Generally speaking, if anyone asks me to teach them a game, I will abandon all responsibilities and small children under my care to bring the new-comer into the hobby. Well, my newest group started three weeks ago and has completely surprised me.
The group consists of myself and three others. Here are each of their gamer qualities, stereotyped and parsed out in my brain:
- We’ll call the first one “Frank” – Frank was the one who pursued this group, asking me to help start it. Frank has always shown an interest in games, but accurately understands that his attention span buckles after 1 minute of a teaching. He’s like a nerd mullet – Business in the front, party games in the back where Domininon is not welcome.
- The second is “Charlie.” Charlie was explained to me as “A guy who has played games before.” Charlie is percieved to be the magnificent flying buttress that will support this new gaming group.
- The third person is “Roger.” Roger doesn’t game. Roger doesn’t care for me. Roger is there to support Frank and Charlie. I am the most hesitant about Roger because I have always suspected that board games trigger his barbarian rage.
So we planned out our first game day, and off we went.
I chose Raccoon Tycoon for our first game. Why? For 2 reasons. First, it’s interactive. If I had picked a pleasant Euro game, it could have been insufferably boring for them. The 2nd reason is cause of money. My favorite thing about money in games is that at NO POINT do I have to explain how money works. Everyone knows that when money is involved, you do the following – GET ALL MONEY, NEVER SHARE MONEY, THE WINNER IS THE ONE WHO HAS THE MOST MONEY. Pretty simple. And so the first game night was a hit!
So for the next game night, I decided to jump off into the deep end and teach an interactive game with more meat – Abyss. Abyss is simple – get small cards of certain suits to buy the BIG cards which are worth victory points. But there is a catch, and it is a MAJOR catch for new gamers:
To claim one of the small cards, you need to start an auction where all other players have a chance to claim it before you. If another player gives you a pearl, they get the card and not you. Everyone gets a chance ON YOUR TURN to claim the card you want BEFORE YOU. And if a monster is revealed, YOU have to fight it – or run away and risk a penalty.
That, right there, was too much. And then there is the weird benefit with buying the big cards:
- Big cards often have special powers. If you buy certain kinds of Big cards, you get a lair. LAIRS ARE AWESOME CAUSE YOU GET MORE POINTS! But if you get a lair . . . you lose all your powers.
Guess who hated getting lairs? All the dumb new players. But I really wasn’t concerned about that. I was too busy making sure everyone understood why starting an auction is often a very good idea.
Right away, Frank, to my surprise, figured out a strategy. He was claiming the big cards in a very intelligent way, but then, after acquiring two, he literally started to fall asleep. He could not be bothered to make another intelligent decision.
And Charlie, the only true gamer there, did not spend a single brain cell to consider a complicated concept. He did not attempt an engine, did not care how others took advantage of him, and when he earned a lair, he took the first one offered and said “Forget it. Let’s move on.”
And then . . . there was Roger. Roger who doesn’t like games. Roger who doesn’t like me. Roger was quickly attracted to acquiring pearls (they really are fun to touch). Roger’s eyes were wide, and he was ignoring all other player’s complaints – his mind was quickly putting all the pieces together. On each of his turns, he had a fresh new question about a mechanic he wanted to experiment with. He was trying new things, without worrying about what I was doing, in the hopes of understanding why the rules were the way they were – THE MOST GAMERY THING YOU CAN DO IN A NEW GAME. Roger ignored his friends b*tch*ng, and even sometimes gave them a rude look, in the hopes of chatting with me about Abyss.
It was crazy – I was almost FURIOUS with Frank and Charlie, the two gimmees in this scenario. When the game ended, we socialized for a bit. I even had conversations about non-game things with Roger. We were buddies – My childish qualities that annoyed him seemed to make sense in a board game atmosphere.
Because Abyss just happened to be the right kind of complicated, I now have a new friend . . . and two developing nemeses.