Recently, I went to my friend’s house to play some board games. I love board games, almost as much as I love tabletop roleplaying games. However, heading out and trying to be social might not have been a great idea. I was still dealing with the wave of emotions from Chris’s accident, and when I’m feeling that raw, I’m not always the best person to be around.

I did my best. I told everyone what was up, and we did a little bit of a vibe check on the games. I said I was hoping for something cooperative, or at least, not exceedingly cutthroat. They all got it, though I could tell there was this one Dune game they all really wanted to play which was counter to my stated needs.

For those that don’t know me that well, I can be exceedingly competitive. I think it’s a trait I picked up from my mother. We’d play scrabble and she would absolutely trounce me. I was in my early to mid teens and she had forty years of experience on me. She could have chosen to keep it a friendly game but instead she cackled over her immaculately recorded score.

Sometimes when I play games, I become my Mom. It’s not an entirely bad thing, but there’s a time and a place.

I knew on game day that the competitive asshole inside me was just beneath the surface, and I really didn’t want to let him out. That’s why I requested we go light on the competition and avoid some of the cutthroat. My competitive edge can be razor sharp, and I didn’t want it to cut any bonds of friendship.

Unfortunately, there was one guy at the table that was absolutely the competitive asshole I was trying not to be. By the end of the evening, I “won” but maybe at the expense of getting invited back, and I feel bad about that.

I’m not going to name names. I’ll refer to the other asshole at the table as My Rival. The first hint that things were going to go hard in the paint was during the first game, Scythe, when every time My Rival’s turn came up, he’d salivate and take on this tone of, “Now watch THIS” and then do some weird mechanic in the game to give himself advantage. He won the first game, and while we mostly had fun, it felt kind of icky to me, like I just watched this guy jack off on the table while he made us watch.

The next game was Codewords, and I was thankful because I see it as a very light and fun game. Our host had to step out for a little bit, so the four of us that remained paired off in teams of 2. There was a mechanic in the game I forgot, so I blundered a little during the first round, but I didn’t see it as a big deal. At one point when I was on the guessing side, the other team missed a clue, and in the course of talking about it, I gave him the answer. My Rival said that’s what “cost me the game,” which hit me as weird because until he said something, I hadn’t felt like I’d “lost.” We were just playing.

“What do you get for winning that game?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” My Rival replied.

“I mean, is there some prize for winning a game of Codewords?”

“Well, no, but–“

“You say I lost, but I felt smart for catching the clue, and it felt good to talk about it. I don’t feel like I lost at all.”

He didn’t like my response. I was getting the impression from him that the only reason he saw to play a game was to win.

The final game was Dune. It wasn’t Dune: Imperium. I don’t know the exact name of this Dune game, but it had a big map that unrolled onto the table, and it reminded me strongly of Cosmic Encounter. Each player takes on a faction which breaks the game in a unique way. This was the competitive game that they all wanted to play from the beginning. I went along with it because I didn’t want to get in the way of the group having fun.

After about a half hour of setup and rules explanation, we started the first round. Because I had never played the game before, I did not play optimally. As the Space Truckers, I should have been able to go last, or whenever I wanted. My Rival took advantage of this. My Rival sat back while everyone kind of floundered. Then he declared, “I win” and explained how he won by taking advantage of our ignorance.

After most of a day of build up and anticipation of playing this game, then thirty minutes of setup, it was truly unsatisfying. No one had fun at the table, except My Rival, because the only thing he was interested in was winning.

We agreed to run it back so that we could actually play the game, and I replayed my turn more in accordance with how it should have been played, which kept My Rival from winning on turn one. We continued playing, but My Rival kept repeating how he won the first game, and this was sort of a victory lap for him.

After the second or third time he said something like that, I broke bad. I didn’t shave my head or start a meth lab. Instead, I unchained the competitive asshole within me. It was time to live up to my terrifying potential.

I looked at the game, the board, and My Rival. There was no path to victory for me through regular game play. My Rival, who knew the game, had picked an imbalanced faction from the beginning and it really wasn’t possible for anyone to win but him. Unless I played a little bit differently. If, instead of going for a victory of my own, I played every turn to minimize his gains, I wouldn’t technically win the game, but he would never be able to get ahead of the other people at the table.

I said, “I know my win condition.”

“What do you mean?” My Rival said.

“I know what my win condition is now.”

“The rules are the rules. You either win or you don’t.”

“I’ll follow the rules, but we always get to choose our own win condition.”

He did not like me saying that.

The game continued, and I kept playing to prevent him from advancing. When an event happened that allowed alliances to be formed or broken, I revealed my strategy. My Rival did not like it, and thought I was an idiot for playing in such a way.

“You can’t win playing that way, and I already won the first game–“

“Did you win the first game, or did we have a mulligan? It can’t be both.”

He really did not like me saying that.

A few turns went by, and My Rival finally saw the merit in my gameplay. As the Space Truckers, I had passive income, and it was cheaper for me to deploy troops. I would always have money to deploy and create fights. Since I kept deploying in such a way as to keep him from getting income, he could never gain any advantage. He would win every single battle with his broken faction, but he could never win the war as long as I kept impeding him.

He rage quit. He got up and left.

“Okay, see ya!” I said. “I’m never playing with you again!”

“You’re an asshole!” he said, in the same tone. He might have added some other expletives.

I talked to the host and the remainder of the group. I apologized. They said it was okay, and laughed a little bit.

“If you never invite me back, I completely understand.”

“No way, man. You’re crew.”

Still.

As always, there are some lessons that can be taken from this. We can talk about “Know thyself,” which I did, but chose to go the dark path anyway. We can talk about doing things too soon after a trauma. We can talk about the pros and cons of a competitive nature.

I mostly want to focus on this: You can always choose your own win conditions.

It’s taken me a while to learn this, and even though I applied the idea in a semi-destructive way in this story, there are positive applications in other areas of our life. Let’s talk about how it can help a writer.

The typical “win” condition for a writer is to get published, quit their day job, and live off their labor of love. That’s the dream. Unfortunately, there are a lot of moving pieces that the writer has no control over, so they really have no way of guaranteeing such a “win.” Statistically speaking, almost no one wins that game.

Here are things a writer can do that can constitute a win:

• Write 2000 words a day in the month of November (I’ll talk about NaNoWriMo in another post)
• Attend 4 conventions or retreats in a year
• Submit 1 query or submission every 6 weeks
• Read 1 book a month outside your typical genre

Pick any or all of these things, do them, and consider it a win. Or pick something else that’s in your control that positively leads towards the dream.

When you choose something to focus and make that your win condition, there is nothing outside your control to keep you from winning. This works everywhere.

• Maintain your diet for 4 days in a row
• Get all of your work tasks logged by the end of the day
• Spend 15 minutes a day researching that project you’ve always wanted to do

Anything can be a win condition if you need it to be.

Finally, if you set yourself up some goals as win conditions and you fall short, it’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up, because you can go again. And the next time, you can win.