Takeaways

• Gaming preferences can evolve over time, with a shift towards lighter and quicker games.
• Simple solo games can provide a peaceful and meditative experience.
• Adapting to changing gaming preferences and finding enjoyment in different types of games is important.
• There are parallels between stages of faith and stages of gaming, with a journey from zealousness to a holistic approach.
• Continued enjoyment of games requires avoiding jadedness and appreciating the role of play in the larger human experience.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
02:01 The Origins of the Topic
03:02 The Concept of Seasons
04:22 The Story of "This Too Shall Pass"
06:21 The Wisdom of Ecclesiastes
09:17 Personal Gaming Stages
12:22 Discovering Board Game Geek
13:34 The Magic of Board Games
15:17 Rediscovering the Magic
24:16 Transition to Selectivity
28:02 Realizing the Need for Selectivity
30:12 Preference for Lighter and Quicker Games
30:57 Enjoyment of Simple Solo Games
33:18 Adapting to Changing Gaming Preferences
36:18 Appreciation for Game Setup and Learning
37:35 Stages of Faith and Stages of Gaming
46:15 Connecting Games to Life and Faith
49:07 Reflections on Becoming the Person You Once Judged
53:08 Continued Enjoyment of Games and Avoiding Jadedness
57:13 Upcoming Episode: Book Club and Special Announcement

Daniel's stages/approaches of gaming

• Trusting - You just trust what others tell you (games are for kids)
• Zealous - You dig deep into the particular details and embrace them and defending them as world-defining. (Tell others about types of games.)
  • Sectarian - This thing unites and defines your particular people. (You find your peeps and you celebrate what makes your group unique.)
  • Personal - You own this thing for yourself. You question it, make it your own. (Finding your own gaming style; doesn't have to be like others.)
  • Connecting - You see how this thing is connected to other things. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. (How do games relate to other things in life.)
  • Holistic - This thing is just part of a larger whole. (Gaming is part of a the larger mystery of life)

NEXT TIME - Book Club: Simeon Zahl Article, "Play and Freedom: Patterns of Life in the Spirit"

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How is death represented in games?

• It is the nature of games to abstract reality. How to abstract death?
• Simplest example perhaps is chess - the piece is removed from the board for the rest of the game
• The state is permanently changed for the rest of the game
• But we don’t care about chess pieces - we care about humans and living creatures (maybe trees?), so games that evoke humanlike characters make us feel loss in powerful ways

A word about grief

• Grief is a natural & important and unavoidable response to loss
• This is not a look at grief, except perhaps tangentially.

Interesting examples of death in games

• Village - cemetery, legacy
• Werewolf - you are out of the game and watch what is happening to everyone else
• Games that poke at death in a humorous or horror way - Zombies, etc.
• Legacy games where the state is permanently changed even from one game to another
• Art games (like the kind Alice Connor enjoys) that represent the emotions of death? Train and Endurance.

How do we feel about death in games? When we die or kill off another player?

Lessons of faith from death in games

• The importance of being present to the moment
  • Parent and child with potentially fatal cancer playing games together during treatments. Forgetting the treatments. The gift of games is to anchor us in the present.
• The permanence of death - Ways of coping when states permanently change
• On the other hand, the impermanence of death - Perhaps what Buddhists call the illusion of death?? Life continues. Another wave forms on the ocean.
• Reminder of John Glynn
• How easily we can become numb to death—precisely by abstracting it—in real life.

Another discussion of each in games from the “Two Wood for a Wheat” podcast - https://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/135031/death-board-games

00:00 Introduction: Death in Gaming
12:12 Lightening the Mood with Wordplay
13:12 Abstracting Death in Games
18:20 Games that Deal with Mortality
23:04 Examples of Death in Games
26:54 Village: Generations and Legacy
29:30 ISS Vanguard: Memorial Wall
31:51 Death and Remembering
32:27 The Changing Nature of Funerals
34:08 Using Games as a Eulogy
35:33 Art Games and Emotional Impact
36:16 Legacy Games and Permanence
39:36 Lessons of Faith from Death and Games
48:19 The Importance of Memory
49:21 Death as a Doorway
53:28 The Ocean and Impermanence
56:36 Wrapping Up

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Topics Explored

• party games and fun recommendations
• the value of embracing failure and learning from it
• player elimination games for assertive personalities
• bluffing games for challengers
• understanding and meeting others' gaming preferences
• choosing games based on personality types, seasons of life and gaming preferences.

