Kind of a hard question to word, but is there anything in your life you have recommended to other people but no one’s ever gotten into?
I love podcasts and have friends who still thank me for getting them into this one or that one. But I’ve never gotten anyone to listen to My Brother, My Brother and Me. I don’t know if the name is unappealing or the concept but people seem to bounce off immediately.
So what can’t you get people into and why should we check it out?
I let my wife try to get me into boardgaming. That meant I spent six months playing ten minutes of boardgames at a time before the rest of the table ganged up to eliminate me because I was the weakest player. Thirteen years later I still want nothing to do with the hobby, the culture and 90% of the people who are serious about it.
Well that sucks, if you ever get in that situation again, but I doubt you will, ask to play a co-op game.
Prime opportunity for their partner to get mad because they’re shit at the game. I know some couples are like that
If your partner is going to bully you while you are trying to learn a game, they are a lousy partner. It isn’t cooperative games that are the problem. I have a partner and several friends who all love cooperative games and are patient with anyone new to the game, I’ve never had issues with them being a jerk to newcomers. The more people you can welcome into learning and playing a game you like, the more likely you will have someone available to join you when you feel like having a game day. The best person to get into a game you enjoy is your partner who you likely spend most of your time with anyway, they are the number one best source of having someone to play with so long as you have some overlapping interests in games.
Having a lousy partner is all too common
You need a group that plays games like Pandemic, where the whole table is working together - although some games in that genre do include saboteurs.
I got to the point with my friends where I’d refuse to play some games like you describe, very long games where you can get screwed over early on and never have a hope of recovery.
My current favorite is Terraforming Mars, where everyone is cooperatively terraforming the planet but also trying to outperform the other corporations. It’s less about actively attacking each other and more taking advantage of opponents weaknesses and missteps.
When this conversation started at dinner with boardgamers after Der Spiel in Essen I asked the waiter to bring me the appropriate knife to saw my own leg off to escape the trap.
What he needs is to spend his leisure time doing activities he likes.
I somehow doubt different board games fall into that category.
Those kind of games seem fun, but I’m also just talking about a small game every once in a while, something like one or two rounds of MtG, Machi Koro, Claim, Sushi Go. The light stuff, not the stuff that takes hours per game.
Sushi Go! is fantastic. Also Jaipur.