It is with these thoughts in mind that I ask you, humans, why do you stagnate so? At first, I believed it to be ignorance, that you did not realise that you were so insular. Imagine my shock when I discovered that stagnation and lack-of-variety is in fact a mark of pride in many circles, particularly those who dub themselves ‘gamers’.

I speak of a terrible mental condition known to some in the current day as ‘fanboyism’. It is a condition that affects many people today. It makes them loyal to a single person or thing and blinds them to the possibility that anything else could live up to or exceed the potential of their idol. Many of these people are too far gone to save. However, many do not suffer terminal fanboyism, but instead have a case of figurative tunnel vision. This is a more treatable condition.

These people cannot see anything but what is right in front of them. These are the people who order the same thing from a menu every time and play the same game system to the exclusion of all others, without even trying them. Such people need to open their minds and try something new. What baffles me is that many make justifications and excuses for the inadequacies of the thing they idolise, yet just outside their vision sits something that they have secretly been longing for that perfectly – or at least more adequately – fits their needs.

Why resist the new or the different? Is it that terrifying as to shun something completely, before even giving it a chance? You never know, it could be exactly what you have looking for.

Mockingbard, my host, shunned new game systems for a few years. It was only when he allowed his mind to be open to new experiences that he was able to embrace the ‘indie games’ that he had been missing out on. These were a much closer fit to what he had been trying to cobble together through heavily modified antiquated systems that were never intended for the purpose he tried to set them to.

If your tastes are represented by a round hole and your attempts to fill them are a square peg, would you not be wise to look for a round peg instead of filing the edges off the square one and ending up with a mangled splintered mess that was never intended to fit that hole? Square pegs are not round pegs, though round pegs are. Strategic war simulations are not emotional character driven stories; however emotional character driven stories are.

I am reminded of a man I once knew. I suppose you can, thus, consider this part of my Saga, as I was present during some of the events I am about to describe.

This man was the finest puppeteer in the land and his marionettes were the finest in the land: ingenious caricatures of humans, never intended to be realistic. However, the fat self-important ruler for whom he made the wooden people was displeased. He bellowed that they were not realistic enough. He could see the joints and strings and their faces were not nearly expressive enough. They do not cry, they do not bleed.

Troubled, the puppeteer changed his puppets and tried again and again only to be berated and ridiculed. Whispers filled his haunted sleep and it was in these fever dreams that he finally realised: puppets are not people, but people are. He began to dabble in the dark arts the whispers had spoken of. Soon, he had invaded the minds of real people and twisted them to dance as his living puppets.

The ruler was pleased as he watched the real emotions on the faces and watched the tears and blood spill forth from the ‘puppets’. Being a fat self-important man, it was only a matter of time before the ruler decided that these real people no longer were real enough. It was shortly after this that the performance gained a fat new puppet that cried and bled each day and each night, and the screams it made were applauded as the most realistic in the land.

Clearly, the moral of this story is that one need not try to make one thing something else, when the second thing already exists. One need not make puppets cry and bleed when humans are already so very capable of these acts.

Similarly, gamers, if the game you are playing fails to suit your needs and desires, cast it aside – at least temporarily – and search for a new game designed with people like you in mind. You may even find yourself becoming more open to trying other types of games in the process.

So try a new game, order a new meal, drive or walk some other way to wherever it is you are going and dabble in the dark arts. If you only take one thing away from this, remember to be like the puppeteer. We could really use more people like him…