Takeaways

• The Enneagram can provide insights into our motivations, fears, and values.
• Understanding and respecting others' differences is essential for healthy relationships.
• Different Enneagram types may be drawn to different types of board games.
• Negotiation games may appeal to Enneagram type 6, the Loyalist.
• Party games and light-hearted games may appeal to Enneagram type 7, the Enthusiast. Party games are a great recommendation for social gatherings.
• Embracing failure in games can help us learn and grow.
• Player elimination games can be enjoyable for assertive personalities.
• Bluffing games can be engaging for challengers.
• Understanding and meeting others' gaming preferences can enhance the gaming experience.
• Choosing games based on personality types can lead to more enjoyable gameplay.
• Gaming preferences may change over different seasons of life.
• Switch and Signal, and Cat in the Box are their favorite games from the recent Christmas holiday

Chapters

00:00 Unique Personalities and Enneagram Part 2
06:03 Background of Enneagram
13:10 Limitations of Enneagram
21:20 Enneagram Type 5: The Investigator
27:58 Enneagram Type 6: The Loyalist
33:36 Enneagram Type 7: The Enthusiast
34:43 Party Games and Fun Recommendations
36:37 Embracing Failure and Learning from It
39:09 Enneagram Type 8: Asserter/Challenger
47:08 Understanding and Meeting Others' Gaming Preferences
54:12 Seasons of Life and Gaming Preferences
56:30 Game Recommendations: Switch and Signal, Cat in the Box

What is sin in the Christian tradition?

What do we mean by “7 Deadly Sins”? 7 deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. Developed in the 300s with the Desert Fathers, especially Evagrius Ponticus. The 7 capital virtues were chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. In Dante’s Inferno there are 8 categories of sin: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, Treachery.

The Sins of Board Gaming

1 - It’s All About Winning (Pride and Wrath)

• Winning as ontological end and not functional end (trading seriousness for delight)
• Fraud and treachery were the worst sins in Dante’s mind
• For games to work, you have to try to win, but winning is no more the point of games than framing is the point of a house or the engine is the point of a car

2 - It’s All About Owning (Greed and Envy)

• Hyper consumption of games - materialism
• How does this game fit in my collection?
• This is not a cheap hobby (no hobby is cheap, in the end), so what fits in your budget and priorities?
• I love the idea of a game swap or trade or market so you get some value out of them and they don’t clutter up your life (Marie Kondo)
• Seeing ourselves first and foremost as consuming beings can rob us of delight and gratitude over what is before us. World in a cup of tea.

3 - It’s All About You Being Right (Pride)

• Arrogance about different games (trading exclusion for inclusion) - tribalism. My games are better than your games. My people are better than your people. My god is better than your god.
• Assumption that everyone should play games

4 - It’s All About You Being in Control (Pride)

• Alpha player (trading control for agency)

5 - It’s All About You (Pride)

• Putting the games over people - Buddhist concept of valuing people over principles
• Flexing your games or knowledge
• Putting principles over people - Buddhist teaching, Jesus tooTurning play into work

6 - People Not Taking Gaming Seriously (Sloth)

• Bringing the wrong attitude to the table
• Not respecting other’s property
• Cheetos
• Agreeing to play a game but not really focus on it

7 - Turning Play into Work?

• The nature of sin is that it takes something and good and twists it
• There’s more to life than games
• Anything can become your god

Next Episode - Liz Davidson - Value of Solo Gaming

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Links:

• Seven deadly sins - Wikipedia

Pp 15-25

Did God create the world as an act of play?

God is a free creator - could have made the world or not, yet is still divine so it can’t be just random.

God did not have to create the world, but neither did God make something random.

The world is meaningful but not necessary – and necessary labor will not save us. Work is productive and gainful but not play.

