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Making a Welcoming Gaming Space · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:04
  Welcome to pick up and deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder
• 0:07
  as I had out for a walk and delivering episode to you while I walked
• 0:10
  to the library. I'm Brendan Ratley. Well, good afternoon, listeners.
• 0:23
  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago, and I'm on my way to
• 0:27
  the library. We've got lots going on today and I need to get out
• 0:33
  and have a little exercise before I do it, so hence the walk.
• 0:38
  Well, I thought i'd talked to you today about a couple of things that
• 0:40
  have happened in my gaming life that I think are interesting and maybe worth exploring
• 0:46
  a little bit. So that's what I'm gonna do. So the first one
• 0:50
  I mentioned on the top of the Stack episode last time. This first incident
• 0:54
  that started to sparked this episode for today was the incident with the game Revive.
• 0:59
  Now, if you haven't listened that episode, you should. It's a
• 1:00
  banger. But even if you don't want to, I'll summarize quickly. I
• 1:03
  have this game Revived that I got at gen Con and I'm really excited to
• 1:07
  try it. I arranged to play a game at my game club, but
• 1:14
  I through a sort of combination of not really paying attention as well as I
• 1:17
  should have and other things. I inadvertently invited too many people to join us
• 1:22
  for the game. So instead of four myself and three others, I invited
• 1:26
  myself and four others. Well, the game only plays four, so I
• 1:33
  stepped I set up the game, taught the other four people how to play,
• 1:37
  and then stepped away while they played the game. I did not get
• 1:38
  to play it. So that's one thing to think about that happened, And
• 1:44
  then the other one happened last night. I actually run two board game clubs.
• 1:48
  One of them I run with my design partner Rob, that's Taggle Gaming.
• 1:52
  The other one I run by myself is much smaller. It meets every
• 1:56
  other week at my school. That's the Columbia Columbia College Chicago Board Games Society,
• 2:00
  which is just a few people who meet and play games every other week.
• 2:05
  We met for the first time this semester. This week we had two
• 2:07
  returning members and two new members, so a total of four. Oh sorry,
• 2:14
  we had three returning members and two new members, so a total of
• 2:16
  five students came to the meeting. Then there was me. Hopefully they'll be
• 2:21
  a bit more promotion before the next one and we'll see the numbers go off
• 2:24
  of it. But you know whatever. In pursuit of that, we at
• 2:30
  the beginning of the night, we were playing quicks, waiting for the other
• 2:32
  members to show up, and just kind of getting started with a short game
• 2:35
  so that if other people came they'd be able to join in. And one
• 2:40
  of the people who showed up was one of the new people who showed up
• 2:44
  was a freshman. Actually, they were walking by and I said, are
• 2:46
  you here to play board games? And they said no, And I said,
• 2:51
  oh, okay, well do you want to play board games? And
• 2:53
  they said sure, And so they put their bags down and joined us and
• 2:58
  ended up saying the whole evening. At the end of the evening, I
• 3:00
  said, you know, I'm so glad you wandered by. I hope you'll
• 3:04
  come back. And they said me too. I came here to do homework,
• 3:07
  but I didn't get that done and we all laughed at that. But
• 3:12
  anyhow, while we were playing that first game of quicks, we were about
• 3:15
  a third of the way in when this other student joined us, and I
• 3:17
  realized it was going to be a little while. So then I said,
• 3:22
  hey, do you want to just take my sheet so that you can play?
