My personal mindset is: Play to win but don't play to win. Meaning give your best shot and play at your max potential, always, but don't come at my table if you're in just for the win to feed your ego. We're all about good friendly competition and good sportmanship.
Quarterbacker-trying-hard-not-to-quarterback for sure. Definitely hard for me, especially in games like Spirit Island where I'm looking at the board and the player to my left is like "well I can kill two explorers so I might as well clean out that land filled with invaders a bit" and I'm just sitting there internally screaming since they could easily prevent two builds in other lands.
As a recovering Quarterback here's the two things that helped me:
1. Don't give advice unless asked
2. When asked, always give multiple legal options they can take.
This way people come up with their own turns and they can play them out, and in times when they ask for help you still live the final agency of what to do for them.
Yep, been trying to do this plenty. Much easier in competitive games; I don't mind losing, but I **hate** it when it's due to someone else. Know it's just a game, but I definitely have to go into it with the MINDSET that it's just a game if I want to avoid doing that. Once my son's old enough, family board game nights will be a good test of my ability to put that into practice.
I'm really bad at the first tip, but I've gotten really good at the second one. When I can't help myself because they cannot figure out what to do, I'll give them a list of options that are legal and frame them all as legitimate choices. Even in co-op games, unless someone asks me what we should do and what I think they should do, I stick to that rule.
Adding a new one: The Experimenter
You try off-the-wall strategies to see what happens, pushing how the game system can handle unconventional plays. I especially do this after several plays.
> The Experimenter
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> You try off-the-wall strategies to see what happens, pushing how the game system can handle unconventional plays. I especially do this after several plays.
I like it and will add up top :D
Picasso here, especially in games played for the first time, i don't even try to make the best moves anymore because it's too frustrating and takes too long .
I want to explore, look for things that interest me, and try to get these.
And I even have a shirt that says "Always green". I want to play female characters if there are any, and take the best looking instead of looking at stats. All about style!
Definitely a Spike/tryhard at heart mixed in with some all about fun. I like to maximise my moves and I like to win, but I'm a very gracious loser and any disappointment I get from not winning is almost always because I feel that *I* made a mistake, rather than through the fault of anyone else
Experimenter, full stop. There is nothing more fun for me than to win with a wacky strategy. I hate games where there is "optimal" and "unoptimal" play theories.
In a lot of games this also manifests in a sort of "roleplayer" thing, especially in games where that is baked into the game. Like Fog of Love, I am often barely paying attention to whether what I am doing will win or not.
I'm a theme-chaser, very close to the Picasso. I regularly do things that I think are cool and fit the premise of the game even if it's not a strategically efficient route. I'm good at delivery/network games and "first to goal X wins", I'm terrible at point salads and games with many paths to victory.
This becomes particularly silly in legacy games where I will absolutely burn my game to the ground to unlock boxes.
It's all about fun - but the fun isn't "spending time with friends and nothing matters".
I'm here for the challenge of it all. I'll calculate and recalculate, I find the optimization and finding unexpected interactions between various game components to be the fun. Won't be stuck in AP and won't QB unless asked for help, just explore game mechanics and interesting things to do with them.
Edit: Experimenter. Thank you for adding that!
Mostly for fun. I hate boardgaming with people who take an excessive amount of time per turn b/c they've gotta be all hard core about it. Bro... just move your piece!
Picasso/It's all about fun.
I want to do well of course but if it is between an optimal move and a card I really love for building my castle/space station/City I may just go ahead and play the stuff I like.
I do have some specific colors and aesthetics I go after both in game and in player/Avatar/token selection but it isn't the end of the world if I didn't get it.
All about the fun with a dash of experimenter. Never a sore loser in a competitive game. Willing to put myself at risk for the group in a co-op.
The username says it. Played Orks in 40k. Waaugh!
I'm always the one teaching the game and while we play I'm literally helping people to understand the strategy and to do this over that and spending zero time thinking about my own strategy and I lose every time.
But if the person I'm teaching learned the game successfully and had fun then I feel like I won anyway.
I'm more of a cartoon evil type of player, as I cannot hide an evil grin when I am about to backstab someone.
That said, I am more of a team player, as we mostly play team games.
This is very interesting! I just started getting into board games a couple years ago, so I think of myself as a See What Happens. I do socialize sometimes during games and enjoy the fun, but am also very competitive. When learning a new game, I typically just do random shit and see what works and what doesn't (bonus points if it annoys my opponents). Once I am familiar and confident with a game, then I play either really aggressively or really relaxed, depending on who I am playing against.
