Hey PI-Fans,
It’s October! The month of exams, Halloween scares and then some.
We’ve all been there before: table top games are meant to be fun and engaging for your friends and family. But sometimes, your game session becomes unfun for you, others and sometimes, gets downright traumatic.
Here are some examples of When Game Experiences Go Wrong: Board Games Edition!
Everyone Gangs Up On You
Perhaps everyone knows you’re the best player around because you’re good at strategy. Everyone just decides to take you down by concentrating all their attacks on you by lobbing penalty after penalty on you just to see you suffer. Or for absolutely no reason at all, everyone accuses you of being the ‘Werewolf’ even though you did absolutely nothing wrong and no one has any proof. Perhaps everyone was just having a really bad day and wanted to target their aggression on you. And so you lose. Horribly.
Co-Op Games that Turn into UNCo-Op Games
So you’re playing Pandemic and you’re all supposed to work together to save the World. Unfortunately, everyone is making silly decisions that cancel out other’s hard work and makes new problems instead of solving them… in the end you all lose because no one’s plans synergized with each other…
Social Deduction Games that Stall Because of Indecision
No one shoots each other in Bang! Erm. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it works at all! Because of this, everyone’s turn keeps skipping over because everyone is afraid to make the first move.
That One Friend Who’s Just Too Good at Manipulation Games
Jack has this one friend who’s just the KING of manipulation games. He’ll lead players down paths and than trip them to his benefit. He’ll give everyone the impression that he’s a saint but then he’ll fool everyone in the late stage of the game. Because of that, no one enjoys playing Social Deduction games with him because he’s just too darn good, and he also knows this. So as an alternative, they play other games that aren’t Social Deduction related and everyone is happy.
Very Distracted Players
It was supposed to be the perfect game night. The stars aligned, everyone could meet up! But it turned out, no one is really paying attention! Someone is playing with the dog, someone is playing on the phone, someone is raiding the kitchen for snacks. Your game night turned out to be a disaster because no one is interested in playing games… Guess we’ll all watch Netflix then. Sigh.
The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Situation
Ah the Love Couple. They do everything together and exist for each other. When you put them in a gaming situation however, things have the potential to get hairy. Especially if they’re on opposing teams. You sometimes get the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ situation where they know they’re both supposed to play against each other, but purposely don’t because they love each other. This results in one party throwing the game on purpose to let the other win. However in doing so, affects other players on their team, causing the team to lose… Ah the complexities of human emotion.
That One Friend Who Takes Everything Waay Too Seriously Even if It’s A Game With Grandma and Kids
There are competitive friends and there are ULTRA. Competitive friends. Common phrases heard are ‘We HAVE to win, ok?’ ‘NO! What are you doing? We CAN’T LOSE!’ ‘I can’t believe I lost!’ And if they win, would say things like ‘HAHA! I WON! I. WON!’ Uh, relax mate, its just Jenga.
That Over-Sensitive Person Who Starts Pulling Race/ Politics Cards
You’re all playing happily together, everything is going great! Until that one friend gets targeted by another and starts over-reacting. ‘Oh? So that’s what this is huh? It’s because I’m <insert race/ religion/ gender/ politics card>’ And than everything stops. The music stops playing. People in the background sneak a peek and give looks of concern. The house pets stop what they’re doing and look at all of you. Yeap. He/She went there.
The Alpha-Gamer Who Polices How Everyone Should Play
We’ve all seen such gamers before. Even if it isn’t their turn, they’re dishing advice about how others should play for ‘maximum strategy’ ‘You should move that piece over there!’ ‘No don’t sell that one, sell this one, it’s better!’ ‘Why did you ally with him! Walao!’ Generally the more mild-mannered players of your game group would sometimes be swayed to his/her advice, some players however get upset at this policing behavior. It’s time therefore to take said friend aside and tell them to nicely to keep their advice to themselves. They mean well, it just comes off as bossy and overreaching.
The Rage-Quitter
No one likes a rage-quitter. I mean we’ve all been guilty of doing it when we’re kids, but when you’re a young adult or grown up and you’re throwing a fit because you lost, that’s not cool. The rage-quitter flies into an uncontrollable rage, causes a huge scene by shouting loudly, flinging board game pieces everywhere and storming off. Friends usually are afraid of playing with such people ever again, hosts are afraid to invite them back. Incidents of rage quits are funny to watch if they’re not your friends but not fun if it’s one of your friends. If you’re guilty of rage-quitting, I know, losing hurts, losing sucks but we all have to learn to take it. Just remember, there’s always another game. Losing is learning too.
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