Intro
Hello and welcome back for another serving of Bacon’s Bits, the article series where I get to dig into a niche Underworlds topic and weigh in with my opinion. This one is less specific to Underworlds, but I feel it is a very important and often overlooked topic in gaming as a whole. While I’m happy to say that talking about mental health has largely been destigmatized compared to if we were to rewind the clocks a couple of decades (or perhaps even less), that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are always able to articulate how a game might be impacting us personally. Games should be fun, and, from the outside, it is easy to think that is all they would be. “Mark enjoys playing Underworlds, so why would he feel anything other than joy when he does?” I want to preempt the remainder of this article by stating that I am fortunate to continue sustaining what I think is a very healthy attitude toward Underworlds, but that doesn’t mean we should disregard the pressures or how to handle them. In fact, I was speaking with another player recently and, as we sympathized over the pressure we put on ourselves to win, it spawned the idea for this article. If the two of us felt this way, the odds were pretty good that we weren’t the only ones, so I hope that some of you find our experience helpful.
Personal Experience
Right off the bat, I want to establish that I am by no means trained in mental health services or anything like that. I just want to, as a peer, share my experience with competitive gaming in the hopes that others might be able to benefit from me having done so.
For me (and, I suspect, for many), stress in competitive gaming has, unsurprisingly, always come as a result of concern about my performance. I think I mentioned on my prior blog that I really got my start in competitive gaming playing Pokemon (the video game, not the card game). When I started out, the game was pure joy for me. It was so fun to delve into the minutiae of matchups, tweak move sets and stats, and battle. However, at some point, all the time and interest I put into it actually turned me into a pretty decent player. I won some leagues and some tournaments, started getting enough notoriety to be selected in team championships, and even started to get invites into some of the more exclusive leagues which featured some of the best players in the game. A few years into this journey, I realized something important: my joy had sort of slowly been converting into stress. If playing was 100% joy when I started, I was maybe 95% after I won my first league, then maybe 80% after I made my first team, then maybe 60% after I got my invite to a top-flight league. Slowly but surely, the game became more stress for me than joy, to the point where I’d get so anxious before a game that I wouldn’t eat, or the stress would hang over my head like a dark cloud for a day, a weekend, a week. An even more annoying part about stressing over a game is that there is an additional stress to not appear stressed about the game, which can be a brutal self-sustaining loop. Despite all this, the act of prepping and playing was still so fun for me that it was tough to quit. Still, I eventually made the decision to retire from the game and felt this massive weight lift from my shoulders. In hindsight, it seems so silly to have put myself through that “just” for a game, but it is hard to have that perspective while you are in it.
In Underworlds, I am very fortunate to have had a different experience, which I imagine I owe to this being such a positive and welcoming community. The ability to enjoy a competitive game without re-introducing the level of anxiety I felt playing Pokemon has been wonderful for me. That said, I think it is pretty normal to get nervous before an event, even if it doesn’t manifest itself physiologically like it did for me back then. If I want to make good content for you guys, I feel a need to be perceived as a good player. Because I want to be perceived as a good player, I will place an inherent pressure on myself to do well at events, if not outright win them. If I want to go to Worlds and show I am one of the best players, I now put additional pressure on myself in those situations where I have a chance to get a ticket. On top of that, it’s become not just about winning and being the best, but now also about earning a chance to have a great experience traveling to Worlds and seeing the same friends I did the prior year. For example, I am very fortunate to have made top cut at Worlds in 2023 and 2025 to automatically re-qualify for the following year, but 2024 was a much different feeling. Going into AdeptiCon 2024 knowing that was one of my few opportunities to claim a ticket to get back to Atlanta gave the whole event a much different vibe for me. I would say I still had (and am having) a lot of fun, but it was easier to feel that familiar tug of stress with something extra on the line even though I was “just” playing a game.
As I said, I am fortunate that any stress I have felt to do well in Underworlds is not nearly on the same level of what I felt towards the end of my Pokemon career, but I think addressing that it exists and diagnosing why it exists is extremely helpful in dealing with it. In small doses, stress is not a bad thing, and I think it can even be harvested to help you focus. How much stress is too much is something each individual has to sort for themselves. To that end, I’ve solicited a testimonial from my conversation partner on their experience managing stress as well.
Testimonial (by Derek a.k.a. Kaptain Murder)
“If you don’t win the last game of the season, nobody gives a —-”
It’s a line from Moneyball, but it encapsulates how I often feel about tournaments and even how I feel about Underworlds with our World Championships always on the horizon. It was manifesting in preparation for the Canadian Tabletop Championships and led to fairly hard anxiety. So much so that I almost didn’t get on the plane to Ottawa, instead questioning if I would get what I wanted out of the weekend (A Qualifier Ticket); If I am actually a decent player at this game (especially in comparison with the talent that was attending); and even if I pull everything off – would I want to go through this again at Worlds? (I still don’t know).
I got on the plane and made it to the show, but spent the day with labored breathing, crushing “what if I play wrong” – ism, and constant frustration at the talent of my opponents or lack of dice fairness. When, after the last round, I mentioned this to Mark, he let me know that he was writing an article on the subject and asked if he could share what I went through today, because he could tell it was getting to me. To his immaculate credit, the next thing he said was that he wouldn’t share my name -which I appreciated- but it’s important to know that we all go through it, and I go through it, and it’s worth talking about.
I’ll let you know some of the actual results of how I was feeling: before the tournament, I was tinkering so much with my deck that I unknowingly replaced Sidestep. I didn’t realize this until round 3. At the tournament, I made a whole slew of misplays that, if I wasn’t on such an edge, would have smoothed out into what I feel would’ve been much better play. I couldn’t eat at lunch, and by the end of the tournament, was so light-headed that even a half-dozen beers hadn’t set me straight yet (note: I was taking this event so seriously I went dry until it was over).
Here’s the thing: if I had calmed down, not taken it so seriously, not worried about what everyone else would have thought or been scared to disappoint myself or others, I would have had a much better time. And that’s what I’d really like to share with everyone: If you are feeling this going in, talk it out. Talk about it with your sweetie, your friends, you can even hit me up on Discord (but I’ll insist we crack a beer). Reason why is that there’s a strong similarity between gaming anxiety and sports anxiety (which I also get and see in my teammates) and if you are keeping it in, you are making it worse.
I am very lucky that I have met some of the greatest people I know through Underworlds. We have, in my opinion, the least toxic community in all of GW games. So, resource that community for your health and to make you a better player. Take advantage of the excellent culture that we have built here. I’ll work on taking my own advice and be better next time I see you at the table whether it’s at our local or in the next Grand Clash. To sum up, if you’re feeling overwhelmed going into the next tournament? Talk it out, bitch.
Conclusion
I want to give a big thank you to Derek for sharing his experience and opening up about a really difficult topic. To wrap us up, feeling stress, even while doing something you enjoy, is totally normal. Still, you might find it helps to talk about it, reflect on it, or otherwise spend some time diagnosing the root of your feelings to help yourself work through it. At least, that’s what has worked for us.
Until next time, we wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!
