AI helped me survive a Doman Mahjong table full of real players

I popped into a game of Doman Mahjong inside Final Fantasy XIV thinking I was basically going to click a few buttons against the computer, collect my reward, and move on with my life.

And then I realize... oh. These are people.

Actual live human beings. Human beings who seem to know what they're doing. And I absolutely do not.

So now I'm immediately worried that I'm going to embarrass myself, but also that these people are going to think I'm some troll who wandered in just to ruin their game. I really did want to make an effort, because even though I was only there for the reward, they were clearly there to actually play Mahjong.

I've said this a million times, but I love playing Final Fantasy XIV—FFXIV—with Jason. It's an MMORPG, so basically this enormous online world with quests and side quests and crafting and side games and games inside of games and just... an absurd amount of stuff to do. And every so often the game runs one of these little campaigns that nudges you into some piece of content you've probably ignored for years.

In this case, I wanted certificates for some in-game prizes, and one of the things the campaign wanted me to do was go into the casino-style area and play Doman Mahjong.

Now, I've barely played regular Mahjong. And by "played," I mean I've sat in front of Mahjong tiles and made optimistic choices. I don't understand normal Mahjong very well at all. I had definitely never played Doman Mahjong. So in my head this was going to be, go in, participate for a few minutes, get credit, leave. Usually these event things don't require you to actually be good at anything.

Then the table loads and I realize I'm about to play with real people who appear to know the rules.

So I panic.

The screen is loading and I'm sitting there thinking, oh my God, what do I do? And almost out of habit I grab my phone and ask Eric, my AI assistant, to explain Doman Mahjong to me because I am currently inside Final Fantasy XIV and apparently I've made a terrible mistake.

The instructions come up on my phone, and I hit the speaker button so I can listen while I'm trying to play. And that at least gives me enough of the basic idea that I'm not just randomly clicking tiles and hoping nobody notices.

I did not win.

I didn't even almost win. I lost by a lot.

But honestly, that wasn't really the point. I just needed to fake competence well enough to get through the game with one tiny shred of dignity intact. And I think I accomplished that. Barely.

I got my reward, I moved on, and the funny thing is I actually found the game kind of intriguing. So now I think I want to learn how it really works and go back when I'm not actively panicking and maybe get a little better at it.

But for that first round? I did not completely, completely embarrass myself. And some days that's the victory.