Togetherness - Why Play Tabletop Games?

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25)

A few years ago, my wife, my sons, and I led a Board Game night for several families. To start the Board Game night, I presented 15 minutes of game information and etiquette for everyone, to which the adults politely listened while the children squirmed and squawked (note: PowerPoint presentations and children don't mix well). After my hastily-concluded presentation, my wife, my sons, and I led four different game sessions to introduce new games to the families there: my wife led a game of Dixit, my oldest son led a game of Carcassonne, my youngest son led a game of Fluxx (which is NOT a board game, but it didn't really matter), and I guided youngsters through a game of Balloon Lagoon. As we all conducted our individual games, I found time to patrol the tables and monitor how people were adapting to the new games. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the parents and children were learning the games quickly and engrossing themselves in the nuances of each one. The little ones at my Balloon Lagoon tables were especially eager to play a second round, which I certainly allowed them to do. Another child had even taken it upon himself to start another group game of Ticket to Ride, which he had brought to teach others. Thus, the first round of gaming ended well as we all headed into a break, which was when I observed and realized an "inconvenient truth..."

The plan for the evening was to conduct a second round of gaming during which some of the young ones would teach their own favorite board games to the adults. However, as Round 2 was set to commence, it was painfully clear that almost all of the children no longer had any interest in playing board games. Some of them migrated to another room to play with Beyblades; a few boys went upstairs to pillow fight; and several other children seemed to wander around shooting Nerf guns. It was then that I grasped a basic notion: most kids have short attention spans. This wasn't an earth-shattering discovery, but what struck me was that while my sons were open to the idea of more board games, the other kids were not so eager, which led to the earth-shattering discovery that many people today have trouble with board games.

I pondered the reasons for these children (and adults) not being eager to dive into another round of more profound strategic thinking and discovery. Maybe, it's because people are used to the audiovisual splendor and attention-sapping energy of video games. As always, video games and computer entertainment are the most obvious culprits, but there may have been other reasons for the children’s lack of desire. Maybe, it's because board games take time to set up and play; maybe, it's because people are just too busy or distracted to play board games. It could even be because people are too "plugged into" their mobile devices and tablets to shut them off and actually touch tangible game elements. These reasons and others have swirled around in my head for some time after that game meeting, and I contend that all of the reasons I listed are acceptable ones. Yet, I have a better, more over-arching reason for why many kids (and even adults) cannot sit for an extended period of time and play a board game even though those same people can sit and play video or computer games for hours: the "world" wants us to be plugged in and reliant on technology for entertainment, business, and our very livelihoods.

When I write about the “world,” I’m not referring to the physical world of mountains, trees, homes, furniture, or anything else we can perceive or touch with our five basal senses. The "world" is corporations that want to sell us goods with built-in obsolescence so that we buy more in three to five years. The "world" is the entertainment industry (Hollywood, if you will) that wants us to buy its mind-numbing, non-life-affirming movies, its vapid, insipid popular music, and its haughtily amoral television shows. The "world" is video and computer game makers that only seek to satiate and enthrall while promoting sexuality, violence, and unimaginative, profane abuses of language. The "world" tells us we are not smart enough to think on our own, to conduct daily life without technology, and the "world" tells us that we must always be having its brand of "fun" or else life is awful. We are all being shaped by this "world" and the incursions and invasions this "world" has masterminded against our psyches are methodically reshaping us into thrill-seeking, attention-lacking, over-multi-tasked consumers sans a moral compass.

How do we stop the "world" from transforming us into lemmings? The simplest solution is to spend time with other people in such a way that we engage each other face-to-face. Of course, outdoor activities and sports engenders verbal and visual interaction with others. Likewise, nights out on the town or in a restaurant should compel people to speak to each other (hopefully with an agreement to prohibit device interruption). Even sitting on the family room sofa and looking at each other provides a respite, if not a proper escape, from the “world” by maximizing in-person communication and minimizing the intermediary buffer of technology and the influence of the entertainment industry.

However, the most salient trend in gaming is how games become more and more intricate and engrossing for the player: games are now more complex, more visually appealing, and more portable than ever. Games look sharper and crisper, and set the challenge bar high enough with less cheese than in the past; with games like Plague or Bad Piggies, players benefit from engaging graphics, top-notch sound effects, and enough detail and complication to occupy even the most jaded gamer. Also, gone are the days of needing a Game Gear or Game Boy or even having to pay money for cartridges; just get a smartphone or a tablet, download a free game app, and one can play most games anywhere and only have to tolerate the periodic advertisement. People can play everything from first-person shooters to virtual board games; one of my gaming buddies even played Ticket to Ride for the first time... on an iPad! No longer do you need game realia (such as game pieces or dice), console, cartridges, or even opponents; the computer can provide an opponent or opponents anytime, anywhere.

