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Season 7 Finale · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up a delivery, the podcast where I
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: pick up my audio recorder as I step out for
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a walk and deliver an episode to you while I
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: stroll around. I'm Brendan Riley Well greeting's listeners. It's a
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: lovely day here in suburban Chicago. Temperatures in the high
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: twenties and do to get up even higher. We're going
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to start seeing some serious snow melt today and tomorrow
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: is supposed to get in the forties, which is outrageously warm.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: But I thought I would take a little walk today
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and record a couple of podcasts while I'm going to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: buy some light bulbs, good old light bulbs. Okay, well
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: it is if my math is correct. This is episode
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: seven hundred of this podcast. I have strapped on this
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: recorder and recorded seven hundred episodes i'll pick up and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: deliver for you, fine folks, and I really appreciate that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you've been joining me on this journey. So to start with,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I thought I would do a look back. At the
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: end of season five, I looked back at the or
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: at the end of season one, I looked back at
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the previous ninety nine episodes I had recorded and picked
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: out my five favorite. This time, I'm looking back and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: picking out my severate favorite episodes or types of episode. Woh,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: that sounds like Jeet Brendan. It sure is, So I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: will talk about I'm going to talk about four episodes
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and then four episode types and go from there. I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: will say I really enjoy every episode of this podcast.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, one thing I could say would be like
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: my board game Espresso episodes are fun. I like just
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: telling you about new games I've played. That's literally like
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: between a third and a half of the episodes I record.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: So that feels weird to say, oh, my favorite is
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: half the half the series, So I'm not doing that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But anyway, Number one, my favorite episode that I recorded
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: this season is number six, one hundred and thirty six.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Why keep a game? As I often do, I was
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: reflecting on my collection when I choose to get rid
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of a game when I choose to keep, and I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: realized I hadn't really talked about what makes me want
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to keep or get rid of a game. So I
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: laid out a few reasons that you might that I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: would choose to keep a game, either for gameplay or
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: collection reasons or other things. Sentimentality, and kind of talked
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: about exemplars of each of those in my collection. If
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: you have been thinking about trying to manage your collection size,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: it's maybe worth looking at why to keep a game.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear comments on what you think. But
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: upsode six hundred and thirty six. My second second interesting
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: one is a format that I've done throughout the run
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: of the podcast, but where I choose a topic and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: then hit a bunch of different examples of games from
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that topic that I think are good. My favorite of
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: that type of episode this year is number six hundred
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: and seventeen, Weird Scoring Conditions. In Weird Scoring Conditions, I
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: literally talk about games that end in unusual ways. You know,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: whether they be like a nanty narking where everybody's got
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a different win condition they're trying to do, or a
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: study an emerald, or perhaps my favorite weird scoring condition,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Lord's ZiT it where there are three scoring categories and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in the first two categories you can't be last if
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: you last in either of the first two year out
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of the game, and then the third scoring condition you
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: win if you're the highest. So it's a really interesting
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: mix of different elements, particularly because the scoring is kept
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: semi secret. Yeah, if you haven't listened to that episode,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: go listen to it, especially if you're in game design
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: really thinking about like how do I make my game
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and in a different way, weird scoring conditions is an
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: interesting approach. Next up, we've got my third favorite episode
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: from the season Board Game Experiments. This is episode six
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty nine. In Board Game Experiments, I talked
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: about different games that just try to do something unusual
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and are interesting for having done so. I think one
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: of my favorite examples are one of the examples I
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: point to in the episode, or one of my favorite
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: examples of this sort of thing is Sideial Confluence. Now
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Sadeira Confluence is a weird game. It is a trading
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: and negotiation game that is entirely about trading and negotiations,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: about winning by trading. More like, if you're doing a
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: lot of trading and negotiation, you're probably gonna win that.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: There are no there's no turtling, there's no other strategy.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: You can't steal people's stuff except by I don't know,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: talking them into giving it to you. It's got these
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: trading engine cards that you can loan to people. It's
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: got rules about making promises that take place over lots
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of time. There's no going back on your word, So
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: I like that it's a negotiation game without the betrayal part.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: It's just a real weird game and a really fun game.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So Sidereal Confluences wanted to check out if you're looking
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: for a board game experiment, and it's one of several
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I talk about in the episode six hundred and forty
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  Speaker 1: nine Board Game Experiments. My fourth favorite episode from the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: season is not I'm Good number six, six hundred and seventy.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I think I am generally pretty positive on this podcast.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: You can probably find the biggest notes of negativity in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: my Board Game Espresso episodes, and even there, you know
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: most of the time, and what I'll say is this
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: isn't a game for me, and often try to point
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: out who I think it is a game for. It's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: pretty unusual that I'll just dump on a game, say
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: it's not fun or not good. But I think there
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: is a place for players, for listeners, if you want
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to understand what I'm talking about when I talk about games,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: if you want to know whether to agree or to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: believe me. Agree with or believe me. A key part