It is a game in the sense – God made the world for God’s pleasure, God’s play

Prov 8:30-31
then I was beside him, like a master worker,
and I was daily his delight,
playing before him always,
playing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Without the freedom of play, the world turns into a desert.

How we imitate God

God can make and play out of nothingness because of divinity – we can only play with reality and created things. But we imitate God when we receive the kingdom of God like a child, when we absorbed and serious about a game but also transcend ourselves in knowing it is just a game.

"Where everything must be useful and used, faith tends to regard its own freedom as good for nothing." (15)

Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: one of the greatest temptations of the Christian leader (leader of faith) is to be relevant. "Relevance" is such a difficult topic - both encouraged and discouraged in the church. Perhaps it is really the temptation "to be needed" - to make others dependent on oneself.

We are to glorify God and enjoy God forever in the Westminster Catechism 1647.

So not through our usefulness or work or purposes, in our service, but in our enjoyment. We negotiate this in a society that only rewards usefulness, labor, and consumption.

The problem of the Puritan work ethic.

The other challenge of religion only being about ethics, and not about aesthetics.

“To put it simply, the birds are singing more than Darwin permits” Buytendijk.

Instead of life being “the seriousness of making history,” it becomes the “calm rejoining in existence itself.” Otherwise the seriousness of making history can be demonic, despairing, or all about us (23).

To not only play but to be played, as the game of life impacts us. We might be “sheltered by the game,” because “the loser wins” (24, quoting Péguy).

Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning - our most fundamental drive is in life is for meaning.

The spiritual benefits of creation and games (18)

• Sincerity
• Mirth
• Suspense
• Relaxation
• Full presence
• Transcendence
• Freedom

Our purpose--the purpose of creation--AND the purpose of play--is not found in usefulness or meeting goals, but in the "demonstrative value of being" (Buytendijk, Dutch) (19)

Seeing the meaning of life only in terms of usefulness will inevitably lead to a crisis. (19). Ideologies that seek to tell us otherwise are simply trying to turn us into cogs in their machinery.

"Infinite responsibility destroys a human being because he is only man and not god." (23)

Play shifts the focus away from achievement and more toward simply being.

Links:

• Jürgen Moltmann - Wikipedia

• Held at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs, next to Garden of Gods
• 5 days and 4 nights
• Sponsored by Office of Congregational Excellence of the Missouri Annual Conference of United Methodist Church
• About 33 participants - mostly clergy, but some lay persons as well
• The fourth of a series of spiritual formation retreats known as “Soul Connections” - this one was on the theme of “Enchantment”
• Stayed in a lodge, ate meals in the castle, hiked through surrounding hills and mountains
• Asked me to lead three 2-hour sessions on “Theology of Play”

Day 1 - Introduction to Play

• Bernard Suits’ definition of game – “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”
• Talked about my own journey into gaming
• Research into gaming
  • Games and play are essentially the same thing
  • Play has been an essential part of the human condition (including adults) since the beginning of history
  • Theologians interested in play too! Play as salvation
• Played “Just One”
  • Reflect on how games help us be present to each other, gives us sense of agency
  • Play as grace
• Parker Palmer - Play as sign of calling - asked folks to reflect

Day 2 - Barriers to Play

• Told them Monopoly history
• If play is so good for us, why are we resistant to it?
• Told story of Bernard Suits' The Grasshopper except for the ending - including haunting dream
• Historical roots of barriers to play
  • Reformation, Age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution
  • “Earning” salvation was replaced with “proving” salvation
  • Being productive was sign of virtue; being unproductive was sign of immorality
  • “Morality of achievement” - Moltmann
  • Turns human into cogs in machines
  • “Pushback on idea of play as work which we want to do. Someone shared story of “workaholic” who said “my work is my play.”
• Played Wits & Wagers - reflection
• Reflection on Genesis 3:1-6 - Adam & Eve & serpent
  • Sin was thinking we didn’t need God or anyone else. We could prove our worth through our achievement.
  • The greatest barrier to play is “practical atheism” - the belief that we can’t rely on God, not really. We have to prove our worth and value by achieving and producing.
• Ending of the Grasshopper - everything is unnecessary from a utopian point of view (or cosmic scale), so all is play

