Given Up

I didn't want to be that person, going through the ropes desperately grasping for that confluence of players, game, and environment that through some obscure alchemical process created those moments of unselfconscious joy.

Sometimes there seems to be a bit of a desperate and joyless quality to the local public gaming events. People want to play shorter games so they can quickly move on to the next one and the next one. It's like they remember having fun with games, and they are craving that fun, but maybe they would enjoy gaming more if they stepped back from the hobby once in a while and did other things with their free time.

Shellhead wrote: . . . but maybe they would enjoy gaming more if they stepped back from the hobby once in a while and did other things with their free time.

. . . or played games that they enjoy instead of trying something new all the time.

I do this every 5 years with MtG. Gather up my money rares, and trade them in to a store for some board games. Wait until some neat new expansion hits, and do a couple drafts or a pre-release. Sometimes I'll buy 6 boosters and do a draft with my friend.

I've lived in a house with 2 other 20-something dudes for the last 4 years. We used to have a party every 6 weeks which I would organize through Facebook. I stopped organizing them during the last year or so, and I'm not really interested in drinking or "going out" anymore. Bars annoy me- I'm quiet and not into spending 6 dollars a drink. I'll still have a beer or two in certain social situations.

I played WoW a lot during vanilla. I never pushed to join a big raiding guild, because my computer was too slow at the time. I was a protection Warrior for awhile, so I never had trouble finding groups for instances and would create pickup groups to run Strat, Scholo, whatever a bunch of times. I could have a flawless run with just about any dorks in the group. Some of the more casual players I knew created a Molten Core group that would go one night a week, and we were eventually able to down Ragnaros in that night. I was the second tank, and would often MT on Golemagg and some of the others. I quit right before Burning Crusade hit.

Then Burning Crusade came out and I got sucked back in. I farmed the materials to create an epic axe. I PvP'd in the arenas. I ran Heroic dungeons with people before they got nerfed. (Blood Furnace was BRUTAL with that timed event). I'd often tank even though I was Mortal Strike spec'd because of my time in the 40-man groups, but I'd happily swing my axe if there was another Warrior in the group. I quit about 2 months before it was time for me to graduate college. I ended with a 3.000 GPA and think I'd have done better if I hadn't been playing WoW, but who knows if I'd have found another distraction? I seem to be good at that.

About a month or two after I graduated, the same friend who gifted me WoW gave me a Heroscape Master Set. I spent the next three or so years obsessively creating armies, writing articles, and driving around the midwest to participate in tournaments. I became highly respected within the community for my writing and strategies, and even the best player at the time would ask me for advice for what to bring to specific events, but I was never the best player myself. I think I won only about 4 or 5 tournaments, after participating in at least 5 times that many. My overall win rate hovered around 70%. Some of the best players are in the 80s. (This is a huge difference- 4:1 win loss ratio v. 2:1).

Eventually my involvement in Heroscape allowed me to help test the D&D waves for Heroscape, with Jerry Hawthorne and Colby Dauch as the designers. I thought that their work was excellent and enjoyed playing even with the proxies that I had. It was extremely upsetting for me when most of the fans dismissed the new units because they used repurposed sculpts from the D&D miniatures line. By the time the game got officially canceled, I was ready to move on. Not too long after, I sold the majority of my figures. (Then a couple years later, the guy who originally gave me Heroscape left me all of his collection when he moved out because he didn't want to deal with storing or selling it).

When Colby started a new company with Summoner Wars, I was skeptical at first but decided that I really liked the game, and I dove in. I worked in a school, and every morning I'd play a 2v2 team game with some grade schoolers. Late that Winter/early Spring of 2010, Colby asked me to become lead playtester for Summoner Wars. For a very short period of time after some live tournaments, I think people considered me to be the best Summoner Wars player. I did that for a couple years, but eventually I became distracted by my friends (and a girl who ended up being a waste of time) and I stepped down as lead playtester. I continue to contribute to the Plaid Hat podcast occasionally. I'm also going to help work on another project for them soon. There really isn't a lot of money in board gaming unless you're at the very top, so I haven't given much serious thought to pursuing it as a career. Who knows though? If PHG suddenly thinks I'm extremely valuable and wants me to move to Dallas, maybe I'll do it.

There are a number of other games that I'll get really hot on for awhile, and eventually cool off. Most games that I'm into I'll play at least once a week during that time. Last Night on Earth was the first game after Heroscape that I started playing and had me find BGG. I never got crazy into it, but I have gotten really into Race for the Galaxy, Dominion, Avalon, Dead of Winter, Coup, and Evolution. On the computer I've gotten into Card Hunter, X-COM, and most recently Hearthstone. There are probably some others in the middle there that I'm forgetting.

I go to two weekly meet-ups for games, and my girlfriend enjoys games too, and will often suggest one. (I try not to be the one suggesting to game). It is probably too much time playing and thinking about board games. Last night while I was playing Exploding Kittens I was thinking, "Why the hell am I doing this?" I won the game, but didn't care at all. After that we played a close game of Evolution which I won: 56, 54, 49, 42. The response from the other players was very positive. It was tight and I barely won. But it felt hollow.

I'm pretty sentimental about physical objects. I've not parted with a bunch of my SNES and Playstation games, even though I can't fathom playing one of those 60+ JRPGs again. I have a number of board games that I'm not excited about, but I've played all of them except for a few that were gifts or prizes in tournaments. I should probably sell a bunch of this stuff. Maybe it would be cathartic.

I got sick in 2013, which made it hard for me to lift weights anymore- I had been pretty good about it for a year. I quit when I was too tired to do it, and I've yet to go back. If there's something I'm upset about giving up, it's that. And right now my left thumb hurts A LOT so I've a lame excuse for not going back yet. I quit doing Judo around the same time because I didn't have health insurance and I freaked out when I strained my neck and had a 500 dollar doctor bill and some muscle relaxers to deal with it... I miss that too. The judo- not the medication.

Black Barney wrote: I used to Fock a lot of goats...

Until ISIS ruined it for everyone?

Not everyone.....