Valerie Putman: The Reluctant Gamer

When you are playing with hardcore hobbyists, you can have a less than ideal game night with some pretty awful games and be sure that everyone will still come back for more.  But not everyone has a club full of hardcore hobbyists to play with regularly.  For some, their only chance at gaming is when they are able to convince the reluctant gamers in their lives to humor them.  Reluctant gamers are far less forgiving when things go wrong, and this puts a lot of pressure on the gamer to get things just right.

Most of us are a reluctant something, so be sympathetic.  Perhaps your spouse loves to go antiquing and you will humor her, but only if there is a predetermined time limit.  Even then, a bad antiquing trip, which might just be disappointing for her, means that you will refuse to go again for at least another year until the memory fades a bit.  As a result, she might be more careful about which antiquing trips she invites you on. 

Reluctant gamers also often have time limits for their gaming endeavors.  They are also less tolerant of unfamiliar rules or low quality game components.  Reluctant gamers vary in their game preferences as much as the rest of us, but it is even more important to choose appropriate games.  In short, planning a game session with a reluctant gamer can be a stressful task.

One quality I have noticed in many reluctant gamers is a lower tolerance for losing.  Unfortunately, this is sometimes coupled with an unwillingness to put forth the effort necessary to win.  This makes it important to choose games that play to the strengths of the reluctant gamer.  If he is unwilling to count Aces in Tichu, then another game that favors a player who pays attention to the cards played, like Lost Cities, is a poor choice.  If the reluctant player doesn’t like to actively block other players, don’t choose Blokus.  This might mean that you aren’t playing your favorite games, but a night of Scrabble might be better than no games at all.  Another option is to choose games with a higher luck value so that there is a fairly even distribution of winning and losing despite your superior gaming acumen.

Game night with the reluctant gamers is also not the time to figure out the rules for your brand new game.  If you can, choose a game that you are very familiar with and comfortable teaching.  If you’re going to introduce a new acquisition, take the time to learn the game on your own, possibly even playing a few rounds by yourself to work out the kinks, before trying to teach it.

The good news is that we are often playing with reluctant gamers because they are loved ones who are willing to suffer a little bit in order to make us happy and spend some quality time with us.  With careful choices and a series of enjoyable experiences, they might even lose some of that reluctance and indulge us more often.  I am happy to report that the reluctant gamers in our life (hubby’s family) requested that we bring some games when we visited last weekend and we had a great time with Pickimino, Carcassonne, and Felix.

I’d rather be gaming, (I’d especially like to be on my way to Georgia now for a week of gaming, as planned.  But sadly, I won’t be making it to Ward Batty’s Atlanta Gamefest this weekend after all.  Sigh.)

Valerie Putman

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