Shades of Gray – Samhain 2021

 

I recently had an online encounter that set me thinking about trust, integrity and someone’s word. I posted a summary of it on Facebook which generated some feedback which revealed how many of us interact in anxious, stressful times. Increasingly we long to see our world as wholly black and white. I find the world more nuanced, more Celtic, full of banshees and black dogs whose cries can be difficult to interpret.

 

My tale begins at Kitten*Con: Tactical back in September. During the weekend, I read a couple articles and watched some related videos on using a series of commercial wargames as models to simulate how some current potential international conflicts might play out. Mainly these exercises, run by the likes of Rand or other strategic think tanks, serve as training for military officers and their civilian counterparts for what to expect and to highlight possible deficiencies in strategy and tactics as well as in equipment, training and/or logistics. They are complex real-world problems with consequences rooted in realpolitik.

 

The main article I ran across, in Forbes from a few years ago, laid out a scenario the US has struggled with since just after the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall fell. Basically, how would we handle a series of simultaneous regional conflicts. In this case, they involved Russia seizing the Baltic countries (ala Crimea 2014) at the same time China forcibly attempted reunification with Taiwan while unleashing its ally/proxy North Korea upon the south to muddy the waters, to tie down US assets, and/or for its own territorial gains. It’s a nightmare scenario with our current NATO, Korean and Taiwanese alliances and commitments.

 

Foreign policy has long been an area of interest to me. I have often debated over coffee with a defense contractor friend (who was formerly in the Navy) how some of these scenarios might spin out. As I wrote about earlier this year, these problems interest me because I see complex wargames as problems I can solve. Or at least give a good go. They help me understand how the world works and the limitations of US power and influence.

 

The exercise Forbes wrote about used a set of commercial wargames published by GMT called the Next War series. I have long been aware of these games. I own two of the five already, Poland and India/Pakistan. Over the summer and into the fall, intensifying provocations by China against Taiwan got me interested in Next War: Taiwan.

 

That game (published in 2014) was out of print. GMT, as with many of its more popular games, planned to issue a second edition. That required receiving enough pre-orders to justify the cost of a second printing. This is pretty much their risk reduction business model, which many other wargame manufacturers have emulated. Normally, once they got enough pre-orders (incentivized with a significant discount off the retail price), they would send the files to their printer after making any adjustments to the rules and graphics from errata and clarification to the first edition. That process might take a year depending on the rest of their production pipeline.

 

One small problem. Covid-19. As you may have guessed, their printing facilities, like many other companies, are in China. Between the pandemic shutdowns and continuing supply chain disruptions, GMT’s production schedule ground to a halt over the summer. I mean basically a full stop. They, like many other retailers, had crates of games waiting to be loaded onto cargo ships in Chinese ports. And because GMT is not a big game company like, say, Asmodee, they regularly get bumped out of production and shipping schedules around the time of GenCon, the Essen Game Fair, and again at Christmas. Reading GMT’s monthly newsletter, it looked like the totality of circumstances could backlog a second printing of Next War: Taiwan by a year at the very least. Likely more.

 

These problems have a few readymade solutions. First, I looked on Amazon to see if anyone still had a copy laying around a warehouse. No joy. Then I checked my favorite independent reseller out in Oregon, Fine Games for Players and Collectors. No luck there either. I glanced at eBay but the prices there were exorbitant ($400 for a $90 game). Fortunately, there was one more place to look, the marketplace on Board Game Geek.

 

On the Saturday night of Kitten*Con, I scanned BGG and found a copy of Next War: Taiwan for sale. $100 including shipping. Like new. I wanted to think about it for a bit to ensure this wasn’t a cognac-induced impulse buy (which has NEVER happened). I figured I had time. Games on BGG don’t usually disappear that fast. And yet, when I went back the next morning, the listing had already been snatched up.

 

The more articles I read over the weekend, the more videos I watched, the more I thought about it, and the more headlines of Chinese overflights of Taiwan I saw on my newsfeed, the more I was confident I wanted to explore this game. So, post-Kitten*Con, I began checking BGG every week. From the marketplace history, it looked like a copy of the game might crop up every month or two.

