Under the Fez with Fezzypug

 

Hello again!  If you are a regular reader, you will have noticed my absence this past week.  I apologize to you for the lack of content from my end, and to Coinflip, who ended up shouldering the blogging duties.  I was dealing with a potent life cocktail of a sick family, job stress, and multiple trips (which, if you have kids, you know are ordeals no matter what).  I will not go in to the excuses, just say that I am sorry and that I will attempt to maintain blogging regularity (that sounds like some sort of bowel issue..) so that we can keep making this blog a blog of substance and class.  Or just give you more to read for funsies.  Either way.  

 

Since I am back from a life-imposed break, I thought I would pull it back and tip back the fez again for another installment of "Who is this Fezzypug guy?"  If you have no desire to read another post about me (I am not a narcissist, honest), I absolutely understand.  But coming back to the blog, I feel the need to give you a better understanding of my personal viewpoint.  I could write articles and never touch on who I am or why I say or prefer certain things, and that would be perfectly valid.  That is easy to find on the internet.  But the blogs that resonate with me are those where I have a sense of who is behind the words on the screen.  Knowing their viewpoint lets me connect on a more personal level to their thoughts and opinions, especially when it comes to reviews, because I have an idea of where they are coming from.  So for the next few paragraphs, I will give you my personal viewpoint so you can understand a bit why, for example, I prefer certain game types.

 

As you can gather from my previous posts, I am a married middle-aged parent of two younger children.  I have a full-time, 9-5 job (documentation specialist in higher ed IT) as does my wife.  We have no local family, which means that we are either traveling quite a bot to see folks, or else we are hosting visitors on weekends.  So what does generic bio mean in terms of my gaming viewpoint?  Let's take a look.

I mentioned in a previous post that I dislike boss fights in video games.  Feel free to go back and read that post for details, but one of the main reasons is that I don't have the time or patience to spend throwing myself at what many times seems like arbitrary game play gates for the sake of lengthening play times.  As you can gather from my bio above, I don't have much game time right now.  Between working and taking care of children, my free time is a sliver of what it once was, so I have to be a bit choosier about what I play.  Not only do I not have time, but I lack the patience to grind endlessly or learn the subtle nuances.  Having younger children whittles down your supply of patience, and the lack of sleep that comes with children that do not sleep through the night cuts that supply to a wafer-thin amount that can quickly run dry if a game tests me. 

Due to this lack of time and patience, my current gaming mindset is one of escapism and relaxation.  For this reason, I prefer story over mechanical complexity, in all aspects of gaming.  Where once I thrilled to play mechanically complex board, role-playing, and video games, I now seek out more relaxed, story-driven experiences.  I have a tough time now enjoying games categories like euro games, tactical strategy games, or extremely crunchy roleplaying systems (at least to run, I can still enjoy these as long as I am not behind the screen).  Don't mistake this for me disliking these categories.  Far from it.  I just find it hard to enjoy them at this stage in my life as my mind is generally mushy with stress and lack of sleep. Additionally, I find myself playing games on easy mode rather than challenging so that I can use that precious time to relax and enjoy the story rather than tensing and stressing over game play (I will have an upcoming post on the benefits of easy modes in games, stay tuned).

In the roleplaying realm, I am dealing with not only my issues, but also a gaming group that is in a similar situation, which causes difficulty in finding regular play time with consistent players.  That is why I have turned my attention to game ideas like the Fantasy Boomtown idea I wrote about easlier, a game that is broken down into one or two nights per adventure, does not require the same people or same characters at every session, and is more about a place rather than a complex plotline.  I like the idea that I can build the continuous story in the background of such a game, and not have play sessions be a bottleneck to the story.  It also allows for a more random schedule, which is what I am dealing with.  In addition, I am restricting my focus on running either a personally well-known system (like Deadlands) or else exploring systems that may be mechanically lighter in favor of story (Monster of the Week being a current interest and the topic of an upcoming review).

