I recently played a board game, and the first thing that surprised me was this: it has no goal. Or rather, there is a goal, but no one gives it to you in advance. You choose it yourself.
The game begins with your character finding themselves in an unfamiliar place. For example, they enter a village. There are people all around: some are selling vegetables, some are playing musical instruments, and some are simply standing there, staring at something. There might be animals, plants, houses, roads, landscapes — it all depends on the game master’s imagination.
And then you are asked a very simple question: What are you going to do?
That’s where things suddenly get difficult. Because there is no right answer. You can go and talk to people. You can explore the village. You can head into the forest, build a house, pick flowers — or do absolutely nothing. No one is going to tell you, “Here is your mission. Complete it.”
At some point, I realized that this game stops being just a game surprisingly quickly. Because when no one gives you a goal from the outside, you start bringing your own sense of meaning into it.
For example, in my village, I noticed that one person was missing. And for some reason, I immediately decided that I needed to find them. I started an investigation. I questioned people, looked for clues, and tried to figure out where they had disappeared to. That became my goal.
But no one had asked me to save them. I could have grown a garden. I could have opened a shop. I could have left the village and never come back. Out of all the possible options, why did I choose to look for the missing person?
That was when the game became truly interesting to me. Because the game master doesn’t tell you what is good or bad either. They don’t guide you along the “right” storyline or suggest the correct decision. They are more like reality itself.
Your character has a certain set of abilities. For example, your persuasion skill might be 4 out of 12, while your jumping ability is 12 out of 12. Before certain actions, dice are rolled. A low roll means your chances of success are small. A high roll means it might work out.
So you decide what you want, and the game responds: “All right. Try it. But I can’t promise you the outcome.”
And I think that’s exactly what makes it so fascinating. It’s a small simulation of life in the midst of chaos. You are given a world, abilities, chance, and other people. But you are given no instructions about what any of it is for. You have to create the meaning yourself.
And then comes an even harder part — not losing sight of the meaning you chose among an endless number of possibilities. Because if you can do anything, why are you doing this particular thing? Why save a person instead of growing a garden? Why keep going when you could stop? Why continue the investigation when ten new and interesting paths suddenly appear around you?
I think the game trains more than just your imagination. It reveals three things surprisingly well: what you choose when no one tells you what to choose; how easily you can be distracted from the goal you chose; and what you do when the outcome depends on you — but is never entirely under your control.
Life is pretty much the same, isn’t it? We are given a certain set of abilities, random circumstances, other people, and an enormous number of possible paths.
And the dice have already been rolled.
All that remains is to decide what makes your next move worth taking in the first place.
