tl;dr

Just take it off free play.

Sounds like a reality TV show in the making.

It's "bawled." The spelling you used has some disturbing images involved.

Nope. I can't stop people from playing my games. People just wander in off the street and play my pins and I am powerless to stop them because I'm too weak to turn them off and if they break while one of these strangers is playing them I just fix them real quick so they can play more.

Just kidding, I'm type A so I can't relate. That was fun reading though thanks

Hahaha, You sir, win the prize!

Well--turning this situation on it's ear a little bit--maybe the guy doesn't get any alone time or a break at home and this is the only time he is able to get away for a bit a relax when other watchful eyes are on the kids.

Maybe the couple needs a "parents night out" of some sort with someone else in the family tending to the little ones for an evening.

This was a great story to wake to. I had a good laugh from this.
I drain the balls out and take out the glass, then I raise the board like it's being repaired. Sort of a fake deal if you know what I mean.
Go G- Ma, lay the smack down!

I personally try to get everyone OUT of the kitchen and into the gameroom, but that's just me. That's what it's for!

And when the wife thinks I've ditched party responsibilities too much, I get yelled at. That's how marriage works!

Did I help?

I think I would be that guy if I showed up at someone's house with 20 pins. Seriously. The only solution I see is lifting the playfields or unplugging some of them and claim you are working on them, doing maintenance, or whatever. I don't see the harm to pins letting one person play them all night unless they are beating on them. I don't know the guy but maybe he deals with the kids every other day and just wants some pin time. No fun for the mother to do it all herself but that's parenting. I personally hate mothers that demand that the dad always be on call and never doing anything that they enjoy.

sorry, but man up and go pull the power.

Tell him "I dont like the example you are setting of leaving your wife and 3 kids upstrairs for everyone else to deal with while you are down here breaking my games and creating more work for me" "You need to be upstrairs enjoying the family time or dont bother coming back"

Dude sounds like a reall piece and he probably needs the humiliation in front of everyone else. Your house, your rules. I dont have kids but sure would not allow that sort of example in my own house.

Call it Type A? I call it common respect for the family.

If he was playing pinball WITH the kids or family then that is all good. Holing up while at a family gathering and ignoring everyone else is not going to fly with me.

It sounds more like you don't like the guy, rather than you have a problem with people playing your machines.

I have no issues with people playing my machines, I love seeing family take to the basement and fill up every game I own. I love when people get lost down there and play for hours. They slowly start to understand that there are rules and objectives, and just become completely enamored.

I much prefer the people in my basement having a good time to those upstairs that balk at the quantity of machines I have - someone help me find a way to get them out of my house!

If I was the Bro in law I'd be playing pinball with my 4 and 6 year old boys and trying to get them hooked on pinball!

Does he even ask to play? I know if I went to somebody's house with pins I would want to play all night but probably wouldn't because of common courtesy. If you're a guest, it's best to interact with the host and other guests. This just sounds like a situation that you let get out of hand and it's gonna be hard to make him understand. Good luck with it.

Maybe, like other have said, if you take the party downstairs he will be forced to do some parenting since he will be with the kids and mother in the basement.

Or,
Just lock the door...
Seems like the easiest way for you to keep your mental sanity during the holidays.
Open it up after all the family stuff/dinner is taken care of and bask in the chaos.
Pocket flask might ease this holiday transition in your case.

I agree with the above posts though.
What's the point of having a basement arcade if you don't share it with friends, family and the occasional inebriated stranger?

Maybe he could play them when the kids go to sleep at night or something. Or take turns watching the kids, or bring the kids down to the basement also. Stuff breaking happens all the time in pinball.

I read it this way as well, which is fine, he sounds like a dud.

But I love when people play my games, and yeah stuff breaks or gets stuck, but not their fault, or is just cause they're clueless (my 4 year old completely took out my MAME machine somehow). But if he's a sucky Dad and you don't like that, sounds like you need to make the basement off limits during this time.

Not my business what someone else chooses to do with his time at a party. Let him play because why else do you have the pins? Let his wife deal or not deal with him, who cares?