As you can see, I am more story-oriented, casual, and time concious in this stage of my life.  Another pillar of my viewpoint is a preference for cooperative play over competative play.  In my past, I was a very competative gamer, even falling headlong into competative Magic: the Gathering tournament play.  But these days, I find myself prefering to co-op my games.  In video games, I enjoy playing on a team with folks that I know, preferrably versus the game, but I don't mind playing a competative game as long as they know that I am not serious about climbing ladders or getting ranks.  IN boardgames, the boom in co-operative gaming is a boon, as I continue to find new and intersting cooperative dungeon crawlers, deck builders, and games that eschew traditional competition for more common interest goals.  And roleplaying, for me, has always been a shared experience rather than my, the game master, versus the party. To me, roleplaying is the pinnacle of a cooperative, share storytelling experience, with the game master as a force to help the players create a story and not and adversary (I have known a few adversarial game masters and to me that diminishes the fun overall). 

Hopefully this rambling mess of words gives you an understanding of my viewpoint on gaming as you (hopefully) read my posts and reviews.  This is not who I was and this may not be who I will be in the future, but for now, this is Fezzypug.  Hopefully knowing me a little bit will let you enjoy my posts a bit more and give you a better understanding of where I am coming from when I review games going forward.  Maybe knowing me a bit lets you completely disregard what I write because it will not be relevant to you, so hooray for saving you time!  If nothing else, my thanks for letting me ramble.  I will do my best to write less about myself now that I have this post out of my system.  With that, I replace my fez, nod my head, and bid you good day. 

Musings: Defining Game Value

 

I thought I would take a moment and reflect on how I define the personal value of games. This line of thought actually began a few years ago as I looked at the extremely large number of video games in my PC game Steam library.  As I stared at the long list of games, I realized that I had not played many of them at all, causing me to wonder if maybe I had a game collecting problem.  I did, and still do, but the results of that initial thought has led me to a way to at least stop and consider a game purchase before actually clicking the "Buy" button.  So while I may not have curbed my incessant need to collect games (both video and tabletop), I at least have a measurement that I can call on.

The method I use to gauge whether I have gotten my money's worth out of a game is based on the per-hour cost for the game.  Basically, take the amount of money I paid for a game and divide by the amount of time I have played the game (easy to do in Steam since it gives you an actual time played stat).  The result is essentially paid per hour of game play.  My basic guideline is that I strive to pay one dollar per hour played (so, for example, I would hope to get 30 hours out of a $30 game).  This is a basic method that is sometimes tweaked, depending on the game itself.  I have paid $60 for a game and only played 15 hours, but felt that the experience was so good that I felt that I got full value for my money. So it is, of course, a very subjective sort of measurement, but it lets me feel like I got real value when I hit that mark, or go beyond it.  There is nothing like playing a game to a satisfying conclusion (either the end of the game or when I am done playing) and finding out that I got a great value based on this method.  It's like a double win!

What the above measurement also allows me to do is make decisions when I am considering a game to buy, and this is where it has really helped me. Now, whenever I look at a game, I ask myself if I will get my dollar-per-hour value out of the game.  That makes me think hard about a $60 game.  After all, that means I would be looking to get at least 60 hours of game play out of it.  And in my current life and schedule, that is hard to do.  I also factor in the potential for a great experience that would offset time played, but if I am not sure about a game, the per-hour cost estimation can make or break my decision.  Conversely, it also makes taking a chance on less expensive games easier, since I give myself the permission to play less in order to feel like I got value.  I also feel extreme gratification when I go well beyond the dollar-per-hour goal.

This method of gauging gaming value has had a positive effect on me, both in terms of finding satisfaction in a game even if I do not complete it (a struggle I had for a while, and a subject for another article perhaps), and in making me aware of what games I buy and actually playing them.  After all, there is no value in buying a game and never playing it.  This has led a switch in me from game collector back to game player.  And that makes me happier overall.  My Steam library may not be growing as quickly now, but I am seeing more and more games that have been played.

Now that I am using this metric on my video gaming hobby, I need to start using it on my tabletop gaming buying.  I am very guilty of board game collecting, as well as roleplaying book collecting.  My dollar-per-hour ratio on many of the games that I have bought is not good at the moment, and my addiction to tabletop Kickstarters does not help.  I may need to tweak the metric a bit since tabletop gaming is a different beast and involves others, so there are factors to consider in determining value beyond my own personal enjoyment.  This will be an on-going project, and one that I will update on this blog as I try to figure out how to swing from collecting to playing in the tabletop realm.

So how about you, dear reader?  How do you determine whether you have gotten your money's worth in a game (video or tabletop)?  Do you think my method makes sense or seems off?  It works for me and gives me peace of mind, but it may do nothing for you, and that is ok.  We all determine value differently.  I would love to hear how you determine yours.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to get going. I just picked up DOOM on sale, so it is high time I go wreck some demons...

