I'd forgotten about this stage of starting a regular game group. The stage where sometimes it's just you.
It's ... not easy. Honestly, it's sometimes downright discouraging.
But I learned a long time ago to stick with it. The line from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come," does apply here. It does work. Eventually, they will show up to play games.
There comes a point where people who have been telling you, "I'll make it sometime," actually do make it. Sometimes they're sporadic. Sometimes they stick with it. Enough "sometimes," and they find that they are regulars.
But I learned a long time ago to stick with it. The line from Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come," does apply here. It does work. Eventually, they will show up to play games.
There comes a point where people who have been telling you, "I'll make it sometime," actually do make it. Sometimes they're sporadic. Sometimes they stick with it. Enough "sometimes," and they find that they are regulars.
Boardgaming - for me - is a source of personal stability. If I don't play at least one game in a week, I'm not right for a bit. And I can do some of that gaming on Saturdays at Fantasium - unless something else is going on. Saturdays are when we play 13th Age and Legend of the Five Rings and sometimes some Dungeons and Dragons - but roleplaying doesn't give me that same focus.
Thankfully, there are people around who are willing to play games with me - even if it's just a quick game of 7 Wonders: Duel (which is, by the way, fantastic).
But there are so many games I want to play with more players. Street Kings is playable with three, but it looks like its sweet spot is 4-5. In fact, three is a weird number when it comes to board games, because there aren't a lot of really good games that handle three players well. Haggis. Blokus Trigon.
It's given me renewed appreciation for the presence of a good game store - and sharpened the pain of losing a good one.
I hear you. Beside public spaces like the local game store, for a very long time in my area, the go-to game night was one hosted by a local couple in their home. They were there, ready to play every Thursday evening and on many occasions, they were the only ones there to play.
ReplyDeleteBut by being consistently there, they built a stable of game friends who knew they could plan on dropping in on Thursday and find a game in the offing. People from the next county over knew they could just show up with a duffel bag of games and find some ready players.
I think the couple years I dropped in on that game night did more to broaden my horizons and refine my preferences than anything since.