One of the great things about doing this business is meeting fantastic people. The people who you play games with and can have conversations about your love of games. I know I talk many about the ugly gritty side of reality. The getting into distribution. Getting your game on store shelves. People not following through on their commitments, etc. But I think one of the things that drives the industry is our love of games.
I know that when I go to a meetup I will get 2-3 games in during the time period and usually have a relaxing time. We are all there to play a game and socialize a bit. I know some games are better at socializing then others, Great Debate plug. However, I think sometimes we forget that people are people as well.
I admit personally that I like heavier games overall. Recently I was at a meetup and someone was teaching a game or trying to. The comments he received as he was going through the rules that everyone at the table agreed to beforehand were pretty outrageous. “The best time to learn a game is not at the table.” “Real games should have rules you can learn in 5 minutes” I agree the best time to learn a game is probably not at the table. However, he had prefaced this beforehand and EVERYONE at the table had agreed to participate. Instead of walking through and listening he was heckled by people who agreed to try something new. The time to say not interested had passed and you had committed peoples time to playing this game. If people were not interested then they should of spoke up then instead of agreeing.
We eventually did not end up playing the game and instead broke out Diamonds which the original protestor wanted to play originally but got voted down. This seems a petty way to get your way. I took the other game and began reading it in downtime to learn its mechanics, in between rounds of Diamonds and social engagement at the meetup. Afterwards a group of 6 had decided to play another game and 4 of us decided to try the other game since I had time to read it.
The game went fine with teaching it and going through. However, when the two groups split we had problems because people did not think we should split up and felt slighted that other people would want to play something different. When our group split off the other group got splintered more and dragged into other games. Yet, I was blamed for breaking up groups to play my game. I had to show them that it was not anything I had published or had anything to do with. It is a weird psychological thing here that someone much smarter than me can tell you in an instant what it is. I felt odd having to defend myself about teaching a game that someone else really wanted to play.
Now this post was not meant to degrade meetups at all. Honestly, I have met some really great people through the meetup community. I think its a reminder to all of us to think before we speak sometimes. We all just want to have fun and there is no way to have fun wrong. 🙂 We have to remember the social contracts of the table and respect everyone else as well. Or you might soon find yourself with no one that is willing to play with you.
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