Getting down to (gaming) business

I joined a new campaign at my local gaming store this weekend; we're playing A Song of Ice and Fire, the RPG of George R. R. Martin's Westeros fantasy setting. And even though we played for barely 2.5 hours, it was a substantive session—we got more done in 2.5 hours than my current group gets done in 5 hours.

Paradoxically, one reason why we got so much done is because none of us are friends. I mean, we're jovial and polite around the table, but we don't gossip about girlfriends or the latest movie we just saw, and we don't go off on crazy tangents about unrelated stuff. Now, these things are the staples of many a game group, and truth be told I wouldn't want to go without them—but this session was a really interesting glimpse at what can get done when the group focuses solely on the task of gaming.

Photos from Gencon 2008

I forgot my actual camera, but it turns out that my new Sony Ericsson camera phone takes halfway decent photos. Here are a handful of scenes from Gencon 2008.














This was nifty -- Mayfair and Days of Wonder (and a few other companies I may have missed?) had set up a board game room where you could "check out" a game and play it on a nearby table, then return it and try a new one.














Here's the game room itself. Through the doors on the far wall was a much larger room, about the size of a gymnasium, with lots of game space.














Every table in this room was a different D&D game.














Scanthan and Ben on Saturday night playing Cuylas. A few minutes later we wrapped up our game and these two gents embarked on a night of hijinx in Indianapolis. They dropped in on the steampunk-themed Gencon dance and tried (unsuccessfully) to crash the uber-pretentious White Wolf party.














Tower of Gygax! The DM handed out two copies of each character, then proceeded to run a rotating cast of characters through a super old-school dungeon named for the iconic father of D&D. We used the first edition rules, and it was a blast. My gnome illusionist died after he looted the wrong body and a cascade of molten gold washed over him.

Just a bunch of guys, hangin' out and playin' some games

My comrade Sam has been pushing the idea of a weekly board game night recently. In my mind, this is a good thing, because it really tempts our large, nebulous group of gamers to coalesce around an informal weekly engagement.

There are at least 10 of us floating around out there, some of whom have never met one another, who would really benefit from a weekly meetup. Whether or not this becomes a regular thing I cannot say. All I know is that we all could do with a dose of regular, casual gaming outside the trappings of our various ongoing RPGs (which are legion).