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Lowell Kempf
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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You know how there are TV shows you used to watch faithfully or restaurants you used to go to all the time but you’ve now stopped watching or never go to anymore? Not for any particular reason or bad experience. The luster has just faded off of them. You look back and wonder how you forgot about them. (No, this isn’t going to be about my history with Battlestar Galactica)
Needless to say, this happens with games. What am I saying? It’s even more natural with games. Game mechanics and design are an evolving process. There are some games, like Puerto Rico or Ingenious that have passed the test of time for me. They are games that find their way back to the table on a regular basis.
But there are plenty of games, games that I really enjoyed, that got replaced or got played out. I’m not talking about games that got one or two plays and shelved. There are games that had a healthy play life but are games that we just don’t play anymore.
Looking through the shelves for games that might work at a wedding reception, I came across one of those games: No Thanks.
Back when it first came out, No Thanks saw a lot of play at a variety of tables for me. It fit into a coat pocket, it took no time to set up and a game took five minutes. Indeed, I remember that No Thanks got plenty of exposure on the Geek for all those reasons. It was known as the new filler of choice.
(And there’s that word again. Filler. While I use the word myself, I think that filler is a dangerous term. (I also don’t care for Ameritrash but that’s another conversation) I like short games and I like simple games. I think they have a place in a game library and in a gaming hobby. However, the term implies a game that’s only virtue is that it takes up a tiny bit of time. I’d like to think that people play games to have fun, not just to kill time.)
No Thanks got a lot of play for a while for me because it was so fast and easy to play. I played at it at the end of the night before going home. I played it while waiting for folks to show up for gaming. I played it at conventions while waiting for everyone to get to the table. However, there really isn’t that much meat to the game. In the end, the very traits that made us play it were what wore out its welcome.
Let’s take a look at what No Thanks really is. At its heart, it is a push-your-luck game. It is a game of risk management. Part of the gamble in the game is that cards are taken out of the deck. That means you don’t know the actual value of a given card until the end of the game. It might be part of a straight and be of high value to you. Or it could be a lone card and a weight around your neck.
But you don’t know. That does keep folks from card counting and keeps the game light but it does mean that you can’t develop a long term strategy. Luck of the draw can not only undermine the best laid plans, it is enough to make it hard to plan at all 
Let’s compare that to another fast and light press-your-luck game: Can’t Stop. Can’t Stop is a game that has been around for decades. I’ve been playing it for years and I’ll reach for it at the drop of a hat. Luck also plays a big part in Can’t Stop. A bad die roll can wipe out an amazing round.
But you always know the odds and can weigh the risks. Sure, sometimes the dice will throw you to the ground, stab you in the back and take your wallet. However, you have a pretty good idea how they should roll, even if that’s not how they roll. You can make an informed decision.
In the end, I think No Thanks lived up to the filler label, no offense to anyone who really likes it. It just didn’t turn out to be that interesting a process and the decisions that you made just weren’t meaningful enough. It paid for itself and was worth the money but now it’s just gathering dust on my shelf.
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