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Nah, I'm Good · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver it the podcast where
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step off
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the train and deliver an episode.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Dude, well I walk home.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good evening listeners. It's a lovely
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: day here in suburban Chicago. The rain has been out,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: but it is currently not raining on me. I do
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: have an umbrella in case it starts again, but for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: now it is just cold. It's not even cold, it's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: just cool, windy, damp. But it's still a nice night.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: The sun has gone down, so I'm walking home.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: In the dark twilight. But you know, I have the
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: orange glow.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: From all the sulfur lights in the suburbs to keep
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: me company, and there are plenty of street lights, so
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: it is for the most part a calm night walking home.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And you can hear the rain dripping off of the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: tree and other things around me, but like I said,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: it is not actually.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Raining on me right now.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Well, the other day I played a game of Katan
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: and in talking to somebody afterward, I think it was Rob, Hey, Rob,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I believe that I said I would be adding Katan
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: to my nah I'm good list, so I thought I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit in my head. This
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is very similar to the myrtah list. The myrtaw list is,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of course, the things that you say, I'm too old
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: for that shit, like Danny Glover and Leith a Weapon
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: who's constantly declaring he's.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Too old for that shit.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So I sort of keep in the back of my
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: head a myrtal list, sure, but I have a list
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for games as well, and I think it's going I'm
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: calling it then I'm good list. The idea of the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: NAT I'm good list is despite the fact that I
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: am mostly an omnigamer, and I will happily play almost
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: any game at least once, or I'm not happily any
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: game once probably, and I'll happily play many games that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be at the top of my list of choices.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Like if you said, Brendan, you get to pick what
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: we're playing tonight, I wouldn't pick them, but when other
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: people pick them and say, hey, let's play this, I'm
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: like sure. So I generally am pretty flexible and willing
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to play a variety of games such as such that
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you might call me an omni gamer. That said, there
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: are a few games that I have reached a point
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: at which I can just say, nah, I'm good, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think I need to play these games again.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I will add a caveat here.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: If I'm with like a young family member and this
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is their favorite game and they really want to play it,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I might be willing to play it even if it's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: not even if it's on my now I'm good list.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: But I'm just thinking about, like for.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: The usual evening of games at my game club, if
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I see somebody setting up this game, I think any
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: of the games on this list tonight, I think I'm
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: gonna say, nah, I'm good, and I will explain to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you now why. So I'm gonna start with Katan because
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I already brought it up. Then I'll back up and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: talk about a couple sort of games that have received
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of iron from the game community. So starting
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: with Katan. The main issue with Catan for me is
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: that the acquisition the acquisition of resources depends on dice rolling. Now,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: like a lot of older Euros, your luck is hampered
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: or shaped by the choices you make at the beginning
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of the game, when you're deciding where you want to
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: put your little houses. That's a crucial decision. If you
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: do that badly, your game of Catan is going to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: be unpleasant. So there is an argument to being like, well,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: you should get good, but I'm not a big fan
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of a game that's that fragile where if you make
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a bad choice early in the game then you could
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: just have a really unhappy game. I have also had
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: games of Katan where I made what I would call
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: good choices in the house choice, where like I have
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: a house on the six, and despite having a house
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: on the six, we go time after time after time,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: never rolling the six and six. This is one of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the most common roles you're supposed to get, like I'll
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: build a town on the six and have it trigger
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: once during the whole game, or none at all, or something.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: So if you haven't played.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Catan, it is a resource management game with a bit
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: of trading, in which you are building things on a
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: map to get points. There is a longest road you're
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: trying to get, there is a army you're trying to get,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: and then you're building little houses and towns or little
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: towns and little cities. The tricky part of the game
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: is that in order to do any of this stuff,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: you need resources, and you get the resources in two ways.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Either you earn them from the dice rolling and hitting
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: the numbers where you have houses built in which case
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: then you get those cards directly from the supply, or
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you can trade them. Either you can trade them with
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the generic board for four to one, which is a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: terrible way to do it, or you could trade using
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: one of the ports, the seaports, which is better. Some
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of those have two to one or three to one trading.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Or you can trade with other players. And now, of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: course trading with the other players is very difficult because
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: they don't want to trade with you unless it's a
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: good deal for them, and usually you don't want to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: trade with them that's a good deal for you.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: So trading with.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Other players is generally poor strategy. So then you're left
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: with research generation from dice and or working with ports.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Put on top of that, there is a robber who
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: keeps you from if you ever have more than seven
