Evolution of a board gamer

[Chewy77]

I thought a Leatherman had a defence… but I could be wrong…

[GabrielH]

@RogerBW

a game in shrink is a wasted game. It’s not going to mature like wine

I have a few that certainly smell like they have…

[yashima]

How did we get from a funny video to a debate about knives?
Oh… that was my post?

…

…

Oops.

[MitchtheDM]

I never open my games right away!
I guess I should explain why not, okay for two reasons.

First off is I have enough games that my knowledge of the rules (including all the little special cases and exceptions) will slowly degrade with time so I try to not have to fully learn the rules twice before paying the game to solidify them in my noggin.

I guess this matters for the opening of games because my step 3 of that process is read the entire manual from front to back. Reading is the best way for me to learn the game and it helps for sorting out all the punched tokens, cards, and stuff because I now know what I can group together.

Secondly I love the little ritual of opening and learning a new game and it gets me excited to play that game. I find if I open a a game and then don’t play it for weeks my excitement for that first play dulls vs if I leave it still in shrink my excitement usually just builds. This matters a lot more because I am the main teacher of rules and games buyer in my group and if I’m not as excited to play a game, that gets across in the teach and then everyone has a less exciting first play of said game (though I certainly still try to be enthusiastic in the teach).

So yeah the current process that I maintain for maximum enjoyment for myself and everyone else is leave the game in shrink and let the excitement percolate then a few days before said games night I’ll open it up and learn the rules and get excited.
I fully acknowledge that it’s an odd kind of delayed satisfaction system but it works for me haha.

[RogerBW]

I have generally been in the habit of opening a game only just before I play it… but these days a KS may well have component issues and that needs to be resolved fairly immediately.

[Brattyjedi]

I have more of the collector in me than I’m comfortable with but none of the categories fit perfectly. I still found it a cute and silly sketch.

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If I open a game when it first arrives before I’m ready to play it, I can organize all the pieces, read all the way through the rule book, and figure out how to play. If I wait until I’m going to play it, my husband will want to start playing as we open bags of components and read the rules, often being halfway through his first turn - picking random actions to take just to get the game going - while I still don’t understand what setup is supposed to look like.

[Sexagesimalian]

When i get a new game, I have to make sure that everything that is supposed to be in the box is in the box. I don’t have to read the rules, but if I need to contact the manufacturer about missing or broken parts, I want to know that immediately.

[Phil]

With larger boxes I tend to separate the unboxing processes from the learning-the-game processes. I do check components, but mostly it’s because unboxing/punching out/organising/bagging/maybe-sleeving things is time-consuming, and I’d rather not use up my “learning the game” time by doing that, if I can get it out of the way in advance. (And that is partly because learning the game always takes longer than I expect, so any wasted time up front could be a killer.)

[Phil]

@Chewy77

I used to have a little swiss penknife keyring thingy. But the one time I forgot I had it on me I had to part ways with it at airport security in Gatwick. Even though the little blade was 2.5 centimeters at a push, it had to go.

I’ve carried one of these for years, and it’s great! Tiny enough to carry everywhere, and everything in it has been repeatedly useful.

I once forgot it was in my pocket when I went to the airport, showed it to security with a sigh, and they said “it’s tiny; that’s fine, you can take it” – I said thank you very much and felt very relieved to have not lost it, but could only question their comprehension of knives. (Similarly, I’ve often been served meals on a plane with a plastic knife and a metal fork, and questioned their comprehension of pointy metal generally.)

I mention this mostly because while looking up the model of my pocket knife, I noticed they have a Jetsetter model without a knife (but with scissors, so still useful for opening things). I’d rather have the knife, but this looks useful for frequent-flyers.

[MikeimusPrime]

@Phil

I noticed they have a Jetsetter model without a knife (but with scissors, so still useful for opening things)

But … can’t you stab things with scissors too? I think I’m with you on questioning their comprehension of pointy metal.

[GeeBizzle]

I almost feel like “could I stab with this” could be an in very poor taste, thread of it’s own.

[COMaestro]

And pencils, pens, chopsticks, styluses, etc. There is no end of pointy things that could be used to stab people that were not forbidden for air travel for a while. But don’t you dare bring your nail clippers!

The people who make these rules are stupid.

[EnterTheWyvern]

@COMaestro

The people who make these rules are stupid.

I thought they made good rules that were compromised by lobbying. This could just be exposing my biases

[COMaestro]

My complaint is more emotional than researched.

[EnterTheWyvern]

That’s how we’re supposed to communicate on The internet. Well done us for firing off speculation at each other, do we get gold internet stars?

[COMaestro]

Can’t give a star, but I can give a heart.

[Phil]

[Griffster77]

@Phil

(Similarly, I’ve often been served meals on a plane with a plastic knife and a metal fork, and questioned their comprehension of pointy metal generally.)

Yes!! My thoughts exactly!!