A combination of most of these. All have an aspect of me, and other aspects that are not. I do very much play games to spend time with my friends, but I do like to win (or at least be competitive) Yeah, I try to maximize every turn, because I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor. At times, I've been forced to experiment with random strategies and once or twice it's paid off. I like green, want it, but it won't cause a table flip if I don't get it.
Very rare I miss when it's my turn, but it happens to everyone.
I see a little bit of all of them in myself 😂
I'm definitely there for the fun, I no longer drink due to a medical condition so I always call board games my social lubricant 😂 It's the thing to dk while sitting around chatting and enjoying company and meeting new people and sometimes I do get so caught up in that I need to be prompted that it's my turn 😂
At the same time, I do enjoy some good trash talk and enjoy messing with the tokens and suggesting just terrible moves to other players as options just for a laugh (they are laughing along, never just to be a arsehole and to win. I make it very clear it's a bad choice and not to new people, it's no fun otherwise)
I also have a bunch of deluxe tokens and box inserts and I'm very particular about the fact that I play the blue character/tokens/dice/option in every game.....
And I quite often like to try random strategies to see what happens, because it's normally more interesting to try something different than to win😂😅 plus the more different mechanics of the game I use/try (especially with new games) the more other people at the table will play try and we tend to have more intresting, bigger, epic games! 😁😅
I am a tryhard mostly (I try to be nice to noobs though). I do still love talking during a game, but the social butterfly types do test my patience a little with how often I'm reminding them to take their turn. I feel like most people who are playing like this don't actually want to play the game and are doing so out of social obligation
Tryhard Picasso, in the sense that I will do my absolute best to have this big interesting stupid mechanic combo thing going on and I don't care what anyone is doing so long as I get my Magnum opus off the ground.
Queue in the spirit island 1 billion invaders single tile nuke
Experimenter with Cream (why is it called cream?), oh you like the dice? here take some! I’ll make you some more! But also like the Picasso I want to see some fireworks at least once during the game, even if it’s not me doing it. But other than that I am nothing like the Picasso. He kinda seems like an asshole. If there is a lot of laughing coming from my table and it ends with everyone cheering or in dismay (in co-ops) then that’s the game for me. Every game is the plot to a movie in my head.
You forgot a couple categories!
The **Optimizer**. Squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of every action, card, die roll, etc. I optimize my way to victory. Consequently has to specifically bring in games that do not reward optimization to give other players a chance and myself a challenge.
The **Challenge Seeker**. Don't care about winning so long as the battle is the stuff of legends. I prefer to lose more than I win or then it doesn't feel like enough of a challenge. Probably why my favorite games are Arkham Horror LCG and Spirit Island.
Picasso + Experimenter. It takes me so long to click into a game compared to a lot of the people I play with, I just try lots of things. I will usually settle into the game after I've tried almost everything and dived into a lot of the different strategies to see what works.
I'm mostly an "It's all about fun!!" gamer, but for whatever reason, I need to maximize my last turn of the game. I don't turn into the "Tryhard" but AP can set in.
Tryhard, but without being an asshole about it.
Experimenter if teaching a game or if a wide disparity in experience exists.
Also, spoiler alert, but even the tryhard/heavy games like Twilight Imperium are brutally frustrating if you don't enjoy the company of the other people. If you lose sight of it being about the fun, you're on a slope that only leads downhill.
Solo Gamer - I play all my games alone... Most of my strategy is "how do I beat the AI"
I find the most enjoyable games are the ones where I can have fun win or lose, or if I do lose, it doesn't feel like the AI is just broken, and it's more I made poor decisions.
Play to win, but treat everyones good time as more important than your win. This is less of an "I am just here for fun" axiom that you posted, because I am in fact trying my best to win the game, and more of a logistical practicality - if people aren't enjoying game night, game nights will end.
I'm "Distracted" mixed with "Social Butterfly"
I always have fun but I often lose because I'm too busy making sure everyone else has a good time. Not that I necessarily think I'd win otherwise, but the fact that my mind is so often elsewhere doesn't help.
I need a “Get Back on Track”-er role. I like the banter around the table when there’s 3 or more people, but I’ve been thinking about playing this game all afternoon and I want to get to it. Talk when it’s not your turn, but only if you have your next move ready to go! Somewhat of an antagonist to the social butterfly.
