Virtù

Rick: Hey, man. What are you reading?

Pete: Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.

Rick: Oh dear. Dare I ask why?

Pete: What does it matter?

Rick: It matters a great deal. If you’re reading it simply for your own edification, that’s cool. If you’re reading it to be better equipped to be headhunted by a Fortune 500 company, that’s indicative of sociopathic behavior.

Pete: I don’t think that’s diagnostically accurate.

Rick: I said what I said.

Pete: What if I’m reading it to become better at board games?

Rick: Somewhere in-between?

Pete: That’s fair. Actually, I’m reading it to get a better hold on the history of the setting of the game Virtù (2022), designed by Pascal Ribrault and published by Super Meeple. It’s set during the Italian Renaissance, with each player embodying one of the powerful Italian cities and trying to accomplish great things through a strong state.

Rick: Uhhhhh…where are you going with this, man?

Pete: Oh, calm down. You wouldn’t have given me a hard time if I wanted to read Carl von Clausewitz’s Vom Kriege before I played a naval-based military game. Or Sun Tzu’s The Art of War before I played basically any game.

Rick: Are you just citing books that you’ve purchased but quit reading halfway through the back cover?

Pete: “The worst of all conditions in which a belligerent can find himself is to be utterly defenseless, and if an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared; therefore do not repeat the tactics that have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.” That’s an original. Well, not really at all. A combination of all three great thinkers.

Rick: I don’t think I’ve ever been so dumbfounded by somebody’s stupidity before. I don’t know what to recommend to you: more reading or less reading, but you’re definitely due for some kind of behavior modification.

Pete: That is something of a lackluster treatment plan. So . . . game time?

Rick: Game time.