Twyg's Thursday Thoughts - Digital gaming and your hobby

Thanks wikipedia for this icon of video gamin'

As consummate gamers and hobbyists there's a lot of distractions out there for us to indulge in. I've noticed within the table top gaming community it seems as though the hobby can be all consuming for some, with painting, playing, and theory crafting (list building) taking a large chunk of the remaining time. As someone with limited time and only one foot in the hobby I find myself playing a lot of single player games that may or may not bump into the multiplayer realm. But is that a detractor to hobby for me (or anyone else) I don't believe so, in fact quite the opposite.

Lemme share with you what I'm playing and why I feel it helps my tabletop and war gaming skills. 

On PC I'm playing a lot of War Thunder, an exceptional WW II flight sim game where everything from your starting bi-planes to the end war jet fighters make an appearance. There's an excellent leveling up experience model, well done micro transactions and a lot of good old fashioned dog fights. So why would this help my table top game? In my opinion: it gets me thinking outside the box. Here I am in a three dimensional fight with many different planes (models) with different strengths and weaknesses. Sound familiar? 

All too often I'd leave the crons' doomsday ark in the corner sniping away with a 72" range gun, but now, what if I've got it lined up with terrain where someone will assume its line of sight isn't a threat? Suddenly a trap appears. What about that p39? It can't climb well, but woe to the person on the other end of its dive... Then there's the BF109, the exact opposite with exceptional climbing characteristics. Now, what happens of you turn around and do something unexpected? Use the P 39 to climb and just lurk high up... Never dropping. Will I get many kills? No, but have I made the opponents wonder what the hell, just to swoop down in the last few minutes and clean up. So now apply that to the doomsday ark. Let my opponent wonder why it's collecting dust, just to have them blunder into a kill zone... Nice! Think outside the box, make the opponent guess and more importantly worry...

Talisman prologue on the PC as well. We're all fairly familiar with talisman, and if you're not, you should get acquainted... If. You know it, then check and yourself what it'd be like to have objectives with just one player and class. By going through what's normally a full board game but focusing on one objective you learn a lot about how to figure out one of your favorite characters. For example, the Warrior can roll two six sided die in combat and take the highest one. But what happens when you land on a spot with three bad guys all rolling a d6 themselves? How do you manage him? Fully random, or are there things you can do?

Pulling it into tabletop you find your mind ready to be flexible and able to cope with specific situations, it's muscle memory now. You'll have a given character on the field who has a specific "trick", is now the time to use it, or later? Flexing those muscles will certainly help keep you thinking of the options available to you outside of just the random rolls.

Then there's a ton of iOS games, Magic The Gathering, Plague Inc, Star Command, Warhammer Quest, even Puzzle Quest...

So what games do you have that are flexing your brain muscles on your computer or device? How do they stretch your thought process with them? Hopefully it'll give you some new insight on your games and your tabletop... Good luck!

Twyg out