Day 3 - Toward a Playful Life

• 2 tools to help us move toward a playful life:
• Sabbath - Looked at the book The Sabbath by Joshua Abraham Heschel
  • Sabbath hallows time like temples hallow space
  • Just as a Sabbath is the end unto itself (not to “recharge”), so too is play. It is not in service to work.
• Jane McGonigal - Reality is Broken
  • The opposite of work is not play, it is despair, hopelessness.
  • Work is about having agency.
  • So work is just play we want to do.
  • So how can we make work more into something we want to do - gamification of life!
• How will world view us if we move toward a playful life? 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
  • Holy Fool Tradition
• Filling out “Character Creation Sheet” - make your own Holy Fool Self (Mandi Hutchinson)

General Reflections

1. Made me wonder whether it would be helpful to lay out 3 terms, not just 2:
   1. Play - voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles
   2. Work - obligatory attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles
   3. Rest - refraining from both of the above
2. More barriers to play for women than men
3. Character sheets - some were reluctant. Maybe pass out the day before to get people time to work on it.
4. Wits & Wagers didn’t quite work as well as I hoped. Would replace next time with the Mind.
5. What seemed to resonate with people:
   1. Suits’ definition of games
   2. Ending of Grasshopper - everything is unnecessary
   3. Play as calling

WE WANT TO DO THIS MORE! If you would like Kevin or Daniel or both to teach about the theology of play on your context, or serve as a resource in any other way, please let us know!

Defining a Religiously Themed Game

Your definition: “One whose theme is primarily but not exclusively exploring the practice, history, or theology of any religion or spiritual tradition.”

Some examples

1. The Settlers of Zarahemla
2. Ierusalem: Anno Domini
3. Ezra and Nehemiah (forthcoming)
4. Nicaea

What Makes a Great Religious-Themed Game?

1. It succeeds at what it’s trying to do.
2. It explores its theme complexly and appropriately for its weight.
3. It is joyous.
4. It comforts the player and/or exhorts them to a higher good.

Your hypothesis: “Games that tend to intend to convince the player of something tend to be worse than games that play in the space.”

What are Our Top 3 Religiously Themed Games?

Kevin: Frostpunk, Freedom: The Underground Railroad, Sleeping Gods
Daniel: Red Cathedral, Biblios, Heaven & Ale
Alice: Acts of the Evangelists, Nuns on the Run, Zen Tiles

Links:

• Table Talk Episode 009: A Chat About House Rules » The Daily Worker Placement
• Alice Connor
• Alice Connor (@pastoralice) • Instagram photos and videos

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Jürgen Moltmann, born 1926, German Reformed theologian who is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen and is known for his books such as the Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, God in Creation, and Theology of Play.

Drafted 1943 to fight for Nazi Germany, surrendered in 1945 and was a POW in Belgium, became a Christian, and then was a POW in Scotland and England, then went home in 1948, earned a doctorate from the University of Göttingen in 1952, was a pastor and a professor.

Today, the first major section of the book, which is a "Holy Grail" of theological game studies out now out of print, pages 1-14. It’s dense, bruh! From another time period.

Theme 1: Is it moral to play games in a hurting world?

Psalm 126: When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter.

Happiness, joy, and laughter, are all connected to FREEDOM. A freedom in joy and play.

Human Beings are “the first liberated being in creation” – Moltmann is using a phrase from Herder, an 18th century German poet and philosopher.

“These sketches seek to reassert the value of aesthetic joy against the absolute claims of ethics.”

Not a laughter that is forced or from despair, or from mocking others, or cynical, or snobbish sarcasm. But true laughter.

But is it moral to laugh with joy in a hurting world?

"Does it not seem that the...revival of play...in the affluent West is forced and outright unnatural as long as there are...hells on earth? Homo ludens and the redemption of our right to happiness, fun, and games appear to be fine--but for those who can afford them. To all others they must appear in bad taste." (2)

"My commitment to be miserable does nothing to relieve the suffering of others. If anything, it increases the amount of suffering in the world."

