencing richness because they're doing something a different way. That isn't necessarily the case.

You mention RPG characters who do dumb shit for the luls and wreck it for others. I gamed with one of those. Super nice guy, but every single character he created was a chaotic neutral type who constantly got us killed. It was aggravating for us, and I got tired of investing in characters just to have him kill them. I was miserable. He was having a blast. He saw RPGs as a way to get away from his real life and do whatever he wanted and that's what he enjoyed. I eventually quit that group and RPGs altogether.

Same with gaming prejudices. I'm not interested in heavy negotiation, wargames, miniatures, RPGs, and "storytelling" games. It's possible that there's something in there that it turns out I'll love, but I'll probably never know. And that's okay. I'll live. I have plenty of games I like.

Also, while I value playing a few games a lot over playing a lot of games a little, I'm not going to become a better player by reading strategy tips, doing probability analyses and so forth. I will just keep playing. Maybe I'll get better at it, maybe I won't, but most of the games I enjoy I have fun with even if I'm not winning. I'm not going to do a deep dive on any game in order to master it because I don't care that much. Watching videos and reading strategy articles isn't fun to me, even if it might make me a better player.

I don't want to be the gamer equivalent of the guy who tells everyone they don't really appreciate hamburgers because they eat them at place A instead of place B. Not only are those people fucking tedious, it's a goddamn hamburger. Eat the fucking thing and get on with your life. It's not important.
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02 Aug 2017 09:08 #251987 by san il defanso
I can go a couple different ways on this. On the one hand, I'm pretty much on board with all of your specific recommendations. For me gaming becomes more and more fun the more others-focused we all are. That's obviously kind of tricky if only a couple people decide to do that, but it's kind of my ideal. To me a good gamer is an unselfish one, in the sense that they understand they are not the only ones whose fun is important at the table. I also totally agree that it's important to be willing to venture into new genres and types of games, rather than to just decide, "Well, I usually don't like this kind of stuff." Sometimes you just need to be willing to do what other people want to do.

But I also agree that it's hard to take this attitude and then to insist that others do the same thing, since I know that not everyone is into the same kind of stuff. (That's kind of what Legomancer was getting at.) I think the best I can ask for is to not actively try to ruin other people's experiences. This is apparently a bridge too far for some people. I knew a guy in Texas who would wander around the game night, providing free commentary on the games that everyone else was playing. That is over the line to me, because he only liked a very narrow subset of games, and spoiler alert, they weren't the kinds of games we were playing. Basically all he was trying to do was make his opinion known, because I guess he thought it was important.

One rule I play by is to generally keep my negative opinions to myself. Unless I'm with friends I generally don't let on when I don't like a game we just played. Chances are at least a couple people who were really into it, and there's no point in ruining their fun. If they want my opinion they'll ask for it.
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02 Aug 2017 09:28 - 02 Aug 2017 09:35 #251990 by Mr. White

san il defanso wrote: One rule I play by is to generally keep my negative opinions to myself. Unless I'm with friends I generally don't let on when I don't like a game we just played. Chances are at least a couple people who were really into it, and there's no point in ruining their fun. If they want my opinion they'll ask for it.


This is a big issue I've come across in my travels. I seem to attract a few gamers that are pretty cool dudes by and large, but they sure don't mind giving their opinions which can deflate the sails...

I've been working on jettison these individuals from my sphere. Well, as gaming collaborators.
Last edit: 02 Aug 2017 09:35 by Mr. White.

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02 Aug 2017 09:43 #251993 by RobertB
I don't have a problem with other players bitching about how much they hate Game X - at least we don't have to hem and haw about playing it again. For example, one of my coworkers did not like Scythe and let us know that he thought it sucked. We roped him into playing it again, and he still thinks it sucks. So if he's playing, don't count on playing Scythe unless you want to beg him to play it, and then hear two hours of bitching about how it sucks. That sounds harsh, but if he's not having fun, why do it?

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02 Aug 2017 09:46 #251994 by san il defanso

RobertB wrote: I don't have a problem with other players bitching about how much they hate Game X - at least we don't have to hem and haw about playing it again. For example, one of my coworkers did not like Scythe and let us know that he thought it sucked. We roped him into playing it again, and he still thinks it sucks. So if he's playing, don't count on playing Scythe unless you want to beg him to play it, and then hear two hours of bitching about how it sucks. That sounds harsh, but if he's not having fun, why do it?


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.

The last year or so has seen me at a lot of "game days" at local stores in an attempt to connect with more gamers in the area, and in those situations I'm not going to tell someone that their favorite game sucks. That's kind of a crappy first impression I think.
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02 Aug 2017 09:55 - 02 Aug 2017 10:01 #251996 by Mr. White
Maybe, but even among friends there should be some proper decorum.

If you're hosting a game, providing snacks, etc and someone comes over and spends the evening running the game down...that sucks. Perhaps just say it isn't a favorite then don't come back the next time it's being played.

What I like to do, if I don't like a game, is find a little side goal to keep me entertained. See if I can win using only development cards, try to only win via knock-out only, etc. They may not be the optimal choices, but a mini challenge of sorts to keep me entertained.

