Collecting Versus Playing

 Being a Board Game Collector Versus Being a Board Game Player

There is, I think, a trap in which many of us who are passionate about our hobbies can find ourselves ensnared before we even realize it happened. It likely happened long before we figure out that the trap was sprung! In some cases, we see it happening, but feel helpless against it. What's the trap?

"Knowing where the trap is — that's the first step in evading it."

Being a collector instead of being a player. Such a phrase may feel like it has limited application to areas outside of board games, but I assure you that while the phrasing can likely use some work, it still applies. Having a closet full of clothes is not inherently a bad thing! But how often are you wearing those clothes? Are you buying them because you wear them, or because you have to have them? When you're buying those books, are you reading them? Or are they mostly taking up space on your bookshelves? When you buy your board games, are you playing them, or are you buying them because you have to own them?

I promise, I'm not! I'm right there with you!!

It can be real difficult to be deep in a hobby without falling into this trap. As I type this, I've got 3 games and 2 expansions still in shrink wrap. I've played 7 Wonders before and enjoyed it enough to buy my own copy, but my own copy has never even been opened! I have 23 games on my shelf that I have not yet played. That's...too many. Like, way too many. How does this happen?! What do I do about it?!?

There's any number of ways this can happen, but the end result is the same: you've invested in games that are collecting dust. Sure, you can flip them. And a lot of people do! But maybe you mean to get to them at some point! It just hasn't happened yet! Well, let's start with the obvious: maybe stop buying games for the moment? No, really. I know it's not easy. I'm obviously struggling with it. But slow down! Unless you're finding out of print (OOP) games that are a deal or something, most of the games we feel the urge to buy are newer and aren't in danger of being unavailable to us at some point in the future when we've caught up on our game titles a little bit.

"You'd love my brother. AMAZING Tote Lifer!"

Also, when you're setting up a game night, figure out what you want to play ahead of time! This way, you don't spend 20 minutes equivocating over what should hit the table. By the time you make the decision, you're more likely to bring something familiar to the table so you don't lose even more time learning or teaching a new game. If you do your homework ahead of time, it makes it much more likely you'll work your way through your library.

But it's not just a matter of playing each of your games once that will ensure you're a player and not just a collector. After all, how many times do we play a game for the first time, then sort of hem and haw over what we did wrong and what we learned, and then say, "Yeah, okay, I'd play it differently the next time?" So I think we're still stuck in the trap of collecting if we're playing each game once and then keeping them all on our shelves with the intention to, one day, return to each title. For me, this is sort of an extension of my being a completionist. There are certain games that I'm perfectly happy to have a base game and not own anything else. Power Grid is a great example. I love the game! I don't play it often enough to even really want any of the expansions. I own Terraforming Mars, Mystic Vale, and others for which I just, again, do not feel the need to purchase expansions. But on the flip side of that coin...

I'll never be cool enough to be Kermit, but a man can dream...

...I own every expansion for Eldritch Horror, even though I likely play it solo about 2/3rds of the time I play it. I own every expansion for Everdell, even though I've barely scratched the surface of any single expansion (and have only ever played the base game with other people!). Spirit Island? Oh man, I've gone in hard on that game. Not only do I own everything for it, but I've also sleeved all of the cards, bought card boxes, have an entire system of organization for it. Let's not get into Descent: Journeys in the Dark, and how I own literally everything there is to own for that game. When I like something, my completionist nature kicks in hard.

So what am I doing to combat this? Welp, I'm trying to organize more game nights with a bit of an agenda. "I figured we'd play a couple of games. I definitely want Beyond the Sun to hit the table, but beyond that, I'm flexible!" or "You up for playing Root after Spirit Island tonight? Then maybe end on something light?" Make sure you don't wait a year to get back to a game you really liked! By the time you get back to it, you might as well be playing it for the first time all over again. I've also worked up a little list of the games that I own into a priority list, grouping together what I *need* to play versus what I *want* to play.

And at some point, I'll likely end up doing what my friend Chad has done: going through my game collection, and weeding out the games that are unlikely to ever hit the table unless someone desperately wants to play it. For instance, I bought Scoville on sale quite some time ago. Could NOT wait to play it! I had read so many good things about it, and my friend Roger had been all about trying it out. When we finally played it, we were disappointed. We liked what the game was trying to do, but there were just foundational elements of the game that we weren't digging. We want to revisit it with the Scoville: Labs expansion to see if that offsets any of the mechanics we didn't like. But if we find that it doesn't, then why is the game still on my shelf? At some point, I think we need to be honest with ourselves as gamers and say, "If I'm given the choice, this game isn't one I'm likely to ever choose on my own again." It's not necessarily that it's even bad! But if the owner of the game isn't ever going to pick it off the shelf, then why bother holding onto it?

Sorry - it does not.

I'm not saying we need to narrow our collections down to only the best 5 titles we own. I'm just saying that we don't necessarily need THIS.

...Unless we're learning game design and working on our own designs, in which case, I feel completely justified!

There are games on this shelf that I can afford to quit. I'm unlikely to ever bring them to the table unless someone sees it sitting there and had always wanted to learn it. If I personally don't really want to bring a game from my shelf to the table, then I probably don't need it. Lately, I've found myself hanging onto some games just because I'm interested in the mechanics from a designs standpoint. When COVID is less of a threat and I'm playing games more regularly, there are some games I've got on a list that I'd like to play with other people so we can really pin down what it is that I don't like about certain mechanics. But once I've done that? It's simply in my best interest to strike these games from the shelf and see if I can't find a more loving home for them! Otherwise, I don't really have a game room so much as a game museum, and that's not really a thing I'm interested in hosting.