Come As You Aren't: A Role-Playing Game for Adventurous Couples

I found Come As You Aren't: A Role-Playing Game for Adventurous Couples to be uninspiring and poorly executed. That's not to say that everyone would feel that way; for me I think it was mostly that I had certain expectations and this game did not meet them.

First, there are no rules. The two-sentence description on the back of the box is all you get. It's probably to promote creativity or something, but it just felt undeveloped to me. The concept is you choose a Who card, a What card, and a Where  card and write down a time and place and put inside the included envelope. You leave then it for your partner to find.

I have so many questions. According to that, there's only one Who card. So I'm assuming Partner 1 picks out the scenario and Partner 2 enacts all of it? Leaving Partner 1 to improvise? I find it kind of annoying that the game doesn't provide a set of people on a Who card. I suppose this is where the creativity comes in--you could add a second card maybe? Instead though, you get one with a cheesy name, occupation, accessory, and a little three sentence description of their personality (also cheesy). Every description is written with unnecessary ellipses or em-dashes for the card to explain it's own joke. Every. Time.

For example:
Name
D. Major

Occupation
Concert Violinist

Accessory
Black Bow Tie

D. Major can't seem to stay out of treble...treble clef that is. [continues for three more sentences]

or

Name
Red Inkwell

Occupation
Bestselling Author

Accessory
Notebook and Pencil

Red Inkwell has a nice, well-rounded body...of work. [continues on]

I don't particularly want to be any of these people. But I do like that they each have an accessory so there is an element of dress up involved, which would help to get in character.

For the What, I would have hoped for a scenario, some kind of storyline. Instead, it's a small thing that doesn't seem like it would naturally come up at all and doesn't relate to the "role-playing" character aspect. "Be the one to suggest to go into the bedroom" is odd because 1) aren't you at a random place as described by the cards? and 2) the adventure level here is pretty low.  "At some point spill water on your partner and suggest a change of clothes" is another card. My partner and I agreed that we'd be annoyed if this were to happen. This has going for it though that Partner 1 is choosing something that Partner 2 will do, so at least they're choosing something they would like to have happen?

Where cards range from the weird/scary "A Public Restroom," "A Bathroom," "An Alley" to the mundane "A Parking Lot," "A Hallway,""A Kitchen." I think the aspect of writing a specific place to meet probably negates the need so specify whether the restroom is public or not, but there's a separate card for some reason.

Lastly, the box design. It's a slide out tray, which led to the included envelope sliding right out of the box and is now lost forever. No idea where that went. It seems like it would be an easy way to lose all of the cards too, but to my knowledge that didn't happen to me.

I would not recommend this role-playing game, but that doesn't mean that others would have the same view. I love to play card, board, and role-playing games, and perhaps that is why this one didn't work out for me as it left too much ambiguity.

I received a copy of this game from the publisher but was not required to post a positive review.

Review: "Forgiveness" by Iyanla Vanzant

First, right off the bat I want to say something that the description on the back of the book left out.  Forgiveness relies heavily on a "tapping" theory called Pro EFT tapping, which is described by the author as "needless acupuncture" (24).  This hilarious spelling ends up calling the program useless instead of saying that it is "needleless," as I am assuming was intended.  Oops.  Anyway, I had very little interest in that aspect of the book and, to be honest, I found it a little hokey.  From the author's descriptions I could not garner what exactly Pro EFT tapping was, nor what evidence showed that it was beneficial. I was frustrated that instead of explaining, the author directed readers to a website for information on the theory that formed the basis of her book.  For the rest of the review, I will set that aside, as that may not be a scare factor to all readers as it was to me.

The book begins with an introduction to forgiveness, emotional triggers, judgements, and the tapping process.  After that, the book is broken into a 21 day process.   Each day has a prayer introducing the daily topic (taken from A Course in Miracles Workbook), a forgiveness story, a reminder of the forgiveness process, another prayer, journal work, and then the tapping process.  It also comes with a CD, which has the introduction, a few meditations, and the daily prayer.


The journal work is structured around 12 statements, four each in three different categories: I forgive my mind for thinking, I forgive myself for judging, and I forgive myself for believing.  The sections I found most helpful had different starting sentences for each category, such as "I forgive my mind for thinking my job is" and "I forgive my mind for thinking my career is not" (208).  Most difficult for me were the sections that listed "I forgive myself for judging" four times, where the reader has to come up with four separate statements for the category (209).  Once I had thought of one "I forgive myself for judging" statement, I got blocked into only thinking that and was unable to complete the other three.

Around day 10 in the material, I was looking in the mirror and harboring some negative thoughts about a relationship in my life,  Without realizing what I was doing, I stopped myself and thought, "I forgive myself for believing that I'm not worth someone else's time, or that I don't deserve the love I am given."  Even with that proof that the book affected my thinking in a positive way, I still had some misgivings.

Forgiveness seems to waiver back and forth about whether it is religiously based or not.  As I mentioned, there were many prayers, but there were never any Bible verses, which I expected out of a book on forgiveness.  Day 6 of the process is titled "Forgiving God," yet in the forgiveness story, Vanzant says, "For those who recognize and accept that there is a Higher Mind, a Divine Essence, a Spiritual Presence to life, we look to that energy to support, assist, and provide us with the things we need, want, and desire" (127).  I expect a little more consistency on foundational parts of the book, such as religion.  It's weird to have prayers, talk about forgiving God, but then dance around whether or not God exists.  The book needed to choose a Christian audience, or a non-Christian audience instead of alienating both by going back and forth.

There were some structural and grammatical snafus that got in the way of my enjoyment of the book.  Processes were mentioned and then not explained until much later in the book, which left me thinking I had missed something that I was supposed to understand already.  I had to reread sentences such as "This helps to unlock any remain resistance" only to find out that I was tripping over the sentence because of a typo, rather than my own misreading (34).  Due to the lengthy forgiveness process (and tapping) there was a lot of repetition of steps or paragraphs where the exact wording was copied page to page.

My favorite part of the book was the daily forgiveness story.  It is similar to a condensed version of a Chicken Soup For the Soul- type story that talked about someone else's journey through forgiveness on the daily topic.  My only complaint was at some points even these forgiveness stories got very vague and zoomed out to big picture, cliché, statements.  I loved the personal aspect that only appears in those stories, so to switch to paragraphs like "A mother is her children's first teacher" or  "Children need a mother's love, acceptance, and nurturing, particularly when they least deserve it" was a rough transition for me as a reader (93, 95).

I would recommend this book only to someone who was interested in needleless acupuncture, Pro EFT tapping. There is definitely some worthy material other than that in the book, but there is not enough to make it worthwhile if you're not interested in tapping.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for this review.  The opinion in this review is unbiased and reflects my honest judgment of the product.