Level Up Your Social Life: The Gamer's Guide To Social Success
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Others will enjoy talking to you more.
Side Quests:
Head to PongGame.org and play a few games of Pong. Not only is it a piece of gaming history, but it will give you a good visual image to use when you are in a conversation.
Watch a TV show that has a lot of dialogue (reality TV shows can be great for this). Pick a character. Whenever someone says something to that character, pause the show and imagine that you are that character. Take a moment to think how you would respond in a way that returns the ball and aims at their paddle. Then unpause and see how the character actually responded.
Check out my full conversation guide at ImproveYourSocialSkills.com/Conversation. It’s free, and it goes much more in depth.
Multiplayer Level Two: Minecraft
Ok, I’ll confess.
I’ve only played Minecraft once. My college roommate played it fanatically, and one day I asked to try it. I punched a few trees, chased a few pigs, built a pickaxe, mined straight down, and found myself trapped once my pickaxe broke. I logged off and have not returned.
But I’ve enjoyed sinking my teeth into similar games. My favorite is Terraria, with well over a hundred hours played. Being 2D, Terraria doesn’t have quite the building potential as Minecraft, but it makes up for it with excellent co-op and a good blend of exploration, mining, combat, and crafting. Given how much fun I’ve had with Terraria, one of these days I might finally bite the bullet and return to the original land of pickaxes and pig punching (this time, I’ll dig stairs instead of an inescapable pit!)
There’s something extremely compelling about games like Minecraft or Terraria, where the same raw materials can turn into everything from a sturdy creeper defense to an intricate recreation of Middle Earth. Obviously, a game as popular as Minecraft has a lot of enjoyable features. But for the purposes of this book, I want to highlight just one—gathering resources for crafting.
See, here’s the thing. When you play Minecraft or Terraria, you come across a lot of resources during your exploring. On occasion you’re hunting for a particular resource because you have a goal in mind, but often you don’t know exactly what you’ll need down the road. So a savvy player will gather a variety of valuable resources during their explorations, so later on they have a stockpile of resources ready for any crafting project.
Here’s where I’m going with this. Conversation is kind of like crafting, in that good conversation requires some “raw resources.” In this case, raw resources are things like interesting stories from your life, hot topics in the news, or knowledge about what’s happening in the life of the person you’re talking with. If you never know what to say in a conversation, you may need to do more “mining” beforehand.
For instance, as I write this in early 2016, the big news is Donald Trump running for president. Most people like talking about The Donald’s latest antics, so knowledge about him is a valuable resource. If you know the recent news about Donald Trump, you can start a conversation by saying, “So, what do you think about Donald Trump running for president?” or “Hey, did you heard that Donald Trump did X recently?” In this case, the resource that you mined was the latest news on Donald Trump, and you were able to craft that news into a good conversation topic.
There are lots of ways you can mine conversational resources. One good way is to keep up to date on the news and discussion surrounding popular hobbies. One of my friends started a job at a new office where everyone loved sports. My friend didn’t like sports, but he did want to connect with his new coworkers. So he started watching Sports Center and after about a month, he could participate in conversations about sports without missing a beat.
You can do the same thing. Find a good website, podcast or TV show that discusses the topic you want to be more knowledgeable about, and after a few weeks you’ll be able to participate in conversations on that topic. For instance, if you wanted to stay up to date on gaming news, visit Kotaku a few times a week. If you want to stay up to date on world news, visit The New York Times or the Economist.
There’s really a good source of news for almost any hobby you can think of. I don’t know anything about fishing, but a few seconds on Google revealed that WorldFishingNetwork.com exists. If I had a friend who loved fishing, that would be a great site to add to my weekly routine. After I read World Fishing Network for a few weeks, I would have good questions that I could ask my friend about their favorite hobby. You can do this too. Just Google for the name of their hobby, plus “news” or “blog.”
Another excellent way to mine for conversational resources is to stay alert for interesting stories in your own life. If something interesting, exciting or unusual happens to you, make an effort to remember it (you might even write it down.) You may find that it becomes a great story to share during conversations.
For instance, I went on a terrible date in college, which was not at all fun at the time (I won’t go into detail, but it ended when her friend called midway through the date, and she canceled the date to hang out with her friend instead.) But later on, I realized how funny the story of my terrible date was, and I’ve since told that story in dozens of conversations and received lots of laughs. So keep alert for the interesting or unusual things that happen in your life, and see if they might become stories that you can add to conversation.
Of course, you can also try to deliberately have some interesting experiences in order to build your stockpile of stories. I once got an opportunity to ride along as a retired professional racer drove on a Formula One race track. It was terrifying, but it made for a great story. You could try bungee jumping, or enter a pie eating contest, or volunteer at an old folks’ home. Do something out of the ordinary, and over time you’ll build a lot of stories you can use in conversations.
