Ten Years In

Next week is the tenth anniversary of the weekly game night I've been a part of since the beginning. We will actually be celebrating on October 3rd.

I used to keep a long list of people who, at one time or another, had attended. I lost track at one point, and never really got back on track. I lost track before we moved our weekly gatherings to the game store, and we had well over 200 different names on the list.  Since moving to the store, we have grown.

A decade ago, I had a couple of friends over to play Settlers of Catan, which a co-worker had purchased for me as a gift.  We agreed to meet again the next week, and ... and we never stopped.

I eventually got burned out on Settlers, so we moved on to other games. That was ... that was thousands of games ago.

After three years, we outgrew my apartment, and we moved the gathering to Phoenix Games.  Brian has been a good host for the last seven years, and his space (and parking spaces) have allowed the group to grow.


At my apartment, we were averaging eight to ten gamers per week and using two tables.  The last few years, we've been between fifteen and thirty on a typical evening, with six to eight games going simultaneously at times.


Over the years, some of the people I met through Game Night have grown into some of my best friends.

My current DM is someone I met outside of Game Night, but we didn't really click until he randomly showed up one week. He has since become one of my best friends (in addition to being my DM).

It's been a good decade, and I find myself looking forward to what will happen over the next one.

Thanks to all the regulars and others who have made this possible.

Pay To Play?

As you know, I am the host of a regular Wednesday game night. It started out in my apartment, and, within a few years, had outgrown the apartment in several ways (not the least of which was parking). With the permission of Brian - the owner of Phoenix Games - we moved Game Night to the store.

A few years ago - after several years of discussion with me and with others - Brian made the difficult decision to start charging for table space at Game Night.  As I'm sure you can imagine, it was initially a very unpopular decision. Attendance initially plummeted.

Pay-to-play is not an unusual model for game stores to take - there are several local stores which rent out their table space for events. When I was new to the area, I went to every game store I could find, looking for a game group to join. The pay-to-play model scared me away in many cases, as the stores tended to be small, or attendance was pathetic. I'm just not willing to pay money to join a game group of four people who all like games I can't stand. Or who aren't willing to try new games.

Far too often, these small groups have a set pattern of play in those preferred games, too. When I was looking for a group, I had a real problem with getting ganged up on or otherwise targeted by the majority of the other players. This is a non-issue for some games, but it can really kill the fun of other games.

Brian seems to have dodged the biggest landmines you usually encounter with a pay-to-play model in a game store.  In fact, it seems to be working really well for the store (and for Game Night).  We are regularly pulling 30+ people, even at $5 each. And the group is very diverse, which means that everyone can usually find one or two people who are interested in the same game(s) (I even saw Monopoly being played not long ago ...).

Brian's model is a different from the other stores I dealt with, which I think has been the key to this success.

First of all, he doesn't pocket all of the money. When you buy in, Brian puts your name in a drawing to win a gift certificate. The value of that certificate varies based on the number of people present. And, when there are enough people present, he'll sometimes give away two gift certificates. In addition, a portion of the money goes to Meetup.com, which publicizes the group and brings more folks in. It's certainly increased our visibility.

Despite the initial drop, the group has really grown since he started charging. Grown significantly, in fact. We have been averaging 30 or more people every week, which is nice. It means I have a nearly unlimited number of new opponents to face on a regular basis.

Iconica

Etsy is an arts-and-crafts fair for the internet. Like most arts-and-crafts fairs, there is a lot of really good stuff, if you poke around. There also a fair number of things to steer clear of. A lot of them.

A quick search on etsy for game yields a number of results, most of them projects made from game pieces, not actual games.

Because of this, a post on Wired about a game called Iconica caught my eye a few months ago. On my next payday, I purchased everything that was available for the game. The game is gorgeous. Eric Torres is a graphic designer by trade, and it shows. The art on the cards is clear, simple, and evocative. Enough that I've considered buying an extra set to use as decoration around the apartment.

Each character also has a short paragraph of text explaining their role within the setting of Rynaga. This information could be easily extracted for use in an RPG. If you purchase the Prelude book, you can get even more information about the setting - it reminds me a bit of the old Chronicles of Talislanta book, which was a setting in search of a game.

I brought the game home, and read the rules. It seemed a bit simple. I then went and played the game solo a few times, to see how it worked. It was ... okay. Nothing spectacular.

The next step, of course, was playing it with an actual opponent, so I packed it up and hauled it to my usual Wednesday Game Night to give it a shot.

Maybe it was a shortage of characters, but it just didn't feel like there was much interaction or decision making.

The game is quite simple in play. Each player drafts a team of three characters, and then you take turns rolling dice to kill your opponent's characters. Each character has six actions (one of which is available each turn, depending on what is rolled on the dice).

The most important part of the game is over before actual play starts. Seriously. Character selection is the make-or-break of the game. You need to balance offense with defense.

One your turn, you resolve effects which have lingered since last turn, and then roll the dice. Once the dice are rolled, you choose one character to activate using the number you rolled. Then you choose which opposing character to target with that action. Unfortunately, those are the only decisions you make on your turn, and neither one is particularly difficult.

The first decision: Which character will act? Usually, it's abundantly clear which of your three options is best. If your choices are, "Deal 30 points of damage (Melee)," "Deal 30 points of damage (Ranged)," or "Deal 10 points of damage," then obviously, you're going to choose one of the first two.