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: cards in hand.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: When the robber gets rolled, he steals half your stuff.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Which means that if you're trying to do the four
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: for one trade, even if you've got a really good
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: engine of one resource going, you can't save up because
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: your stuff will get sold. And then on top of that,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: if you do manage a trade for a resource you
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: want and someone rolls the robber, they can steal from
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: your hand, and now you have a small hand and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: they might get the resource that you just saved up
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: for and bought. Now, yet all this sounds like sour grape.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm bad at Catan. But I argue it
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: makes Catan not fun. The number of turns that I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: had in the last play of Catan where I rolled
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the dice and got nothing and watch other people get
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: things because of my dice roll, and then I had
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: like no cards or one card and nobody wanted to trade,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: so that was my turn was many. And so by
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the end of that game of Katan halfway through, which
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I started just kind of marking time until the game
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: was over, I firmly put Kittan in my no I'm
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: good list, meaning if I see people setting up Katan,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I'm probably just not going to play a game rather
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: than playing Catan. I'm a fickle boy and I do
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: like spending time with people. So who knows, six months
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: from now someone's setting up Catan.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'll join the game.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: But I really didn't have a good time, So for now,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Catan's on my now I'm Good list. There are two
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: classic games that are firmly on my now I'm Good list.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: The first of these is Monopoly. Yeah, Monopoly is probably
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the one of these on the whole now I'm Good
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: list that I'm probably the most flexible with because the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: likelihood that the person suggesting playing it is not a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: gamer it's pretty high, in which case this might be
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the game they know or the game they want to play,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And if I can't smoothly suggest something else instead, I
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: might play Monopoly just spend time with them. But in
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: general I don't like Monopoly. Even with the auction rule,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it is still so heavily influenced by luck and so
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: long I don't have a good time, So as has
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: been for a while, Monopoly is on my nah I'm
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Good list. The other game that I hear a number
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of people talk about and or see people talk about
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: in the hobby that I would put on the good
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: list is Cards Against Humanity. Cards Against Humanity is and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Apples to Apples clone Apples to Apples, of course, being
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a classic judge game of the simplest type, in which
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: you have a hint of cards. Someone lays down a
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: category and you laid down a response to that category,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and the person who has the best response and the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: judges eyes gets the point.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Cards against Humanity works the same.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Way, except that all the cards have knotty things written
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: on them. Sometimes these are gross, sometimes these are sexual.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they are gross and sexual, and those cards I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: don't have a problem with. They're generally I'm not super
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: excited to play games with that in it, but that
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: can be music.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: However, the game also has.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Sexist jokes and racist jokes in it, and like the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: dirty jokes and the gross jokes, the intent here is
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that these are meant to be transgressive and funny because
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: they're transgressive, I think, giving the designers the benefit of
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the doubt, the point of the game is not to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: get to say racist things to be racist, but rather
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: make a racist joke ironically, and the humor comes from
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the unbelievability of making that joke.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: That said, I don't enjoy most of.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Those jokes, so just from the perspective like I can't
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: enjoy them ironically, I don't enjoy them at all. And secondly,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like that game provides cover for a reflection
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: of privilege that I'm not comfortable with the way it's
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: articulated is this way.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I feel like when you play.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Cards against Humanity and one of those racist jokes comes up, there's,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: at some level in the game the implication of the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: unspoken message I'm not racist and you're not racist, so
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: we can laugh at this racist joke together, And whether
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: we're laughing at the irony of making a racist joke
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: or whether we're laughing at it because it's funny to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: racists is immaterial.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: And that's the part that I just can't deal with.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So if somebody's gonna get out Cards against Humanity, I'm
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: gonna say, nah, I'm good.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: The third game that I think would kind of.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Be an obvious one for this list, but is there, nonetheless,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: is Munchkin.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Munchkin.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: This one has a reputation in the hobby world of
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: being a game that people like when they first start
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the hobby, and then they come to dislike it over time.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The main problem with Munchkin is that it has a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: squashed the leader mechanism, by which if you want to win,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you have to fight the leader, and the game comes
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: with lots of ways to interfere with the leader, so
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the result is that the person who wins when everybody
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: has run out of their screwed the leader cards, and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: then someone is able to squeak ahead and win. In practice,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Munchkin's pretty fun for a little while, but the game
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: just runs too long and I don't see a solution
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to it given the way the game plays. So I mean,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I had a good time with it a few times,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: but also had a bad time with it many times.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: And the amusingness of the art and the humor on
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: the cards wears out over time.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: So the longer you've played it, the more you've played it, the.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: Less funny it is. And thus Munchkin lands on my
