BOARDGAMING WITH TOURETTE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Melissa C. Water is helping me gradually close in on the target. There'll be piracy on the high seas in low company. And a good time had by all.
   You can lay to that, shipmates.

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My first YouTube video won't be a gameplay example, though. We're still sailing into port across choppy waters on that score. However, the video introduction is done...
   What to expect, in a video dealing with games? Dice, of course. 

There'll be several piratical games in time, so anticipate the arrival of treasure chests. I decided YouTube videos on tabletop games needed a sense of the theatrical. That's when I opted for the use of many props.
   What else to expect, in videos dealing with games? Cards, of course...

I'll make videos on gaming equipment. Cards. Dice. The table. A much-needed cloth. Daggers. Gunpowder. Small quantities of uranium. The usual stuff.
   There'll be games, too. Shocking, I know...

I determined, quite early, that gloves make great props for introducing games thematically. Piratical gloves go well with tales of larceny upon the seven seas, and so on.
   But, as handy tools, gloves are effing useless when it comes to moving game components around. Luckily, I only bought a few different pairs of gloves for the channel.
   They'll be used for effect here and there. No need to stuff a wardrobe full of them. Practicality outbids theatricality in this game, every single time.

Pictured: a still from the unboxing video I am planning to open my channel with. This is a shot of RISE OF TRIBES, by Breaking Games.
   I had a terrible time great fun lifting components out of the box with my awkward cumbersome begloved fingers wonderful atmospheric gloves. Would rather eat glass than attempt that again. Fun times.

Running a game internationally brings a whole host of problems to the gaming table. Fiddling around with counters on the end of gloved hands...isn't going to be one of those problems.

   I will face Tourette-based issues with Melissa C. Water, joining the game all the way from French Canada. We might be interrupted by full-on body tics. Convulsions. They appear epileptic in nature.

   We won't feature in the games as visual players ourselves. The emphasis is on telling a story and capturing game board imagery. The privacy issue, therefore, doesn't come up.

   I wouldn't be publishing footage of Melissa in convulsions anyway. What kind of Sick Space Muppet do you take me for? That leads to another point, though. How much of the audio do we use in the videos?

In my dealings with Melissa (editing her Kindle book), I found that she remained relatively calm when she latched onto a subject of interest to her. Tourette-based behaviour rose in frequency the more she talked about Tourette itself.
   Discussing audio tics, generated by Coprolalia, draws attention to the audio tics and increases the frequency of those sounds.
   I feel we face a vicious downward spiral and a virtuous upward spiral when we speak privately, depending entirely on the topics covered.
   It's my hope that gameplay will be of benefit to Melissa. We'll see. The channel is here to tell stories based around games. Winning and losing are of far less importance. The old adage applies.
   Did you have fun? Then you won.
   As far as audio is concerned, the videos are all going to be edited anyway. This is a real problem with gameplay videos online - lack of editing.
   I'm not going to name names here, or point fingers, and the people involved weren't famous YouTubers or big names in the boardgame side of things anyway.
   But I watched this video waiting for a game to start, and the people concerned were more interested in consuming meals. If I ever make game videos, I vowed, then I am not going to start game set-up with an introductory preamble that involves baking an effing cake.
   (Veering off, I must add this. There's a team out there on YouTube called Sugar High Score. If anyone could do a fascinating gameplay video about baking a cake, they'd take the biscuit.)
   My Bad Pun Detector is broken. Where was I?
   Yes, back to what I was saying about dusty desert-blown game videos. I was stuck with the charge of the pizza brigade. Well, I think it was pizza. Frankly, I'd lost the will to care by that point.
   Edit your nineteen-hour videos, folks.
   I'll do my best to edit out the faffing about. That means the Tourette-based videos face the same treatment. We might be forced to edit the worst tics out. But I might just as easily be forced to edit away the worst fumblings over intransigent game counters. Note to self: gloves are problematic.
   Luckily, Melissa is keen to see where this takes us, and she's game. You kinda have to be game, to game.
   Also, Melissa has a cool piratical gaming bonus...

Melissa C. Water's photos appear by kind permission.