What are We Doing?

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, ..."

- Henry David Thoreau

A friend of mine, a painter, once asked himself how he justifies spending his days pushing paint around on a canvas. Is that life? Is he contributing to the world? Is he spending his time valuably? As a game player, I have to ask the same questions.

What are we doing?

People ask me what "I do". Before I really got into gaming, I used to answer: I'm a husband and a father. Now that I run a game group, a game website, and a game blog, I answer: I'm a husband, a father, and I run a game group. Some people are thrilled to be working at whatever they work at - more power to them. I was never so fortunate. I don't hate what i do - something to do with computers, I think - but it doesn't really interest me.

What I do, is live. I try to make a good marriage. I try to raise healthy, aware, well-mannered and thoughtful children. I try to spread happiness and build things for people to enjoy. What are we here for, after all? Work is work. It makes money. Some work is important - mine ... makes money, unfortunately, not enough.

Pushing paints ... it doesn't seem like much. But it conveys to others the feelings and thoughts of life. Even if the painting doesn't survive, the effect on the people who see it might. Maybe they will go out and think more, live more, be more themselves.

Playing games ... just playing games for game's sake is a type of living, if it is social, if it encourages mental growth. But better yet is organizing a game group, providing a space and time for others to look forward to. Building the game community and bringing joy, social interaction, and mental growth to a world of new people. Contributing to the world.

Of course, playing games, like pushing paints, is not all of life, nor enough of it. You haven't lived unless you've loved, guided children, cared for the elderly, walked different parts of the world, helped the poor, studied higher learning, read good works of prose and poetry, and tried your hands at various arts. If you can incorporate some of this into your work, great. I wish I could. But if not, your work is not your life - your living is.

Yehuda

Puerto Rico

Still happening. I have three games going on http://www.puertoricogame.net, although one is about to end. And I played a quick game with my wife this weekend, which I won handily, despite giving up a huge positional loss early on.

She beats me about 55% of the time now, so rah! :-)

Yehuda

Magic disappointment

A friend of a father of a friend of my son heard that I was selling my Magic collection and came over to view it.

We spent an hour looking for the rares, then the ones he really wanted. About 5 cards were worth anything special in his opinion - Armageddon, Necropotence, and 3 Scragnoths - which he valued, total, at about $8. Then another 75 "good" rares he values, total, at about $12, total. The rest, about 3500 - 4000 cards, including uncommons, less good rares, and commons, about, total, $60.

I had to tell him that I will think about it, which left him a little disgruntled - he spent time helping me look through the collection, and he came with cash in his pocket. I just don't know if I'm ready to part with my ten year collection for $80. Argh.

I have to finish cataloging them and see if anyone else offers more. Or just keep it.

Yehuda

Session Report Up

On my website. Games played: Checkers, San Juan, Othello, Princes of Florence, Geschenkt.

A great PoF game played after a long hiatus.

Yehuda

Magic collection

I have decided to upload my magic card collection, in preparation of trading/selling anything valuable in it.

First step was ordering all the cards by name. Then I downloaded a full list of cards from the internet - I found full lists for each individual set, but no full list of all cards. The closest I found were the complete price lists, which contain most cards, but not all.

So I downloaded that to disk, opened in Excel, and began adding all cards by count. When known, I also added information about the card set, and the condition if not good.

So why not use pre-packaged software for this? All of the ones I tried were either: non-existent, cost money, required Microsoft Access, or simply killed my computer when I tried to run it. Which is a shame, because my list doesn't include standard information next to each card (like rarity and color), just the name, count, and any notes.

I am looking to trade for Netrunner, Middle Earth CCG, or board games. Always willing to take cash or coupons, of course.

I began collecting in 4th edition - I think that was when the big upsurge happened. My first cards were 4th, Homelands, Chronicles, Ice Age, etc... plus lots of Revised given to me my already established players. I never really spent much money on the game, even though I spent a heck of a lot of time on it.

People complain that Magic is an "expensive" game. I think that is just not true. When people talk about Magic being expensive, they seem to think that playing Magic REQUIRES you to compete in Pro tournaments. Does playing football require you to compete in pro tournaments?

Constructing decks is fun, yes. Buying a few cards to make a deck nicer is fun, yes. But that is only one very small way to play the game. For the last nine years, I have played the game, with my friends and brothers, by drafting from the thousands and thousands of commons and uncommons we have collected for almost nothing. The cards are interesting and often powerful. We have so many different cards that we still surprise each other with cards we haven't seen. When I want something new, I spend $5 and get another 100 cards on eBay; or, I just trade a rare card and get a few hundred commons in its place. Then we draft, construct, rinse, repeat.

Most of my collection is probably not of tremendous interest to the great Magic hoarders. My Ancestral Recall, dual lands, Mana Drain, etc... are all gone. Many of my cards were lost or destroyed. Still, between my brothers and me, we still have lots of good rares, both new and old: Necropotence, Nevineral's Disk, Armageddon, etc...

I will add a link once I get it online.

Yehuda

Weekend Update

- I taught Go to yet another new player, a friend/son of a friend who comes occasionally when he is available. I gave him a two stone advantage on a 9x9 board, which was quickly reduced to one stone (as in, he goes first), which turned out to be almost exactly right. I don't know if that shows how good he is for his first few games, or how poor I still am, or a combination of both.