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: of that is just knowing which games don't I like,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And so I think that not I'm Good episode was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a nice way to say, like, here's some games that
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: just don't work for me anymore, and here's why. Happy
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to have shared that, and I think it's an interesting episode.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I also like the title. I think it's a little sassy,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a little fun, and worth listening to. That's episode number
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: six hundred and seventy. Nah, I'm good, all right, So
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I said I wasn't going to say every episode of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the podcast, but the next thing I'm The next three
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: ones I'm going to offer are like probably collectively a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: third of the podcast, but whatever, it's my podcast. I
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: can do what I want. My number five favorite is
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: collectively the top of the Stack episodes. I've told you
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I like talking about playing games, and honestly, I just
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: really like keeping track of the games I play using
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: board game stats, giving myself little challenges and seeing whether
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I succeeded them or not. I feel a little bit
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: like Principal Skinner. Sometimes there's a famous Simpsons episode where
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: he says, see how many times you can bounce a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: basketball in an hour, and then try to beat that record.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel like I'm doing that with myself and
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: it's fun. So the Top of the Stack episodes where
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I talk about what I played last month in broad terms,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: what I want to play next month. I just really
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: enjoyed recording those. It's one of my favorite things about
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: this podcast, and so my number five favorite episode from
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the season is Top of the Stack episodes. Number six
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: my other media roundups. Now, if you're a real board
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: game head and you don't care about that, you might
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: find yourself skipping the movie roundups and the reading roundups.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: But for me, playing board games is part of a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: larger conversation I have with culture, and reading books and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: playing game or watching movies is a big part of
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: what drives me in that conversation. So I really enjoy
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: taking a little bit of time once or twice a
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: month to talk about books I've been reading lately or
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: movies I've been reading lately. There are a bunch of
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: those this month or this season. Looks like I did
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: ten of them, which makes sense that it's not twelve,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: because remember this season didn't really start until late March.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: So I will say, patting myself on the back a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: little bit for finishing this season on time. Generally, I
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: try to finish the season by the end of January,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and so getting it done having started in March really
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: shows commitment, I think, or insanity one of the two.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I really enjoy doing the reading roundups and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: movie round ups, and I love when you share with
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: me what you've been watching and reading. Gabriel Edge among others,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: but Gabriel particularly does a great job of heading over
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to Board Game Geek and starting a thread every time
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I do a reading roundup. Wes sometimes comments over there
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: as well, So thanks to you, fellows, anybody else who's
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: been reading stuff, I'd love to hear from you, and yeah,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: talk about our reading. And finally, my seventh favorite episode
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I recorded four of them this year are the lookback episodes,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm started calling this a look back episode because
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I look back at episodes this season. But look back
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: has become a phrase that I'm really using to talk
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: about years of gaming in which I did not do
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a top five because I wasn't yet doing this podcast
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't yet playing games as much. This year
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I published Episode six ten was about twenty thirteen. Episode
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: six twenty seven was about twenty twelve. Episode six seventy
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: four was about twenty eleven, and episode six eighty six,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: just two or three ago, was about twenty ten. Now
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I think when I get into the nots, I'm probably
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: gonna do two or three eight years at a time,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: just because I haven't played as many games. With twenty ten,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I was really scraping the barrel to find enough games
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: to talk about. So I think I'm gonna start widening
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: my net. Should make for more interesting discussions of years.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: But I really enjoy doing those ones, and I'm probably
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: gonna keep doing one a quarter. I think one a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: quarter is about right. I probably shouldn't do more than that,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: but yeah, So the look back episodes have been really
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: fun to record, and that was my seventh favorite type.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: So now you have seven favorite episodes or episode types
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: for the end of season seven. While I was preparing
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: for this episode, I did look back at the ends
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of seasons one through six, which are always the even hundreds.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So the end of season one is episode one hundred
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: and so on, So technically this is kind of early,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: but whatever, and I found an episode. Some episodes I
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: looked back, like season season one, episode one hundred, I
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: look back at the season and picked out my five
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: favorite games, five favorite episodes in seasons two and seasons six.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I just did a regular like board game Espresso episode
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in season the end of season five, which was episode
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: five hundred, me thinking about the future of the podcast,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and that was pretty interesting, and I want to draw
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: something from that because I think it's an interesting reflection
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: on how much have changed and frankly how much I haven't.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: In episode five hundred, I talked about what my ten
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: for ten for the next year was going to be,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: which I failed at drastically, I believe, and then what
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: was my plan regarding Oh, actually I did succeed at that,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: at the ten for ten that I did during season six,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: because if I allowed myself to play online games, I
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: think I got a five for ten of tabletop games
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: or close to it, and a ten for ten of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: online games. But anyway, so I laid out six I
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: guess going into season six, I laid out six board
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: game New York Board Game resolutions, and all of these
