I am sitting at the End Game Cafe in Oakland right now. It is early Thursday afternoon, and if I don’t take the time to send this out it is entirely possible that we are all doomed to not spend time together weaving tall tales of heroics and goofy antics, and that is a possible future I just don’t want to submit to…
So let’s have a regularly scheduled game night! Let’s figure it out here, and start meeting as soon as tonight (I will be hanging out here for a while; maiki@interi.org, 510-593-8799) and definitely by next week.
Tell me more about this “game night”
I know at least half a dozen folks in the East Bay that do tabletop gaming: board, card and role-playing games. But our schedules make it difficult to coordinate a regular gathering time. When I was younger apparently I didn’t have anything to do, like, ever, because I was playing games two or three times a week, and read gaming books when I wasn’t. Now I want to see my kid and each nutritious food that I horde in my abode, and then there is my ongoing existential crises that keep me busy in my “down time”.
And you all have all kinds of BS excuses of your own (they don’t have to do with me, so I don’t care what they are, ha!). But do you remember how even when the gaming was subpar, laughing for hours with friends was a great experience, even if you can’t easily tell your coworkers about the recurring inside joke as it would be admitting you way overthought the weird relation that halfling paladin had with the cursed Blade of Demi-human Indignation… those were great times!
So let’s compromise: let’s have a standing game night, where attendance is optional! Whaaat?!
Seriously: whaaat?!
I’ve sorted through my schedule and have the tentative plan to make each Thursday available to host/facilitate a game night for the folks I know, and the ones they know. Tentative, because if another night is better we can figure that out here.
Maybe you don’t have time to be in a sprawling campaign that last for 180 weeks straight. Or maybe you just haven’t found the people that you feel you can cosplay your viking character in front of. I don’t know, the world is amazingly complex and beautiful like that. But we can put ourselves where the universe wants us by having a group dedicated to trying things out.
My initial plan is to stake a table at a space like the End Game Cafe, or book a room at my co-working space, and be available for folks to do whatever. Maybe we get a good RPG party together. Maybe it devolves in Magic players encroaching on the Catan players for the sixth night in a row -ugh-. I need a space to feel comfortable and know that there isn’t pressure to be at the top of my game to play in yours. And honestly, I need to just hang out with people I trope-out with.
I will be inviting a bunch of folks to this thread to discuss the logisitics, and some initial ideas for games to play/bring/beg others to play with us because we kinda went nuts on Kickstarter for like 2 years and if I don’t play these games @susan is gonna make me throw them out and I promised I need all of them because I have so many gaming friends and they really love my game collection even as it stays in mint condition because I’ve never taking the cellophane off and don’t judge you probably aren’t in any better shape than I am. Or whatever.
I will also be creating another thread for online play, because I’ve got friends that don’t live in the East Bay, and while they suffer immeasurably for that, they shouldn’t be deprived of gaming; I hear Roll20 is kinda cool, and might even be able to keep my lunch down and sign up if we have some commitment there.
Game on! 