Sunday Magazine22:48Rolling the Dice About Human Nature: How Tabletop Games Reveal Ancient Secrets
Tim Clare sat in the board game “Miser's Cave” during the pandemic when he realized something was missing in his life.
“My first panic moment was, Oh my god, when will I play the game again?” Claire told Sunday Magazine Guest host Nora Young.
“Until then, I took them for granted, that I never thought about the composition of my life.”
Clare is a board game reporter, too Overall: How Games Make Us Human. He traveled the world and talked about games with people and found that something like Catan or Parcheesi could do is a bit special.
Board games like monopoly or wingspan aren’t just fun things to do in the rainy summer, he said. They can give people the opportunity to control their situation, especially during times of chaos and make choices in situations that may not affect your life in one way or another.
Board game in crisis
Board games are especially important in times of crisis, Claire said. He said that during World War I, soldiers fought parcheesi in trencheesi.
“They do this for a reason, and I think it's because it provides a very, very important thing that humans need, it's relief, escape and freedom.”
And there are many more examples. Clare recently spoke with Ukrainian soldiers stationed on the frontlines of the Russian war, while his son is in the Netherlands as a refugee.
Despite being separate, the pair connect online to a board game called Blood Bowl, a fantasy football game that includes teams of elves, dwarves and goblins from Games Workshop’s Warhammer Universe.
“It's a game they play together when they're together, and they continue to stay in touch in the absence of each other,” Claire said.
“The literal bomb fell from the sky, someone took the time to build all these little models. … I think this should tell you something important, and it's one of his priorities.”
Scott Preston said their family was trapped in old games in the basement or a way to play online with friends during the 19th pandemic.
“They just have a lot of time to sit and play with each other,” said associate professor Preston.
In fact, so much time has created a board game boom.
“The entire industry exploded with sales and interest, and newcomers entered hobbies during Covid,” Preston said.
Make a choice
Board games are different from movies and books, or other hobbies that can distract your life problems because they will give you a choice depending on how you play it.
“Games, because they are an interactive medium, you do have a different sense of control over what’s going on,” Preston said. “Games make you feel…you’re making a decision and having some control over your own destiny.”
Unlike video games, he said, which are also interactive and enjoyed industry prosperity during the pandemic.
“Board games still bring us something we can't get from video games that sit on tables opposite people in physical space and interact with them. It's a very powerful social benefit,” Preston said.
It also enables you to address social situations that you may not have in real life, such as a military conquering risks or a savvy negotiator in a monopoly, Clare said.
“Every game is a form of role-playing. Even if you play checkers to a certain extent, you have to play the role of an opponent against your friends sitting across the cabin,” he said. “Like, you really don't want to beat them on this battlefield.”
Part of the fun and why these roles are being played is because the results are not important.
When you compare the frequent, sometimes heavy decisions a person makes every day in life, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to decide whether you should build a hotel in a park square in a monopoly game.
For the same reason, the uncertainty brought by many games is also being released.
“When it seems so huge that it's not going to be extremely disastrous when it seems like it's so important that you allow yourself to spend half an hour, an hour, and do something, whether we do well or well, it won't be extremely disastrous,” Claire said.
