The Worst Mother in the World

The only problem with composing the daily blog posts in advance is that I miss some of the more current events and reports that would be worthwhile to share as they occur. Our family's been playing a wide variety of games together lately and a lot of great stories have emerged from the experiences. One tale that was a bit painful to share until now was our fourth Risk Legacy game.

Our family friend takes Risk Legacy quite seriously but none of the rest of the players (my husband, my daughter, and I) are quite as dedicated to winning at all costs. In fact, if you remember from a post a while back, our friend has suggested that we don't play games properly because we are too considerate of our daughter to attack her or do what we need to do to win.

There was a moment late in the game where I had a chance to grab another HQ, earning me a fourth star and victory. The only challenge was that it was my daughter's HQ and it was well fortified with armies in the city she founded, Unova. I mentally debated about making this move but I decided to do it - I placed a Biohazard scar on her city. In Risk Legacy, this means that if you have armies in that area, you automatically lose one group at the beginning of your turn. My daughter reacted very strongly.

"HOW DARE YOU?!" she screamed.
And then she began to cry torrentially.

I felt like the worst mother in the world. I took her upstairs so she could finish crying in private and compose herself. I talked to her, telling her I didn't mean to make her feel bad, that I was only playing the game. She understood but was still pretty shaken up. She was a bit embarrassed too. She said she knew it was a game and it wasn't the end of the world but she just couldn't help her emotional reaction.

We finished the game (my strategy failed and the family friend won) and I worried that my girl wouldn't want to play with us anymore. We played our fifth Risk Legacy game and she won, fair and square. As victor, you have several options to choose from as your winning action. She chose to remove the Bio-hazard scar from her city.