One final source of resources: Your conversation partners themselves. Often when you’re talking with someone, they’ll tell you facts that you can use in later conversations. For instance, if a friend tells that they’re about to embark on a big road trip, remember that fact. Then next time you talk to them, ask them how the road trip went. You’ll score points for your good memory, and you’ll start a good conversation.
(Warning: Avoid the temptation to snoop. Information that someone tells you directly is fair game, but if you have to troll through their Facebook to find information, you may want to think twice before bringing it up, especially if you don’t know them well.)
Quest 2.2 (Type: Daily)
Quest Objectives:
Choose two to three good sources you can mine for conversational resources
Check each source each day for a week.
Quest Description:
During lunch I often check Google News for general news, ArsTechnica.com for technology news, and Reddit to stay up-to-date on the internet hive mind. But you don’t need to be limited to websites. If you spend a lot of time in the car, try downloading some good podcasts, or tune into an informative station like NPR. You might even subscribe to a print magazine (they still exist!)
Please note: these need to be sources of news that discuss different topics. If you pick three different sources of gaming news, all you can discuss is gaming. So find news sources that address a variety of topics.
At first, pick news sources that you’re really going to enjoy reading, to make the habit stick. But as you progress, you might want to add news sources that relate to a topic that would be good for you to learn. For instance, you might follow news for the industry you work in. Or you might follow news related to a friend’s hobby. You might even decide to teach yourself a particular skill, and start following the latest tips on personal finance or exercise (or even social skills!)
Whatever you choose, be consistent about it. Ten or fifteen minutes per day is plenty, but ten or fifteen minutes per month is not. Find a way to make this part of your routine, and stick with it.
Quest Rewards:
More topics you can use in conversation
Be more informed and educated
&
nbsp; Discover new areas of interest.
Side Quests:
Do something interesting, just for the story. Try speed dating! Go to the zoo and feed the llamas! Take an art class! Wake up early and hike to a hilltop, then watch the sunrise. If it would make a good story, give it a try!
Spend one week following the news on a topic that you’re not familiar with, and see what you can learn.
When your friend tells you something about their life, remember it and bring it up in a future conversation.
Multiplayer Level Three: Parsers
My favorite childhood games, without a doubt, were the King’s Quest series. The King’s Quest series were classic adventure games—you traveled throughout a fantasy kingdom, collecting items, solving puzzles, and generally being heroic. As a kid, these games were perfect for imagining myself as the hero on a quest, and I would play them constantly.
Of course, some of the reason I put so many hours into them was that my progress was slow. While later King’s Quest games moved to a point-and-click interface, the early ones used a parser interface. In a parser interface, you type in the actions you wanted your character to perform.
For instance, if your character fell in a lake, you would type SWIM. If you wanted your character to climb a tree, you would type CLIMB TREE. You could move around the world with the arrow keys, and you could get some information by looking at the graphics, but mostly you interacted with the game by typing commands. As a kid, this was a challenging interface to master, because my vocabulary and spelling were both limited—making it difficult for me to figure out exactly what I needed to type in to the parser to solve a particular puzzle.
However, I eventually learned an excellent strategy for using the parser. If you use the LOOK command, the game will print a description of the area you’re in, including all of the different objects in the area. I could then use the game’s words for the objects in order to interact with them.
For instance, at one point in King’s Quest 2, you encounter what looks like a pitchfork lying on the beach. But typing GET PITCHFORK returned an error message. It was only when I first used LOOK that I realized the object on the beach was a trident—and then successfully grabbed it using GET TRIDENT.
In other words, I didn’t need to rely on my own (limited) vocabulary anymore. I could LOOK and then use the game’s words from the description to guide my action.
While I didn’t realize it at the time, I think this realization also helped me in my conversations.
See, here’s the thing. When you talk to someone, you need to have something to talk about. But if you pick a boring topic (or no topic at all), the conversation will quickly peter out. So how do you know what to talk about?
People try to solve this problem in different ways. Some people have a stockpile of interesting questions ready, and jump from one prepared question to the next. Some people wait for the other person to take the initiative and ask them a question. Other people just start talking about whatever they want, and hope the other person shares their interest.
But there’s a better option. Just give your partner the opportunity to show you what they want to talk about.
See, people will signal to you the topics they want to discuss. You just need to give them a chance. If you give people an open-ended question, they will usually answer it in a way that suggests the topics they want to discuss.
For instance, let’s say you ask someone, “Hey, what’s new?” and they respond “Oh, I just got a new dog, so I’ve been busy taking care of him.” They could have answered your question any way they wanted to. Because they chose to mention the dog, there’s a pretty good chance that they would welcome a conversation about their new dog.
