But Am I Having Fun?

 

That's always my baseline when playing games - if I'm having fun. Not if I'm winning, even though I like winning, but whether or not I'm having fun.

This brings us to Magic: The Gathering again. There's almost infinite ways to build decks and with that the ability to set them up to play in a way you like. I'm having fun tweaking mine in response to how they play and as I go. I can do that because I don't use real cards, so I have an advantage there.

That advantage is mitigated by my cardinal rule of whether or not I think it would be fun to play. There's a lot of cards and card combinations that would be great if I were a cutthroat competitive player. I can see the advantages and risks of those. But when I look at them I find that I don't want to do it.

One thing I avoid is something called 'infinite combos'. Those are sets of cards that create a situation that create an infinite loop to win the game or at least knock out a player before someone breaks them. I don't like those. I don't want to win that way. I prefer to use tactics and luck rather than a game mechanic that, while perfectly legal and acceptable, isn't fun for me. I also find infinite combos boring since they just sit there and do their thing on their own.

I accidentally had a different type of win condition using a set of cards. I honestly didn't realize that by putting all three together it would mean no one could do anything else (called a deck lock since they can't do anything with their card decks). Again, that's not how I like to win.

I'm finding my current favorite deck has a problem where it becomes a war of attrition. Again, not fun for me. I've had two games where it was obvious that's what would happen unless the other player had some way of chipping away my protection so we called the game. I don't consider that a win or a loss. It's a stalemate and I don't care who would have won since it could go either way in any game.

I spent last night finding and printing cards that would let me get more options while taking out cards that create true attrition. A number of people would say that weakens my deck because I'm making it so other players can attack me. They're right. But I see it as game interaction and it makes it more challenging for me because I don't have the ability to block everything, all the time. I think it makes for more fun play all around.

I did stop into another game store that plays a lot of Magic. I wanted to see what the crowd was like. Overall it was fine but the group I was with also plays a lot of the tournament style game (the format I play is casual) and they play in a tournament fashion. That means playing fast and not always announcing what they did. There's nothing wrong with that play style and I will play there again but if I find that I'm the odd person out by playing slower and playing strictly for fun then I'll move on. I don't have a tournament mindset for any kind of game.

I'm still ambivalent about the game itself. It's enjoyable. It gets me out and social. But there's no way I'm going to turn into someone who has to play it. I'll play it when I want to play it. I'll play it when it's the only game that's going on around the city. But I'll continue to build my random decks in ways that I like and play them in a way I like. If the group doesn't enjoy it I'll find another one because I'm not going to drag down their fun.

I'm finding that the hard core players tend to have very odd decks they like to play at times. They're gimmick decks or odd configurations that they find amusing. I skipped out before someone could pull one of those out last week but I know I can't avoid it forever. Since I'm pretty sure that it's not a deck I'll like I'll use one of my other ones to practice it and see how I want to tweak it.

One thing I have found is that my limit is two games in any one day. After that my brain hurts and I'm tired. There's a lot to keep track of, there's tens of thousands of cards that could be in people's decks, and it's the limits of my need to be social. Maybe three games if two of them are quick but overall it's been two games and done. That sets me apart from the people who can play literally until they're kicked out of the store.

So back to the question of if I'm having fun. Overall I am enjoying myself. I'm finding the social aspect important to me and the ability to play a game well (or well enough) is good. The fact that I don't have to spend money on it means I don't feel I have to pay since I've made the investment in the game. I also like making the cards because it's crafty and I like crafts. So. Yeah. I'm having fun for a given definition of fun.

Some Blog Housekeeping and A Request

 

I've finally started going back into the old posts and replacing the missing pictures. They got lost during one of the many blog migrations and I just hadn't gotten around to doing it. It will take some time but it will be nice to have a complete blog again.

That was the housekeeping portion of the post.

My request is simple. I'm seeing some heavy traffic here but I'm not seeing comments. I like comments. So please leave at least a couple of comments on posts you like to cheer me up. From the high level stats (the only kind I get) I'm concerned my blog is being scraped for nefarious purposes so comments means humans are reading it.

I do have comments set to approval to weed out spam so if you don't see yours, assuming you were nice enough to leave one, wait a bit and it will show up.

The Inertia is Strong

 

Yeah, well. I know there's been a very distinct lack of hobby posts here. And that makes me sad because it means a distinct lack of hobby activity here as well. That's all on me. I'll refrain from adding that to everything I'm going to post about where it applies. You'll figure it out.

The painting area still isn't usable but it's a little better. One thing I've really slacked on is finding a vinyl floor remnant to put under the desk because of the whole paint situation. Better safe than trying to get paint off the laminate floor. There's an independent carpet and flooring store just down the road but I haven't bothered to go there. Maybe this week? Maybe this will be a kick in the pants to get things done?

My friend's brother did stop by to help me sort out some stuff and he's a worker bee. He/we got half of the stacked up area in the front/gaming room out of there and made space for me to start putting things away. I've done a little of that work but kept getting myself blocked when I thought I'd made progress. I need to plow through that and just get things done for now. The refinements can happen when they happen.

