LUDOLOGICAL LAMENTATIONS

Each month our in-house agony aunt, Ben Maddox, answers your ludological lamentations

Ben Maddox answers your gaming ailments

Help me,

You find me hollow eyed, staring into the middle distance. My finger nails are bitten down to the cuticles and I am starting to question if there is any point to anything. This is because geological ages have passed since I took my last turn. In fact, I am dashing off this missive as I wait.

I am not Christopher Lambert in Highlander!

I have a limited duration on this planet and am currently having my ever dwindling pot of time quaffed away by someone who couldn’t make a decision if their life depended on it and, believe me, it soon very well may do.

I don’t love my job. I drag myself through the petty annoyances of office life so I can enjoy myself when I’m not at work. So, when I discovered gaming I truly thought I had found the one thing that could haul me through the endless mouse clicks and “zoom check-ins”. My liver was doing somersaults as the need for a clear head to manipulate the mechanisms of Herrs Feld and Rosenberg made me knock the drinking on the head.

That was until, let’s call them Slowmo, joined our group. An affable type with a wide smile and a charming manner, I was delighted that we had found such genial company to join us on our ludological travels. That is, of course, until I played with them. All of their former brio and cognitive acuity drained away the picosecond they were asked to take a turn.

They simply cannot make a decision!

We played Hallertau the other day and the packet of crisps

I was eating went out of date before the turn got back round to me and during a game of Trajan they spent so long staring into the bowls on their playmat that I was starting to suspect that they’d shuffled off this mortal coil and it was only rigor mortis that keeping them upright. It was only when they loudly passed wind that I realised they were still alive.

It has got to the point that I dread hearing their spritely step approach the game table. Gaming, that was, previously, a blessed release for me, a pleasant couple of hours fiddling with the mechanisms of a mid-weight Euro, has turned into a nightmare trudge through Slowmo’s endless mental torture.

My wonderful hobby is being siphoned away by an unrepentant time-vampire and I’m at the end of my tether. Please, help me, what should I do?

Dear Impatient,

This is a problem that is all too common at tables all across the land and while I fully understand your wish to defenestrate dear Slowmo, we must remain sanguine and curb our window launching tendencies.

You must understand that this particular ailment comes from two sources and these can be coaxed out of existence by some judicious game choices.

Poor Slowmo is suffering from an overweening desire to be right and a crippling fear of appearing silly. It is a heady combination that results in their gears grinding to a halt every time they are called upon to act. You could try to reduce their anxiety by getting them drunk but, as we all need to think of our health, I think I have a better plan.

You need games where the tactics aren’t planned but spontaneous. Where we catch the cognitive hot potato and feel the need to pass it on as soon as it is in our hands. My recommendation to you would be to indulge in some delicious back-stabbery with some wonderful social deduction games.

There is no time here to footslog through the byways of your brain as you need to be snappy to parry the conversational thrusts that are levelled at you. You’ve said that, outside of the games, they are lively and vivacious, well, something like The Resistance Avalon or the devilish Blood on the Clocktower will bring their natural vivacity to the table! Before you know it they will be accusing and repudiating along with everyone else!

If you feel that The Resistance may be tossing them in at the deep end with no armbands, then may I suggest some social deduction adjacent titles? Bar room games like Skull or games of tactical untruths like Coup will rattle along and you will have racked up a whole night of games before you know it.

Still, if you wish to travel through the more mechanistic side of our hobby then, I’m afraid, you must simply learn to live with your friend’s lack of alacrity. Make a cup of tea, catch up on the news, and, maybe, take up embroidery. Your needlepoint representation of Slowmo flying out of the window of the game club will provide ample catharsis to last you until your turn comes around.