Considering the convenience of computer games now, plugging into the digital world is somewhat more appealing than whipping out a game board or game books, and finding "experienced" players is easier now that computer intelligence and game programming can frustrate veteran players without the skullduggery inherent to old video games, such as spotty hit detection. However, people are now, more than ever, tempted to disconnect from others. Many video game and computer game players may now be less apt to challenge live opponents, let alone engage a human being in conversation. Sure, people that play online RPGs can connect with players through a chat window or by audiovisual communication, but it all happens in a world disjointed from reality and, more crucially, from each other.

As the "world" pulls us farther and further apart, seducing us with a hyper-reality of bright colors and endless opponents whom we would never have to befriend, it creates the illusion of interconnection with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and deceives us into believing in our self-reliance. We buy into the idea that we don't need other people; we just need a computer. Yet, people are alone in their offices, chatting with each other through screens.

It all seems so (William) Gibsonesque a la Neuromancer, but we need to touch each other and we need to touch this world; not the “world” of electric entertainment and digital stimulation as much as the realia of the physical world. Indeed, the "world" cannot overwhelm us if we (dare I say) stick together, so to touch the world we need personal contact; even more so, by maintaining togetherness – a sense of personal contact – we stave off isolation.

I'm sure that all people have faced and felt isolation at one point in their lives -- that unmistakable feeling of an invisible barrier having been erected, making the outside world fade away behind a translucent haze with voices muffled and hearts hidden. Sometimes, our ever-increasing fascination with the hyper-reality of computers and audiovisual technology has the odd side-effect of separating us from others, but isolation starts from within us. It isn't the "world" that isolates us as much as it is we who isolate ourselves, and it all starts with a preoccupying thought of whether we “belong.”

That sense of wanting to belong is integral to humanity. It's a thought that occurs to anyone who moves to a new city, attends a new church, gets a new job, or even runs with a new group of acquaintances. As one struggles to assimilate, one has to fight the feelings of being an outsider. These are diametrically-opposed forces: assimilation and isolation. These are forces that people should recognize, and people should also recognize the factors that affect each force. I believe that the desire to assimilate to God-given as we are commanded to love our God and love our neighbor; in many ways, to assimilate to our neighbor is natural. However, in the face of absorbing technology without balance, isolation is more commonplace, but there are so many more factors to consider, specifically divergent ideologies. Differences of faith (or lack of it) are easy to identify and tend to, regrettably, cloister us, but even in groups of like beliefs there are differences that threaten to divide.

We are becoming more isolated and separated, but this is one trend that board games can restrict. By taking out a board, some pieces, and some cards, one is required to find human opponents. Once one finds human opponents, one has to communicate with these opponents, whether it be friendly conversation or playful, competitive banter. One has to move pieces, read rules, and manipulate realia to make the game happen. People's brains take back the role computers have stolen from our unsuspecting grasps; their brains make the "graphics" move, our eyes ingest and admire the game pieces, and our hands carry these items from game table to game table. Board games anchor people in reality, creating that resonance to which I referred earlier. As we resonate at the same frequency, we converse, playfully cajole, and challenge each other. We are compelled to match wits with organic foes, and even driving us to go out and find those foes. Playing board games together is a powerful way to foster togetherness, which consequently fosters resonance and obviates isolation.

To combat isolation (and to borrow from Star Trek technobabble), we must achieve resonance when two or more parties resonate at the same frequency. When we begin to understand each other's faults, yet reach a mindset in which those faults don't matter, we adapt to and accept each other. We start to establish common ground. Common ground doesn't have means we compromise our beliefs or acquiesce; it means that, despite the gulf that divides, ties of friendship and love can bind us.

The diametrically opposed forces of resonance and isolation reminded me of my wife’s recent trip to the dentist. At the dentist’s office, she overheard a young girl asking her father if she could play a game on his cellular phone. This was not an unusual story; it was, in fact, further evidence of what I have observed among children and adults today, reinforcing the importance of disconnecting from the digital and connecting to others and with concrete objects in the "real." Have you ever asked a new acquaintance family from whom you sense something negative? Maybe, they were friendly at first but then they started to act strangely... Distant, perhaps. We isolate ourselves, but we must resonate at all costs. It doesn't have to be hard to resonate; if people don't have common faith, common ideologies, or even common ways of driving or ironing clothes, they can at least sit at a table and play board games.