Without the painting area there's no need for more miniatures and terrain so the 3D printers are still sitting idle, almost two years later. That bothers me but it's also a testament to me being smart enough not to add to things that won't get done.

I half unpacked a box in the living room because I was looking for stuff and figured it was in there. I was mostly right. That box had split along a side so I took out some things and put the rest in a smaller box. Yes. I know. That's not the right thing to do but it's progress in the respect I can get to the two boxes underneath now.

I'm one again stymied by not being able to do some things. The bins of unpainted minis need to go into the small shed, which opens up the area behind the couch. But getting them there is difficult for me both because of carrying and because getting into the small shed is difficult for me. The area in front of the doors has sunk/eroded so it's a big step up and down. I think I'll get those bins filled (maybe even tracked) and have them as something I'll ask my friend's brother to haul out the next time he comes over.

And he is going to come over again. I'm bribing him with vintage Pyrex cookware but he'd show up anyway. He's a nice guy, he knows I need help, he likes doing stuff like this, and he wants my gaming room set up so I'll run a D&D campaign or two. So he's got an interest in getting this done. I'm OK with that. The only thing is I feel the need to make progress between his visits because I haven't. So no stress, right?

I'm still playing Magic when I can. I started going to another game store that has games on Saturday afternoons as well. I've got three (proxy) decks of my own that play in three different ways. To tell the truth I'm not that happy with the decks the other players use but that's just me. It limits which deck is most effective for me to use but luckily that's becoming my favorite deck anyway. The Friday night group has moved to the new Star Wars game so there's no playing with them and that makes me sad. It's kind of funny that I just get into playing because there's always players only to find that there aren't always players.

The new rules for Warhammer aren't that interesting to me. Maybe when the ork codex comes out I'll get some excitement back but so far they've taken a lot of fun stuff away from us, nerfed other things, and make some of the fun things they left us cost too much. And the new way of building armies flat out sucks because it's tied to the models they sell. That's a big thing now. The armies are designed around the product where in the past they'd put all kinds of stuff out there and let people scratch build what they didn't sell. With 3D printing they're clamping down to only making the rules for models they sell. That's pushing me to a different but similar rule set, to be honest.

Board game night still mostly happens. The problem is that there's generally five people and games are more focused on four players. That and finding games that don't take overlong to play. A 120 minute game is not suitable for a Tuesday evening because it will always take longer. So many games are long games. I'm digging through mine to find ones that fit the criteria and coming up darn short.

I seem to have become the leader of monthly paint day at the store. The owner figured out I know how to paint so he left me in charge the last time and said I can take it over going forward. Um. Ok? I don't really mind because I don't like painting away from home so doing basic stuff and helping others fills the gaps. I still need to write up a PR thing he'll use to promote the paint day. I hate talking about myself so that doesn't help. I think I'll ask someone else to write it up and I'll tweak it.

I'm in an article in the local paper. The student was doing a story on the second game store when I was there and I got quoted a few times. There's pictures of me too, which displeases me but it's done. I'm not saying a word about it anyone because I don't want them to know. I'm fine with being in the paper. I'm not fine with people I know reading the article. If they find it on their own, great. I'm not pointing them to it. I don't think I said anything very insightful. Mostly my part got edited down to how the stores are friendly and safe. Being a girl gets me boxed into those sentiments and yes, I did say it. Oh well.

The sewing room? Still a jumbled mess. I'm back to the 'need to do A so I can do B and then do C' situation. An example is that I need to empty the bookcase that was partially filled, move it out away from the wall, vacuum the whole area, move the bookcase closer to the window so I can fit a set of plastic shelves next to it, then fill it with books. Again. Then I can put the sewing pattern boxes on the shelves. That will empty a number of boxes and free up space. No guarantee I'll get the sewing area set up but the more I can put things away the better the chances.

The living room is another situation of tripping over my own feet. The area behind the couch has bookcases but I can't do much with those until the mini storage bins are out of the way. I also need to swap the extra bookcase for the one my friend insisted I bring but then didn't take. I kind of want to raise the floor lamp behind that bookcase so that means building or finding something to do that. But once the bookcases are available that's more boxes to unpack and get rid of.

So yeah. Plenty to do, not much motivation to do it. I won't even get into the kitchen. I can reach the pantry but the shelves are stupidly spaced to be useful so I'm trying to figure out how to take the stuff from the floor pantry (as I call the bags) and put them in there in a useful manner. I'll always need the steps to get to the top shelves so that's not a concern. I've also got the cabinet in the laundry room that's available for kitchen pantry use. It's also got stupidly spaced shelves. I just can't win sometimes.

The office is a mess and that's something I can do bit by bit, if I wanted. The shelves are up and designated so it's a matter of taking things from boxes and putting them on shelves for the most part. But do I do it? Oh heck no.

My entire hobby situation is at a standstill and I hate it.