 

Low and behold, one did near the end of September. Good price. Punched but in Good condition. Standard shipping. PayPal. 19 positive reviews on the seller, none neutral or negative. Check, check, check. So, I added it to my cart.

 

The process on BGG is pretty straightforward. When you check out, you don’t actually buy the game at that moment. You just put a reserve on it and the listing comes off the marketplace. The seller gets notified you want the game. S/he has three days to respond. Then s/he sends you a notice with the cost of shipping (if not included) and where to send payment. Finally, if all goes well, your game ships within a few days. Easy-peasy.

 

At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. The first two parts of the process went fine. I got notified through the BGG messaging system that the seller had seen my desire to buy and would get back with shipping and his PayPal account. Which he did within a day. I sent payment right away. The next day, I received an email saying that the game had shipped along with a tracking number. Great.

 

Until I scrolled further down the message. Where the seller mentioned oh-by-the-way that ten counters would be missing because he wanted to keep them. Wait, what? I started a fervent search of all the messages I’d received so far. There was no mention of this in the listing. Nor when the offer was accepted. Nor when he gave where to send the payment. Only after it was shipped with a tracking number which meant the box was already in the USPS system.

 

But in that message, he said he’d send them if I really wanted them. He listed exactly what they were. So off to GMT’s site to do more research. Turns out Next War: Taiwan has a scenario that combines with Next War: Korea using four land-based US counters and six upgraded air counters that had been included with Taiwan. Next War: Korea was still in print and on my wishlist to pick up sometime in the near future.

 

I responded back, yes, I would like those counters. I was not particularly happy about having this sprung on me at the last minute but kept everything professional. I think I said something about the “complete game as sold.” I got back a message that basically said, Oh, ok, I’ll send them. But I am going out of town. For a week. Tomorrow.

 

Uh, really? Ok, now my alarm bells are beginning to sound off. Some polite back and forth later I got increasingly suspect information. The counters are in another box (Korea). That I loaned to a friend. Who is going to Denmark as soon as I get back.

 

By now, those alarms had become a three-alarm fire. What in the actual was this guy up to? Was he holding the counters for ransom? Was he going to ask for additional shipping? Was he really just clueless or was he truly unscrupulous? I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. This very much sounded to me like someone making excuses and running out a clock. So once again to the internets to do some research to figure out where I stood.

 

First, I look up to see exactly what various conditions mean on BGG. Without belaboring it, a game in Good condition is supposed to mean played once or twice, minor wear, and all components present. In fact, missing components makes the BGG condition Unacceptable (two grades lower), which they very clearly state should not be sold on their marketplace. Ok, so far, so good.

 

Turns out that BGG has a dispute process. But because they are only a facilitator, it’s a bit toothless. They will mediate between the buyer and the seller to reach an accommodation. They have the ability to ban as seller (or a buyer) from the site. But they specifically tell buyers not to expect to get their due. So basically, caveat emptor.

 

I know our Visa also has a dispute process of 60 days (a long time to run out a clock). I’ve used that before though not with this particular (new) card. But I’ve read it is complicated by using PayPal because of the way the charges are listed on the card. But Visa, like BGG, takes a dim view of mis-advertised merchandise.

 

So off to PayPal to see what they can do. This one is more interesting. Their clock is 180 days to notify them of a dispute through their Purchase Protection program (which appears to be automatic as long as you list the payment as a purchase, rather than sending money to friends or family). After a dispute is filed, you have another 20 days to make a claim, during which they also attempt to mediate a solution. I know how serious they are from reading about small businesses who have had their funds frozen and sometimes pulled back after that 180 days (which makes their accounts receivable a bit of a nightmare).

 

But I’ve also dealt with PayPal enough to know they can be dicey in communication and in protocol. I currently have a credit card perma-banned from their site for having deleted it once too often from my account (btw, the magic number is 3). Although they say that nowhere in their terms of service. But they steadfastly refuse to reinstate it for “security reasons” even a decade later. Yeah.

 

In the interim, the game box arrived at my door. Which set off a full inventory of counters (over 600) based on images from BGG, because none of what I’d heard from the seller up to then sounded sketchy as hell. Yup, ten counters short. The ten counters listed. It didn’t help that he had misaddressed the package by hand which the post office kindly corrected.

