This is a continuation of an "interview" of my family in regards to boardgames. You can find Part One here. My mother had just avowed her dislike of games like "Panzerblitz" and "Jutland".
Colin: My mother has leveled serious charges against some games near and dear to your heart.
Dad: Let's just say that the world stopped rotating when Avalon Hill stopped pumping out World War 2 hex-and-chit boardgames. And I'm just wondering when a respectful amount of time has passed for them to start pumping out Panzerblitz-type games about Fallujah.
Colin: That's a thing already. One I remember is called A Distant Plain.
Dad: Really?
My father seemed genuinely intrigued at the idea of a War on Terror hex-and-chit boardgame, and I explained to him what I knew of the game. My brother unhelpfully suggested several other historical events which could get a boardgame treatment-- they were so tasteless that I won't repeat them here.
Dad: I would echo your mother's sentiment that the names are off-putting. You say "You wanna play a game called Love Letter?" and I go "No, I don't!" A game called "Luftwaffe" and I know what I'm getting but you call it "Silk Scarves In The Air" or something and I don't know.
Colin: I don't think they'd call a game about the Luftwaffe "Silk Scarves In The Air". And you ended up loving Love Letter! So is there something juvenile, then, in some of the names?
Dad: I don't mean to be insulting but yes. "Flat boardgame with hexagons and colored pieces" I'd play that! I know what I'm getting.
Colin: Now Mom mentioned some games she liked, do you want to shit on a couple of those like she did with your favorite games?
Dad: See as much as I like [Firefly: The Card Game], the thing I don't like is the cooperative aspect. If you aren't chosen to go on a mission you're just sitting there talking.
Colin: That may not be a matter of it being a cooperative game, though, that's a matter of downtime. In game design, downtime happens whenever a player isn't being given a choice to make-- remember in Game of Thrones when everyone is placing order tokens? There's no downtime because everyone is doing it at the same time. Compare that to resolving battles or fights in Game of Thrones, where you can just check out while the people fighting choose their cards and stuff.
Dad: And you guys don't like what I do with downtime. I use my phone. I multitask. What was that game where you pushed a part of the game--the die under a clear plastic bubble--you'd press it and it'd go "pop"?
Brother: Sorry! had that.
Colin: I think there is something kind of absurd about you preferring games like Panzerblitz and Jutland AND Sorry!
Dad: Well [Sorry!] moved quickly and you knew when it was your turn.
Colin: It just seems like a strange split.
Dad: Because when you're playing with the "pop" game you are drinking and talking--
Colin: You're drinking during a game for eight year olds?
Brother: I don't remember this part of our childhood.
My father pointedly ignores our observations.
Dad: You have to remember I played Avalon Hill alone. I could play it alone, and work it out. Setback is a social game I like too.
Mom: You're terrible at Setback. I'll tell you what it is, it's a math thing, you hate math.
Colin: But in something like Panzerblitz you're calculating things like enemy firepower, your firepower, ammunition type modifiers, elevation or entrenchment-- they've got a hidden stack of chits you need to guess-- so there isn't a small amount of math happening there
My mother threw up her hands in frustration.
Mom: I can't explain it.
Brother: Explain it, Pops.
Dad: The most fun I had [when I was a kid] were the two or three day Jutland games where I had a friend come over and we'd clear out the living room. When you'd get too tired to continue playing you'd talk about what strategy you'd use the following day. We were nerds. We were big nerds.
My mother was still trying to fogire out why my father is terrible at Setback.
Mom: --and by the way, you hate Setback.
Dad: I love it.
Mom: But you're terrible at it.
Dad: I hate being assumed that I'm the dead weight at a game of Setback!
At this, we piled in. My father is a notoriously hit-or-miss and inattentive card player. And among my kin, the cardgame Setback has nearly religious significance at family gatherings. So this is a sticking point.
Colin: But you are terrible.
Brother: And there's a way to shirk that moniker. Like paying attention during the game.
Dad: I pay attention!