Next time, instead of giving your children a tablet or smartphone to play a video game at the dentist’s office, take the board game with you. Play Yahtzee in the doctor's office or Fluxx on the train. Invite your friends or even ask friendly passengers around you to play. If you cannot take out a board, bring a more portable game, like travel chess or Othello, or a card game like Uno. This creates that sense of togetherness sorely lacking now; as we interact deliberately, we assimilate to our neighbors’ frequencies, resonating in unison to drive away isolation.

Boardgameness - Tabletop Gaming is THE Alternative

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

A lot of my friends are well aware that I like board games. Of course, for many of them, their ideas of board games are Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, Risk, Clue, or even the venerable games of Backgammon, Checkers, or Chess. Most of these games are often associated with very occasional family nights during which the clan collectively push game pieces around a board, laugh at each, and then roll their eyes when (at least in the case of Monopoly) they realize that they’ve been playing for over two hours… with no end in sight. For most of my friends and other non-board gaming folks, board games represent the odd night’s fun that is not had again for years, perhaps because the board games they played with unengaging, interminable, overly simplistic, thinly thematic, or some other reason that may be connected more with the time during which the game was played than with the actual game, such as how a game was soured with an argument that ensued over an obscure rule.

This reluctance of people to dive into a board game may be borne from numerous personal reasons (like the aforementioned traumatic episode), but I find that people’s reticence to experience a board game or any other kind of game played on a table top is associated primarily with one thing: they do not know what a board game is. If one were to go back several hundred years, board games were largely restricted to games that have proven to be timeless, abstract games such as the ubiquitous Chess, Backgammon, and Checkers, as well as Asian favorites Go, Shogi, which is somewhat similar to Chess, and Mancala. Even before these games, the Egyptians had Senet, the rules for which can only be deduced from whatever records exist. Fast-forward to the 20th century and we see the rise of some of the modern “classics,” like Monopoly, Yahtzee, Clue, Risk. Add to that proliferation of board games the almost innumerable card games that use a “standard” four-suit deck of 52 cards, such as Poker, Blackjack, Bridge, Gin Rummy, Hearts, Spades, Cribbage, and others, and you have a considerable catalog of what have been called collectively, “table top games.”

Wow! Now that I think about it, there are actually a lot of time-honored games out there that many people enjoy. There are millions of Poker enthusiasts out there, Chess is hugely popular, and people still play all of those classic games. I cannot imagine there being a house in the United States that does not have a copy of Monopoly (actually, I’m sure there are many houses out there without Monopoly, but there are certainly more houses with it!). Yet, there are many people who would much rather not spend an evening playing board games with their family or friends. They rather watch TV, play a computer game, or even just hang out and talk. Some families play sports together, and some even spend family time reading books to each other.

Yet, I play board games. I encourage my family and friends to play board games. I even coerce my family and friends to play board games; this is a joke, of course, but I have had to do some earnest negotiation to convince people to try out a board game of which they have never heard.

Ah, electronics! Personally, I have very little to hold against electronics because most electronic items have facilitated our lives immeasurably. Whether it be the laptop that enables work-swamped parents to complete job assignments in the family office or the cell phone that allows family members to keep in touch with each other with text messages and brief phone calls, electronics are useful and sometimes essential. Furthermore, I must admit that video games and movies can be fun, viable ways to connect with loved ones; I can recall numerous instances of my sons and me quoting a movie or reminiscing about a round of Super Mario World. Furthermore, fifty years ago, we marveled at the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen or Rick Baker and how tangible, practical special effects added enthralling hyper-realism to any movie or TV show; now, our expectations are almost sky-high as we feel real disappointment when effects fall short.

There isn’t much inherently wrong with watching a TV show or movie, playing a video game, or browsing the Internet. There is also much to praise about the convenience of electronics, particular the aforementioned, screen-laden items; smart phones, tablets, and laptops have make work and school more mobile than ever, and computers have made it possible to create glorious and convincing spectacles in movies and TV. Because of the wonders of electronics, especially the power of multithreaded, super-fast computing, most of us are entranced by the shining, glittering, digital, electric boogaloo of our devices.

