A couple people in my gaming group thought it was a joke that our latest game day event was scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday. However, that proved to be a pretty convenient time after all.
Four of us met at a coffee shop this morning and moved to the empty lower level of the attached restaurant to play two games, beginning with Firefly, which I own but hadn't yet played. [Link is solely for your convenience; it's not an affiliate thing.]
This was a big table, but we needed every inch of space we could get (no pun intended). Even with four hours at our disposal, we didn't have time to get through a full game before one player had to leave for work, but it gave the newbies a chance to get in a good amount of gameplay. Our next game will go more quickly.
Once it was down to three of us, I made a quick run home to take the dog out and when I got back, we played the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game.
Here's what it looked like after the first turn or two. It's hard to tell from the photo, but the starfield is a big piece of black felt impregnated with multicolored glitter. Two of us played the imperial ships but the rebels won thanks in no small part to the special properties of the Millennium Falcon. Next time...
I've written quite a bit about my role playing board gaming, but I don't think I've ever talked about how it all started.
One day back in 2009, a group of my friends who had met through blogging and Twitter got together at someone's house. I was with the women in one room with a collection of more traditional board games (Apples to Apples*, Balderdash, etc.) and the men were in the next room playing Battlestar Galactica.
As the evening progressed it became abundantly clear that the men were having a lot more fun with their game than we were with ours. We wandered in to watch a few rounds and then we asked, "Why can't we play with you guys?"
As it turned out, the men had never even considered that we might want to play their more strategy- and treachery-heavy games. (See also: the history of the feminist movement.) Ever since then, we've had co-ed RPG get-togethers that take everyone's favorite nerd pastimes into account. And it's been glorious.
*Back in the days before Cards Against Humanity made it so Apples to Apples wasn't fun anymore.
Apologies to Juice Newton for the post title. There's really no excuse.
Comments