Or to put it back in King’s Quest terms—by asking an open ended question, you were essentially typing LOOK. Your follow up question should be based on the reply, just as the follow up actions in the game are based on what LOOK tells you about the environment.
Here’s a detailed example. In King’s Quest you might type “LOOK” and receive the reply “You stand in a wooden glade. A large boulder rests beneath the shade of the trees.” The boulder is the most interesting part of the description, so you type “LOOK BOULDER” and receive the reply “The boulder is weathered and grey, with a large hole in the side. Something glints from inside the hole.” The hole is the most interesting part of the boulder, so you type “LOOK HOLE” and the game tells you “A beautiful diamond necklace lies abandoned within the hole.” Finally, you type “GET NECKLACE” and are rewarded with a valuable item.
In a conversation, you might say “What’s new?” which leads to “Oh, I just got a new dog.” The dog is the most interesting part of the answer, so you ask a question like “Wow, a dog! What’s it like to be a dog owner?” Your question remains open-ended, but you are showing interest. Your partner might respond, “I love it! I think my favorite part is when we get to go to the park and play together.” The most interesting part of the answer is playing at the park, so you ask, “Aw, that sounds fun. What do you guys do together at the park?”
Just as LOOK leads to LOOK BOULDER which leads to LOOK HOLE which leads to GET NECKLACE, “What’s new?” leads to “What’s it like to be a dog owner?” which leads to “What do you do at the dog park?” In both cases, the progression is natural and intuitive. All you need to do is ask an open-ended question, look for the key ideas that you get from the response, and then ask another open-ended question that builds on those key ideas.
Of course, you can run into some wrinkles along the way. For instance, what if they include multiple key ideas in their response? In that case, pick the one that interests you the most. It’s easier to ask good questions if you have genuine curiosity.
You can also go back to key ideas that were mentioned earlier. For instance, if someone says “This weekend I’m going to the mall and then I’m going on a road trip” you could ask them about the mall and then ask them about the road after you’re finished discussing the mall. This backtracking is especially helpful if you choose the wrong key topic to ask about. If you ask them about the mall and they seem bored with your question, you might switch immediately to asking about the road trip.
By the way, you don’t need to stick with one topic for this technique to work. For instance, midway through a conversation about their new dog, someone might say “I’m really excited for when he’s old enough to take to the office with me.” They’ve just introduced a new key idea—the office—and so you can now ask them questions about their job if you like.
Quest 2.3 (Type: Collection)
Quest Objectives
LOOK (ask an open-ended question) in conversation ten times
FOLLOW UP (ask about the key idea from their response) ten times.
Quest Description
Pretty straightforward. Ask someone an open ended question, and then ask them a follow up question based on their answer. You should do this ten times total, but you don’t need to do all ten in the same conversation.
At first, you might struggle a little. It can be difficult to come up with open-ended questions on the fly, and it can also be difficult to tell which part of their answer you should respond to. But with practice, you’ll build a collection of good open-ended questions, and you’ll also get better at sensing which part of their response is really the most important. Remember, you don’t need to be perfect at this— just keep practicing, and you’ll get better over time.
Quest Reward:
+2 to asking questions
+4 to conversational skill
+9 against ogres
Side Quests:
Play King’s Quest! Okay, this one won’t help you much with your social skills. But it will help you understand the parser reference, and it’s just a fun game in general. You can play the original King’s Quest games for free at Sarien.net, or you can download a more modern fan remake at AGDInteractive.com. They’re also for sale on Steam and Gog.com. The modern remakes don’t use the pars
er, but you can still get a feel for the gameplay.
Practice adding topic suggestions when you reply to other people’s questions. For instance, I usually add one or two details to any response that I offer so the other person has something to ask about. Instead of saying “My weekend was good” I might say “My weekend was good. I had lunch with a friend, and then we saw a new movie together!” That way they can ask me about the friend, or the movie if they want.
Next time you read a novel, pause whenever two characters have a detailed conversation. Challenge yourself to identify the key topics in their responses, and practice the questions you would ask if you were present. Of course, this won’t work with every book or with all dialog. But this is a good way to practice on your own.
Multiplayer Level Four: The Whelk
Final Fantasy Six (originally released as Final Fantasy Three in the US) was a masterpiece of a game. Despite being constrained by the technical limitations of the SNES, it managed to fit deep characters, engrossing plot, a sweeping orchestral score, and fantastic gameplay into a 16 bit cartridge.
If you’ve never played it, you are missing out. There is a reason why this game is still regularly featured on “best game of all time” lists, even more than twenty years after it was originally released. Fortunately, you can buy a remade version on Android or iPhone (and I highly recommend you do!)
However, I’m not going to talk about what made FF6 great. I’m not going to talk about the story, the characters, the gorgeous opera scene, or the dancing Moogles.