• 3:24
  And they said sure, and so that's what they did, which worked
• 3:29
  out just fine. So both of these things involved me setting aside my gaming
• 3:35
  play in order to let someone else play. And I wanted to think about
• 3:39
  that in the context of, particularly as board game class that I teach,
• 3:43
  which is about building community, to think a little bit about what it means
• 3:47
  to me to host games and to try to welcome other people into the gaming
• 3:53
  hobby and to build the hobby with them. So I have like five things
• 4:00
  that I think are important in that regard. The first one is, as
• 4:08
  I was saying, as it's kind of evident from this other thing is comfort
• 4:13
  and fun for others. So in both of the examples I just gave here,
• 4:17
  I put the comfort and fun that other people were having ahead of my
• 4:23
  own, with the idea that cultivating this game experience for them is a reward
• 4:30
  in itself, and to a degree that's true, But certainly in terms of
• 4:35
  trying to make a welcoming space that's necessary. And I think you'll hear this
• 4:39
  from most people who do some sort of board game club elements. If part
• 4:44
  of their goal is to make a welcoming community for people who might play with
• 4:47
  them. The way that they often approach that is to put the needs of
• 4:53
  the group ahead of their own needs, and that shouldn't be surprising for anyone
• 4:57
  doing some hosting right. It involves some self sacrifice on on level, and
• 5:00
  that often manifested our game groups, with things like the hosts making an effort
• 5:06
  much of the time to not get involved in too many deep complicated games,
• 5:11
  or have as a kind of standing rule that if one if new people show
• 5:16
  up, we step away from the game to go say hello to those new
• 5:19
  people. So if you play a game with me at Tago Gaming, part
• 5:24
  of what might happen is I'll step away for a few minutes to go say
• 5:27
  hi to new people if they come in. And the result of that is
• 5:31
  that when new people come in, they're not there for more than a minute
• 5:34
  or two before one of us comes up and says hello and welcomes them to
• 5:36
  the club. And often we'll try to get them into a game, unless
• 5:41
  it seems like they just want to play a game with their group, So
• 5:45
  it's sending the warm hand of greeting. I will say Rob has mentioned a
• 5:49
  couple times and I feel like I agree with him that much of the community
• 5:55
  aspect of how we run tag gaming is not dissimilar from a church, that
• 6:00
  it is a ceremonial and regular gathering place where people connect with one another to
• 6:06
  do social activities, and as such it serves a lot of that same communal
• 6:13
  feeling, if not the religious and or spiritual feeling, though there's an argument
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  that playing games has a spiritual or at least community component to it, so
• 6:21
  comfort and fund for others first. Second part of being a host for me
• 6:28
  is aiming for high rules clarity and strict rules interpretation for myself. So when
• 6:34
  I'm teaching people a game, particularly if it's a game I know pretty well,
• 6:39
  I will do my best to explain the game in a way that helps
• 6:43
  them understand the rules but also some of the consequences of the rules. I
• 6:46
  don't do that too much, but if there are like glaring traps that can
• 6:49
  ruin your game, I do like to mention that as a thing. The
• 6:55
  result of that is, of course that if it's done well, everybody understands
• 6:58
  how the game works and they're able to play pretty well. Part of your
• 7:01
  job when you're host in that way is also to keep an eye on the
• 7:03
  rules and make sure that people understand what the rules are, particularly if they're
• 7:06
  doing something that's about to break the rules or more likely that reflects a rule
• 7:12
  later that there's going to be a problem, you know, like if they're
• 7:15
  putting a thing down and doing that will block off something else, you least
• 7:18
  want to just make sure they understand, like don't forget. You can't put
• 7:23
  two numbers next to each other. So like in segrata, if somebody goes
• 7:27
  to put a three next to a spot that has a three written on it,
• 7:30
  you know, I'm putting out like you know, if you do that,
• 7:32
  you're not going to be able to fill that three in or just don't
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  forget. And a lot of that depends on reading the group. If you
• 7:36
  have somebody who is a pretty strong gamer, I might not point that out,
• 7:42
  but if it's their first game, I still might. But then I
• 7:44
  also have generally, especially if I'm teaching a game or playing a game with
• 7:47
  people who have played it less than me, I have very strict rules for
• 7:50
  myself. So if I've broken a rule, or I forget a rule,
• 7:53
  or I make a play and it was dumb, I'm less like no,
• 7:56
  I'm not backing it up. That's that was a dumb play, but that's
• 7:58
  what I get in part that key the game moving quickly, and I just
• 8:01
  feel like it makes the game again feel more welcoming or accommodating for people because
• 8:05
  they see like I'm doing my best to make it a fair and fun experience
• 8:09
  for them. That doesn't mean that I don't forget rules, especially on the
• 8:11
  first game that I teach. It's not uncommon for me to remember a rule
• 8:15
  later. Now, if it's affected game playing generally, what I say is,
• 8:18
  let's play it the way I taught it unless everybody wants to change right
• 8:20
  now. And depending on the group you're with, people do or don't want
• 8:24
  to change. I'd say most of the people I play with toggle they want
• 8:28
  to play a rules as written, So if we remember a rule part way
• 8:30
  through, we just switch and play by the rule unless it's given someone a
• 8:33
  huge advantage to do so. Well. My third entry is welcoming to new
• 8:37
  folks. I think I've already talked about that a little bit. The idea
• 8:39
  that if you're hosting an event or running an event, you want to keep
• 8:43
  your eye out for people who are new. So if you have a bigger
• 8:45
  event like our TOGGLE, people will come in and if I don't recognize them,
• 8:48
  I'll go say hi. Sometimes I say have you been Toggle before?
