My Gaming Autobiography

In June 2006, I was honoured to be invited to join an invitation-only mailing list for discussing boardgames. Many of the members are individuals I have been reading since I first got exposed to Eurogames and the internet gaming community. Their writings have been influential in my knowledge and the formation of my gaming preferences.

The group is structured such that individuals are nominated for membership and then current members have the opportunity to cast a vote. As long as X number of members don't "put a black ball in the bag" (metaphorically speaking), the person is accepted to join the group. I was accepted and awaited the official email invitation that would allow me to access the group's posts. I was then told that each person needed to submit a gaming biography of some sort. A trifle, really, as it could be anything from a few sentences to whatever I wanted.

Ah, but getting something *written* (and something that needed to be submitted and approved). My Achilles' heel. My sword of Damocles. Something I've struggled with all my life.

Well, I got it written and submitted 21 months later.

Yes, I wrote "21 *months*" - one year and nine months later - March 2008. Crazy, eh? I certainly think so. In any event, I have no reasonable or sane explanation for the delay. I can only say that it is not without precedent in my life.

(sigh)

Anyway, the group decided to hold another nomination vote, and this time X number of members "put a black ball in the bag" and I was rejected. I can imagine the 21 month delay didn't exactly help my position. It could very well have been seen as a "diss" of the group, though that was never my desire or intention. In any event, I see the rejection as being primarily my responsibility; since, if I had written and submitted anything 21 months earlier, it would have all been a non-issue and I would now be quietly reading the posts of individuals I find interesting and informative. (I don't imagine I'd be writing very many posts of my own, though...)

The rejection was quite an emotional blow. That continues to soften as the months pass and it becomes just one of those things that I accept while I keep moving forward. There is the tiniest bit of solace in that I believe I may hold the unique position of being the only individual who has been both accepted *and* rejected by the group.

I just wish it had been the other way around.

---

I guess I should actually get to the topic of this blog entry! If you're interested in my personal gaming history, here's what I wrote:

---

I have gamed all of my sufficiently conscious life. One of my earliest memories is being taught, with my brother, how to play Monopoly by our babysitter.

(Although it’s not one of my favourites, I still like Monopoly and would happily play it if I could find three like-minded individuals. Part of it is nostalgia, part of it is cultural iconography, and the rest is that I like the aspects of valuing/negotiating/trading and probability management. I am Euro-minded enough to think of ways to make it a faster and “better” game, though.)

My childhood included the typical American boardgames of the ‘60s and ‘70s: Booby Trap, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Clue, Chutes & Ladders, Stratego, etc. My mother taught me how to play chess but I’ve never been particularly good at it. (I was in the chess club in high school - was even president for a term - but that was just for the social aspects. How geeky is that?!)

My family also enjoyed traditional card games, so I played a fair amount of Euchre (a classic game in the Midwest), Rummy and Hearts. To this day, I admire and enjoy all sorts of card games, traditional and otherwise, for their variety, versatility and portability – so many ideas and so much fun in such small packages!

In middle school and, especially, high school, I became increasingly exposed to and involved in “hobby games” - typically sold in hobby stores and specialty game stores. That is when role-playing games entered my life. It started with Metamorphosis: Alpha (which became Gamma World), and that led to obsessively buying and collecting and reading all sorts of RPG systems. But the “one game to rule them all” for me at that time was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

I never considered myself a “serious” role-player, but I did enjoy playing with my friends. However, I got out of role-playing in college, when I determined it was taking WAY too much time for too little gain. (Oh, to remember those carefree days of youth when time never seemed to be an issue!)

I was always playing boardgames during this time, and when I was at college, gaming was a major social pastime. The same interests that brought me to role-playing - science fiction, fantasy, and generally all things geeky (though the current use of that term had not yet been coined) - also affected my choice of other games. The expansion of the hobby games market brought a number of new games to my attention. Five of these deserve special mention:

1. Cosmic Encounter was the greatest of these. A friend introduced me to it in 1982, and it was a revelation. Contained chaos! Drama! Special powers! I loved it and still do. It has been my #1 game for more than 25 years.

2. Illuminati. Again, special powers! I love the theme and the execution of the game. I would happily play this game today, but it’s harder to get it to the table, due to the game’s length, the “hit the leader” element, and the potential for emotional turmoil (due to the availability of back stabbing or people just not playing the way *you* think they should).

