Create the Perfect Turn and Results Will Take Care of Themselves

No one likes a sore loser
I like games and I enjoy competing. Years ago, after getting riled up during one too many board games, I realized my competitive emotions were ruining the fun for me and others at the game table. I reflected for quite awhile on this as I took a break from board gaming. Suddenly a solution came to mind, and board games have been fun and pain-free again ever since (with just a couple of setbacks over the years). I’ll tell you my solution in a minute.
I have recently realized the solution also needs to apply to my GMing on a couple levels (pun intended!).
First, I am about to end one campaign and start another. The PCs are reaching the climactic conclusion of a 14 month long, 29 session-and-counting D&D 4E game. I cannot wait to start the new campaign, and that is making me impatient to get the old campaign done with. You know – something new and shiny is always more exciting. Plus, I am keen to try out the Pathfinder rules.
The problem is I am sacrificing game quality with my impatience. I joked a few sessions ago we should roll a d20. If the result is 10 or higher, the PCs win the campaign.
I want to finish the current campaign well, though, and my board game solution will work here.
Second, while I am GMing I constantly live a few minutes in the future. What’s the next encounter? What do the PCs’ current actions mean to my session plans? How will NPCs in the region react to the current encounter? What are my upcoming hooks?
These are important thoughts, but they have their proper time and place. And that is not during the current encounter! I get to the end of sessions and wonder where all the time went. I failed to stop and celebrate the moments.
Constant thinking three moves in advance creates a lot of needless stress too. Because I’m never 100% engaged in what’s happening now, as part of my brain is always angling to arrange the future, I’m often slightly distracted, which comes at a cost of added stress.
The solution: create the perfect turn
I realized a decade ago my board game problems stemmed from too much investment in the outcome. If I lost I took that personally. Therefore, if I was losing I would take that personally as well.
This caused me a lot of frustration during down cycles during games, to be grouchy, and to be a sore loser. Not fun!
Once I noticed my emotions hinged on victory status, I sought to redirect my competitive energies:
- I figured out that a key to victory is to make no mistakes.
- I have no control over luck (except in risk management). Therefore, I cannot get upset over what I cannot control, including the roll of the dice.
- Other players are often better than me, and I definitely cannot control them. So I should let respect replace anger if they play well.
Putting this all together, I created a new gaming philosophy for myself: the perfect turn. Each turn I would play to the best of my ability and focus on optimizing everything under my control. What I could not control I would enjoy, because there is no longer shame or regret or self-judgement when you are doing your best.
I entered every new turn fresh, like I was just starting a new game. Previous turns just gave me a start that was in media res. A trick of the mind, perhaps, but not untrue. So I could not be upset over what had happened previously; it was all just feeding the starting conditions each turn.
Future turns were completely out of my control. I could try to set myself up for positive future situations and positioning right now, but with so many other variables out of my control doing my best meant gaming the current turn as well as I could without worrying about the future.
This detachment from future expectations meant I no longer cared about victory. I only cared about making the best possible choices each turn.
Making the perfect turn – one with no mistakes, every option considered, and best strategy and tactics applied – became my goal.
The effect was nearly instant. It was amazing. I immediately had more fun every game. Regardless of the results of my turns and the turns of others, I enjoyed how games played out. I enjoyed the challenge of making the perfect turn each time, though I did not achieve that goal often. Rather than getting upset at results, I now saw them as learning opportunities for my next stab at a perfect turn.
I have no idea if I won more games after that. I stopped counting. It was no longer important. Instead, I kept a mental record during games of mistakes to weigh next turn, and then watched the actions of others so I could learn from their mistakes and successes too.
I remember playing games with one player in particular who would make it his turn’s purpose – each and every turn – to counter me or weaken my position in the game. It didn’t matter what board game we were playing. And he’d do this without any attempt to win games himself. This used to bug me a lot. After my change in gameplay style, I thought this was funny. It was just another variable. I no longer took it personally. At that point, when I stopped getting upset when someone was deliberately trying to push my buttons, I realized this was the best way to play games for me.
The perfect turn for GMs
So, it is time to apply this philosophy to my GMing. I’ve got a campaign running right now. Forget the next one, I need to make the perfect turns now and end this campaign with a bang. Hopefully, a total party kill! Haha, just kidding. Maybe.
In addition, I need to sit back while in the game and just enjoy the moment. I need to think less about five minutes in the future and instead focus 100% on what’s happening now. The perfect turn requires the best roleplaying, tactics, refereeing and imagination in each moment.
To get ahead a little bit on mid-session reactions and planning, I’ll call more 2 minute breaks. While in a break I’ll think ahead.
