"is winning important?" Topic

How important is winning to your enjoyment of a game?

See:
TMP link

Vital 10
Total unconcern 0

It's nice, but after a while I'd rather have had a good time albeit with sincere play. You can have fun with someone winning.

Week-nights with friends? Playtests and historical set ups? Maybe 1? It is very relative.

As a generalisation, 5 or 6 depending on the circumstances.

It would rise to around an 8 in a tournament style situation as anything less would be a discourtesy to my opponent (who is looking for a game being played to win) …

I have thrown enough games over the years (by declining the 'cheesey' winning gambit) to know it's not going to be a 10.

Within the game's 'bubble', motivations should be much higher as commanders are usually highly motivated to win and troops are keen to kill rather than be killed.

Phil

Depends on the situation. If its a normal club night game then winning is nice (and its importance seems to increase as the night goes on) but the main thing is the social and fun side of it. If I was into competition games then the importance would be rather higher I suspect, but then again I don't go in for competitions. I think the one scenario where a regular game would be of more importance would be a game played as part of a campaign, where losing could have a bad impact on subsequent games. As in real life more of an imperative to achieve or exceed one's objectives.

Not much although I do enjoy a hard fought win or draw a bit more with win oriented opponents.

What I dislike are rules or game set ups designed to force you to follow a historical plan only to find a "what if" change in th historical TO&E ("AA" 88's not present in actual battle designed to force British early Desert War tanks to burn or close into effective fire range of Mark IIIs.

0 for me; having a good scrap is more important.

Depends on the opponent,if I'm playing friends in a casual setting winning is not as important has having a good evening.. If I'm playing a hyper competitive person then I do enjoy winning as the look on their face when they pack away their defeated army makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

10. Absolutely vital! … but I don't really care much whether or not I am on the side that wins. Answer related to quote from linked discussion:

It further strikes me that if winning & losing REALLY don't matter, why are they part of nearly every game?

Winning (whatever that means in a given scenario) should drive the decision space for the participants, making it an essential part of having an enjoyable game, for me. If making decisions and competing over the objectives isn't a key part of the social interaction, then we could just as easily be doing something passive like watching a movie (MST3K style) or playing Candyland.

Nothing wrong with those other activities, just that they are a different social space than wargaming. If you're going to play a wargame, you should be playing to win.

I don't think people should attach either their self-worth or enjoyment of the game to whether or not they actually win the game, but rather to whether or not they are playing to win the game. You kind of owe it to the other participants.

I think playing to win is what distinguishes participating in a cordial, yet involved wargame from "everyone gets a trophy".

I would rather lose a fiercely contested game than win in a walk. So winning is in the 3-5 range of necessity.

Besides, losing can always be blamed on bad luck.

Ideally, I should not care if I win. I have seen too many gaming experiences ruined by excessive competitiveness. In such cases, a less experienced player may eventually lose interest, and then you have one less opponent to play with (I did this to my wife, unfortunately…).

So my ideal is to aim for a collaborative dramatic experience (in the game), where the journey itself is the goal and not the destination.

Mark H.