I have been very busy with grad school lately and have not been able to play many games recently. However, the last time I played some games was a little over a month ago when my in-laws were down for a visit. Ever since that weekend, something has been eating at me: Can you hate a game solely because you suck at it?
As I remember, the first game I broke out that weekend was Carcassonne. I played it with just my father-in-law. Carcassonne is a game that I really liked. (It should be noted that this is just the base game with the river expansion.) We got it for 50% off at an after-Christmas sale and were quite pleased with our purchase. It was fun to build the farm land with cities in between. The mechanics for controlling the land and cities are easy to understand and teach, and yet they still allow for a lot of variations in strategy. So, my first impression was "instant classic." After that first play, my wife and I played a few games a few weeks later, and I still liked it. We taught it to my in-laws later, and I still liked it. Since then, there has been a running theme whenever I play Carcassonne, though. As you might have guessed, that theme is my losing.
Full-disclosure is that I lose in board games a lot. I keep coming back for more punishment because I really do enjoy games like Ticket To Ride, Dominion, Lost Cities, and etc. However, I can't rely on winning to enjoy the games because I do lose much more than I win. I have perfected that with Ticket To Ride. I lose all the time at that game, but I still really enjoy it.
Nevertheless, I am beginning to think I loathe Carcassonne because of that losing theme I mentioned earlier. Please understand that when I lose at Ticket To Ride or Pillars Of The Earth for instance, I typically am in the running; I had a chance to win. When I play Carcassonne, I get blown out, utterly crushed, humiliated, and whatever other adjectives are appropriate for a loss of potentially epic proportions. That is what happened again when I last played the game against my father-in-law. Most of the game was just frustrating, but I held it together. (I didn't throw pieces on the table like a child... like I may have done in previous thumpings.) Instead of venting my anger, I simply looked at my father-in-law and said, "I think I hate this game." I emphasized the word "think." Normally I hate a game because it is boring, it is imbalanced, it is too complicated, or there is some other problem with the design of the game. I am not one to hate a game just because I am bad at it, but I am soooo bad at Carcassonne. I feel obligated to keep playing it because it is a game I consider good otherwise. Not only that, my family likes it. So, it is one I can play with them. I have to play it, right? Is it worth it if I just get frustrated because I am losing by such a large margin? I keep trying to tell myself that I will only get better by playing, but it is no good. As I have said, I have played it multiple times. My family only gets better while we play, and that only results in my score being more impressively dwarfed by theirs each time we play.
I have one more story to tell that will help explain why I am torn. Later that weekend, we played Dominion. In fact we played it more than once as I remember. The first time we played it, my father-in-law grumbled a little bit. The second time we played it, we were playing with a lot of attack cards. So, now my father-in-law grumbled even more because he kept getting attacked and couldn't make much progress with his hand. He eventually said something like, "I hate this game. It is a really horrible, horrible game. Just dreadful." The kicker is that he said he liked it after the first time he played it. (We had introduced him to in months before.) I have a strong feeling that he hates it because he is not good enough at it. I think if he played more, he would improve and start to like the game. That happened with Settlers Of Catan. He hated it at first but thought it was okay once he had played it more often. The end result is that I don't want to play Carcassonne because he always woops me, but I want him to play Dominion with the family even though he has clearly stated a hatred for the game. That makes me a bit of a hypocrite.
As I see it, I have two choices at this point.
1) I decide that it is okay to hate a game based upon ability (or lack thereof), and my father-in-law and I stop playing Carcassonne and Dominion both. If the family wants to play one of those games, the one who hates the game can just sit out.
2) I can continue to play Carcassonne, do my best, and (if need be) find a way to laugh off the pain. Likewise, my father-in-law can then be coerced to play Dominion and at least try to win despite his grumblings.
For now, I plan to choose option two. I will update this blog if that changes.
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