I have several old digger cranes I restored. Aside from the fact they can be fairly fragile at close to 100 years old, I really don't like folks messing with them. But there is always "that" family member that acts like they own the place, love to order everyone else around, and decide they know just exactly how the cranes operate and have mastered the skill of picking up whatever they want. I've never been one that was too shy to speak his mind, but in a lot of these cases, I don't want to create drama while mom & dad and the rest of the family are there. I was a cop for 20 years, and I always get visions of people standing in front of their trailer house in their stained wife-beater t-shirts and shorts, arguing over the dumbest, and I do mean the dumbest things. I don't want to be that family, although I live far from any trailer park......lol So I decided to put rolled up notes in some of the prize capsules inside my diggers. I then find a good time and encourage everyone to play them as a group. The kicker being that some of the notes contain chores, such as washing the dinner dishes, taking out the trash, etc. I even make a big deal out of it and make sure EVERYONE gets a turn. Doesn't take long and "that" family member disappears. He has some work he brought along, or has something he needs to look at on the car......any reason to get out of the room. The last couple of trips, the game room was the emptiest place in the whole house. Maybe you could suggest a tournament and high-score gets to do dishes. I guarantee, he will only play once.

Now back to the trailer-house scene. As you can imagine, I did see my share of "festive" trailer house Christmases over the years, but one in particular stands out above all others. I got a call to a "Battery with weapon in Progress". I roll up to the scene to see this huge burly man wearing only shorts, standing in his front yard (Think Captain Spalding), covered in blood pretty much from head to toe. He looked like he had murdered an entire church congregation with a dull axe and a blender. I don't see his wife around and fearing the worst, I order the man to drop his cigarette and the "extra 20% more" can of Budweiser so I can place him in cuffs "for his own protection as well as mine". As I am starting to grab his wrists, his wife comes around the corner of the trailer house swinging "the weapon", and shreaking like a Halloween Witch after 10 Red-Bulls. I quickly realize the guy I have a hold of is the victim in all of this, and his wife is the reason for all of the cuts and scrapes. I'm thinking, what the hell is she swinging? What kind of weapon is that? Is it a bag of knives and razor blades?.....Imagine my surprise when I realize, she is actually swinging a cat by the tail. I won't bore you with the details of the arrest, and how I got laughed out of the jail when I listed the weapon as "multiple felines".......but as I am standing here today it did happen. I remember talking to the guy after the medics were through cleaning him up and he told me his wife was mad because he paid more attention to the cats than he did to her. She said they were nasty and complained how their litterbox smelled up the whole house. He then made some crude comment about a pussy cat smelling better than.....well you know the rest, and the fight was on. He said at one point she was throwing the cats at him and swinging 2 at a time by the tail. I know it was sad, but I was laughing so hard listening to him re-live the details, I nearly pissed myself. He said the cats would fall and run, and she would just grab another and start swinging. Turns out the cuts were no-where near as bad as I thought, but you know how head scratches bleed. Every time I pass a trailer house to this day, I get a mental image of that guy standing there with a cat wrapped around his bald head, and his wife pulling it off by the tail. So boys and girls, this is why I guess I don't get more forceful with some folks at family gatherings....we are all just one beer, or one stray comment away from our own version of a Redneck Christmas. Maybe letting the family play pinball isn't so bad after all...........

Course I don't really need another kid, but Dot says these-here are gettin' too big to cuddle. Say, that reminds me!

I'm in on this sentiment. This is between the guy and his wife. She's the one that needs to set the rules if they need to be tweaked.

At any point of the 3 days, did his wife ask or say to him, "hey I could use some help with the kids right now"?

She's just as much to blame as he is.

When I'm playing pinball or on vacation with the fam, sure I try to make it a point to ask the wife how she's doing or if she needs anything from time to time. So I'm not taking this guy's side based on your assessment of his personality, but if he don't know there's a problem he's gonna keep going about his business. And it should be the wife telling him what the problem is, not the mother in law putting him in his place cause at the end of the day the wife's gonna backstab her own mom when comes to husband and wife alone time talk on the issue.

