This is a Truth of many a situation. However, I’ve been working on making myself care less about winning and losing, especially in the case of games heavily dependent on luck, or diplomacy (because the first is not up to me, and the second is way beyond my abilities). Strangely, it’s easier in some games more than others – for example, even though Hearthstone has a huge luck factor, I still take it personally when I lose, for some reason – and I think this “caring factor” hasn’t been given enough attention in the gamer community. For me, it’s an important factor in determining how much I enjoy a game, and that in turn can influence my decision when buying new games. Will I care about winning? And if so, what are my chances of winning?
Most theme-heavy games are played mostly “for the experience”. Losing in Eldritch Horror isn’t a big deal (actually, winning is a big deal, losing is the expected norm), since you’ve had a fun experience playing it. This is obviously one of the major reasons most cooperative games are theme-heavy – you tend to lose in these games, and so, wanting to win must not be the major reason for playing. It’s also one of the main points of RPGs in general – again, basically a type of a cooperative game; since you can’t actually win or lose, you’re playing only for the journey and not for the conclusion.
What about you guys, any games in which you find it hard to stop caring about winning? If so, do you have any idea why?
On a different note, since Forbidden Stars is available now, I thought about doing a strip about it, something like this:
Panel 1: Everyone is playing around a table, Nadav makes an excellent move against Lilly.
Panel 2: Nadav makes a remark about how excellent his move was, and asks Lilly what she can possibly do to defeat him now.
Panel 3: Lilly shouts “EXTERMINATUS!” and flips the table.
After that we’ll add three bonus panels, like this:
Panel 1: [Aviv and me are standing next to each other] Aviv: “I think this strip might appeal to a somewhat narrow audience.”
Panel 2: [Silent]
Panel 3: [I’m pushing Aviv of into a pit full of explosions while yelling] “EXTERMINATUS!”
Aviv’s reaction to this suggestion was summarized by this.
