Self-Imposed Objectives

Oftentimes when playing a game I find myself adding on my own objectives: make a figure eight with my roads in Settlers of Catan, kill players as Donkey Kong by falling off a cliff while holding them and throwing them at the last second, etc.  Consciously, I'll do this if a game is getting unbalanced or is losing its fun.  If I'm winning too much and my friends aren't having fun, I'll secretly start adding in extra challenges I have to accomplish to handicap myself.  If I'm losing and there's no hope of winning, I'll ignore the main objective of the game and start working towards my secondary one so I can feel accomplished (and so I don't pout and wreck the fun for everyone else).  If a game is starting to get old, I'll come up with new game modes for my friends and I to play (like racing backwards in Mario Kart so last place is first and gets the best items).

I've realized recently that sometimes these objectives get imposed on me subconsciously as well.  Whenever I'm playing a sneaking game like Thief, Alpha Protocol, or Deus Ex, I will ensure my playthrough is flawless and that no one ever sees me or I'll restart the level.  Generally, I also have to knock every enemy out stealthily, too.  When playing a game like Pikmin or Overlord, I refuse to lose any of my little minions and will reset if any of them get taken out.  Sometimes this makes things more fun, but more often than not it just ends up with me being very frustrated and taking 5x longer to finish a level.  Unfortunately, I find these compulsive needs hard to ignore.  It usually takes me losing multiple times or finding some way to circumvent the compulsion to get through the area.  Apparently I'm more okay with losing Red Pikmin versus Purple or White Pikmin (not a color thing, just Reds are easier to replenish) so if a boss is taking too many tries, then I will eventually just go in with an army of Reds and be able to handle losing a few here or there.  Of course, then the daily report shows up showing how many Pikmin I've lost in the entire game so far and I get super sad for all the poor Pikmin that died for my cause.