(put back together by Drew Davidson)
A mid-week dump of the Fab Four blog posts of the last 7 days.
POST OF THE WEEK!
What My Dad Taught Me About Winning, by Morgan Hillman
If You Give a Geek a Game…, June 15
A Father’s Day testimonial. File this under Life is Like a Board Game.
The 5 lessons Morgan learned from her Dad: Surround yourself with winners; Pick your battles; Be gracious; If you don’t win, learn from it; Thank the people that helped you get there.
The one I think we overlook the most? Thanking the people we’ve just beaten.
This is the important one – win or lose, up or down, when you finish the game and start packing up, stop for a moment, shake their hands, and sincerely thank the people who sat at your table with you. I often catch myself forgetting this, especially in the middle of cons and it makes me feel awful in hindsight. You just spent an hour or more playing with these people. Thank them – for their time, for their trouble, and for anything you may have learned from playing the game with them. It means a lot.
Take a closer look at all of her Dad’s lessons here.
THE BEST OF THE REST
The Agony of Box Air, by ‘Gnomekin’ (Lowell Kempf)
A Gnome’s Ponderings, Jun 16
Lowell has a problem.
It’s no secret that board game boxes have a terrible space-to-actual-stuff-inside ratio. Which means that box air has actually been a problem for me for a long time. I am only now just realizing how much it affects my game closet.
Before you write him off as a total curmudgeon, Lowell gets how the box is the key marketing component, the best way for publishers to make enough money to keep publishing more games. Still, if you want to learn how he copes with ever-shrinking closet space, check out his post here.
Be Ye Friend Or Be Ye Foe? Part 2, by Kevin G. Nunn
Mechanisms & Machinations, June 17
Okay, so Kevin’s analysis of Game Theory (specifically the Prisoner’s Dilemma) is a bit deep for me. Most of it goes waaaaayyy…. But still, Game Theory….
Mr. Nunn gets props for name checking John Nash (of Beautiful Mind fame) and his Equilibrium concept. For most of us amateur mathematicians (which is almost all of us), Nash – in the person of Russell Crowe – introduced us to Game Theory. In particular, he showed us geeks a great way to beat the odds at a bar and get laid….
But seriously, folks…. if you’re serious about cracking the Prisoner’s Dilemma, check out Kevin’s post here.
Five Games to Travel With, by Matt M. Casey
Clever Move, June 13
Love Letter, Zombie Dice, Hanabi, Hive Pocket, Once Upon a Time. Hard to argue with his choices or his reasons for picking them.
