I have been wanting to re-rank my games for some time now. I dropped my one "10" game and was trying to think about what should take the top spot. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of one...
What?! I can't come up with a favorite game? So I sit down and stare at the screen filled with the titles in my collection in an attempt to discover a game I enjoy playing over anything else. Still, nothing! The best I could come up with is: "Well, I really love playing this game with these people, but not with those - I must rather play that instead."
Okay, I realize a lot of the enjoyment I get from playing games comes from how much the other players are enjoying themselves. So where does that leave me as far a ranking my games? Well, what if I rated them as if I had the perfect group for that particular game. Much more reasonable as that would let me decided which game I prefer.
Then the next problem arises: I haven't played some of these games in so many years that I begin to doubt if I would have as much fun now as I did then (Advanced Civilization jumps immediately to mind). Is that indicative of a lower rating? I'm not sure. If I look at games I play the most nowadays - namely Heroscape and Battleball - they are far from the most enjoyable games I own, each for different reasons.
Appeals to the BGG rating scale descriptions offer some guidelines, but are a little vague - I don't see how they could be anything else though. It's all so subjective. I firmly believe that they have to be ranked in relation to other games.
I'm at a loss.
Maybe I should stop being a !@# lamer noob (got called that in some online game and I found it funny enough to remember) and get over the fact that it's just game ratings I'm worrying about. But I know myself. I'm too anal-retentive to let it drop. Gotta have it all neat and orderly so I can say this is my favorite game!
On the up side, the rest of my life is going so well that I have the mental/emotional wherewithall to have this be something worth thinking about. And yes, ranking your game collection is an emotional process. Come on! Admit it!
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7 comments:
As we say in California...
Duuude! There's no such thing as the perfect game, only the perfect wave.
I totally understand this problem and dilema. Man, do I get it.
I had put off even starting to rate my collection for such a long time...it's a bit of a freeze job on my part I admitt, but I've been a gamer for soooooooo long and many of the games I have had for decades. How to say something about an old game or one I haven't played often...I guess I rely on nostalgia and note it as I write comments.
It's not perfect, but that memory of a game and the 'Geek's rating suggestions go into it. Just note that it's a rating for memories of a game in the past in your comments and it helps.
That said I still have a lot to rate...and I question my stance on some that I have rated.
I will grant that many of them will probably end up as 7's...I don't have too many I don't like or that I think are just average.
I like to have fun and can play any game that reasonable holds my interest I guess.
Well, done rambling. Just wanted to share the pain with you.
Why does it matter? Just enjoy playing them, and don't worry about the ratings!
There's a game that goes around in the upper echelons of the gaming circle.
It's called Raving Ranting Ratings aka R3 aka RRR aka Triple R. It combines auction mechanics, thousands of miniatures, alot of political machinations, typical Knizia number crunching and is played on a board that's 3 metres by 3 metres.
It's the ONLY perfect rated game on BGG but you need the secret password/handshake to actually get access to it. You should check it out.
Having viewed your collection, I'd blow out about half of it asap. Your want list is almost half the size of your owned list. I used to be a collector, back in the 70's and early 80's. When I moved to Idaho in 81 I couldn't believe I had acquired over 400 games! No way I was ever going to play them. So I began the reduction.
By the time rec.boardgames.marketplace came into existence my collection had reached over 400 again and I started auctioning and cleaning house. It feels good to be below 200 in my personal collection.
Not that I'll ever play all I own... or all I intend to buy.
But it still feels like I have accomplished something. Though I'm not sure what.
This place brings out the obsessive compulsives, me included. Once I was lying in bed thinking about a game and I had to get out of bed, turn on my computer and change my rating. The laid back geeks will never understand us, but for some reason having an orderly, rated game collection makes our lives a little more orderly. At the moment, I feel that all is right in the world because I can confidently say that War of the Ring is my favorite game.
As for old game ratings, I try to rate them as well as possible from memory, but if I were to play one again and not like it as much, I'd drop the rating and explain what happened in a comment.
I am so engrossed in my game ratings...that I keep a bottle next to the computer so I won't be bothered with bathroom breaks. (OK not really.)
I've come around to the idea of rating games 1-10 based on whatever your own personal criteria are. Use the BGG anchors posted by the admins as a loose guideline. Don't worry about whether your 7 is like my 7....all that rating crap sorts itself out. I'm finding I need to create more space at the top of my ratings...so I think I'll get a little more picky and rerate the main body of my games lower...so the REALLY good ones can be distinguished more, at least within my own collection.
I'd say if you're going to spend time fiddling with the ratings, let the time be spent in writing good illuminating comments for each game about what you think of it. Then, regardless of what the number is, your thoughts will be helpful to those perusing the game ratings for that game.
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