Sunday night was my first-ever time hosting a Meetup - our Girls' Game Night. I was so incredibly nervous.
Originally, I decided to host these nights as there seemed to be quite a few people who were interested in my Tuesday night group and I wanted to provide something similar for them. I actually have an incredibly full gaming schedule already, let alone family time and other parts of life, so this one would have to be less often. I started a Facebook group, but I didn't get the numbers to make it worthwhile. 4 or 5 people is fine for a game group, but only if most people attend every single time, and I know from experience that wasn't going to happen. At that point, I had to decide whether to abandon the idea or to throw myself fully behind it. Abandoning it was tempting. I have plenty of gaming opportunities and get my girl-game time regularly anyway - to be honest I was/am doing this for other people. I decided not to be a quitter and decided to shell out the small fee to host a Meetup Group. So yes, I'm paying to run a game group to benefit other people, and providing the rather pricey games, and can't afford to hire a space for the meetup so I also had to invite strangers into my own home which was certainly not the greatest set-up. Why am I doing this?? I'm doing this because I want to provide other women the chance to play these games and enjoy the social experience they bring because I know it's fun. I'm doing this because although there are a quite a few gaming groups around, they are male-dominated and quite a few women are just not comfortable with this. I'm doing this on the offchance I get to meet other awesome women who share my interests. I'm doing this because so many women (especially mums) just don't get the opportunity to give their brains a regular workout, and I believe that it's a really important thing to do. So - Sunday night. Everyone arrived and we had a huge potluck - there certainly wasn't a lack of food. Unfortunately it was absolutely pouring with rain which made a real racket on the conservatory roof. Trying to play a game in there would have been very unpleasant, so I decided to set everyone up around the coffee table and pull out a modern party game. I also thought this was a good idea as a bit of an icebreaker since about half the group were friends of mine and the other half were strangers, not to mention that some members of the group had never played a modern game before! I bit the bullet and practiced being decisive by setting up Codenames. I felt like a few people were apprehensive over the idea (more likely they just didn't know the game so didn't have an opinion either way) which made me more nervous than I already was and that caused me to do my typical jumping-into-the-rules-too-quickly and messing them up. This is doubly frustrating as I know, intellectually, how to do a good rules explanation. I can do it if I make sure to be mindful and deliberate. Next time! Codenames isn't complex though, so once we got playing everybody cottoned on to the idea and seemed to really enjoy it. I was super impressed that almost everyone tried out being Spymaster - if you've played it, you know how difficult that is. I love that "give it a go" attitude. :) I think we played 4 or 5 games before the end of the night and one person even put the game on their own to-buy list! There were difficulties. I've run games events for my friends for years, but I've never run a Meetup before. It was a bit awkward for everyone to have the meetup at my place. My house is small and my family is right there. This might have been less of an issue if we'd been able to use the games room and kept everyone separate from the general household. The location is something I'd like to address and we have a couple of ideas, but I really can't afford to hire somewhere as that would put the cost of running this to the point where it's not worth it (even if I asked for contributions). Let's call this a work-in-progress. Overall, I think the Meetup was a success. It seemed like everybody had a good time.