Moltmann responds to the morality of gaming in a suffering world by maintaining that this book is not addressed to those who ignore suffering, but to those who are in the midst of it or who are on the precipice of despair because of it.

"When...I dare to talk about the enjoyment of our freedom and our pleasure in playing games, I am not addressing myself to those who are incapable of feeling....  I am turning to those who are mourning and suffering with others, who are protesting and feeling oppressed by the excess of evil in their society, who are weighed down by their own impotence so that they are ready to despair or seek to forget." (2)

Playing games is not about the denial of suffering, but the transformation of it.

Theme 2: Are games about freedom, or oppression?

Is this only for the privileged?

Is laughter a distraction from suffering, or a form of liberation?

“Religion is the opiate of the people" (Marx), _panem et circenses _bread and circuses for the ancient Romans. Does this apply to games too?

Are games a way to make us better workers, we forget our misery if we have some distraction? Like_ Hunger Games_ were for the districts and Panem.

Moltmann then argues that both political revolutions and theological reformations ultimately fail to bring true freedom. He is critical of both the right and the left on this point.

In the preface, he is critical of the "absolute claims of ethics" by both conservative "pharisees" and revolutionary "zealots."

He is also critical of how such movements use games and play as "relief valves" for the masses, to allow them a little simulation of freedom so that they are more willing to submit to control again.

The game Trajan is a great example of this. You have to meet your people's needs or you are punished, and the 3 needs are bread, religion, and games.

Games are seen as a means to end: they help us to "recharge" and "blow off steam" so that we can go back to being good workers again, and so that we can submit to the prevailing cultural ethic again. This is a deficient view of games. Yet, Moltmann says that even a deficient view of the value of games is better than not valuing games at all.

Moltmann maintains that real revolutions to liberate humanity have to begin not be changing how we work and organize ourselves, but changing how we play. (12)

He says we do not play games to escape the past and present (as society would have believe), but to empower us to envision a better future. Real games are about the future, not the past.

How ? "Games...afford us an opportunity to experiment with free expression and with new human relationships."  (13)

Games and play also help to free us the control of fear.

How have we personally experienced this? How have games helped to anticipate a better future for us?

The promise and problem of player elimination (Monopoly, Chess, Checkers, Risk)

Direct versus indirect competition

Excitement of “dudes on a map”

Ameritrash risk and explosive moments, Interaction, luck, can be mean

War gaming is a variant (and how board games began) – Root! Root! Root!

Euro is more about resource management (Tapestry, Caracassonne, Wingspan, Feast for Odin)

How are they good for the soul?

Euro stresses planning, focus, no player elimination, safe themes

Focus on bettering self not putting others down; models helpful skills for today’s world; encourages non-dualistic thinking

Ameritrash stresses conflict, high stakes, sweet victories and moments, possibly fun defeats, good memories

** Our contest ends June 15! You can be entered to win some awesome prizes by posting a photo of yourself and a favorite game at your place of worship on Instagram with the hastag #boardgamefaith.

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Links:

• Helvetica (film) - Wikipedia
• Amerigame - Wikipedia
• Eurogame - Wikipedia

Is Star Wars a work of sci-fi fundamentalism?

What's so threatening about our imaginations to religious authorities?

Are there limits to the imagination, such as the level of violence in a Quentin Tarantino movie? Are there places where the imagination can corrupt or form us in bad ways, and how would you know those limits?

What are the secrets to a great D&D group, Game Master, and religious leader?

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Links:

• Watch Satanic Panic (2022) - Free Movies | Tubi
• About | The GeekPreacher
• Derek White (@thegeekpreacher) | Instagram
• Alan Moore talks to John Higgs about the 20th Century - YouTube

1. Healthy Rules and Freedom Existing Side-by-Side Helps Us to Be Creative and Joyful. The best part of negotiation games for me (Daniel) is the free for all, the creativity, especially in contrast to the rules. Think about the Apostle Paul writing about the joy of freedom against the backdrop of the law.
2. Learn about others – when you play with the same people you know their style and bluffing
3. Negotiating a Conflict is a Short Cut to Identifying the Core Values Beneath the Conflict. 1 Kings 3:16-28 - King Solomon & Baby
4. There Can be More Important Measures of Success than just Personal Gain. Personal satisfaction is not always the best measure of a good outcome. Interconnection can be more important than personal glory. Matthew 22:38 - Love neighbor as (as being) yourself.

