Sometimes, I get a lot out of ‘free’

I recently asked myself what we are willing to settle for when it comes to ‘free’ print and play. However, now I am pondering the other side of that question. What are we able to get that we wouldn’t get otherwise? 

Every board game is an investment. At the absolute very least, they are an investment in time. However, a fundamental question that just about all of us have to ask is how much money are we willing to spend on a game and how much time and enjoyment does it take to feel like we got a return on our investment? 

Here’s one of my dirty little PnP secrets: at least when it comes to Roll and Write games or Micro Games, I don’t have a problem getting only a few plays out of it. If I pay sixty or a hundred bucks for a game, I want it to to be an amazing experience that will see hours of play. But a game that is two or three sheets of components and took me maybe a half hour at most to make? That doesn’t have to be the game of a lifetime.

And because of that, I have gotten to play games otherwise wouldn’t have played or possibly even known about. Sometimes, I’ve discovered genuinely good games that I have ended up playing a lot. Sometimes I have discovered games that were interesting experiments in game design. And sometimes I’ve played that games that were meh or even bad but I didn’t mind that much.

Those experiences probably make up at least a quarter of the last couple years of this blog :D