On Monday, I considered why I don’t like strategy games.
A recent personality assessment had revealed that my top theme was Strategic. This means I’m able to ‘see solutions before other people know there is a problem’ and ‘generate numerous ideas before sorting to the one that makes the most sense in a particular situation’.
You’d think then that I’d enjoy the strategy genre but this really isn’t the case. It was during a conversation with a friend a few days later that I finally understood why, when he said that I associate this kind of behaviour with work. My brain wants to do something different when I’m done for the day, like running headfirst into a dungeon with a sword or being swept along in a deep story.
Since writing that last post, I’ve continued thinking about the results of the assessment and how they manifest themselves in other areas of my life. This led me to a realisation about another of the themes which appeared in my top-five. Being a Relator means that I enjoy having close relationships with others and get satisfaction from working hard with friends to achieve a goal.
If my association of the Strategic trait with work explains why I don’t like strategy games or turn-based combat, then I think it’s my association of the Relator theme with blogging and gaming which clarifies why I started getting into board games last summer. It began when Pete and visited a friend for a coffee and heard how their sister had introduced them to T.I.M.E. Stories published by Space Cowboys. The time-travelling narrative and adventure theme sounded interesting so we decided to order ourselves a copy.
This encouraged us to take a spontaneous trip to the UK Games Expo at the NEC in Birmingham in June 2022. As people whose previous experience consisted mainly of Snakes and Ladders and Monopoly as kids, the event was a big eye-opener for us. We’d originally thought that most board games were competitive in nature and had long set-up times with plenty of rules. We came away realising that there was so much more variety on offer and that there were tabletop releases out there to suit us.
Although we left with several items, my favourite purchase from that day was The Night Cage by Smirk & Dagger. Players have to work together to escape a labyrinth in this horror-themed tile-placement game and it kicked off my fondness for cooperative releases with darker narratives. It’s still one of my favourites in our collection due to the atmosphere it manages to create, and I’m looking forward to the Shrieking Hollow expansion after backing the Kickstarter campaign in October.
We began visiting a vintage toy shop in a nearby town during the year after our first trip to the UK Games Expo. Pete would browse their Magic: The Gathering (MTG) collection at the front of the store while I’d head to the board game shelves at the back. After receiving a recommendation from one of the lovely staff, I decided to buy Zombicide by Guillotine Games. We’ve managed to rope older family members into fighting the zombie-apocalypse with us several times and it always gone down well because it’s so chaotic.
We also started going a local board game café. It’s now become the place I stop at after completing my Sunday long-run sessions to get Pete a MTG booster pack as a thank you for picking me up, as well seeing if there’s anything which takes my fancy. It was here that I found The Road to Innsmouth, an interactive online adventure by Hourglass Escapes set in the Arham Horror world which we played cooperatively with streamer-friends Darkshoxx and DaveAfro back in March. I can’t wait for the next instalment.
This kicked off my interest in Arkham Horror and I’ve purchased more games from the franchise since. There are a few which we haven’t managed to try yet due to time constraints, but my favourite so far has been the board game published by Fantasy Flight Games that I picked up at the UK Games Expo this year. In most releases, you start at a level playing field and try to improve your situation. This one however feels the opposite to me and I love that. By the end of each round, you’re left wondering how much worse the impending doom going to get.
My most recent purchases have been Eldritch Horror, yet another Arkham Horror instalment, along with Perspectives published by Space Cowboys. In this investigation thriller, cards are distributed equally among players and you have to cross-reference photographs, reports and other clues without looking at the other’s documents in order to solve three cases. It looks like my affection for detective stories isn’t only applicable to video games, but has crossed over into tabletop games too.
The Relator theme highlighted in my CliftonStrengths personality assessment is clear when you consider my taste for cooperative board games. They can offer immersive experiences with intriguing narratives and resonate with my preference for camaraderie and problem-solving. I like games where everyone playing is working together towards a shared goal such as trying to save the world from a huge tentacled monster, and it doesn’t even matter if we win or lose (the latter is usually the case for Arkham Horror anyway).
Competitive board games just don’t do it for me and I understand now that it’s due to my association of my Strategic theme with work. This probably explains why I’ve never gotten into MTG despite Pete collecting so many cards over the past year and playing with Tim from Timlah’s Techs and his partner Jake. I’m happy to watch them battle it out while I drink tea, look at the artwork, and try to convince them to build decks full of cute animals such as the Cheeky House-Mouse.
On Monday, I asked whether there were any genres or mechanics that you should enjoy according to your personality but would rather steer clear of. So now, let’s flip the question: what do you enjoy because of your traits?