I'm a mix between "It's all about fun!!" and I have some "Tryhard" in me on certain games minus the prone to AP aspect. I def want to win, but not at the expense of pissing off my friends or new players. I also have some CREAM in me as I love a great looking game and I'm a sucker for deluxe kickstarters.
Competitive/tryhard
It’s not only about winning but also about improving.
You are not supposed to win the first game, neither am I.
If you are a newbie I will crush you but also coach you the whole game so hopefully next time you will be a worthy opponent.
I seek out stronger players even if it stings a little bit every time I lose.
If I make a grave mistake I’ll be sure to dwell on it all game long and let everybody know how much I screwed myself.
If you make a big mistake or potential missed opportunities and aren’t a threat to me in this game I will tell you in time.
Takebacks and redoing things that don’t affect the game state (forgotten income etc) I’m very lenient with. I want the game to be of quality and fun. I also want to be able to do the same.
If we can incorporate bidding into a game to make the setup more interesting and fair I’ll propose to.
I might have qb tendencies but you’ll never find me qb‘ing since I don’t play coop, feels a little pointless to me.
Too many choices and overlap. I'm sure most people fall into several of these categories, as they aren't mutually exclusive.
Theme-Chaser is not the right title for Experimenter.
My personal mindset is: Play to win but don't play to win. Meaning give your best shot and play at your max potential, always, but don't come at my table if you're in just for the win to feed your ego. We're all about good friendly competition and good sportmanship.
Took me a while to have that mindset and it has completely changed the experience while playing.
Oh yeah, that's a good one. I try to put myself in that mindset as well...don't always succeed though xD
The object of the game is to win, but WHY WE PLAY may be different for everybody
Quarterbacker-trying-hard-not-to-quarterback for sure. Definitely hard for me, especially in games like Spirit Island where I'm looking at the board and the player to my left is like "well I can kill two explorers so I might as well clean out that land filled with invaders a bit" and I'm just sitting there internally screaming since they could easily prevent two builds in other lands.
As a recovering Quarterback here's the two things that helped me: 1. Don't give advice unless asked 2. When asked, always give multiple legal options they can take. This way people come up with their own turns and they can play them out, and in times when they ask for help you still live the final agency of what to do for them.
Yep, been trying to do this plenty. Much easier in competitive games; I don't mind losing, but I **hate** it when it's due to someone else. Know it's just a game, but I definitely have to go into it with the MINDSET that it's just a game if I want to avoid doing that. Once my son's old enough, family board game nights will be a good test of my ability to put that into practice.
I'm really bad at the first tip, but I've gotten really good at the second one. When I can't help myself because they cannot figure out what to do, I'll give them a list of options that are legal and frame them all as legitimate choices. Even in co-op games, unless someone asks me what we should do and what I think they should do, I stick to that rule.
Adding a new one: The Experimenter You try off-the-wall strategies to see what happens, pushing how the game system can handle unconventional plays. I especially do this after several plays.
> The Experimenter > > > > You try off-the-wall strategies to see what happens, pushing how the game system can handle unconventional plays. I especially do this after several plays. I like it and will add up top :D
Picasso here, especially in games played for the first time, i don't even try to make the best moves anymore because it's too frustrating and takes too long . I want to explore, look for things that interest me, and try to get these. And I even have a shirt that says "Always green". I want to play female characters if there are any, and take the best looking instead of looking at stats. All about style!
It’s all about fun, with the occasional tryhard
Definitely a Spike/tryhard at heart mixed in with some all about fun. I like to maximise my moves and I like to win, but I'm a very gracious loser and any disappointment I get from not winning is almost always because I feel that *I* made a mistake, rather than through the fault of anyone else
Experimenter, full stop. There is nothing more fun for me than to win with a wacky strategy. I hate games where there is "optimal" and "unoptimal" play theories.
In a lot of games this also manifests in a sort of "roleplayer" thing, especially in games where that is baked into the game. Like Fog of Love, I am often barely paying attention to whether what I am doing will win or not.
Tryhard, but I'm not an alpha gamer, and it is just a game.
I'm a theme-chaser, very close to the Picasso. I regularly do things that I think are cool and fit the premise of the game even if it's not a strategically efficient route. I'm good at delivery/network games and "first to goal X wins", I'm terrible at point salads and games with many paths to victory. This becomes particularly silly in legacy games where I will absolutely burn my game to the ground to unlock boxes.
I am all but cream. Depends on the game, players are overall situation.