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: still apply. So I don't know if it's I'm at
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: peak gaming now and I'm just running or I just
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: haven't changed that much in my approach to gaming, even
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: if my tastes have moved a bit, what you'll learn
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: about in the next ten episodes. But here are the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: six board game resolutions that I adopted at the end
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: of season five. Number one, slow down buying games. This
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: has been something that I've continued to put pressure on
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: myself to do. I think this year we'll see even
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a bigger decrease now last year, I did see a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: significant decrease in the number of new games acquired. Now
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I did. It's not that I didn't acquire any I
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: did acquire quite a few, but I'm much more attentive
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to buying use game sales, buying from goodwill, and I'm
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: much less likely to be buying new games and backing kickstarters.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So my acquiring new games process has slowed down dramatically.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But that was one of my goals play more of
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: my favorite games. I don't know that I'm better at
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: this than I was before. I still am really not
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: getting my favorite games onto the table as much as
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I should because of how much I like playing new stuff.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: That said, I have found an asynchronous play that I'm
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of my favorite games played regularly. I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: logged a lot of plays of ark Nova, a lot
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of plays of obsession other games. So getting to play
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: asynchronousy really has helped me get to know those games
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: that I love better. I'm very excited that Terrify, Mars
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and Orleons are in Board Game Arena now those will
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: definitely be getting lots of play. So that's playing more
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of my favorite games. The next one is a corollary
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to slow down buying games cole call coll This of
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: course refers to the idea of weaving your collection, pulling
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: games out. In my head, an ideal number of games
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: for my collection would be five hundred and right now,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I'm in the six hundred and twelve or six hundred
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and thirteen something like that. I have a bunch of
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: games I'm trying to sell right now. I will be
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: more aggressive about that in the coming week, so I
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: may dip below six hundred if I can. But this
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: needs to be something both buying fewer games but also
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: selling more games, really trying to get the collection down.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: If I can get it below five hundred, I would
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: feel pretty good about the size more. This is the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: thing that I was doing really well at last year.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I did not or two years ago. Last year in
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, I did not do much painting at all.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: It was really bummed about that. But a new year
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a new opportunity. If nothing else, I have a couple
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of gloom Haven characters I have to paint, but I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: think there's a bunch of potential for doing some fun
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: painting this year if I can get my butt together
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: about organized to do it, keep up my asynchronous play
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: no problems there, and more campaign games with my family.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: This is a thing that I wanted to do, especially
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: a couple years ago when my daughter was still here.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: We did maintain a frost We did a Betrayal legacy
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: campaign all the way through. We finished gloom Haven. We
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: are chugging our way through frost Haven, so this is
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: not really a problem for me. The big trick will
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: be finding a campaign that my son wants to play
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: after we finish frost Haven. We're a ways to go yet,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: but we do have like sixty plays down and it
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: seems like most people are finishing around eighty to one
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: hundred plays, So I suspect we'll finish the main campaign,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and the question is what we want to keep playing
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: after that. We do have some other campaign games we
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: could play. Question is just whether people want to. So
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: those were my six resolutions from the end of season five.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: If I'm ending season seven going into season eight, seems
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: like I would have eight resolutions. The question is are
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: there two more that I can put here? I think
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: one of them is going to be giving a little
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: bit more sustained attention to the game club that I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: help run, Toggo Gaming. I do help run it, but
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I don't put as much time in as i'd like
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: to helping grow it or helping manage it, and I
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: think that it would be worthwhile to do that. We
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: did see we have seen an uptick in membership the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: last few weeks, and I think encouraging that to go
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: would be smart. So trying to be a little more
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: deliberate about that would be one goal. And then a
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: second goal. I think trying to be a little bit
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: more deliberate about my game design time as well. I
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: do some of that, probably not as much as I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: could or should, and I'm often not thinking care about
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the best ways to use that time. So I think
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: continuing to really make effort to do that well. If
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it, which I want to do it,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: so I got to do it well So those are
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: my two resolutions to add to the six that I
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: just laid out for you, and I think that will
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: make my gaming year even better than it was before. Well,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: that just about brings me to the end of my episode.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Like I said, this is the end of season seven,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: so I want to thank you for taking the time
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to listen, to pick up and deliver it, or joining
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: me on my walks as I stroll around suburban Chicago.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And I really hope that you are going to have
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a great twenty twenty five and that you'll be back
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to join me both for my top fifty and for
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: the new season when it starts in late January early February.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Well that's about it for my walk today. Thanks for
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: joining me. You can reach me on board game Geek
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: with username Wombat nine two nine or post in our
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: guild guild number three two sixty nine over on board
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: game Geek. So otherwise, thank you for joining me today.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I hope your next walk is a pleasant as mind was.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Bye bye. Brought to you by rattle Box