Board game speed psychology

Ever wanted to rip your fellow board gaming friends’ eyes out because they spend too long contemplating their perfect next move? These insights might heal your damaged soul and get you back on track to have… fun, again.

No matter how mentally flexible you are, how much empathy you possess, you’ve had a similar (maybe less violent) experience if you have played board games for a while. Don’t worry. You are not a bad person. You just have a mild attention deficit disorder. Or a severe one. I’m not to say. But you’re not alone. And the “black mirrors” (devices) all around us are not exactly training our ability to be more socially patient.

I have become more and more conscious about the fact that I’m not getting enough social exercise. That led me to become an avid board gamer. Not just because of the healthy side-effects, but also because it’s very much plain old fun. And who doesn’t need more of that?

I’d like to tell you this story from two perspectives:

The impatient gamer and the perfectionistic gamer (aka the slow gamer). Why? Because I am both.

The impatient gamer

Let’s get to the table. You’re the impatient gamer and you just taught your new gaming group an amazing game. You love it and you’ve played it at least 5 times. You can’t wait to get the game started and you look forward to be challenged by your really smart friends. You did a great job at explaining the rules and everyone knows what’s going on. Or so you think.

After a few rounds a pattern slowly begins to show itself. One of your friends use way too much time on his turns. First of all you start telling yourself that he’s just learning the game. It’s his first game, right? But still. What’s taking so long? You start messing around with your phone after your own turn and completely disconnect yourself from the game. Then suddenly it’s your turn. “Your turn bro. Or do you need to finish that email?”. You burst out in an embarrassed laugh, but internally you keep blaming your friend for being the cause of your necessary deroute. The game moves on and now you are just staring at your slow friend while he’s taking his turn. You can’t stop focusing on how slow he is.

My slow friend running at 2 frames per second. That’s slower than slow.

What’s taking him so long? He’s just staring at those cards?! I thought I told him about the fact that people tend to overthink a game and there’s a term for it: Analysis Paralysis. Did he forget that? What you don’t say, your body screams. And everyone around the table can sense it. Your slow friend notices your changed body language and starts understanding what might be going on and says “Yeah yeah. I just need to make sure I’m doing the right thing here”. You just smile at him in a fake way. He’s sooooooo slow. You start to infect your other friends and now a mild degree of peer pressure is happening. That game slowly transforms into something else than… fun. It’s all about your slow friend now. And he feels it like it’s dripping down his neck. It keeps getting more and more frustrating and suddenly you throw up all over the board and table: “Damn. You’re slow man. What’s taking so long? Do you need a hand?”. Now your slow friend feels really stupid. Your negative mood starts affecting your other friends. One of them protects the slow friend and the other one is on your team, since he’s also a bit frustrated, but just a lot better at handling his frustration than you are. This could potentially spin into something far worse. But let’s not go there.

So what’s going on here? Something unexpected happened. You play this often with another group of gamers. The game is usually fast. Smooth. Flowing like butter. You didn’t expect your friend’s behavior.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of the scenario. Oh actually there are no pros, so let’s just look at the cons:

Your friend feels stupid. Worst case, it might hurt his self-esteem.

Your friend who you had hoped to inspire to become a regular board gamer just got a very bad experience and will probably not link anything good to playing more games with you.

You lost track of your own game.

Your other friends also had a bad gaming experience.

You had a bad gaming experience.

What happened to having fun? And what happened, really?

First of all, your slow friend is learning the game and really wants to look and be awesome in front of you and his other friends. He doesn’t want to lose. Who wants that? And he might not know that downtime is a bad thing when playing a board game. Also he’s probably one of those analytic and thorough types. But he’s your friend. And you know that he’s a very smart person that you respect a lot.

And he might not know that downtime is a bad thing when playing a board game.

To put it simple: You were being reactive. You were expecting something and got something entirely different. Something that completely messed up your reality — your mental roadmap for the evening — and now you’re reacting, like Trump facing the size of his inauguration crowd. Of course that’s frustrating for you (and Trump).

No game is that important.

But your friend was not trying to give you a bad time. He was just playing your game, doing his best at it, and were expecting to have a great time. Your frustration keeps building itself up and before you know it, it might have ruined an entire evening or worse, a friendship. No game is that important.

I suggest a more pro-active approach, but let’s first look at it from the perfectionistic gamer’s perspective. He can also improve on his behavior, even though you might feel a bit sorry for him right about… now.

The perfectionistic gamer

(Aka the slow gamer)

Let’s get inside the perfectionistic gamer’s head the day after the game went down. Let’s not dwell in the past. What happened, happened. Your impatient friend is still your good friend. You never confronted him with the bad feeling that you were left with though. While on a therapeutic walk, you think back to last night and start reflecting on what you could have done differently. Your keep going back to feeling unfairly treated, but you decide to put a lid on that feeling to get an unbiased view on the situation.

You know how perfectionistic you are. And how much you enjoy winning. When you started noticing that everyone else took turns much faster than you, you tried forward-thinking your next move, while your friends were taking theirs. But at the same time you were trying to watch what they were doing, to learn the game faster through their play. And then when you got to your turn, you weren’t really ready. This was a rather complex strategy game. And it was your first time playing it. You had a hard time finding a balance between going for the perfect win and just enjoying yourself. You got obsessed with winning and couldn’t really let go. Even when your impatient friend started expressing himself. It might have been a better experience for everyone if you had pushed that obsession off the table and just focused on learning the game. Obsession is the keyword here. You keep telling yourself: I’ve had so many great experiences with being obsessive with what I do. With new things that I want to learn. But it might not be so binary. Obsession also has its flipsides.

You had a hard time finding a balance between going for the perfect win and just enjoying yourself.

The take-away

Let’s take an out-of-body glance at the situation. It all boils down to having fun, right? But does that mean that you can’t be thorough and go for the win? Of course not. But you have to think about the context and timing before deciding when to do so.

Let’s say that the impatient gamer is actually aware of his own lack of patience and the fact that he’s not very eager to wait for his friends in a board game. One way he can prevent this from happening again is to be pro-active. Pro-activity is about preparing yourself and your friends for the situation that they are entering by anticipating what’s going to happen. Pre-framing the situation enables everyone around the table to adjust to the new environment. And humans are some of the most adaptive creatures on this planet. We are just not very good at understanding the reality that we’re actually sitting in. Let’s take a look at the context and environment:

One or more players are impatient by nature.

One or more players are perfectionistic and even obsessive by nature.

3/4 of the group has never played this game before. 1/4 of the group has played it 5+ times.

It’s a fairly complex strategy game that requires a lot of understanding before you can really master it and win on purpose.

Imagine if the impatient gamer were pro-active and decided to pre-frame the group like this:

The first time you play it, you probably won’t really know what you are doing. I know I didn’t . Instead of focusing on contemplating the perfect move, I suggest you cut down your decision time and instead focus on what’s going on and what the other players are doing. Just do things. Be willing to experiment. Then you’ll learn the game a lot faster. And probably not end up winning. This time.

Does that seem fair? Of course it does! Now everyone knows exactly what they are getting in to. And they will keep hearing the pre-frame statement in their minds and it will have an effect on their play style.

When the perfectionistic gamer hears that, he’ll probably act upon it without even really thinking about it. He might even have a small epiphany after receiving that message. And then he might decide to save his obsessive behavior for a more appropriate context and timing.

My hope is that this little piece will both inspire self-awareness, but also give you a hands-on tool to navigate the psychology of board gaming. Please share your thoughts and experiences below.

Enjoy your game. Every time.

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