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: pile of no I'm good.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So those are.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Like I said, this Monopoly is pretty obvious for hardcore gamers.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Munchkin, I'd say, is also pretty obvious.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Cards against Humanity feels like a little bit more mixed,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: but generally that fits the.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Game I started with.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Catan I don't think has that same effect everywhere else.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: These next two that I'm gonna talk about, which are
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the last two that I have on the list, I
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: think are less universal. The first one is photosynthesis. Photosynthesis
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: is a area control game in which you're trying to
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: grow plants.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I actually have three more. An area control game in.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Which you're trying to grow plants and you are trying
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to manage the way that your plants grow while you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: are blocking the sunlight of other people. Photosynthesis might be
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the least deserving of this game to be on this list,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: because I feel like the main reason it's in my
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not good list is because I'm nah I'm a
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: good list is because I'm not good at it. But
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the thing is, I'm not good at it, and I
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: don't enjoy the game while I'm being not good at it.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: There are plenty of games that I like that I'm
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: not good at, but this game I'm not good at.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: And when it feels like I'm about to do well, then.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I often get screwed in a way that doesn't feel funny,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: just feels unpleasant. And I don't know. I've played it,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I think three or four times. Each time I have
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: not enjoyed it more. And after the last play, I said,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I hope that I'll remember not to play this again.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: And so onto the now I'm Good list, it goes
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: another game that's that way that I played recently in it,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that was the reflection that that's enough for me is
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: smash Up.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Smashup is a.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Card battling game where you are putting out cards with
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: different powers on bases, and then those bases, when they
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: get a certain amount of power on them, they trigger
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: and then you score them or not.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Not really sure why.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Smash Up wasn't fun for me, but the last couple
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: times I played it it wasn't fun. I think two
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: times ago I played it, I didn't have fun. I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: was like, I should remember that I didn't have fun.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And then a while later I played it again and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't have fun. And now it's to the point
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: where I don't think something at the core of the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: game keeps me from having fun while playing it. Maybe
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: it's too slow, that's a big part of it. Maybe
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the nature of the gameplay is not fun for me.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know. By all rights, I should like it.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: It's got hilarious theme, fun themed cards, It's got lots
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of expansions with different amusing stuff in it. But I
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: just don't have a good time when I'm playing it,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and that's a good reason to not put it on
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the list.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: That's a smashup.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: The last game that I would put on my net
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I'm Good list is Cosmic Encounter. Cosmicdcounter is a game
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I've tried several times, although it's been a while. My
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: guess is, next time somebody sets it up, I will say, sure,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I'll give it a try. But generally it's not a
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: game I enjoy. Almost every time I play, they gets
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to a point where it's just sort of feels futile.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel funny to me.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: The imbalance of power feels really random, and I don't
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy the machinations at the table to try to decide
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: who's going to win, to make.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Deals or whatever.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So yeah, every time I play Cosmic Encounter, I like
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: it less, and so I suspect that game will have
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to remain on my nah I'm Good list. I have
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: two games that I have as honorable mentions, games that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I think might end up on my net I'm a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: good list, but I would want to play one more time.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Oh no, sorry, I have one one game on my
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: net on good list, Borderline. I had Munchkin on there
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: because it's been a while since I've played it, but
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I think while I've been talking I'm like, yeah, I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: don't need to play that again. The other one that's
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: on the borderline there is Arboretum. Arboretam is a card
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: collecting game where you're building a path of trees in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: front of you, and then at the end of the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: game there's this weird scoring thing where whoever has the
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: highest point card of a particular tree type in their
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: hand gets to score that tree type, meaning you might
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: have the best path of those trees, but if you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: don't have the highest card, you don't get to score it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's an incredibly mean game, and really the only way
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to play well is to be mean, and I don't
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: like being mean in games. It's one thing I mean.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Here's why I think it might be Maybe I'll enjoy
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it if I play it again, going in knowing it's mean,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: knowing it's a game where you are mean to each other.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: It does I could see myself enjoying it. Last time
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: I played it. I knew it was mean, but I
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about it as a game where you have
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to be mean. So I probably would play it one
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: more time if someone brought it said they wanted to,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: But ultimately I didn't enjoy being mean to other players
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: sabotaging their work, which is what you kind of have
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to do to do well in our breedom. So that
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: is mine nah I'm good list. I hope that you
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: enjoyed it, and I look forward to next time we talk.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: What games do you have on your nah I'm good list.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Head over to board game Geek Guild three two sixty
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: nine closet. In there, I want to know what games
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: you won't play with me. Thanks for joining me Milwauk today.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Lost Hellbye. Brought to you by rattle bo