If you stop and consider it, it’s rather comical that wherever you go, you can see people on laptops, people on tablet computers, people on cell phones, and people watching television. Out of the corner of your eye, you can catch people staring at screens, pressing virtual digitized buttons on a surface sensitive to touch, and glaring at interactive, highly responsive media. Their faces are buried in their screen; at least, that’s what we notice when we pull our noses up from our screen. What is funnier is that unlike what the Mac operating system application “Face Time” suggests, there isn’t much face time to be had among people. What was once isolated to the family living room (or, if you go further back in time, the movie theater) is now ubiquitous and all-engrossing.

Nowadays, when people think of the concept of interacting with others, they almost always include something electronic, such as a television (for watching movies), a video game console, a tablet or cell phone, or a computer either as a laptop or a desktop system. Yet, the gerund “interacting” is used loosely here because we are not really interacting as much as engaging in a kind of parallel entertainment. Much like when we were toddlers, we play alongside each other with new-fangled toys, but we do not engage each other. This is not by our design, though, but the design of those who define entertainment nowadays; it is in the design of the purveyors of visual media.

Visual media is everywhere. Visual media has us entranced with its movies, its video games, and its Internet-based content. It has our attention, transforming what “entertainment” is. Conversely, by its absence, visual media reminds us of how bored we are. We are the watchers, the video game players, the net surfers, and there has never been a time in human history like now when we can get most information instantaneously, play a video game that we haven’t played in decades, and watch TV shows that were done long ago. As I mentioned earlier, there isn’t much inherently wrong with watching a TV show or movie, playing a video game, or browsing the Internet, but more and more we go, by default, to visual media for entertainment, which at the very least satiates the hungry, addicted mind, but also threatens to indoctrinate the mind into worldviews that we might never willingly convey to children.

It doesn’t have to be that way. What if, instead of a screen, children talked to their parents and siblings? What if they turned off the TV and laptop and sat around a table with their families? What if they did all of this willingly and enthusiastically? The answer to all of these questions is that it would be wonderful, but how could it be done? They need an incentive, and the incentive is games: board games and card games.

Thought Exercise: Introducing Board Games to People

It can be an absolutely arduous task to put oneself in the shoes of someone who doesn't play board games. Over the years, I have come to realize that each person's baseline experience is different from mine and from others. For example, to remind myself of how a non-board game player must feel about playing a board game, I often put myself through a thought exercise to calibrate myself to the baseline of a person who has little game experience.

Here is the exercise I use:

I imagine that it’s a Sunday night. I am at a church function, trying to make small talk with a person I just met named Harry. Harry is a plumber who works long hours, but tries to carve out time with his family. He enjoys watching movies with his family and playing the odd game on the family Nintendo Wii, but Harry is a hands-on guy who prefers building projects and spending time in his garage. He also likes cruising the Internet for bargains on power tools and building materials.

Though I share a common faith and a love of family with Harry, I grasp for anything that I can discuss with Harry. I begin with one of my default “grasping for straws” question:

“So, Harry, do you like any sports?”

As of writing this post, I enjoy running, basketball, and throwing the Frisbee. Sports is usually a common denominator I share with many guys, but not Harry.

“I play golf a little, but I mostly walk with my wife to get exercise.”

Okay, sports is no good. “I run with my wife,” is all I manage to say, so I go to my second common-denominator subject. “Do you like any movies?”

Harry purses his lips and looks skyward as if he were searching the inner confines of his skull for an answer. “I just watch what the kids watch,” he replies.

Clearly, Harry is not helping me out, conversation-wise, so I decide to bring out what I have come to regard as my conversational “big gun.”

“So, Harry, do you play board games?”

Somewhat expectedly, Harry raises an eyebrows, casting a quizzical look. He probably isn’t greeted with such a question on a consistent basis. In fact, he is almost never asked this question. He pauses to consider not just how he would possibly answer that question, but even the deeper implications of the question.

“You mean, like, Monopoly?” Harry mutters half-audibly, “I used to play Risk when I was a kid.”

“Have you ever heard of European board games?” I blurt, managing to derail Harry’s already careering train of thought. At this point, Harry peers around the room feverishly searching for an escape route. His wife preternaturally senses his distress and intervenes.

“This is Donovan,” Harry grins frantically as he struggles to alter the course of the conversation, 

“Donovan, this is Jill.”

With my enthusiasm unabated, I extend my hand to shake Jill’s as I state without hesitation, “I was talking to Harry about board games. Do you play board games?”