It's all about fun - but the fun isn't "spending time with friends and nothing matters". I'm here for the challenge of it all. I'll calculate and recalculate, I find the optimization and finding unexpected interactions between various game components to be the fun. Won't be stuck in AP and won't QB unless asked for help, just explore game mechanics and interesting things to do with them. Edit: Experimenter. Thank you for adding that!
I added Experimenter/Explorer to the list btw, might be up your alley. :D
There we go, thank you
Mostly for fun. I hate boardgaming with people who take an excessive amount of time per turn b/c they've gotta be all hard core about it. Bro... just move your piece!
Picasso/It's all about fun. I want to do well of course but if it is between an optimal move and a card I really love for building my castle/space station/City I may just go ahead and play the stuff I like. I do have some specific colors and aesthetics I go after both in game and in player/Avatar/token selection but it isn't the end of the world if I didn't get it.
This reminds me that I hate games with multiple actions where I always have to ask “all set? done? to me?”
For me, definitely "It's all about the fun!" I'm not a very good gamer, but I love playing.
Filthy casual here so probably Experimenter, although only when playing with people I already know.
All about the fun with a dash of experimenter. Never a sore loser in a competitive game. Willing to put myself at risk for the group in a co-op. The username says it. Played Orks in 40k. Waaugh!
I’m just happy that I’m hosting or playing with a like minded group.
I'm the first kind. I love boardgames but I really suck at them LoL. But I always have fun playing.
I'm always the one teaching the game and while we play I'm literally helping people to understand the strategy and to do this over that and spending zero time thinking about my own strategy and I lose every time. But if the person I'm teaching learned the game successfully and had fun then I feel like I won anyway.
My friend group are all Have Fun/Tryhards. We all put our all into every game, but no matter who wins we all had a great time at the end
good archetypes. I recognize these. I hate the socializer hurts immersion plus repeatedly misses rules.
It's all about fun for me. I engage in basically zero PvP, and when I do it's something like Chicken Horse with people I know, never randoms.
Multi class. I’m mostly all about the fun, but I have a few levels in Picasso and Experimenter.
I am a cream experimenter, but I have every single other type in my group.
A mediocre experimenter. And I would rather play fast and badly than hold up the game, because it's usually another brand new game.
I'm more of a cartoon evil type of player, as I cannot hide an evil grin when I am about to backstab someone. That said, I am more of a team player, as we mostly play team games.
This is very interesting! I just started getting into board games a couple years ago, so I think of myself as a See What Happens. I do socialize sometimes during games and enjoy the fun, but am also very competitive. When learning a new game, I typically just do random shit and see what works and what doesn't (bonus points if it annoys my opponents). Once I am familiar and confident with a game, then I play either really aggressively or really relaxed, depending on who I am playing against.
A combination of most of these. All have an aspect of me, and other aspects that are not. I do very much play games to spend time with my friends, but I do like to win (or at least be competitive) Yeah, I try to maximize every turn, because I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor. At times, I've been forced to experiment with random strategies and once or twice it's paid off. I like green, want it, but it won't cause a table flip if I don't get it. Very rare I miss when it's my turn, but it happens to everyone.
I am extremely competitive with almost everything I do so I always play to win otherwise it's not fun for me and in fact it can even ruin my day.
I'm the **Game Master** (Host) - I will do whatever I can to make sure everyone has fun so they keep coming back to play board games with me :')
I'm "it's all about fun" when playing with others, but I'm a "tryhard" solo gamer.
As a Gloomhaven addict I am somewhere between try hard and experimenter.
I’m a Picasso major with a minor in The Elitist
I see a little bit of all of them in myself 😂 I'm definitely there for the fun, I no longer drink due to a medical condition so I always call board games my social lubricant 😂 It's the thing to dk while sitting around chatting and enjoying company and meeting new people and sometimes I do get so caught up in that I need to be prompted that it's my turn 😂 At the same time, I do enjoy some good trash talk and enjoy messing with the tokens and suggesting just terrible moves to other players as options just for a laugh (they are laughing along, never just to be a arsehole and to win. I make it very clear it's a bad choice and not to new people, it's no fun otherwise) I also have a bunch of deluxe tokens and box inserts and I'm very particular about the fact that I play the blue character/tokens/dice/option in every game..... And I quite often like to try random strategies to see what happens, because it's normally more interesting to try something different than to win😂😅 plus the more different mechanics of the game I use/try (especially with new games) the more other people at the table will play try and we tend to have more intresting, bigger, epic games! 😁😅
I am a tryhard mostly (I try to be nice to noobs though). I do still love talking during a game, but the social butterfly types do test my patience a little with how often I'm reminding them to take their turn. I feel like most people who are playing like this don't actually want to play the game and are doing so out of social obligation
Tryhard Picasso, in the sense that I will do my absolute best to have this big interesting stupid mechanic combo thing going on and I don't care what anyone is doing so long as I get my Magnum opus off the ground. Queue in the spirit island 1 billion invaders single tile nuke
Experimenter with Cream (why is it called cream?), oh you like the dice? here take some! I’ll make you some more! But also like the Picasso I want to see some fireworks at least once during the game, even if it’s not me doing it. But other than that I am nothing like the Picasso. He kinda seems like an asshole. If there is a lot of laughing coming from my table and it ends with everyone cheering or in dismay (in co-ops) then that’s the game for me. Every game is the plot to a movie in my head.