 

More polite but firm back and forth later (including an address correction), I finally get a shipment date for the counters, although the seller is obviously annoyed with me by this point. Dredging up my best professional email skills, I tried to be calm and collected. I didn’t rant or get rude or issue a threat, just asked for a “firm” date so we could both put the transaction to bed. Which he seemed to be take as a personal slight to his integrity. Uh, yeah, ok.

 

That shipment date is three weeks away. Much longer than I want to spend with what should have been a simple purchase in the wind.

 

By now my inner voice was screaming at me. For whatever reason, my anxiety had ramped up to raging at something just short of an existential crisis. I kept waking up, sorting through options and contingency plans, desperately trying to figure out how to resolve this issue without escalating the situation inappropriately (and thus compromising a possible resolution), but without getting taken, and without losing my shit.

 

As I have mentioned in other essays, I sometimes haunt game stores (and since the pandemic online sales) as a reward to alleviate stress. My wife buys yarn. Other friends buy electronic gadgets or motorcycles. I buy games. I draw comfort from them, from proving to myself again and again that I can still learn something complex and new. The controlled conflict of wargaming relaxes me, mostly because I see it as an exploration not a competition, which not everyone understands.

 

Believe it or not, I am generally conflict-averse for a variety of reasons, most of which center on how I grew up. I prefer to settle things amicably. Which often leads people to underestimate me and my resolve, which they take as sign they can bully me. But from a variety of experiences, I also know how to settle disputes through conflict as necessary. I am reasonably good at it. We’ve had a new water heater installed for free, out of warranty, by a national retailer after I (professionally) went to war with them. We’ve received a $3000 refund from of a national AC company for a four-year-old unit they mis-installed after I started a very minor social media campaign against them (without signing their required NDA). I convinced our cable company to run a hundred yards of new line behind the house without charge when we got into a dispute over their signal quality. Though I score that one as a draw as we canceled service when they still couldn’t fix the underlying issue because they were incompetent and didn’t know how to ground their cable.

 

So, I was pretty sure I could handle this dispute if I had to. I just didn’t want to and wouldn’t like to. I try to only use my powers for good. But once the leash is slipped, it’s game on. Hope for the best but prepare to burn the motherfucker down.

 

The problem is that you never know who you are dealing with on the other end of the equation. This guy had my physical address. Was he the type of gamer to SWAT someone as a resolution strategy? Seems extreme but it’s been known to happen for less reason. I had no idea and no desire to find out.

 

And that was just one of many scenarios my mind spun out in the middle of the night. Thankfully, the email address was to a junk account that I don’t use for much other than online purchases (i.e. not traceable back to social media accounts), and easily discarded if necessary.

 

As I mentioned, my anxiety was pretty much running to the redline by then.

 

Like I said in Kintsugi, I’ve been taught that if you feel bad, you’ve done something wrong. Even though my wife reassured me that I hadn’t. But by this point, I felt awful. I wished I’d never poked my head out of my pandemic bunker. Wished I’d never logged onto Board Game Geek. Wished I’d never heard of this game. Somewhere, somehow, I was convinced I’d done something wrong. While I could eat $75 without it breaking the bank, I really didn’t want to, nor did I feel I had to. So, I tried to walk a fine line until I saw how all this played out.

 

And that was before my wife booked an emergency trip to see her mother one final time (for whom hospice had been called in) only to have her pass while my wife was in the air. Which put all of this mostly to sleep while I supported her. Mostly.

 

As the promised shipment date approached, my contact had gone dark as had I. But that didn’t mean all was quiet on this eastern front. My mind was constantly writing and rewriting the messages I anticipated having to send, to the seller, to BGG, to PayPal. Chipping away at individual words, replacing them with others, substituting them back. All without putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), because I was afraid if I actually committed the words to a message that I would want, almost need to use them. So, kind of an iterative Obsessive Composition Disorder. Much like my normal mode of writing only with scarier inner voices who weren’t nearly as entertaining.

 

So yeah, I was a bit of a mess, trying to hold together my composure by self-mediating with superglue and strapping tape with minimal success.