Jill’s mouth is agape as she musters an answer. “I used to play Candy Land with the kids when they were younger,” she quipped, hoping desperately to satisfy my curiosity without advancing what she came to regard as an odd conversation…

Of course, this dramatization is not often what happens when I mention board games, but almost every person with whom I speak know little about board games outside of the standard American ones on sale at Walmart or Target, and usually do not give board games much thought. That is the baseline that I must always keep in mind: people usually conjure up memories of their childhood playing Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Scrabble, or other well-known paragons of American gaming. Some people have shared with me their sadness at being trounced into bankruptcy, or how they win at Risk by conquering Australia first, or how the dice were never kind to them. Usually, this is a person's baseline for board games, and this should inform one's approach when sharing board games with others.

For most Americans and Europeans, board games have a place in our collective pasts, but rarely a prominent place, as if people dallied with them for a while before they moved on to more pressing concerns like school, sports, and trying to fit in without being picked on. More often than not, board games are only an occasional family diversion for which some cannot spare extra time considering. It's certainly not the default family activity, but merely something that is done once in a great while.

Whenever I broach the subject of European board games with the relative newcomer, I talk about how there are a wealth of games out that are about more than just rolling dice and moving pieces. There are building games, train games, resource management games, worker placement games, deck-building games, party games, and the list is ever-growing. As people listen, they realize that board games are more than just the dice-rollers of their youth. More crucially, they realize the potential of board games as reflected in a question they often ask: “What board games do you recommend for my family?”

Such is the intent of this blog: I would like for people to not only see the potential of board games for themselves, but the potential of board games to bring together family members, friends, and even strangers. Currently, many people default to common activities with friends and family, such as playing video games, watching movies or sporting events, and messing around on their own personal devices in a shared physical space, i.e. family and friends playing on their devices while only interacting sparsely with each other. However, what I hope to do is to present the numerous positive influences of board game play: connecting with people, honing of social skills, understanding of tactics, implementing strategy, cultivating a healthy, encouraging attitude towards competition, and unplugging from technology (for the most part).

More importantly, my desire is that people would look at board games as a way to reach family members, bind friends, and even build bridges with co-workers and strangers so that they can be encouragers, sharing the love of Christ in a deliberate way, yet without the blunt force trauma of in-your-face evangelism. In other words, board games is a conduit through which we can reach people and form connections, whether it’s a neighbor, a son or daughter, or the new guy at your church, like Harry and Jill.

Welcome to Boardgameness!

Hello! My name is Donovan. I am a husband of a beautiful, intelligent, and incredibly patient woman and the father of two awesome boys. As I'm sure many guys do, I enjoy spending time with my family. There are certain activities we do together, like running, throwing the Frisbee, hiking and backpacking, and visiting museums and landmarks. I like doing these things, but my favorite activity to do with my family is playing board games. Initially, I started out with Balloon Lagoon, Sorry Sliders, Monopoly Deal, and Ticket to Ride, but we have stepped gradually into progressively more demanding games, such as Agricola, Core Worlds, Puerto Rico, and 7 Wonders. Yes, we play what hobbyists call "European board games," which is about what I will write for this blog.

As we go, I will explain more about European board games, especially the increasingly blurry dichotomy that exists between Euro games, which was considered heavy with mechanics, and American games, which are often regarded as thematically-driven games. However, I want to start off by stating simply that my intent with this blog is to bring family and friends together over a table where they are face-to-face, interacting without the assistance of a computer or mobile phone. My goal is to win back families and friends through board games. Now, there are an innumerable amount of game review sites, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, books, and other resources out there.

Yet, what I have found lacking is a blog that not only reviews board games with families in mind, but also reviews games with a critical eye towards elements that I don't consider "family friendly," such as graphic violence and blood, harsh language (i.e. profanity), and the depictions and innuendos of adult themes, such as sexuality. If anything, I play games with my family to create a relatively safe environment of competition and strategic thought development; I don't want to bring in much of those elements into game time and then have to explain them away.

Fair notice to you, the reader: I am a Christian, so many of my opinions are shaped by my beliefs. You are welcome to disagree. Believe it or not, though, I feel that I have opinions that uniquely my own; for example, I think that there is a role for certain kinds of violence in a game, such as warfare simulations. After all, I believe that we are called to stand up against tyranny and injustice with strength and purpose; sometimes, warfare is necessary to defend one's borders or the peace of citizens within those borders. Of course, over time, I will elaborate. In any case, I always invite disagreement, but I will not respond to trolling or slander. Respectfully stated dissent is fine, but debasing others is not fine. I hope you enjoy this blog.

God bless, and happy gaming!