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TIL: I’m Satan.
Adhd huh?
As someone who loves board games, I don’t really understand why there are so many people that are “afraid” of learning new games. In most situations, it’s not that painful to learn a new game! And the process can be totally worth it!
One friend sort of explained it to me. It’s anxiety. They were afraid they weren’t learning fast enough, or were playing badly, or other people were judging them. Fear shuts down the brain. You’re explaining to them, “You can take three actions on your turn” but they’re not hearing you - they only hear anxiety-fear-screams
Every time this happens, it’s worse the next time. It’s one more example of “humiliation” on the stack. Even if no one else thought there was anything amiss.
I prefer to read the rules in my own time. Link me the PDF in advance and we are golden.
I’m the resident rules master in my group, so it’s usually on me to teach. It’s usually not that bad, but for complicated games I need to prep and make sure I have the rules down pretty well and know how a turn works beforehand, otherwise it can be a disaster.
I’m convinced this is like math trauma where people expect to fail because of bad explanations in the past.
100% also cause they were learning games like Monopoly or Risk which are just not even worth a well-explained teach. Also games nowadays have actual thought and research put into how they lay out their rules.
I had the unfortunate experience recently of someone trying to explain a card game without explaining anything about the overall structure and just starting with “ok so if the last person plays a 4, you have to play a 4 or better… no doubles on singles though”. Like. What am I doing here? Are there tricks? Am I trying to run out of cards?
What’s that, Campaign for North Africa?
Nope. High Frontier 4 All, plus all expansions. Muahaha.
Ever heard of Nightmare? It’s a horror-themed board game from the 90s, it comes with a VHS tape featuring a demonic MC who barks orders randomly at players, issues dice roll challenges, and punished insubordination. Literally it’s like trying to play a board game with a petty, grumpy Satan. After about 45 minutes the whole table is usually starting to consider collaboratively cheating just to end the game.
I have heard of Nightmare! And watched it played!
I’d never want to play out, but I love watching others deal with the MC(s)!
Robinson Crusoe?