 

Then a day before the deadline, a message arrives. The seller was going to his friend’s that day to pick up the counters. Terse. But fine. Slightly comforting. Later that day, another message. Equally as terse. A USPS tracking number and an estimated delivery date. This time I said I would let him know when the package arrived.

 

Now I felt a little more confident and began to relax. Four days later, the mail arrived. I interrupted the Facetime call I was on to go grab it. I popped open the envelope to find a sheath containing the missing counters. After the call, I verified they are indeed the right counters via the images on BGG.

 

Then I sent an email, letting the seller know they’d arrived and looked good. I also said my wife and I were looking forward to exploring this game, especially given recent events overseas. And I again thanked him for his effort. Even though this was a self-inflicted wound on his part, which I tactfully didn’t mention.

 

I figured that would be the end of it. So, I posted my much shorter summary of the experience on Facebook to vent. Over the next couple hours, I got a lot of advice to ding the seller with a negative review on BGG for a variety of reasons.

 

Which I had decided not to do although I did understand why opinions might vary. The way I saw it, he did (eventually) make it right on the timeline he promised after the back and forth, which didn’t require my shepherding him. Which is all any official dispute process through BGG or PayPal would have done.

 

As well, when I’d dinged a bookseller over a purchase for similar reasons about a decade before on a similar but different marketplace, he causally stated he would just trash my rating as a buyer (which is a real thing, btw). At which I laughed and wished him good luck as I closed out my account.

 

In this case, straightening it out was a hassle and an anxiety-inducing pain. But in the end, no blood, no foul. Not worth more drama, even as a PSA. This had already been more stress than I was looking for in buying a game that was supposed to be a reward. Which is why my future purchases will likely be through Amazon, a manufacturer like GMT, or Fine Games, not independent third-party sellers. Because you never know who you are dealing with or what assumptions they’ll make.

 

I get that all of this was my reaction, and so to a large extent my issue. My mind raced away from me. Although, in its defense, I have known individuals who would settle disputes with noisy Hispanic neighbors by threatening to call immigration (without knowing their status). I’ve known individuals who would threaten the same with child services or the IRS in similar circumstances just to turn someone’s life upside down because they’d pissed them off.

 

As I said, I know my reaction sounds extreme. But so is finding out that one of the Jan. 6 Insurrectionists lives a couple blocks away (and was recently rearrested for DUI boating while he was supposed to be under house confinement). Never mind locals straying toward confrontation and violence over who is or isn’t wearing a mask. It’s all fun and games until real-world news stories slap you in the face. People can be bizarre and vindictive. Witness Gamer-Gate.

 

But for me, this level of anxiety was new and generally not the kind of behavior I expect in a major appliance. Perhaps understandable given the circumstances of the past few years, and yet still disconcerting.

 

That evening, after the post-crisis drinking had begun, I noticed another little red 1 on my email icon again. A final message from the seller, a response to my last email. Reluctantly and with trepidation, I opened it.

 

In the message, the seller spontaneously apologized for his assumption about the counters. I hadn't brought that up in any of our previous communications. I got the sense someone may have pointed out to him how his actions might have been perceived. So maybe he had learned something. At any rate, that apology neutralized much of the sour taste from the encounter.

 

As I said early on, you never know who you are dealing with. Sometimes they surprise you.

 

Even with the sirens sounding in my head, I had resisted escalating the situation until I knew without a doubt that this individual was actually being dishonest, even as I stressed over that possibility and plotted out scenarios of what to do should that get borne out. While I still have trouble comprehending the particular decisions made, he was generally honest (though not up front). A set of unique circumstances and perhaps bad decisions conspired leave a distinct impression with me. One that, thankfully, ended up being wrong.

 

Or so I choose to believe. Because it’s easier and likely healthier than walking away from the encounter with a deeply ingrained sense of cynicism. Experience teaches us. But experience and instinct aren’t always right, especially under stress. Something that I need to remember as I continue to navigate this world with all its grayscale inhabitants, from dark to light.

 

The black dog howls. Sometimes it’s a warning. And sometimes it is just trying to woo the moon.

 

 

© 2021 Edward P. Morgan III