In general, it's like D&D: You want to figure out which opposing character is the most dangerous and target that character repeatedly until it's down before moving on to a second character.

It means that gameplay isn't all that strong, as there are not actually any true decisions to be made most of the time.  I think it has potential - but strengthening game play will require more than just adding new characters (in my opinion).  Maybe adding equipment cards or giving players a hand of cards to alter the game environment in some way.  I don't know. But the game needs more than just new characters (Sorry, Eric).

Don't get me wrong - new characters are great, and I love the peeks they provide into the background setting. I'll be buying new ones as fast as Eric Torres puts them on the website (and, of course, I have the money to spend). But the game won't be hitting the table all that often.

Also: My blog is now available for Kindle.

Seven Years Strong

As of tonight, the Wednesday Game Night I host has been running for seven years. In the last seven years, well over a hundred different people have attended. Somewhere, I have a list of people who had attended as of a few years ago.

We've played hundreds of games, ranging from a variety of unpublished prototypes to games that are hundreds of years old. Here is a list of the games we played in the first year.

We've had to reschedule twice (that I can recall), but we have always met at least once per week.

The crew grows and shrinks and grows and shrinks. New people move to the area, and they move away (and we do miss you), but the games go on.

We've been hosted at Phoenix Games for close to five years, now, and it's been good for us. It's increased our visibility and, at the same time, has helped sell games.

To celebrate, we're having a potluck.

Normally, we charge $5 per person to attend. Tonight, it's free if you bring food.

We'd love to see you there.

Meetup: Two Months In

As of this week, it's been two months since my weekly game night changed formats. Instead of free, it now costs five dollars to attend.

This money doesn't go straight into the store's pockets, however - Brian initially spent a small amount to start a meetup group (Meetup is free for end-users, but the organizers have to pay a small annual fee).

Additionally, each week, one or more gift certificates are being given out - the more people who attend, the more gift certificates are distributed.

So consider this the two-month status update:

We've grown. Not by leaps and bounds, not by the thousands and thousands that some Meetup groups have demonstrated. But we're a bit bigger than we were before.

We've lost a few old members who are opposed to paying for a space to play games - I don't blame them, and I understand their objection. But Brian (for all his generosity to us over the last few years) is running a business. It's also less expensive than a movie, at about $1 per hour (assuming ou get there at five and leave at eleven, when we shut down for the night).

We lost a few who are unemployed or otherwise can't afford to attend. There are coupons about to help these people out, but there is a drawback - if you use a coupon, you're not eligible for the weekly drawing. I can occasionally cover one or more of these people, but not often, unfortunately.

So we've grown and the crowd has changed slightly.

A different crowd means that we have different games out, too. The $5 cover charge has reduced the number of children present - and the ones who are present are more serious about playing games. Or I'm getting better with them. Or some combination thereof.

Meetup has definitely increased our visibility, and long-term, I expect more growth. I also hope to lure back some of the people we've lost.

Time will tell how much growth we'll experience.

I'd like to see more, of course. But then, I like having more opponents to choose from.

Game Night Update

Earlier this year, I posted about a game store in trouble.

A few years ago, I moved my usual Wednesday Night gathering to the game store for a couple of reasons:

1) We had outgrown my apartment. While we were usually in the five to seven guests range, we had "surges" up to twenty or so players. Even in a two-bedroom apartment, that's a lot of people. This many people fits in the game store.

2) Not everyone that was showing up was good about cleaning up after themselves. I thought that maybe moving to a more public place would nudge them in the right direction. The people who had the issues stopped attending before the move to the game store, so I don't know if it would have helped or not.

3) I wanted to support the store. A lot of times, the Wednesday Night folks would ask me where they could get that game we had just played. Having the Game Night at the store meant that I didn't have to give directions over and over and over to where to find the games - I could put the game in their hand and point them at the register.

4) Even having outgrown my apartment, I knew there were local gamers looking for chances to play games. There always are - this is one reason a good game store is the center of local gamer society. Game Night has grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk. We've had a number of new members become core members, and some of the core members have faded out.

After Game Night had been at the store for a year or so, Brian asked me if I would object to his charging for attendance. I did object, but not strenuously - his arguments made sense. At the same time, the Wednesday night crowd was spending a fair amount of money at the store. Fast forward three years - Phoenix is in a larger (and more expensive location), and the economy is struggling. The Wednesday crowd (myself included) doesn't have as much money to spend, and so we're spending less.

On February 24th, Brian sent an e-mail to our mailing list to let us know that - as of March 25th - Game Night will be $5 per person.

I'm thankful he held off as long as he did, but I support his decision. For one, most of that money will be directly reinvested back into Game Night in several ways:

1) Brian rents games. Your $5 admission gives you access (for the evening) to any open store copies of games. He has some very good ones, too, thanks to Z-Man and Rio Grande both having programs that allow retailers to obtain demo copies of their games at a very low price.

2) Brian is setting up a Meetup group for Game Night. It's not free, but has the potential to cause us to grow larger. More people means more variety and more games to play. I'm always in favor of growth.

3) A percentage of the money collected at the door will be turned into a door prize. Or prizes if there are enough people there. This means that your admission is also a raffle ticket for a store gift certificate.

I expect that we'll shrink a bit at first, but I think that long-term this will be a good move for Game Night. And if it helps Brian, I'm all for it.