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Apologies for the anticipation of a post a week ago - if anyone saw it - I started writing it and then got sidetracked... for a week... On the 22nd of May we had our semi-annual game of Twilight Imperium 3. This game is gargantuan, and requires at least an entire day so we need to plan it weeks or months in advance. There are a group of us who enjoy playing high-conflict, explorey games filled with betrayal, backstabbing and hilarity and are willing to devote hours to creating an alien empire, tabling and voting on ridiculous laws, and in Jeremy's case, suicide-bombing particular players with his explosive fish-ship. During the game there evolved a rivalry between Luke/Jeremy and Matt/Michael. We had expected Luke and Jeremy to be at each other's throats as they were next to each other and can both be very clever but aggressive players. To our shock, they decided that working with each other was more beneficial, and that was terrifying. As the game drew to a close, it became so close between Luke, Matt and Jeff that the alliances came to the fore and there was much bribery and corruption. Luke took it out in the end, with what I think was a well-earned victory. Other than that I have been enjoying games with Angela and her girls' group, Wednesday night gaming and even a lovely lunch-and-a-game with my best friend and his family while the kiddies played. It certainly seems about time for another games night soon so I'll look at my calendar and see where I can schedule one in. Takenoko at Mark's on June 1st with the expansion "Takenoko Chibis" (kindly provided by Martyn). It's a good expansion that adds a GIRL PANDA (!!!), some cool special tiles and cute baby tokens. Sorry guys, I won't buy it for the $54 it's retailing at, but maybe if there was a good sale it might turn up in my collection one day. Games I Have Played in MayColt Express
The Resistance: Avalon Codenames (x3) Dominion (base game) Star Trek: Catan Viceroy Dead Man's Draw Twilight Imperium 3 (with Shards of the Throne & Shattered Empire expansions) Sequence (x3) Catan Perudo (Liar's Dice) Lords of Waterdeep (With Scoundrels of Skullport expansion) Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy Most enjoyed: Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy Why? I just love the story that develops for each player as they build their family. Least enjoyed: Viceroy Why? The theme didn't seem to be attached to the gameplay and it just seemed fiddly for no reason. I've had a very busy and tiring couple of weeks, with a few opportunities to play games. May 4th was Devon's birthday so Mark gave me permission to bring him along to our regular Wednesday night games as a birthday treat. We played Kemet and Devon showed how he is as competent at gaming as anyone else. In Kemet you basically have troops that score points by winning battles or hold special areas of the board - it's very fighty! It was the perfect game for a boy his age, so he had a fantastic time! (Although the late night took it's toll.) The next evening a new friend invited me to join her and a couple of her friends for a girls' game night (including dinner!). I was exhausted because I'd had a full-on week, but it was lovely and I had a nice time. She cooked some delicious chicken and we played Dominion, followed by my favourite carrot cake for dessert and then Star Trek Catan. I hadn't played ST: Catan before (and honestly haven't played Catan all that much in general), and the different pieces combined with my overwhelming tiredness meant I was completely useless. Thankfully the other players were helpful. It's really hard to judge since my brain wasn't co-operating but I think I prefer regular Catan because I had difficulty seeing what was going on with the board and pieces due to the space theme. Finally I attended games group last Wednesday and was stoked that my friend Matt (who moved overseas recently) was back in town and could come along. We played a few games for higher player counts since there were a lot of us - Colt Express, Codenames and The Resistance: Avalon. Colt Express is certainly some table candy, it has a model train that your meeples literally move about in and shoot one another. It's fun enough but I don't think it'll ever be a game I'd request. It also feels that we seem to be quite over The Resistance. We used to play it all the time, and we pulled it out half-heartedly as an end-of-the-night game. It's fine but it certainly doesn't shine like it used to.
I really want to play something this weekend but I don't think it'll happen as I'm currently too broke and sore/tired to host. I will update with a date for the next games event at my place soon. (Sorry about the lack of links - BoardGameGeek's search function is currently down.) Attendees: Lisa, John, Gareth, Nigel, Luke, Emma, Brad
We had the first games night in a while last night, and I'm keen to have another soon. We started with Codenames. Luke and I were the spymasters. Due to my overly obscure clues (trying to desperately to link my particularly eclectic set of words) it looked like Luke's team had it in the bag. His team had one word remaining, and ours a stack of four. I threw out an "unlimited-guess" clue and hoped that there were few enough words on the board at this point that they could figure out my earlier clues. Somehow, the gamble paid off and my team (me, Lisa & John) won. I suspect that I may have been accidentally giving away a bit much during the game though, so I'll keep my mouth shut next time. We followed up with 7 Wonders which is a popular choice for many people in the group. Poor Gareth was the only person new to it so he was thrown in the deep end. In the end I took it out by a single point (Lisa and Nigel tied for second), due to the massive pile of cash I had managed to accumulate - thanks neighbours! ;) Following this, a couple of people cheekily suggested Rock Band, so we diverted from board gaming to play a few sets. I enjoy Rock Band and was happy to play, but still feel the need for some more board gaming (as the games we played were pretty light) so I'll probably hold another games night soon. Thanks for a great night everyone. |
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