Otherwise, the perfect turn for me is enjoying the company of friends and what’s happening in the game right now, not 3 rounds or 3 turns from now.
What is your perfect turn?
I hear from GMs periodically by email who have difficulty with certain players in their group. Some of the time I believe part of the issue rests with the GMs themselves. It takes two to tango well. Perhaps this perfect turn philosophy might help in those situations.
I’m also thinking this style might help GMs who feel overwhelmed or harried during games because there is too much going on. Maybe a solution for you is to stop living in the future and just live in the current moment?
Have more fun at every game!
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November 23rd, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Interesting post. Although it is keyed to your particular pecadillos, it is always good advice to a GM to “slow down and smell the roses.”
I never got too worked up over board games, although it was often frustrating to play hours and not get much satisfaction from it.
Funny, I am also 14 months and around 29 games into my groups existence/current campaign. There have been many times when I got peeved at things not going the way I would have liked with an encounter. My usual tactic at that point is to try and get the encounter over with, usually to my own detriment (player running roughshod over my NPC’s and environments).
Last game I had to run a fight against around 60 orcs plus a mind flayer. I was sort of dreading it – all the bookkeeping and crap. But luckily instead of our usual 3 hour Wed night game, I got 4 hours on a weekend to do it. I was able to relax, wing it, and enjoy the battle for a change (plus no NPC’s that were important to me were involved).
I think the “perfect turns” in an encounter happen when both GM and players are doing things in a way that everyone can enjoy, without a lot of clutter and outside references. That was a nice, long, fun battle. Just because I was able to relax.
November 23rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
60 orcs! Yeah, I would dread that too. Glad it worked out for you.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Thanks for the advice. I definitely get what you were saying about board games. I was thinking I could even use the advice during online games against others when you were writing about your nemesis. Perhaps even life itself would be better if we focused on the “turn” and didn’t worry about what was coming next. Gaming = life. Perfect zen. Thanks, Johnn.
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Yeah, that is some good advice! I also get quite competitive even when whatever I am doing is not a competition (making it one, in my mind at least, does make me do better though..) so this is especially useful to me. I have tried various “outlooks” to improve my attitude, hopefully yours will work better than the rest!
I can relate to the guy who just stops you from winning. I try my best to win, but when/if I realize I just cannot win I do my best to delay/stop my opponent’s victory. I don’t do this just because I am an ass, though that is a big factor, but also because it has lead to victories by forfeit due to my patience outlasting my opponent’s :D
November 24th, 2009 at 4:39 am
Interestingly when I read this I assumed Mike had written it – I was very suprised to see it was Johnn! I guess I never figured that Johnn would be the kind of guy to lose his rag, especially playing a board game!
I have to say I rarely win board games, and am generally rubbish at them (at least when I play my roleplaying friends – beating Auntie Sue is never hard, or worthwhile!). So, instead of trying to win, I always aim to have the most fun possible – do cool stuff, help the next worse person to win, block the best person, HOLD EUROPE! etc etc. This sort of applies to GMing as well – the whole point after all is not to kill all the players but for everyone to win by creating a really interesting encounter (which I know wasn’t the point of the article).
But good advice – I think the key thing here is to know going into the encounter what you want to get out of it and then concentrating on running the best encounter possible.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I guess Johnn & I are more alike than you thought!
November 24th, 2009 at 7:10 am
That was, of course, not to say that I think you are a highly volatile man, Mike (oops)…!
November 24th, 2009 at 11:24 am
@James – “I think the key thing here is to know going into the encounter what you want to get out of it and then concentrating on running the best encounter possible.” – good stuff!
@Robert – “but when/if I realize I just cannot win I do my best to delay/stop my opponent’s victory.” – Me too. It’s a good strategy. You never know what the future might bring, and an opening might present itself.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I just wanted to point out that this is a very buddhist philosophy. To feel guilt and re-live the past causes suffering and to feel anxiety for the future causes suffering. You have to live and accept the here and now (be awake) to not live in pain and suffering.
There is a good quote from Kung-fu Panda: “You are too concerned with what was and what will be. There is a saying: Yesterday is History; Tomorrow is a Mystery; But Today is a Gift. That is why it is called the Present.”
December 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out Keith. Who knew a panda could be so funny?
December 14th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Good advice, for gaming AND for life.
Reminds me of some poker advice I got a long time ago. “Don’t throw good money after bad.” That is, once you put money in the pot, it isn’t yours anymore, so don’t think you have to stay in to get it back. Much like you said about creating the perfect turn.
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