The results of this quiz were not especially surprising to me. I generally know what kinds of games and mechanics I like, and the game essentially told me what I already knew. That does at least mean the quiz is accurate though, which is good. My profile was “Low Conflict and Gregarious”.

My highest scores were in the categories of Social Fun and Aesthetics, which scans perfectly for me. I love tabletop games even more than things like online video games because it’s so much easier to have a connection with the people you play in person with, and there’s really no experience quite like having a group you meet up with week after week to play with. Aesthetics I value for a different reason, mostly just because I’m a big graphic design nerd, and I love games that have really strong artwork and visual design. It’s one of the reasons I love card games like Magic and Flesh and Blood so much, they always go above and beyond with their artwork and graphics. Social Manipulation comes in third, which really is just a subsection of Social Fun for me. In my opinion, one of the best ways to create variance in a game is with people: A game where people can make a lot of different decisions makes a game much more fun and replayable, and will always lead to a lot of great stories. There’s a reason social deduction games are so popular, there’s tons of room for personal creativity and narrative equity.

My love of games as social experiences also shines through in other results not shown on the main graph, like the high values in Chance and Accessibility. Accessibility is an easy one: While I do like my games to have some depth, the less time we need to spend learning the rules and reading the rulebook, the better. Ideally we should be able to mostly just jump right in to the fun part with just a bit of explanation. Accessibility also extends to being able to invite in players of all backgrounds or skill levels, everyone should be able to feel welcome playing a game. Chance goes along with what I was mentioning earlier about narrative equity and creating stories: Not only do random elements stop a game from becoming “solved” and keep it replayable, super memorable random outcomes make for great stories. My low score in cooperation is mostly just a personal taste thing: I like plenty of co-op games, but I think they’ve become a bit overdone/overexposed recently. I like my games to have some amount of competition, generally.

Finally, the other big part of my profile was “low conflict.” This should be unsurprising if you’ve been reading my reasoning for my other results: I don’t dislike competition, but having fun with a group is first and foremost why I love tabletop games. Trying to win absolutely has its place, but some people really take it too far, and it can lead to the game not being fun for the rest of everyone else. I like to try and keep things light, still trying to win as much as I can but not letting that be my entire focus of playing, even when playing in tournaments I always like talking to my opponent after the game, because that community aspect is so important to me.