The 40 Year Old Gamer

 

This past Friday I turned 40.  It was an eventful sort of birthday, full of...interesting happenings.  I did get to play some games, and that got me to reflect on my life as a gamer so far, and also what the future may hold.  I hope you will indulge me as I share some of those thoughts with you.  If the ramblings about a gamer's life don't interest you, I invite you back Wednesday for our regularly scheduled gaming content.

I started fairly young as a gamer.  My family played all of the traditional family games:  Monopoly, Scrabble, The Game of Life, and others.  To me, it was part of growing up.  Family game night laid the foundation for my gaming future.  I learned how to play with others, how to follow rules and, when necessary to further group fun, how to make the rules fit our play style.  The biggest lesson, though, was also the simplest:  have fun, and help others have fun at the same time.  Though we could get competitive, my family always made sure we had fun first.  Perhaps that made me less of a competitive style player, but it definitely made me aware of everyone at the table, and how my playing affected them.

In junior high, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, my first real roleplaying.  Our school had an art club, and my art teacher at the time had a large collection of books to help stimulate our artful musings.  In that collection I found a set of first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books.  I was fascinated and he caught on pretty quickly when my art took a decidedly fantastical turn.  He mentioned that the school used to have a gaming club until concerned parents shut it down.  The books hadn't been touched since then and he asked me if I would like to take them to keep.  I was beside myself with happiness. My brother had a roleplaying game that we tried to learn and quickly gave up on (Tunnels and Trolls, for the curious).  That was my only contact with roleplaying games until this point.  The frustration of that attempt almost made me turn the offer down, but the lure of those pages was too great.

I was enthralled by the books and their potential for magical stories.  I found others that were interested and we began learning the rules and playing the game.  I spent my junior and senior years jumping from group to group, learning first to be a good player, then eventually trying my hand at running a game, the role that found myself preferring, since I not only could help tell a story, but also had a better time ensuring that the group I was playing with had fun.  In college, I played to an almost hedonistic degree, playing all-night games, campaigns that lasted years, and trying out any system and roleplaying world I could.  Roleplaying has been a hobby and a love that has lasted into today for me, and will continue to be a part of my life as long as I can roll dice. 

In my life, I have played a wide variety of games:  roleplaying games, board games, video games, live-action games, text-based games, and more.  I love games of all types, something I hope to share with you as we move forward with this blog.  Roleplaying holds a special place in my heart, however.  It is what cemented gaming in my life and also where I made some of the greatest friendships I have ever had, and continue to have.  Being someone who suffers from diagnosed social anxiety, it has always been difficult for me to meet new people.  Yet gaming, and especially roleplaying, has allowed me to overcome that mental constraint by leading me to like-minded people who share common interests and have been welcoming and receptive to this shy, awkward goofball.  I love telling stories with people, and I love that this activity works so well to bring people together.

Gaming in my life has evolved from the first taste, through the hedonism of college, to the more mature version of gaming I experience today.  I am a parent, as are many of those I game with.  Schedules are packed and erratic, so regular game time becomes harder to find.  Instead of giving up on gaming, though, we try to find new ways to game, to figure out how we can adapt gaming to our lives without sacrificing the fun.  I will talk in the future about some of those ideas (my "Adrift: Fantasy Boomtown" post is a good example of an attempt at adaptation) in order to help others with similar issues.  But the overriding idea is that I refuse to give up on gaming because it is more than just a hobby.  It is ingrained in who I was and who I became, and I intend on making sure it helps me as I figure out who I will become in the future.

Gaming today for me is more than just the act of playing.  It is creating ideas and worlds to potentially play.  It is creating this blog with a friend in order to get these ideas out there in hopes of connecting with others and moving our gaming in new directions.  It is teaching my kids and their friends new games, and also how to play games with others (not just to win).  It is in looking at how I can use my love of gaming to help others through charity work.  It is in trying to create, and not just consume.

I am not sure much of that made sense.  I hope it shows you a bit more of who I am under the fez, though, and my passion for gaming.  As I enter the second half of my life, I am reflecting, but I am also looking forward to the coming years.  There is quite a bit I plan on doing, and gaming is at the heart of much of it.  Hopefully you can join me on part of that journey.

Cheers.