This past week I spent at the World Boardgaming Championships. This was my fourth year, and when I arrived I was on the end of a continuous slide towards failure. My results each year had gotten worse than the year before, and while I don't worry that much about winning it was a little depressing to fail to measure up to my own standards. This year things looked up from a pure winning perspective as I collected another 2nd place trophy for Castles of Mad King Ludwig and a 5th place finish in Santa Fe Rails. Better than last year, and about equivalent to 2017, though still shy of my double 2nd place finishes in 2016.
However, the real victory is how well the year went in other ways. In all three other years I have attended this convention I ended up playing at least one table that got really unpleasant. It isn't fun to have players get mad at you and then publicly state that they are going to do anything they can to destroy your game, nor do I enjoy having someone spend the whole game coaching, cajoling, and begging people to attack me, especially when the person doing the harassment is beating me soundly anyway. Mostly games were great fun with pleasant people but I have definitely run into some jerks, and also a few people who are generally all right but who lost their cool and did some crappy things.
This year had none of that. I had a good time at every table, even when things got tough. One of my semi finals had an illegal placement of a tile that caused a seriously challenging GM ruling to come up - there were four players with really legitimate claims to having won the table depending on how the GM chose to fix the illegal play. That sort of thing is a nightmare for the GM, and I strive to not put them in that position.
At many tables this would be a tense argument or even a shouting match, but at the table I sat at everyone had a reasonable discussion about how we should resolve it, and four players all unanimously voted on an interpretation that sent the fifth player to the final table. The GM was surely happy to have avoided a contentious decision and just accepted our vote, and even though I wasn't the player who moved on I am perfectly content with the result. I have made a final table at that event before and the player who moved on had not, so I am happy to have given someone a shot at such a thing. Plus I just can't see that there was a "right" way to do this. We picked someone, everyone shook hands and moved on, and I was thrilled that such a thing could be resolved with no animosity.
The real draw of the convention is the people, not the trophies. I don't even think I need trophies - I put them in a pile on my bookshelf and ignore them. It feels good to be successful, no doubt, but if I had the option to get a trophy but to have to put up with a crappy game with lots of conflict and bad behaviour I would turn that down cold, so I have to be pleased with how this year went.
Now it is time to go back to real life again for six months. I am exhausted and my knee aches from all the walking from game to game, but it is such a joy to do. I was asked if I would continue at WBC for more time if I could and the answer is tricky - I love it, but eventually I do want to be home. My bed, my food, and my people here are quite the draw.