A silent, judgmental disbelief filled the room.
Mom: I think he does it to just piss people off.
Dad: I don't do that.
Brother: Besides, everyone here has feigned being non-invested just to piss off the competitor. It pisses off the other side to pretend not to pay attention.
Some merciful instinct kicks in and I attempt to avert the patricide going on.
Colin: So I want to get back to what Dad was saying about--
Brother: I know that's what you want.
Colin: It is what I want.
Brother: What about what I want? I've had diarrhea for four days. And it comes out cold. Is that normal?
Dad: He's writing that down.
Brother: The people must know.
Colin: I want to get back to Avalon Hill, Dad, because that doesn't sound like something your father would just get for you. What drew you to those games in the first place?
Dad: I was always interested in World War 2 history. I was fascinated by it. I was fascinated by the generals--my father had told me about the Dutch Resistance--but I think I'd have been interested even if he hadn't told me that information. I read everything World War 2. The televisions shows I watched-- I found out [a family friend] taped episodes of the shows I watched! We watched Rat Patrol when your mother and I visited him! It was disappointing to watch the shows of my youth, actually, but [the family friend] liked it. Rat Patrol and F-Troop. It was a friend of my family growing up--and older brother of a friend actually--who turned me onto Panzerblitz. At least 4 years older than us. Watching them play was like "holy fuck, you can do this, you don't have to just read about it" that was a real eye opener. And then I went and spent my money on these games. And when I traveled with my father on business I'd--like you, Colin--look for the local gaming store. It also gave me something to do rather than interact with my step-mother.
Colin: So the games were a means for you to keep accessing your love of World War 2. Was the game fun on its own or was it just its connection to World War 2?
Dad: the thing about Panzerblitz is there were 20 odd scenarios and the winning conditions weren't zero-sum. Have more of this or less of that by turn something. So you could be the Russians with donkeys and cards and you'd still have a chance against the Wehrmacht if you met certain win conditions-- I liked that. I liked that you could reconfigure the boards too.
Colin: So you didn't feel limited to just what was in the box or in the manual.
Dad: You could play the scenario, you could read the history of what happened-- or you could try something different. And with Jutland-- absolutely freeform. No board. And you didn't know who would battle until the search phase. You might have all your battleships against a tiny cruiser group and on turn one they move out of the field of battle and you're back to the search phase. Or maybe you hit the main fleet.
Mom: You have to understand we grew up in the time when there weren't video games. Pong was introduced when we were in high school and even that was a little bit mind numbing.
Dad: I played [Pong] for hours...
Colin: So I have to ask, because you're talking about loving the really open and free nature of Jutland and the expandability of Panzerblitz-- why has something like Dungeons & Dragons never hooked you? It is essentially infinitely expandable.
Dad: For the same reason that Call of Duty and FIFA capture me but Halo and Red Dead Redemption and Assassin's Creed don't capture me. Isn't that just a sign of my age and my generation?
Colin: That answered nothing.
Dad: Well Call of Duty is close to what is actually in the news--
Colin: That's false.
Dad: --FIFA I can play as Doug Flutie.
Brother: Also false.
Colin: But I'm getting your point that you do want to connect it to something real.
Dad: Yes, absolutely. In FIFA I love manager mode. You only play when you wanna play, otherwise you are shuffling players and managing ticket sales.
Colin: I think it is interesting because Assassin's Creed is more historical--for lack of a better term--than the latest Call of Duty games. [The Assassin's Creed games] are revisionist history rather than speculative. Call of Duty has moved past its World War 2 thing and really is like sci-fi. This whole "secret history" thing Assassin's Creed does strikes me as something you might like.
Dad: I would play if you gave me the chance. If you ever got off the system I would play.
Colin: Fair point. [Brother] do you have anythig to say about boardgames?
Brother: Like you would write down anything I said.
Colin: I would not.
Dad: I think our family uses games the way a hillbilly family uses a fiddle.
Colin: That seems like a good sentiment to end on.
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