Near as I figure it if someone has gone out of their way to set up an evening of entertainment, and I choose to show up, I'm not going to shit at their table.
Last edit: 02 Aug 2017 10:01 by Mr. White.

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02 Aug 2017 10:00 - 02 Aug 2017 10:14 #251997 by Colorcrayons
I agree with every point, but would like to discuss the third point here.

Sometimes it's the fault of the game for portraying itself as something it's not, at least to a non gamer coming into the fold.

For example, my ex and Agricola. She was constantly frustrated by losing in the game. To her eyes, she was making the best working farm that she could within the parameters set by the components in front of her. She didn't recognize that it was an engine building game and to play it on its own terms that it dictates. And frankly, in that light, I think she won those games on those terms. I couldn't blame her. When you look at the game, it looks like you should build a farm. But the only way to win is to play it as the designer envisioned. So in a manner of speaking, the game failed to do what it set out to do. Be a farming game that didn't force you into how one single person thinks a farm should be run. It set itself up for an expectation it didn't deliver on until you realize that it has its own terms of how it should be done.

So I can see how we as gamers should approach games on their own terms, but we also cannot ignore the expectations a setting in a given game a player may have for it because of how it portrays itself.

[edit]
Now let's talk about your 18xx example. When people think of stocks, they tend togravitate to more contemporary ideas of it. Like Acquire would be better suited for those expectations than 18xx. I can't blame some players for not seeing past the setting for what agame really is. Now if someone was playing 18xx all the time and still not realizing it, then that's their fault. But first blush is important.
Last edit: 02 Aug 2017 10:14 by Colorcrayons.
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02 Aug 2017 14:06 #252006 by Sagrilarus
Haven't read everything in this thread yet, but I just want to take a moment to comment on the meta -- DAMN, F:At is getting back onto its feet and roaring again! This and San's are the kinds of discussions that used to come up here ten years back and there were times when you couldn't keep up with the threads. You're kickin' ass people!
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02 Aug 2017 14:45 #252010 by Vlad

Colorcrayons wrote: For example, my ex and Agricola. She was constantly frustrated by losing in the game. To her eyes, she was making the best working farm that she could within the parameters set by the components in front of her. She didn't recognize that it was an engine building game and to play it on its own terms that it dictates. And frankly, in that light, I think she won those games on those terms. I couldn't blame her. When you look at the game, it looks like you should build a farm. But the only way to win is to play it as the designer envisioned.


I realized why I don't play Agricola anymore thanks to your ex. I have the same issue. Like, I build my farm, we go through the winter, get a couple cows in the spring, have a kid, plant some new stuff. We're doing great, everyone is healthy, we eat meat once a week, have enough stocks to go through another winter and sent the son to learn some crafts, etc. By all accounts, I consider us to be a family on the rise. But then, all of a sudden, the game is over, and we're assigned points / not nearly enough, in my opinion, and according to a judgement that I deem arbitrary. On the other hand, it is exactly like living in a small town and feeling the constant pressure of being judged by your peers ("Look at them, they have only two kids and not ten like the rest of us," "They don't go to church every sunday", "The uncle is a drunkard", etc.)
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02 Aug 2017 15:10 #252011 by SuperflyPete
I find that getting angry because you lost indicates engagement more than anything. It depends on how it exhibits - through sissy ass whining/sour grapes, or self-flagellation.

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02 Aug 2017 15:17 #252012 by Michael Barnes
Here are Barnes' Best Protips to Becoming a Better Gamer:

1) Come into each and every game and the hobby itself with the understanding that you are there to have FUN and enjoy time spent with friends, family or strangers if that's your thing. If your fun is making someone else's fun no longer fun, you are doing it wrong.
2) Space left intentionally blank.
3) Refer to Protip #1.
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02 Aug 2017 16:08 #252016 by Shellhead
Emphasizing fun is a good overall approach to better gaming. But what about back-stabbing? Some games practically require back-stabbing, and in theory, everybody should take it all in stride and have fun. But maybe a game that is designed to feature back-stabbing is approaching fun as a zero-sum proposition, where one player's fun must come at the expense of another player's fun.

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02 Aug 2017 16:20 - 02 Aug 2017 16:22 #252017 by Michael Barnes
Losing is part of the fun. I was playing 40k with my son the other day and he got really pissed that I pulled off a couple of luck Hellblaster shots and wiped out a Rhino filled with Poxwalkers. It was really just a string of good rolls and positioning, kind of a fluke. But I told him that losing and having a laugh about it is part of the game. I pointed out out any number of times when I've had shit backfire or go pear shaped and how it added to the story and the fun of the game. If your degree of fun is based on how much you are winning...that's not really anywhere near my kind of thing.

We had another incident where we were playing the Mario Monopoly and Scarlett just kept rolling him. "She's trying to make me lose all my money!" To which I had to respond "that's what makes this game fun."
Last edit: 02 Aug 2017 16:22 by Michael Barnes.

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