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  Because often they have. Sometimes they haven't been there for years. Sometimes they've
• 8:56
  been there a couple times and I just haven't met them. But being able
• 9:01
  to sort of greet them, greet somebody when they come in is a really
• 9:05
  great part of making your community feel welcoming and something I'm glad to do.
• 9:11
  The next one I want to point out is something that it's hard to hard
• 9:15
  to discuss exactly, but it's aiming for group appropriate games, and this again
• 9:20
  goes a little bit too comfort for others before myself. Often what happens for
• 9:24
  me is that I will choose what game we're going to play based on the
• 9:28
  group we have and their level of interest and or ability. So there's a
• 9:33
  variety of different games that can come up. But part of what I like
• 9:37
  about playing these different games is trying to cultivate different groups and get different kinds
• 9:46
  of game play in. With my game club at Columbia, we tend to
• 9:50
  play a lot more light or party games, stuff that's not too hard to
• 9:52
  learn, but that we can play quickly, in part because then if new
• 9:56
  people show up, we're not playing game that's gonna take a ton of time,
• 10:00
  but also because depending on the group, we often want to be able
• 10:01
  to be pretty big. My goal with that group is to get it to
• 10:05
  a regular number of people that's big enough that people often break off into two
• 10:09
  or three different smaller groups playing games rather than always being one big group,
• 10:16
  in part because you know, if you get up to six or seven it
• 10:18
  really limits what you can play. And part of what I wanted to have
• 10:20
  that group is to have another chance to play euro Games, and thus far
• 10:26
  that is not the result, but that's okay. I really enjoy doing it
• 10:28
  anyway. Often again, that means choosing games that fit for the group or
• 10:35
  fit for the people at the table, and not choosing games through yourself necessarily.
• 10:41
  It also mean considering accommodation issues for the people at the table. If
• 10:46
  you have somebody who's not got great eyesight, you want to think about where
• 10:50
  are they sitting compared to the board. Are you playing a game by Portal
• 10:54
  Games where the font is really small. If you've got somebody with color blindness,
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  are you making sure that the game is color blind accessible, are you
• 11:00
  communicating things in a way that make it clear what's going on, maybe for
• 11:03
  people who are new. So all of those things go into helping choose the
• 11:07
  right game for the right group. And now here's the last one. And
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  this is something that I started doing once it was clear that Rob and I
• 11:15
  were going to run TOGGLE, which is that you also need to make make
• 11:18
  room for yourself and your own gaming needs. Part of what I like about
• 11:22
  going to TOGGLE is that it gives me a chance to play some of those
• 11:24
  heavier, crunchy ear games that I really don't get to play basically anywhere else
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  in my gaming life. My wife likes some crunchy Euros, but not a
• 11:35
  lot of them, and a lot of the ones that I really like aren't
• 11:37
  her ally, aren't up her alley, which means that a very limited time
• 11:41
  and space to play those games. Now, if I were to let the
• 11:46
  hosting part of my experience at TOGGLE be the predominant experience that I have at
• 11:52
  TOGGLE, I could see myself getting burned out on doing it because the original
• 11:56
  reason that I liked going there ie playing these really heavy games that I don't
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  get to play anywhere else. I'm not getting to do that. So instead,
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  I make sure at least once a month, if not twice, to
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  have a week where I plan ahead and play something big and Beefian sort of
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  fits my that thing that I like to do at that part of the club.
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  That that's part of what keeps me enthused about it and part of what
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  provides that rewards for me is the opportunity to play these games that I don't
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  get to play otherwise. And I'm really pleased to have that connection and that
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  outlet and making time for myself to do that and sometimes feels a little selfish,
• 12:43
  but at the same time, you have to recognize the old the old
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  adage about airplanes, right, you have to put oxygen on yourself before you
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  help other passengers. And if I can't stay committed and interested in the game
• 12:54
  club because I'm enjoying it and because it does what I need it to do,
• 12:58
  then it's hard for me to having two fiasm about helping it do what
• 13:01
  others wanted to do. So those are my thoughts on hosting game clubs.
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  What are your thoughts on hosting game clubs? Have you done so if you
• 13:07
  have ideas about to add our thoughts about it, please head over to board
• 13:11
  game Geek. You'll three two six nine and share your thoughts there. I'd
• 13:13
  love to hear what you do to cultivate the game community in your game clubs,
• 13:20
  what you do to build them and grow them, and where your attention
• 13:24
  lies when you're showing people games. But also how do you attend to your
• 13:28
  own needs and what do you do for yourself as a game Well, thanks
• 13:31
  for joining me on my walk today. I hope to your next walk is
• 13:33
  as closed as his mind was. Bye bye. Brought to you by Rattlebox