The satisfaction I feel when I win is nearly always just the feeling that I was better than someone or, on this occasion, I out smarted them. I have always been a deeply competitive person, I hate being second best if I feel I should be the best; I'm happy to feeling second best if I know the other person is better, but then I also feel like I need to improve.
When I play sports I'm happy with my natural inclinations to be competitive because it drives me to become better, but when I play a game I loath it! I essentially quit our old Blood Bowl league because I found it much too stressful! I felt like I was one of the best coaches in the league and therefore went into every game with the pressure of feeling that I must win, mixed with the feeling that it's just a game, reeelaaax. But I could never really relax and it just wasn't worth it. It really saddens me that I left the league as it was a great way to stay close to friends, which I don't see as much because I left.
I think it was at this time when the title of this post really began to become important to me. So what IS most important to me?
Solid, interactive game mechanics
When I play a game I want to feel free to unleash on the other players without feeling like I'm picking on anyone or that I'm somehow exploiting a game mechanic. Zombies!!! is a great example of this, it's a game where everyone goes out of their way to ruin everyone else's life, but you know it'll come straight back at you, so you just have to persist and get stuck in.
Story
I love games which create epic stories, which stick in your memory! Where it's almost worth holding off victory just to make another players life miserable, or to have a go at fighting that crazy powerful dragon, because you might just win and the reward would be great! Talisman is my prime example of this. It's a game built around writing stories. No-one should ever play that game competitively; it should be played to see how the story un-ravels and to make the other players lives as interestingly painful as possible. The number of times I feel I've been ultra powerful and then been systematically stripped of everything by my vengeful co-players goes to show that a healthy, unspoken agreement on mutual destruction, leads to great games.
Strategy/pushing your luck
This sort of goes against some of my previous points and starts to get back into the competitiveness, but when games become too luck orientated they lose the satisfying feeling of destroying an opponent or appreciating how you have been beaten. Also, allowing players to try something crazy is a great way to build tension or create moments of great excitement, like playing the Do or die card in Escape from Colditz or making a well planned but very daring dash for a last turn goal in Dreadball!
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I'm always interested to hear other people's perspectives. One of the game types that I feel really hasn't ever excited me, because they don't really fulfil the above catergories, is "euro" style games. I often find them a little dry and too mathematical, with a severe lack of meaningful interaction. I know I'd get an enormous amount of criticism for saying this and people who disagree, but thankfully hardly anyone reads this blog, it's more for my brain to unload.
That said I have played Agricola and it is rightfully regarded as a great game and I enjoyed it, but I never felt compelled to own it. Euro games are amazingly well designed! They are just generally a little too serious for me. I haven't played many deck building games, but I've found them to be similar, they just don't excite me that much. I'd love to be proved wrong!
Oh, and I think table top games are starting to creep back into fashion with my bros and people around me, so maybe I'll have some thoughts about that and maybe bring up memories of my days of playing Warhammer!
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