I love games — the same way I love science fiction. I’ve had so
many good times with them. My family played lots of pinochle.
We’d gather after dinner and bring out the deck. Many times, when
we had visiting relatives, we would talk and play late into the
night. At first, I could only watch. Later, I was allowed to join
the game. I took it as a real privilege.

All the games I knew when I was young were win/lose games. We’d
play Monopoly and Risk and chess. I played cribbage by the hour
with my cousins, Rummy with my Grandma B., poker on winter evenings
in my Dad’s den. Someone won, someone lost. We played hard to
win, and for the most part, took more pleasure in playing than
sting from losing.

Around junior high, I first heard of games that didn’t make winners
and losers. I started playing Dungeons and Dragons with my best
friend Jeff. I’d create a dungeon, he’d create a couple of
characters to explore it. We’d roll the dice, and find out if his
characters would survive the fights along the way and carry home
the treasure. Mostly they did. The game went on, we worked
together to make good stories, and his characters gained experience
and grew every more powerful. It was hard to say if anyone really
‘won’ or ‘lost’. It takes an endpoint to define a winner.

Then, when I went to summer camp, the counselors introduced us to
‘ungames’ — activities specifically designed to play like games,
yet create no winners or losers. They were fun for short periods.
I haven’t heard of anyone playing one in quite a while. Without
some sort of reward for play, they didn’t hold as much interest as
traditional games.

Eventually, I took some classes in economics, and learned about
win/win games. In a win/win game, everyone who plays gains a
reward. The classic example (especially to economists) is the free
market. If a buyer freely chooses to purchase my product, and I
freely choose to sell it, then the buyer and the seller both win.
The buyer wins because she values her purchase more than the money,
and I win because I value the money more than my product.
Everybody wins.

Now I enjoy win/win games more than any others. I still play games
like Dungeons and Dragons, and I feel like everyone wins when we
create a good story together. And I’m a life coach. When I have a
good match with a player, I win by helping out and receiving my
fee, and my player has a huge win by having my support to see the
game, choose a goal, and take the actions to reach it.

Want to play? Just reply to this message. We’ll see if we can
make a win/win together.

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Now Available! From Wishing to Writing: A Workbook for Writers

I can’t wait! So you can get the plain vanilla version of my new
workbook for writers today! In a few weeks, I’ll finish the
graphic title page and raise the price. See the details now
at http://www.annaparadox.com/from-wishing-to-writing/

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Book Recommendation

Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes

It’s hard to write a good novel about a game. A novel is fiction,
and then the game creates a second level of unreality. The
characters can seem too removed to care about.

This one does the best of any game novel I have read. The game
itself is a very good one. Then, a murder in the game park puts
all the players under suspicion, and the characters suddenly have
much more to lose.

If you’ve never played a role-playing game like Dungeons and
Dragons, this will give you an idea of the attraction in them. I
was surprised to discover this was out of print. There are still
plenty of copies available online.

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Anna Paradox is a life coach who speaks science fiction. Her
clients invest in themselves to achieve their dreams. If you’d like
to join them, call me at 505-640-0979. Or email me at
anna@annaparadox.com

Creating Space is her twice-monthly newsletter with tips, insights,
and a book recommendation for science fiction fans and space
activists. You can subscribe at www.annaparadox.com/newsletter, and
read back issues there, too.