THIS

^^^yep....problem solved... .............Joey

Buck a game....no 3 for 2............Joey

Just have a conversation with him about it. It doesn't have to be a super serious conversation where you act like his dad. Go down and be a friend to him. Tell him it looks like his wife is struggling with the kids, because they are getting tired, and you think he might wanna see if he can help.

Don't bring the games into it at all, and don't be passive aggressive about it by making up stories about wear on the games, games overheating, etc....

Just pull out a fuse and give it to his wife...

Sounds like everyone in this family could use more wine and Christmas cookies.

Ha! Lol... My poor buddy.

Wow. Sounds like the entire family has "issues"...including the OP. I love when people come over and play my games, that's why they're there! It's just a pinball machine. Do you have these machines for investment only? If so, wrap them up and store them. Pinball machines want to be played. Life is short man. Relax.

Is this guy your brother in law?!?
Cause that's who I pictured when reading this lol. image.jpeg

More concerned why everyone wasn't down there playing.

Man, I feel for the mother, but it sounds like she married a real tool. One year my Sister-in-law and her husband and their kids were over at our house for Christmas. After dinner they are both asleep on the couch, and their 5 kids are running around our house like idiots.

And yes, my brother-in-law, is a real tool.

+1!

So, he is in another room playing your games?

It could be worse, he could be in the same room talking about himself

He sounds like an a-hole, the less you have to deal with him , the better

I'd tighten up the tilt bobs

Lol!!

Somebody higher up already said what I think the issue is...you don't like your brother-in-law. I'm sure this is a common issue with most families, everyone has that person that gets under their skin and each little thing we blow up because of this. Not really your right to say how much time he does or does not spend with his family or how much his wife is doing. Your not doing that to your wife and kids, not your problem.

Now the games are you babies, it irritates you that he is playing them at all let alone playing for hours. Christmas is almost over, enjoy what you can, he's not going to break anything that can't be fixed.

It's a no win scenario so I would stay out of it. Yeah he's playing your games but he's an invited guest and that's what pins are for. It will all be over soon...

I would just limit the time, don't turn your machines on till the end of the day, and say to him as soon as you see him that theres new rules in the house when it comes to pinball, like "hey mate me an the misses only play pinball after the kids are all sorted out had diner, put to bed etc, because that's when we unwind with a few beers an throw down a few games with out the stress." And just tell him that sorry but they are the rules we have now!! He might have got the message after he got blasted... But if you just let him know in a nice way, at least you can enjoy your time with him in the basement, play a bit competitively over a few beers , talk strategy and all things pinball, and the wives can join in if they want, or just relax with a glass of wine up stairs. That's how I would handle it anyway. good luck..

Don't tell him off or pull rank. You'll look like a jerk too.
Instead, crank up the difficulty, wax the play fields, and max out the outlanes posts, among other things.
Tilt hob as high as it will go, nearing the point of tilting whenever a multiball starts.
Papa tournament settings.
Life is short. Have fun with it.
: )

Next year celebrate at his house. End of problem.

LTG : )™

This is pretty funny, this last thanksgiving we had all the pins on the main floor powered up so everyone could play. I'm playing the most as I don't really like talking to my wife's side of the family. Just non stop drama with them.

I'm playing mustang and my bro in law starts talking to me (while I'm playing) and he is standing behind me, I had no clue he was talking to me, minutes later he storms out the house almost in tears that I'm ignoring him, within 2 minutes of that my mom in law follows him right out the door saying how right he is.

We did shut the machines down and things calmed down but not sure how they think throwing temper tantrums like that is a good way to process shit.

Donate a "street" pinball machine to his family for a good cause.
One of several end results will occur.
One good, one bad, one ugly.

I did this a couple of times in my life, not all ended badly.

Maybe he was telling you a story about how the store was all out of maxi pads.

This is what my wife does.. I learned the hard way early

I was REALLY hoping for video.