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It has been a couple of months since I last updated my tabletop player profile, as per Quantic Foundry‘s online form. So it’s time to do it again and share the results with you. See the links at the bottom of this article to complete the form yourself, which I highly recommend, and my previous results.
So the results have actually surprised me a lot. If you compare the latest with the previous charts, you will see a huge decrease in my preference for startegy games. I used to love games where you had to think about your next few turns in advance and plan your overall strategy. Games like Scythe by Stonemaier Games, Rising Sun by CMON or Clans of Caledonia by Karma Games would come to the table a lot. It was great to spend two to three hours building up an engine and seeing your strategy succeed – or not, as was more often the case.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I still like the strategy games and would never turn down playing Scythe, Rising Sun or Clans of Caledonia. In fact, we’ve been playing Rising Sun only the other week. However, more and more games I play now are a lot lighter and require a lot less planning and strategizing. Many games I play now turn by turn, without worrying too much about the my next turn. In fact, many games have a much stronger element of chance, which makes planning much less effective. For example, my current favourite game is Mystic Vale by Alderac Entertainment Group – and even a game like Rise of Tribes by Breaking Games which has a strong strategy element, the dice rolling and events create enough chance to reduce the need for a strong strategy.
The other big difference is that the games I like now don’t necessarily have to be very immersive. That doesn’t mean that I prefer abstract games, and theme is still really important to me, but looking at Mystic Vale again, it wouldn’t make any difference to me if it was set to an historic or science-ficition background. In fact, I still love playing Star Realms by White Wizard Games, which has a science-fiction theme.
The main thing for me is to playing a game with others to have fun and enjoy the time together. Mind you, the results say that social fun is less important to me, which seems to contradict what I just said, but I think in the context of the survey social fun refers to mechanisms like bluffing that are about directly interacting with others as part of the game. It doesn’t mean social fun in the sense of talking about life, making jokes and generally having a laugh – outside the gameplay.
Everything else has stayed roughly the same. I still love discovery in games, and even though aesthetics have dropped slightly, they are still important to me. Co-operation is also still just as important to me as it was two months ago.
So I am really looking forward to taking the survey again and checking what’s changed. I wonder if the results will surprise me again.
So what is your attitude to playing games? Are you very competitive or do you prefer co-operation? Do you like the social aspect of games and are more interested in exploring the world that the game resides? Please post your thoughts and ideas in the comments below. It would be great to hear how others approach tabletop games.
Links
- Quantic Foundry‘s tabletop player profile: https://apps.
quanticfoundry. com/ surveys/ start/ tabletop/ - My October profile update: https://tabletopgamesblog.
com/ 2018/ 10/ 06/ tabletop-player-profile-updated/ - My first player profile from June: https://tabletopgamesblog.
com/ 2018/ 06/ 11/ co-op-or-competitive/