- In other news, the Israeli army has decided that RPG players, or specifically Dungeons and Dragons players, deserve a lower security clearance than other inductees, as they are "detached from reality and suseptible to influence". Way to go IDF. Click.

- I went to a small party and I didn't bring a game because I don't have enough party games. My game collection consists only of the type of games I play at the game group, such as Puerto Rico and El Grande. What games should I get to bring to parties?

At the party, like any party, someone always asks me what I do.

I run a game group.

"Oh, for a living?"

Well, no, but I think that my gaming life is more important to me than the endless hours I put in doing computer stuff for some company, however practical that may be.

"What do you play?"

Board games and card game, new stuff, stuff in the last fifteen years from Europe mostly.

"What, like Monopoly? Scrabble?"

Almost completely, but not entirely, unlike Monopoly. And, although Scrabble, Chess, Bridge, etc... are all nice games, and we may even play them sometimes, there are other groups that play these games in Jerusalem. These other groups define themselves as one game groups - they only play the one game. We play many different games from different countries, all beautifully produced, little luck, lots of strategy, lots of fun, multiplayer, about an hour and a half, you don't have to be a genius to play but you have to think some, and we play for fun, not to win, so we are very supportive.

"Sounds interesting. Maybe I'll stop by sometime."

To myself: uh huh.

That would be great.

Yehuda

The Love Song of J Random Wargamer

Hey, chabibi!
Al tapilu bira al hamischak sheli.
Kaniti oto ba-chutz la-aretz,
V'hu oleh li yoter may
Ha-auto shelcha, ata shomeya?
Yalla.


LET us play then, you and I,
While the game board is spread out against the table
Like discarded candy wrappers in half-deserted streets;
Let us read through certain dog-eared sheets,
The muttering ramblings
Of restless rule-writers, drunk on Coke in late-night cubicles
And restaurants with half-eaten taco shells:
Lines that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What the hell does that rule mean?”
Let's just play.

In the room Eurogamers come and go
Talking of Puerto Rico.

The yellow oil that runs upon the take-out food,
The yellow oil that pools like molten gold from the chili dogs
Licked its tongue into the corners of the saturated fries,
Lingered in pools that stand in paper bags,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from overcooked burgers,
Slipped by the greasy hands, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was my most expensive game,
Dripped once upon the board, and ruined it's resale value.

And indeed there will be time
For the inscrutable rules upon the many sheets,
In writing as soft and faint as your grip upon reality;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a strategy to meet the strategies that you meet;
There will be time to attack Normandy and retreat,
And time for all the plays and days of hands
That lift and drop a unit on your map;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before your opponent gives up in disgust and walks away.

In the room Eurogamers come and go
Talking of Puerto Rico.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I attack?” and, “Do I attack?”
Time to turn back and hold position,
With a weak spot in the middle of my front line—
[They will say: “How his vanguard is growing thin!”]
My basic units, my mercenaries for hire,
My coffers overstreched, supply lines under fire—
[They will say: “But how his reinforcements are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the stalemate?
In a minute there is time
For invasions and incursions which a skirmish will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known Avalon Hill, Eagle, and GDW,
I have measured out my life with chits and counters;
I have known the units dying with a dying fall
Beneath the fire from an overwhelming force.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the games already, known them all—
The games that fix you with a formulated play,
And when I am formulated, rolling on a whim,
When I am rolling ones for me, and sixes for him,
Then how should I begin
To give up all these games of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the armies already, known them all—
Armies Egyptian, Blue and Gray,
[But in the basement light, gray and grayer still!]
Is it uniforms from a certain period
That makes me so obsessed?
Model paints that lie along a table, or stuck to a newspaper.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I'll go home at dusk through narrow streets
Eat a balanced meal, and get some decent sleep?
Instead of watching dawn creep up, out of windows?…

I should have bought a twenty-two foot yacht
Sailing emerald waves of sunlit seas.
. . . . .
And in the afternoon, the evening, sleep so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … but it malingers,
Stretched on the table, here beside you and me.
Should I, after beer and cake and chips,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have won and wept, won and resigned,
Though I have had my head [grown slightly bald] handed to me upon a platter,
I am no Eurogamer—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the game club owner hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the soda, the Cheetoes, the coffee,
Among the styrafoam, among some kibbitzing about victory,
Would it have been worth while,
To have folded up the game with a smile,
To have stuffed all those chits into a ball
To roll it toward some overflowing dumpster,
To say: “I am Teuber and Knizia, come from Deutchland,
Come to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a game box by his head,
Should say: “That is not what I play at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the counters and the model paints and the crinkled sheets,
After the rule books, after the polyhedral dice, after the pizza boxes trailing on the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic fireball threw some damage in patterns on my army:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a game box or throwing out a die,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I play, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Milo Bloom, nor was meant to be;
Am a Binkley, and that will do
To cut a deck of cards, start a hand or two,
Annoy my friends; no doubt, an easy play,
Referential, glad to be in a game,
Fanatic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of rule knowledge, but a bit obese;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my blue jeans rolled.

Shall I buy from overseas? Can I get this at the mall?
I shall wear dark flannel shirts, and walk the college hall.
I have heard the yacht girls singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding waves in their ships
Combing their hair on the sunlit seas
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the basements of the cons
By hexboards detailed red and green
Till sleep has overcome us, and we dream.

(apologies to T. S. Eliot. From "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock".)