Special Announcement: “Show Us Your Board Game Fatih” Contest!!!

In gratefulness for our wonderful 1,000 FOLLOWERS on Instagram, we are celebrating with our first BGF contest!! Inspired by our recent guest Takuyo Ono-san, we'd like you to take a picture of yourself with your favorite board games at your place of worship! To enter the contest, post your picture on Instagram with the hashtag "#BoardGameFaith. Winners will be chosen randomly from all entries posted by May 15, 2023.

Grand prize: New BGF Celebration Tshirt. Plus, you can also receive a BGF coffee mug OR help Kevin & Daniel pick an episode topic and record the intro for that episode!

2nd prize: New BGF Celebration Tshirt

3rd prize: BGF Coffee Mug

Next Episode: Mandi Hutchison, from Salt-and-Sass Podcast, discussing “Games that Teach Part 2”

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• "Kary" is a teacher from North Carolina
• She found out about Board Game Faith through Facebook!
• Game she's digging:  Played "Sequence" for the first time and really enjoyed it.
• What is awesome about her?  Waking up at 5 AM!
• Why do you listen to BGF?  The awesome hosts. 🙂

Terra Nullius – a null land, or "nobody's land"

TOPIC: Playing Colonialism – Board Game Ethics on the Homo Ludens YouTube Channel

OVERVIEW OF VIDEO

• Hosts:  Fred Serval & Luis Aguasvivas
• Mary Flanagan, co author of the book, "Playing Oppression"
• Brian Train - War game designer
• Cole Wehrle - Root, Pax Pamir
• Jason Perez - Shelf Stories, consultant for Puerto Rico 1897
• Topic:  Exploring problematic but common theme of colonialism in board games – going to "exotic lands," "exploring them," "exploiting them" - creating illusion that lands are empty and/or that indigenous people are resources to be used, without agency.

WHY IS THIS A SPIRITUAL MATTER? 

• God is concerned with questions of justice. Liberation Theology - Gustavo Gutierrez.  "God's preferential option for the poor."
• We want to play games that don’t promote hate, racism, or injustice.
• We can play games that invert power and domination, or question it – games as morality and learning

THE INTERCONNECTION OF MECHANISMS & THEME

• Mary Flanagan - you can't just retheme these games.  The mechanisms themselves are not morally neutral.  They were developed to simulate colonialism.
• Are game mechanisms every morally neutral?  What about abstract games?
• “There is a hunger for nontraditional narratives” – Jason Perez

ERASURE AND AGENCY

• Whom are we erasing for the sake of an abstracted game mechanism?  For example, in Ticket to Ride, we are erasing Native American population cleared out for these railroads, we are erasing the workers.
• Who has agency and how can we represent them?  Brian Train talked about this.
• Cole Wehrle - Giving tribes agency in Pax Pamir
• _Spirit Island _doesn’t question the whole system, it just reverses it.
• Jason Perez – Giving agency to the "little person."  This is certainly in keeping with religious teachings across the board, including Jesus.

WHAT IS HELPFUL AND UNHELPFUL IN THE DEBATE?

• Ask questions – is this a game that teaches something contrary to my beliefs? Ali Karar spoke of not playing games that promote wine-making and alcoholic drinks.
• Jason Perez - It does no good to call people "bad people."  He said, "these are generally nice people who are relying on tropes to sell products."  Instead, ask, "how can we broaden sales?  How can we appeal to an even wider audience?"
• Amanda Ripley - High Conflict. "It does no good to humiliate others."  Humiliation always leads to high conflict.
• What are common goals that we can all agree to?
• This takes hard work and creativity.

