We all have our own reasons for staring The Hobby. Some got invited along to a games night and found out there was more to life than Monopoly; others ended up involved because their geekcrush liked to play D n D and found out they liked the geekery more than the geek; a lucky few actually grew up in a Hobby household, complete with groaning shelves filled with large boxes sporting exotic names like Dominion, Ticket to Ride and Betrayal At House On The Hill – you’re welcome, kids. And some found it like a life-raft; a group of friends that they could be with where there were rules and structure; conflict and co-operation; fairness and justice; camaraderie and company.
This coming week is Mental Health Awareness Week – something that we can all relate to as it’s something we all have, good and/or bad. Most people rub along fairly well, with the occasional hiccup caused by anything from doing too much for too long to experiencing a break up. Sometimes though, we get to the point where it is a bit more than a hiccup and will possibly require some time out to just give ourselves a break. And part of the whole Mental Health Awareness thing is knowing when you need to do that and just being able to do that.
It’s okay; no-one’s indestructible; it’s fine to just stop.
Sometimes you can have fun while stopping.
When You’re Just Not Feeling It…
It had been a difficult day. Nothing particularly bad had happened; in fact for the most part, it had been okay. I just wasn’t feeling it. I felt snappy at work; irritable and incommunicative, which is not really very useful when you are teacher. I had managed to power through, but was finding it hard to prop up my face, let alone my entire body. To quote Wallace and Grommit: the bounce had gone out of my bungie.
For anyone who has spent any time wrestling with poor mental health, especially depression, you get a good eye for the signs – if I’d been given one of those tick-box assessments at the GPs, there would probably have been ‘cause for concern’. Depression was beginning to get the best of me, which mean that no-one else was. In fairness, I’d been beginning to feel the rumbles for a few days, and was preparing to batten down the hatches for a while, weather the storm and hope there were a few slates left on the roof by the end of it, if you’ll allow me to stretch a metaphor to breaking point.
So it was probably an [sarcasm mode activated] absolutely genius idea to head down to the Triangle, my local beer bar, for All-a Board, their monthly board game night. As it turned out, [sarcasm mode deactivated] it actually was.
Older and Fatter…
When you respond to a ‘how are you’ with the words ‘older and fatter’, those around you will probably be thinking ‘oh dear, it’s like that, is it?’ Which is understandable, because if it’s hard work being mentally unwell, it’s hard word looking after or being with someone who is mentally unwell – it’s okay to admit it, it doesn’t make you a bad human, it just makes you a human. Fortunately, someone had brought a copy of Skull and thought this might make a good ice-breaker. Skull is a bluffing game based around putting down beer mats that either have a flower or a skull on them in front of you, until someone decides to start bidding on how many flowers they can turn over. It’s simple, colourful and interactive. The first two were fine, the last one… debatable. But that’s the good thing about the right game in the right place at the right time – it can provide just enough of that sort of thing without the overwhelm of full-blown conversation or the tedium of small talk. I can engage enough without having to engage too much, warm up to the situation gradually and see how I felt about it. It’s fine to walk away from a game if you’re not feeling it; it’s just a game.
But I don’t walk away; I start to feel a bit more like getting amongst it. I start to call in my bids, make some good decisions, make some poor decisions, make some people regret their decisions. It’s safe, though; the stakes are low, but the spirits are getting higher. More people join us; more rounds are proposed; more skulls are played. I’m feeling a bit more myself, curiously from being with other people, sharing the good times and not doing too bad at the game, but that’s just a bonus. Yeah, I could probably cope with something a bit meatier…
Is This Your Favourite Game?
We’ve all come with a varied selection of games, but six players is awkward. Too few people to split between two games; too many to have on one game. Or is there? All I can say is thank AEG that they reprinted the Command Centre expansion, because Space Base with all the trimmings is in the bag and it can play up to seven. Fortunately, no-one objects, or at least not very loudly, and after a brief teach, dice are being chucked, spaceships are being bought while others are being tucked beneath the board, ready to reap rich rewards on other players’ turns. Some rolls are praised (‘oh, how very kind of you to throw another eight!’), whilst others are cursed (‘why would anyone roll a five?’) and slowly but surely those Victory Points stack up… apart from Ben’s, who ‘never wins this stupid game’. His wife, Rowan, chuckling at how many Victory Points, Resources and Spendies she has compared to him asks ‘is this one of your favourite games?’ ‘My favourite,’ I reply. This is the essence of good gaming: everyone playing, everyone getting involved, everyone getting something. Sure, someone has to win (it was Rowan, by one point), but no-one really loses – everyone gets something, and that’s a good time. Even the guy who came up stairs just to see what was going on (another way of joining The Hobby) is smiling and chatting about how it went. And I feel… decent. I’ve not been cured or made better, but I feel decent. It’s good to feel good.
You Don’t Get The Game In The Box
On the way home, I walk and talk with my friend Andy. ‘You know,’ he says, ’when you see those games being played on Youtube and they tell you to buy the game, all their asking you to buy is a box of stuff. That’s not the game.’ My friend Andy is considerably smarter than me. ‘The game is the whole experience, the interaction, the people playing against each other. You can’t put that in the box.’ I nod, hoping I’ve got the right idea. ‘It’s like one of those cake mixes, where you get the ingredients and the instructions, but that’s not the cake.’ I may have had a few Faiths at this point, but that is what it is. The stuff in the box is just the medium – the players make the game, or they can break the game. We’ve been lucky to find a group who make games; I hope you’re all lucky to find groups that make games. Then we discuss the correct pronunciation of ‘hegemony’ for a while (it’s pronounced ‘hegemony’, by the way) efore making our separate ways. It’s been a good evening.
Gaming in a group is not therapy. That’s group therapy. What it is, is something beautiful and precious, something that makes you glad to be alive, whether you win or lose, because you spent some quality time with lovely people where the only agenda is ‘play the game’. Sometimes it’s enough to make you think ‘yeah, this is more than okay really’. Sometimes that’s more than enough.
