Ever since Christmas, we’ve been playing a lot of board games, although not so many in recent weeks while the family was on vacation. Today we had the opportunity to play Rail Baron with some friends from church, since our Small Group Bible Study is taking a hiatus for part of the summer.

We do like to buy games, even if we don’t play them as much as we would like.

I’ve always enjoyed games, ever since my brother bought me a Stratego set when I was eight. Around that same time, my Dad taught me to play chess; although I wasn’t a particularly good player of either, I was good enough to defeat most kids my age, or an adult who wasn’t really paying attention (that is to say, most of them).

Throughout my school years, I bought and played games, quickly graduating to Avalon Hill bookcase games like Kingmaker and Diplomacy, many of them requiring hours to set up and weekends to play. I remember my brother and I spending up to eight hours just setting up Third Reich (a game that simulates World War II, and takes nearly as long to play as the war was waged). I enjoyed role playing games and video games and computer games of all kinds, and surrounded myself with like-minded friends with thick glasses, pocket protectors, and minty-green tans.

In college, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, when I found a good half-dozen serious gamers in my dormitory. Now we were no longer irritated by the need to go home to sleep, and our mothers no longer broke up the games at midnight with that hated mantra, “It’s a school night, dear.” The cafeteria was a hundred yards up the hill, and we had a steady supply of 35-cent Grape Nehi in the vending machine in the kitchen where we played most of our games. My daily schedule went something like this:

• 1:50 pm: wake up, sprint to the Cafeteria (lunch ended at 2 pm)
• 2:20 pm: take a shower, get dressed
• 2:45 pm: select a game to play, start setting it up in the kitchen
• 3 – 3:30 pm: watch Gilligan’s Island while waiting for players to show up
• 4 – 6 pm: play a war game of some kind
• 6:10 pm: eat supper at the Cafeteria
• 6:40 pm – 2 am: continue playing a war game of some kind
• 2:15 am: walk to the Tinee Giant (a local Food Mart) for a snack
• 3 am – 6 am: play Star Trek at the computer lab
• 6:15 am: head for bed

As it turned out, there is a rather high correspondence between those who skip class and those who get poor grades, especially if they compound their error by failing to read the required texts and skipping exams. Still, it was a wonderful time, and I often look back on those days with great fondness, mixed with a sort of macabre horror. Who knew that it would take me nine years to finish college, or that it would entail many wasted dollars and three years of servitude as a paratrooper?

Some years later, as I started spending more time with Kathy, I wondered if she was a gamer. Not to be sexist, but I just haven’t encountered many girls that are serious game players. They seem to care too much (from a gaming perspective) about talking and forming relationships, and will often balk at the complete and utter destruction of an opponent. Kathy didn’t really try to fool me during our courtship, so I really can’t complain that I thought I had married a gaming girl. We tried to find some computer games that we could play together (or, better yet, against each other) … I have found through trial and much error, that she is good for about 90 minutes of game playing, as long as I am careful not to burn her villages.

Or perhaps Kathy needs to upgrade her gaming attire fashion sense?

Sunday’s game was too long for my sweet wife. We played for more than four hours before a winner emerged, and it was evident that she was ‘done’, long before the game was over. (Non-verbal cues like leaving the table and washing the dishes are often a good clue.) She probably would rather we had played a shorter game (maybe one she could win, heh heh).

Jen (the victor) surveys her rail empire, baby on hip, while Daniel hides his face in shame

We talked, after our guests had gone, about the optimal game-playing experience, and I suggested that she would be happier if we could play strategy games in two-hour blocks, maybe staggered over a weekend, leaving the game set up in the dining room between rounds. The problem with that is your guests have to live nearby, or be willing to commute, which doesn’t seem to happen very often. Happily, we’re raising at least one serious gamer in the family, with a few more possible game fanatics in the wings, so maybe we can play some of the longer games inside the family and stick to cards with others.

Gamers in Training

All this makes me wonder, do other adults consider themselves ‘serious’ gamers, or is this a phase I should have left behind in college (or, better yet, in high school)? What makes one person willing to play a complex game for hours (and hours) and another unwilling to even try to learn?

My theory (I have a theory for nearly everthing) is that people fall into four or five categories, with minimal overlap:

1. People who don’t like to play games at all
2. People who play card games or short word games
3. People who play party games like Pictionary, Outburst, or Scattegories, or games requiring funny hats
4. People who play strategy games like Settlers of Catan, Risk or Carcassone
5. People who sneer at the childlike simplicity of the games in the above categories

Some of my favorite Settlers of Catan players

Personally, I can play a card or word game if I have to, but I’m happiest when I can annihilate my opponent so that no one is left alive to speak or even remember the language of his people-group. This is hard to do in a typical game of Canasta, Boggle, or Outburst, and so I fall clearly into category 4. Perhaps I should start work on a dissertation in which I integrate this theory with my developing research on marshmallow roasting.

Project 365, Day 189
Tim

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