Matt Carlson: Unnecessary Pieces

Last year I had the distinct pleasure of being able to take the year off and watch over the first year of my son’s life.  While watching “The Boy” did take a lot of my time, being off from work helped to give me time to come back to the gaming table on a regular basis.  Now that I’m working again, I often find myself restricted to gaming at home and having friends come over to play.  This situation has also made aware of an important new requirement in the games that I play.  A good game should have a few unnecessary pieces.

I’m not talking about a Days of Wonder adding in a couple of spare train counters, or having plenty of spare wooden cubes around.  I mean significant pieces that have a decent amount of eye candy.  Do you really need that central cathedral in Pillars of the Earth?  Of course you don’t.  That’s the perfect thing to attract they eye (and searching fingers) of a young boy who can only see the top of the table if he doesn’t stand too close.  In a recent game of Yspahan, The Boy deemed the third golden die unnecessary.  Who spends three gold pieces to get all three extra dice in that game anyway?  The Boy gleefully grabbed his golden treasure and promptly lost himself over in the corner sitting at his boy-sized table and chairs.  He would grip that die tightly, wave his hands around in the air like he was shaking it, and then let it drop onto the table (or the floor, or his lap, or wherever was convenient – although hitting the table always made the best sound.) It turned out I was the only one to ever want to actually roll all three extra dice.  A simple check of nearby seat cushions and other likely hiding spots quickly turned up the third die.

Unfortunately, not every game is as forgiving when it comes to giving up a spare part.  I was playing my Christmas present, Can’t Stop, with my nephews when The Boy happened along and decided he needed to borrow one of the four dice.  For those who are unfamiliar with the game – if you’re missing one of the four dice the game is more appropriately named “Can’t Play”.  I don’t blame my son, as the colorful stop sign motif makes for an attractive game and the colored pyramid player markers just don’t seem to be well suited for rolling.  Other games simply have spare parts of the wrong type.  HeroScape has figures that are too susceptible to “creative bending” and anyone trying to play Through the Desert (containing those cute candy-colored camels) with a hungry young child around needs their head examined.

On the whole, I welcome The Boy’s interest in gaming and am happy to take this chance to brag about daddy’s up and coming gamer.  I’m not sure if I should now spend my free time lobbying the BGG to add in an “unnecessary piece” category to the database, or focus in on developing a custom bumper sticker that says:  “My child can beat your child in a six-hour game of German elections!”

As I finished putting together this post, I had the pleasure of watching my son shake and then roll a pair of peas at the dinner table.  By his reaction, I think he was winning the game.  However, I look forward to the future when he picks up a larger vocabulary.  I plan to post all of his self-developed titles to the BGG to get input from babies every corner of the globe.  Anyone up for a rousing game of “Rolling Meatballs”?

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