Sunday, April 17, 2016

Gaming Focus

Recently I have been having various discussions about gaming with several of my gaming friends about gaming in general.  Now all of this is just my personal feelings.  I realized a long time ago that no two gamers see the hobby exactly the same.  I know gamers that are even more easily distracted than I am (which says a lot), gamers that seemingly never get rid of anything, others that have a lot of unstarted projects but only play one game, and others that play only one or two things and are happy with it.  Much of this goes back to something I have struggled with for quite some time:

  • The "look shiney" or "squirrel" effect of jumping into new projects before old projects even see the table, or before I have a feeling on how a game actually plays or whether my friends will truly be interested in playing.
The conversations with my gaming friends have just really reinforced my new found mantra of doing what makes me happy.  I believe I am going to cut back some on the number of games/systems I play.  I feel that it may be difficult for me to not get distracted and remain focused in doing so, but in the long run if I can overcome that struggle, I will likely be able to accomplish more of what I really want to do focused on rules/periods that I really enjoy and am familiar with. 

Another issue that drives some of my gamer friends crazy is how I divest/get rid of stuff.  Meanwhile it drives me crazy to have: 
  • Armies sitting unused for extended periods of time (years in some cases);
  • Projects sitting (again sometimes for years) not being started or started and never worked on to completion because someone else has more than enough stuff for me to game; and,
  • Not playing a set of rules or similar rules on a frequent enough basis that I don't have to keep thumbing through the rules to look stuff up.
I have always seen my hobby materials, figures, rules, etc. as "currency" in effect that I can sell or trade off to fund the next greatest thing.  The wheeling and dealing I do is part of the hobby to me, and in the past I have sold unused projects to fund new projects frequently; in some cases I have even gone back and reinvested in scales/periods/genres that I had previously gotten rid of.  I regret the time lost painting and basing when I do this and it is something I did myself, but if it is something I paid to get painted then I certainly don't have the same attachment.  I think this will continue, but since I will be narrowing my focus it is more likely to mean getting rid of some stuff for projects my heart isn't into or possibly changing scales to better fit what I want to do.

The difficult answer I have to come up with now is where to start?

6 comments:

Robert said...

Hey Tom, this was an interesting talk today. I think your situation is one all gamers have to a certain degree. Hopefully, you can find a few things that you love and that are easy to keep the motivation going with. I have struggled with similar issues for years as you know and have gone with the self imposed denial approach. Don't be surprised if this is harder than you thought. To a certain extent how you approach the hobby is a reflection of your personality and that is not easy to change! Good luck and have fun.

Tom O said...

So true...easier said than done as always!

Tim Kulinski said...

Tom,

As Rob pointed out, its going to be hard to stay focused and sometimes self realization is scary. One reason I started back up with Model Railroading was to give me a break from gaming. It helps me stay some what focused on gaming. When I feel like I need to get rid of all gaming stuff, I switch over to Model railroading projects, then switch back.

One other problem I think we are all suffering from is a lack of a common game. For years we were all focused on WAB, then LotR followed by FoW. Now we are all doing other projects, some cross paths with each other, but we are all working on different things.

In the end you have to do what makes you happy man and that's all that really matters.

Tom O said...

Thanks for the input Tim. There isn't anything wrong with working on different things and enjoying it; we just have to keep in mind everyone else and make the effort to get together and play games we all have mutual interest in. Thanks again.

Dagreenskins said...

One day I will focus on just one project but till then did you see that new game that just game out, lol.

Tom O said...

Oh, I am not that delusional...I would never be able to focus on just one project...I simply want to focus on FEWER projects!