Saturday, February 18, 2006

I have a dream

I have a dream that one day I will go to a games meeting, say "let's play X", and everyone will know the rules and we'll sit down and play it. That would be so good.

I'm guessing some of you are confused. After all, isn't that how games meetings work? Maybe yours do. What happens to me is I say "let's play X", and everyone says "OK, you teach us how". So you see, I am thinking about (a) teaching the game and (b) winning, when I would enjoy the game more if I was thinking about (a) winning. I reckon I teach 50% of the games that I play, 25% are games I am learning, and 25% are with the kids or my family, and so are not usually the sort of games I aspire to play anyway.

It's a function of the newness of the hobby in Brisbane, the newness of the games groups, and the fact that I own many games that other people don't. The games played most last month as logged at BoardGameGeek were Lost Cities, Caylus, Magic, TtR, Carcassonne, San Juan, Settlers, Puerto Rico, TtR:E and Ra. At one game group (of 4) that I attend, I expect I might get a game of Ticket to Ride without needing a rules explanation for somebody. At another, I might get Settlers and Magic. All other games at all other groups would need to be explained. What we've got here is a massive education deficit! So the two adjectives I would use to describe the Brisbane Euro-gaming scene at the moment are "warming up" and "undereducated". Well, hey, at least we've got one.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I can fully appreciate this. I want to get into the strategic richness of a game that requires playing with people who know and understand it.

This is in opposition to experiencing new games which is also very appealing. I am pretty new to the hobby and have not been exposed to a large number of games.

I don't know if there is a solution to this. Having regular games with regular attendees must be the start though.