Board Games, The Blog Series (Part 1)

NO HARD FEELINGS: RISK

Before we talk about something I dislike, last week I told my older sister about something else I dislike: I hate Winnie the Pooh. She ordered me to renounce my heretical views of Christopher Robin, otherwise she would change the locks on the house, and thus banish me from the family forever. When cooler heads prevailed, I was still in the family, and my key still works ^_^ Don't know about her, she is fine with my views on the failings, I MEAN, history of early childhood entertainment.

RISK is the popular, turn based, world domination strategy game owned and played by millions. Players move multi-coloured army units and occupy territories on a game board depicting a political map of the world; success or failure of invasions or defenses hinged on the roll of the dice. In my early teens, I enjoyed playing RISK at Young Adults nights at the church on Fridays. There were other board games I enjoyed playing as well: Classics such as Axis & Allies, SORRY (I am happy I never won that game; more on that in a later blog post, if you are interested), Scrabble, Monopoly, and Diplomacy. I call Diplomacy 'everything RISK is without dice', and I could regale you with stories of strained marriages, broken friendships, and blood feuds going back decades, but that is for another day. If you want to make friends at a Games night, don't play Diplomacy; if you want to send a message about where you stand, well, that is where our story begins...

As I said earlier, RISK was a game I enjoyed. Mind you, most of the time my friends/opponents from the neighbourhood north of the church would play long into the night, and well after I lost my last army fighting for the independence of Brazil (this one is for you, Tom). It was not only RISK that circle dominated in, but in the youth group in general. Those guys were always the focus, better at public speaking, among the first to learn how to drive, play varsity, get baptized, get girlfriends, get married, etc. I was the goofy kid, who everyone liked, but not much else, at least I don't think? They are good guys, all of them, but I wasn't...you know, 'any good'. To add insult to injury, one of the popular guys had the same name as me, which made everything very confusing. As a Bible joke, one of the sponsors suggested we have names like "Phil the Greater", which is me because I was older, and then "Phil the Lesser". This also made things worse, in particular with my psyche, because I thought I was "Phil the Lesser" because less people wanted to talk to me, or know what I was thinking. That was a sidenote; the real issue is RISK: Why do I hate RISK?

I didn't know Rodney Harrison played RISK? Oh wait...

I don't really hate RISK, but the memories I associate with RISK are depressing and sorrowful. I am thinking of one particular Friday all-nighter the guys from our youth group held at the church. To start the night off on the right foot, we all put the fold-up tables together, sat down, and played a giant game of RISK with "special rules" for the night. That night's game of RISK started like it usually did with the popular guys taking the lead, and the n00bs/visiting kids on the outside looking in before the second hour into the game. Not surprisingly, I was one of the n00bs quickly backed into a corner of the globe, and no longer a threat to anyone else in the game. However, I did notice one of the guys, as former NFL defensive back Rodney Harrison said, "did not take his foot off the gas".

This is the part where I say his name, but I'm not going to do that. Forgiveness is difficult, for some more than others, but it is necessary if you desire to move forward with your life. To hold a grudge over a game is silly, but what happened that night shaped my life in a particular way. Again, my issue is not what him, but with the game.

As I said, the player wanted to finish the job and remove me from the game completely. As any assistance at this point was not forthcoming, I rolled a single die in a vain and fruitless attempt to save my one army in a bid to defend Brazil to the last man (Again, Brazil! Tom!). Alas, my game was finally over, and me and some of the other kids grabbed some food in the kitchen. Hours after the RISK game finished, I returned to the empty table to find those "special rules" one of the leaders scribbled onto little bits of paper, which he inserted to spice up the game. My rule was to "defend South America to the last man", of which I failed miserably -_- (Tom is going to tackle me for this). There were several bits of paper bandied about on the table, so I retrieved each one and put them back in the box. Near the end of that exercise, I read one of the papers and immediately sat down in the chair to save from falling over in disbelief. This "special rule" was unlike the others, because it shone a light onto why that other player, from earlier in the game, kept after me and avoided all others. I can still read the block letters written on the ruled strip of paper with an HB pencil.

"Eliminate Phil (W)"

Why would someone write that? Why would someone write only that? Why was no one there to help? Why did I never play in the game past hour number two? Why was this rule so easy to enforce or play through, as no one else made a significant effort to stop it (within the 'rules' of the game)? Why would the player, if not everyone, be the one to win once I was gone from the game? I always wondered why I was never really part of that circle, and by reading too much into what "eliminate Phil (W)" meant, I understood why. RISK was a microcosm of my Youth group experience: I was that outside kid, who people liked, but wasn't part of any group or cliche. I was just there being a goofball, and from "eliminate Phil (W)" I thought I wasn't really wanted around as much as I thought.

In my massive collection of board games gathering dust, I don't own a copy of RISK. I had a RISK computer game on my PC from years ago, but I never bothered to download another copy on my new laptop. Whenever I see RISK at a department store or some of the younger guys talking about RISK the computer game, I look away to avoid thinking about RISK or getting caught up in the conversation. No doubt the burden of RISK will follow me right into the grave, unless I exorcise it. How do you exorcise a 'hatred' for a board game? I don't really hate RISK; what I hate is the memory I attached to RISK from that night almost two decades ago. How do you forget something like that? I thought I could do it with Scrabble, but what I call the "Bobby Fischer" phenomenon kicks in (the better you are at playing a game, the less people want to be around you when you play it). Alas, RISK is always in capital letters in my mind.

There was a reunion of the old youth group a year or so ago, and one of the selling points to me was a game of RISK just like old times; I decided against attending long before they asked, because I believed I knew where I stood with the group: Outside. "No one wants me there." I thought, "I'll probably end up alone at some random table reading the rules of some random board game."

"It's not worth the risk."