W. Eric Martin: You Say You Want a Resolution

I’ve always excelled at keeping my New Year’s resolutions, but this is akin to saying I win the Kentucky Derby every time I enter the race as I generally don’t make resolutions. Each January, articles in newspapers and magazines explain how to make this year your best yet, how to lose those stubborn pounds, bring your marriage to a deeper level, and find satisfaction at work—but I’m pretty happy with how my years have unfolded, so I’ve figured I’m doing something right and have resolved not to upset the apple cart by messing with a good thing.

In 2005, a member of my former game group, Phil Alberg, adopted Jon Theys’ alphabetic attack to his pile of unplayed games. Noting that the year lasted 52 weeks and the alphabet contained 26 letters, Jon had suggested that each fortnight should bring a new letter—and a new pile of games—to the table. I went along with Phil’s quest, bringing out such titles as Ausbrecher AG, The Bucket King, Orbit, and OD (which still went unplayed) while he presented us with Transsib, New England Railways, and much more.

Phil’s absurd quest inspired me, but I thought I’d attempt a different goal, one equally pointless in the larger scale of things but compelling enough to focus my mind for the next twelve months. The resolution: Any game that I played in 2006 would be played at least twice.

My Geek stats for 2005 showed that I had finished that year with 91 singletons—games that I had played exactly once. (The 2004 stats had 93 one ofs.) Those games had shown up at my door or met me at a hotel, we’d dallied once, then I never returned their calls. They could have had untold levels to explore and discover, and I hadn’t bothered. What a cad.

So for 2006, I vowed to leave no singleton behind. If I played a game once, I’d play it again so as not to cement a bad impression of it from a single playing. Perhaps I hadn’t played with the right number of people, or the game was rushed or dragged out. I might have missed a rule or not realized a strategy until the final moments, giving me only a taste of how the game could be played. And for games that were obviously good, I’d have an additional reason to push them to the table. Playing games twice would also help me remember their rules and practice teaching them to others.

In a concession to reality, I would allow myself a cushion of one singleton a month—12 total—since I’d likely play games during the year that I didn’t own or games that sucked with such power they’re suited more for Guantanamo than the game table. Ideally, though, I’d track them all down and mark them off the list.

I shared this resolution with my game group in January, and they indulged me throughout the year, frequently asking which titles I needed to play again while we were staring at The Wall O’ Games. With short games, I’d typically play them twice in a row, both to incorporate what I learned in the first game and to snuff the singleton before it had a chance to escape.

At the end of January, I had 16 singletons on the list; in both February and March, the list ended with 17 titles. Then I hit the Gathering in April, the list skyrocketed, and I struggled ever after to bring it down. Essen presented a more difficult challenge since I tried plenty of new titles that won’t be widely available in the U.S. until 2007. Although I had tired of fighting the mono-playing monkey, December brought a storm of second plays as I pushed towards a tiny total by year’s end. When the ball landed in Times Square, my list still stood at 35 titles, divided into the following categories:

Games I Don’t Own (18)
Apples to Apples Junior
Cartagena II
Crokinole
Die Baumeister von Arkadia
Die Drachenbändiger von Zavandor
Dschingis Khan: Bewegung an der Großen Mauer
Fragile
Hacienda
Hart an der Grenze
Imperial
Lexio
Memoir ‘44: Pacific Theater
Null & Nichtig
Taluva
Tara, Seat of Kings
Thingamajig
Trivial Pursuit Totally 80s Edition (Curse those year end parties!)
Twilight Struggle

Game I’m Surprised to Find on This List (9)
Bang!
End of the Triumvirate, The
Fowl Play!
Jericho
Legie
Medici vs Strozzi
Parlay
Piratenbillard
Shear Panic

Games That Need an Evening Unto Themselves (4)
Game of Thrones, A
Game of Thrones, A: A Clash of Kings Expansion
Indonesia
Roads and Boats

Games I Wouldn’t Have Thought of Again If Not for This List (4)
Domination
High School Drama!
Pictionary
Yahtzee - Texas Hold’em

Setting this goal gave me a focus for the year. Whenever our game group risked succumbing to endless head-scratching while searching for a game to play, I could suggest something from the list and they’d generally agree. After I learned to play Thurn and Taxis and Masons, I pushed these games to the table again the same day to reinforce the rules and see what I had learned from the initial playing. Once Die Macher entered the list at Unity Games X in January, I made sure to play again at UG XI, discovering in the process that the game works really well with only three players. (I also made a different critical mistake on the first board, solid proof that I’m learning.)

While I failed to meet my goal and was bothered for months by a weird pressure in my brain whenever I thought about the singleton list, I’m glad that I undertook the challenge—but for 2007 I’m pulling a U-turn and heading in the opposite direction.

I own hundreds of games that I haven’t played: classics, new Essen releases, random Eurogames bought used and on clearance, questionable American titles picked up at thrift stores, and many more. This number is unacceptably high, both because I’m missing out on undoubtedly good games and because I should try what I have before acquiring something new. In 2006 I tamed my book-buying tendencies and am now reading and selling many more titles than I’m puchasing. While I’m unlikely to halt game acquisitions in 2007, I should play more of what I already own and perhaps even (gasp) sell off a game or eight.

While Greg Schloesser attached a solid goalline to his knock-off-the-unplayed-games resolution—at least 75% of one shelf that holds at least three dozen games—I’m going to avoid percentages and stick with a nice round number. By the end of 2007, I vow to play at least 100 of my unplayed games. Ideally that number will be even higher, but for now my focus is on the first 100. Singletons aplenty will pile up in the weeks ahead, but until I can eliminate sleep from my list of bad habits and play round the clock, I’ll have to put aside the old resolution in favor of the new.

So who’s up for a rousing game of Räubersprung?

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Next week, a look back at 2006…

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Comments:

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I was part of Eric’s gaming group, and subject to his “experiment”. :) In some senses it was a nice change to be playing more games twice.  It seemed like the previous year we spent as much time learning rules as playing games since every game we saw seemed to be a new one.  Playing games at least twice raised the playing/learning ratio significantly.  Now, I’m a bit nervous of the new resolution since there is some funky stuff on that shelf of Erics.  Of course he’s always been good about playing whatever makes the group happy despite any crazy resolutions he has come up with. Posted by Jim Forsythe on Jan 2, 2007 at 10:00 AM | #

Eric, We need a solid number of unplayed games as of Jan 1 so we can know how big of a task you have ahead of you. Posted by Brent Mair on Jan 2, 2007 at 02:51 PM | #

Brent, I haven’t entered most of my Essen games (or games acquired in the past two months) in my Geek collection, but the number of unplayed titles easily tops 400. Admittedly that number includes items like tiny Spiele aus Timbuktu expansions and game-related books, but it’s still a big mountain to climb… Posted by W. Eric Martin on Jan 2, 2007 at 06:21 PM | #

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