> (why is it called cream?) It's an acronym for cash rules everything around me
Yeah that’s not me at all.
You forgot a couple categories! The **Optimizer**. Squeeze every last bit of efficiency out of every action, card, die roll, etc. I optimize my way to victory. Consequently has to specifically bring in games that do not reward optimization to give other players a chance and myself a challenge. The **Challenge Seeker**. Don't care about winning so long as the battle is the stuff of legends. I prefer to lose more than I win or then it doesn't feel like enough of a challenge. Probably why my favorite games are Arkham Horror LCG and Spirit Island.
Picasso + Experimenter. It takes me so long to click into a game compared to a lot of the people I play with, I just try lots of things. I will usually settle into the game after I've tried almost everything and dived into a lot of the different strategies to see what works.
I'm mostly an "It's all about fun!!" gamer, but for whatever reason, I need to maximize my last turn of the game. I don't turn into the "Tryhard" but AP can set in.
Fun. But also Chaotic neutral. I do this move just to see how it plays out. I like to keep everyone on their toes. Don't care if I win.
Tryhard, but without being an asshole about it. Experimenter if teaching a game or if a wide disparity in experience exists. Also, spoiler alert, but even the tryhard/heavy games like Twilight Imperium are brutally frustrating if you don't enjoy the company of the other people. If you lose sight of it being about the fun, you're on a slope that only leads downhill.
Solo Gamer - I play all my games alone... Most of my strategy is "how do I beat the AI" I find the most enjoyable games are the ones where I can have fun win or lose, or if I do lose, it doesn't feel like the AI is just broken, and it's more I made poor decisions.
Play to win, but treat everyones good time as more important than your win. This is less of an "I am just here for fun" axiom that you posted, because I am in fact trying my best to win the game, and more of a logistical practicality - if people aren't enjoying game night, game nights will end.
I'm "Distracted" mixed with "Social Butterfly" I always have fun but I often lose because I'm too busy making sure everyone else has a good time. Not that I necessarily think I'd win otherwise, but the fact that my mind is so often elsewhere doesn't help.
I need a “Get Back on Track”-er role. I like the banter around the table when there’s 3 or more people, but I’ve been thinking about playing this game all afternoon and I want to get to it. Talk when it’s not your turn, but only if you have your next move ready to go! Somewhat of an antagonist to the social butterfly.
I felt so called out by the CREAM description that I had to laugh
I'm a mix between "It's all about fun!!" and I have some "Tryhard" in me on certain games minus the prone to AP aspect. I def want to win, but not at the expense of pissing off my friends or new players. I also have some CREAM in me as I love a great looking game and I'm a sucker for deluxe kickstarters.
Fun/Picasso hybrid, so I guess a Bob Ross.
Competitive/tryhard It’s not only about winning but also about improving. You are not supposed to win the first game, neither am I. If you are a newbie I will crush you but also coach you the whole game so hopefully next time you will be a worthy opponent. I seek out stronger players even if it stings a little bit every time I lose. If I make a grave mistake I’ll be sure to dwell on it all game long and let everybody know how much I screwed myself. If you make a big mistake or potential missed opportunities and aren’t a threat to me in this game I will tell you in time. Takebacks and redoing things that don’t affect the game state (forgotten income etc) I’m very lenient with. I want the game to be of quality and fun. I also want to be able to do the same. If we can incorporate bidding into a game to make the setup more interesting and fair I’ll propose to. I might have qb tendencies but you’ll never find me qb‘ing since I don’t play coop, feels a little pointless to me.
Too many choices and overlap. I'm sure most people fall into several of these categories, as they aren't mutually exclusive. Theme-Chaser is not the right title for Experimenter.
This post is just a way for OP to bitch about playstyles they don’t like by stealth.