Someone gave me the board game "Guards! Guards!" for Christmas. It was shipped from the vendor, possibly by Santa Claus, and it's a great gift, based on the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
But the cats probably won't play it with me. My daughter and son-outlaw did, for several hours on Christmas Day, and I'm very grateful, but I can't imagine I'll see them often enough to get the hang of this game. So I asked how I can meet ... <pause> ... gamers. Eel suggested I try the college, or local game stores. I feel weird about this - these people have their own games! - so I looked for a Meetup group, and (no surprise) there are several in the area.
And one of them meets tonight! I don't have my game with me (I live too far from St. Louis to go home and get it), but it should be worth it to go meet some people and see what kinds of games they play. According to their profiles, some of them are into war/strategy games, some like word/number puzzles (one guy says he's at "Fiendish" level on Sudoku). The really specific ones are a foreign language to me:
Talisman
Agricola
Last Night on Earth
Small World
Race for the Galaxy
Galaxy Trucker Last Night on Earth
Settlers of Catan (We've got all the expansions and most of the variants)
Battleship Galaxies
Cut Throat
Heroscape (Cross between Risk/MTG/Chess, Got built a Ultra large collection over the years, I only know 2 people with more then me in the US)
Starcraft
Arkham Horror
Summoner Wars
Mmkay. So I am nervous about what I'm getting into, but at the same time I have some anthropological curiosity. Certainly this subculture has its own etiquette, language, behaviors, codes ... and I know none of them. Jon cautions me, "They'll be mostly guys. And socially awkward." But one woman from the Adventure Group has RSVP'd for tonight, and she's the least socially awkward person I've ever met. She's so polished I feel like a big dork just riding bicycles with her. <firmly wipes away stereotypes>
Anyway, surely it would be good manners to come play other people's games before I bring on my own, right? (Again, Jon says gamers are always excited about new games and eager to get their hands on them, so I could find myself the center of the Terry Pratchett sub-subculture.)
No doubt infiltrating the subculture means that it is also infiltrating me. I shall embrace my inner (board) Gamer!
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