3. Talisman. Yet again, special powers! Bought it, played it, and my brain exploded (in a good way). This satisfied the “campaign” aspect of role-playing for me, in way less time. I got all the expansions, but ultimately ended up not using the expansion boards (except for the Dungeon) and just mixing the cards into the adventure deck. Nowadays, having been exposed to the Euro gaming aesthetic, and having played many other fantasy boardgames, I’m no longer as enamoured of Talisman. But, oh, the fun I had back then!

4. HeroQuest. The dungeon crawl game that was sooo much better than TSR’s Dungeon. I usually played the role of Zargon, the evil DM. That’s probably because I’m a control freak and/or my friends were too lazy to read ahead…

5. Dune. My love for Cosmic Encounter led to playing all things designed by the guys at Eon (though this game was published by Avalon Hill). I loved the book when I read it at university and the game catches the world and story of the novel perfectly. This is still a favourite, but it’s hard to get six motivated players for it these days.

Those five games, and many like them – this period was the heyday of Games Workshop’s boardgames, after all - were the staple of my gaming diet for many years.

The next big change was Magic: The Gathering. I went to the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) in San Francisco shortly after Magic had been released at Gen Con in 1993. All I knew at the time was that a lot of people were enthusiastically playing a card game (yes!) about casting spells (yes!) in a fantasy setting (yes!). I was *interested*. So, I started talking to the players and discovered that you didn’t get all the cards when you bought the game (ugh), it was collectible without bubblegum in each pack (ugh), and you were supposed to play for “ante”, where the winner would take one of the loser’s cards (ugh!). And that’s how I failed to get in on the Magic craze at (or near) the beginning.

Which didn’t stop me from obsessively getting into the game shortly thereafter when it infected my game group. We played the game a tremendous amount. Then, over a number of years I (1) purchased a LOT of cards, (2) realized I was organizing the cards way more than playing with them, (3) sold my entire collection for a bit of money ($5,000), (4) bought a few decks and booster packs just to do some playing, (5) started obsessively buying complete sets (1 of each card) - and I still have one of every card from Unlimited through some point after the Mirage Cycle (or Unglued or somewhere around there) - and then (6) I stopped doing that and never seem to play any more.

I was never particularly interested in, or very good at, building decks. I always preferred to play Magic like a boardgame - open the box and play the game – which usually meant random card drawing or preconstructed decks.

I also enjoyed other CCGs, with the most prominent ones being On the Edge and Net Runner. I’ve still got a lot of cards and sets of a bunch of games, waiting for that period where I actually have the time and opponents to play them…

Which finally brings us to Euros (or German games or designer games or whatever). I played my first one in 1996 during my only (so far) trip to Gen Con Indy. Some folks in an open gaming area asked me if I wanted to play “a cool boardgame from Germany” - Settlers of Catan. I played and it was “OK”, but no big deal. Once again, my first impression was not an accurate predictor of what would eventually become an active obsession.

It was not until I moved to Sydney, Australia in 2000 and, through the chance that favours prepared minds, became part of Pat Brennan’s Pymble Gaming Arena (PGA) group. That opened the doors to many, many new games, as well as the BoardGameGeek website and the Spielfrieks email group.

I had moved to Australia with three suitcases filled with clothes and essentials. When I moved back to the United States in 2002, I had to ship 15 boxes, mostly filled with games. While living in Cleveland, I bought (and played) many, many more games to the point where all the shelves lining the walls of a long room were overflowing. When I moved back to Australia in 2005 - this time to Brisbane - I reduced the number of games, but still put the bulk of the collection into air-conditioned storage in Cleveland. So I’m currently working very hard to make do with a smaller collection - playing the quality games more often - but the number of games I own is still growing…

The great thing about gaming is that it is a social activity. Consequently, I have always sought out and/or formed groups that would allow me to have a steady supply of gaming experiences. When I lived in Sydney, in addition to Pat Brennan’s PGA, I also hosted the weekly group Queen’s Birthday Gamers (QBC). When I moved to Cleveland, Ohio, my wife, Ann, and I hosted The Games Project (TGP) each week. In addition, I was active in the Cleveland Boardgamers Meetup Group, which met once a month at first, but eventually became four times a month. Now that we’re in Brisbane, Ann and I host the weekly group Gamers Without A Name (GWAN), and I also attend the twice-monthly public gathering, Critical Mass, as well as participating in a number of other ad hoc gaming events.

Although I am open to, and play, a wide variety of types of games, I tend to prefer those that are lighter and provide opportunities for laughter. I also really enjoy games that encourage me to think in new and unusual ways. The emphasis on innovative mechanisms within Eurogames is great for me. I look forward to a future of ongoing unbridled joy from gaming!