How I Fail at Making Tea

Making a cup of tea is perhaps one of the easiest things to do. Boil water. Add a tea bag. Remove the bag. Drink it. And yet, for some reason I have failed at every one of those tasks on more than one occasion.

I've been known to go into the kitchen with the full intent of making tea, only to walk right back out again. Many times I have poured the water and stepped out before it boils, then proceed to forget about it as it cools; I've had to re-boil that same kettle three or four times some days. Then of course there's the tea bag; I once joked to a professor of mine that I make my tea so strong that I can stand the bag up in the cup. It was an exaggeration, of course, but I would routinely leave my tea bag in my cup for a good half hour before I would drink it. That is, if I remembered to drink it at all! Even now as I'm writing this I realize that I have a cup of tea beside me that has been there for quite some time. While I did manage to remove the tea bag, I suspect my tea is cold by now.... Yep. It's definitely cold.

My problem may be that I'm forgetful or easily distracted, but I think it goes deeper, that it stems from a general lack of conviction. I'll start many tasks, but finishing them is often a far greater obstacle; when something else comes along to draw my attention, I will too often set down the first project and never get back to it. It is particularly apparent when I can't even finish preparing a cup of tea, but I've noticed the same pattern with my hobbies, too.

For instance, several years ago I bought some plastic models to turn into an Elf team for Blood Bowl. I excitedly got to work cutting away weapons and carving out details. I had intended to use the team for the following season, about four months away. All I needed to do was finish assembly, prime them, and paint the sixteen models. It took three years to finish what was supposed to be a small project. Like my tea crafting, I set out to get the task done in a timely manner, but something happened. I stopped working on the models, and the project kept getting set aside for something else. I would think about it from time to time, but my excitement for it had faded. It wasn't until I decided it was finally time to use the models, ready or not, that I was able to get myself back into working on the team regularly.

So what got me back to work on that project? Well, primarily it was a deadline imposed by our Blood Bowl league; the rules state that models have to be 'table-legal' by the end of the season. That is to say, at the end of the twenty-six week period the models need to have at least three different colours on them and have finished bases. I had a very specific goal, and a very strict time limit to work with. It helped immensely.

I was always good at meeting deadlines in school, but it seems when deadlines are removed so is my motivation. The Elf team was by no means the only project that got set aside. I have boxes of models that are in various states of completion: some need only finishing touches of paint, while most still need to be assembled. It isn't limited to my models, either. Board game designs that I started years ago are collecting dust, and the piles of books I intend to read and board games I intend to play only grow. The obvious solution is to have self-imposed deadlines, but I often come to the same problem: if I miss my own deadlines, there are no consequences. That said, I get more and more frustrated by my inaction as time goes on, so I suppose there is one consequence. I am improving, at least, but it is taking time.

And on that note, I should probably go finish drinking that cold cup of tea.

13/13

Legacy

In recent years a number of 'legacy' games have been coming out, with Risk Legacy being the prime example. These games all have the interesting mechanic that each game you play has an impact on subsequent games. Risk Legacy popularized it, but it certainly wasn't the first game to do that. Legacy game play is nothing new, the market is just seeing it implemented in new and interesting ways.

Role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons are perhaps the quintessential 'legacy' game. As the story progresses, the player characters gain experience and level up, and the plot moves forward. It's the story that really drives good RPGs, not the mechanics, and the best stories are always the ones that are derived from the narrative. Sure, tales of amazing dice rolls (both good and bad) are fun, but without the narrative these moments blur together over time. “I rolled a 20!” is great, but “I beheaded the dragon!” is better, and will be something players will talk about for ages.

There have been several good 'role playing without the role playing' board games out there that capture much the same feelings as traditional RPGs. The ones that stick out the most to me are the ones with campaigns, though. Good mechanics are important, as they are with any board game, but what sets a good RPG-style board game apart from an OK one is the ongoing story. Descent, Myth, and games like it that have chained adventures which help to highlight the epic deeds of the players by giving them a bigger context; an overarching story makes these actions both more memorable and more coherent because the players' actions have consequences. What they do in one game will be remembered not only for being a memorable moment in its own right, but because things are different in subsequent games because of it.

Table top strategy war games, like Warhammer, have also had campaign modes for what seems like forever. When these are done on the scale of an entire army, the deeds of individual units tend to get lost, but at a smaller skirmish level, like in the now defunct Necromunda, the scale is more manageable for keeping track of specifics. When the scale is reduced far enough, then the distinction between war game and role playing game begins to disappear; if each player is only controlling one character they are essentially playing an RPG. Even when players are controlling a small handful of models in a war game, it's a small enough scale for those good RPG-style stories to develop.

One of my all-time favourite board games is the Blood Bowl miniatures game, a game of fantasy football with Orcs and Elves vying for touchdowns. I've been playing it for probably close to seven years, and I'm enjoying it as much now as I did when I started, if not more so. The game play itself is great, but what keeps me coming back is the narrative that is created by the advancement of the teams. As they do well, 'players' gain new skills, but there is always a risk that these team members will suffer serious injuries or die. 'Coaches' have to make difficult decisions sometimes; is it worth trying a dangerous play to win a match, or should the team be more cautious to avoid injuries that could hamper them in later matches? The longer I have been using a team, the harder those decisions become, because I find myself more emotionally invested in the well-being of my players; if one of my team members dies, I feel guilty. But when they do well, I really do feel proud of them.

After Blood Bowl games, I've even written short little stories about what happened. Together with the other coaches in the league we have created a whole world full of whimsy and great memories. Because each match has permanent consequences, our world has continuity, and that allows the stories we write and the memories we create to grow and to expand that world.

13/13