NEXT EPISODE - "SPIRITUAL LESSONS FROM NEGOTIATION GAMES"

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Links:

• Playing Colonialism - Board Game Ethics - YouTube
• Shelf Stories - YouTube
• Writing - Mary Flanagan -

What are board games, what is their history, how do they work, and why do they matter?

Structuring the class

I revisited some of our previous episodes – defining a game, Bernard Suits, Jane McGonigal

1. Defining a board game
2. history of board games
3. mechanisms of board games (card drafting, worker placement, Euro, Ameritrash, bluffing, player elimination, trading, set collection)
4. Games that teach history or lessons
5. Games that are roleplaying and open-ended (TTRPG like D&D)
6. Games and life, such as McGonigal Reality is Broken
7. Magic circles: games and religion

Board Game Lab: the experience of playing board games

Documents in your syllabus that are familiar to the BGF community (The Grasshopper, Reality is Broken, Theology of Play, Meditations on Tarot), but a new addition is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

Games that we have played

1. Kingdomino – Euro and set collection
2. Secret Hitler – deception and social deduction
3. Coup - deception and social deduction
4. Pandemic (couldn’t finish) – co-op game and so influential
5. Freedom (couldn’t finish) – a game that teaches
6. Dune Imperium (couldn’t finish) – card drafting, a race, worker placement, hand management
7. Happy Salmon – silly party game that is fun but kind of pointless (which is part of the fun)
8. Bohnanza – trading, set collection, hand management

Things I have learned - What are you taking away from it?

1. Spending time with young people is pretty wonderful
2. It’s great to do theory and then experience/practice, especially in a small group/pod setting
3. People are different – one dude loves the social deduction and bluffing element of Coup, while someone else loves the soothing Euro game Kingdomino
4. Youths catch on quickly, and they love games

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Links:

• SPACE-BIFF! | Fiercely Independent. Independant? Crap.
• The Mission: Early Christianity from the Crucifixion to the Crusades | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• The Acts of the Evangelists | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Nicaea | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

CELEBRATION - Had first newsletter this week!

INTRO TO MAIN TOPIC - what is an action selection game?
GrenadierBG on Discord recommends Adam in Wales video

MAIN TOPIC - Spiritual Lessons from Action Selection Games

1. Taking initiative can be important.

2. Taking actions can deny resources to others.

3. Taking actions can also provide opportunities for others.

4. You cannot control what others do. You can only control yourself.

5. You must do what is urgent and important in action selection, which is a great human time management lesson.

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Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken describes what we learn about human happiness through understanding the impact of games on human neurology and psychology. Human enjoy goals, rules, obstacles, a feedback system, and voluntary participation. The point of a game isn't always to win but to establish flow.

"The opposite of play isn't work. It's depression" (p. 28, quoting Brian Sutton-Smith).

GAME BREAK: Games that Have Surprised Us

The most enduring human happiness is generated within (intrinsic), not from extrinsic things such as money and power. Through satisfying work, the hope of success, social connections, and meaningful contributions we are at our happiest, and games provide exactly these things.

We will discuss Reality is Broken chapters 10-13 in 2023!

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Next episode: Spiritual Lessons of Action Selection Games

Links:

• Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World a book by Jane McGonigal
• The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• Photosynthesis | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

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We consider that games might be training us to win over other people, instead of being more loving and kind. Does love exclude winning? Yet much of life is about improvement, and even heaven must include aspects of winning and loss. Some board games use different mechanics and win conditions such as "sandbox" and "kingmaker" type games, and others are social deduction games where players deceive and lie. How do the words of Jesus (the last shall be first) relate to ideas of winning and losing?

Links:

• Suffering And Happiness Are Not Separate – Thich Nhat Hanh | Aleph Book Company
• Jon Guerra - Citizens - YouTube
• Pax Pamir: Second Edition | Board Game | BoardGameGeek
• The 7th Continent | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

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• The Grasshopper - Third Edition - Broadview Press
• Octopus Playtime | Octopus In My House | BBC Earth - YouTube
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• Board Game Faith is creating podcasts on board games and spirituality | Patreon
• Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World a book by Jane McGonigal
• Surah Al-Hujurat - 13 - Quran.com