The previous entry got a little long when I started talking about my personal gaming history, so I decided a separate entry discussing my gaming history would be best. So, without further ado, here is a brief history of my gaming life.
Gaming during the 60's - Ah, the lazy days of summer. I spent many the afternoon playing typical family style boardgames with friends. Games that come to mind include Monopoly, Payday, Mille Bornes, and the best of the bunch, Careers, among many others. This was also when I first played Milton Bradley's American Heritage series of games: Battle Cry, Dogfight, Hit the Beach and my personal favorite of the series, Broadside. These games are responsible for my life-long interesting in wargames and military history. To this day, I still consider Broadside one of my favorite games of all time.
Gaming during the 70's - High School, new friends and college. I met new friends in High School and this is when I really got into wargames in a big way. SPI and Avalon Hill were the the "Big Two" wargame publishers. GDW had a good reputation during this period as well. I subscribed to Strategy & Tactics magazine and together with a small circle of friends, played wargames. This was also when Dungeons & Dragons was first published and for the next two decades, RPGs took up a lot of my gaming time, at the expense of board games.
Gaming during the 80's - My brother's best friend was Mark. I met Mark at my brother's wedding where Mark was the best man. We found out that we both enjoyed boardgames (wargames, actually) as a hobby and began getting together one night a week to play games. We started out with wargames but over the years we eventually played a little bit of everything including RPGs, CCGs, Strategy Boardgames and even computer games. Along the way Roy joined our weekly event and the three of us played games almost every week for over twenty years.
Gaming during the early 90's- During the early 90's I got into Magic the Gathering (MtG) in a big way, starting with the Alpha version. For a couple of years my life (and finances!) were consumed by MtG. I never got into the tournament aspect of the game and eventually "fell out of love" with MtG when I realized the money pit would never end and I also realized I intensely disliked the never-ending rule disputes. I ended up selling most of my MtG stuff on eBay and probably making a small profit on the experience. I still play Magic casually today. I'll buy some pre-built decks from time to time and I have an account with Magic Online where I play every now and then. Magic Online solves the problems I had with rules disputes. Everyone plays by the same rules guaranteed. The problem I have with Magic Online is the same one I had with "Real World" Magic. Players take the game too seriously. It's hard to enjoy the game when your opponent is only interested in winning and trash talking along the way. Tournament level Magic the Gathering really brings out the worst in people.
Gaming during the late 90's - During the late 90's my gaming was limited to weekly game nights with Mark and Roy. During this period of time, we mostly played card games of one sort or another (Wizard, Phase 10, etc.). Sometimes we would branch out and try something new. I was usually the one to try and introduce a new game. The few Euro games I tried to introduce to the group never went over really well. I guess we were just stuck in a rut. To be honest, these game nights generally left me unsatisfied. I continued to meet and play games with Mark and Roy more out of habit and friendship than for any enjoyment I got from the games.
Gaming during the 00's - More of the same during the first few years of the new century. My interest in gaming was fading, due more, I suspect, to the unsatisfactory game night sessions with Mark and Roy, than for any other reason. This continued until 2003, when Mark unexpectedly passed away from Cancer. He was much too young. Game Night ended with Mark's death. Roy and I were never close friends. Mark was the glue that held the group together. With his death, I stopped playing games . . .
Hexwar.com and the Rebirth of my interest in Gaming - About a year later, a web site I had been keeping an eye on, Hexwar.com, finally went live and started offering Play By Internet games of classic SPI quad style wargames. These games, originally published in the 70's and 80's were simple games that were easy and quick to play. Hexwar.com offered a way to play these games over the Internet against opponents from around the world. The format was similar to Play by Mail, so both players could play when convenient, passing completed turns back and forth via the Hexwar.com servers. Having been a fan of wargames all my life, this idea piqued my interest.
When the beta version of Hexwar.com had gotten started back in 2002, I had set up a Yahoo Discussion Group dedicated to Hexwar.com. I did this to hopefully facilitate discussions of the games and to allow Hexwar.com players to arrange games. When the Hexwar.com site went live, in 2004, the discussion group became an integral part of Hexwar.com as subscribers of the service used the discussion group to discuss games, complain about bugs and look for challenges. The management of Hexwar.com also participated in the discussion group, using it to make announcements, and respond to subscriber questions and comments. Because I "owned" the discussion group, I became a Hexwar.com volunteer and active member of the Hexwar.com community.
Getting involved in playing games at Hexwar.com primed my game playing engine. By the fall of 2004, I had re-discovered BoardGameGeek (a site I had joined back in 2002) and re-discovered the wonderful world of strategy board games and my love of game playing. I spent the last months of 2004, digging my game collection out of storage and making up for lost time by buying over 100 games to add to my collection. I frequented eBay, where I bought out of print games from the 90's. I became a regular face at the local game stores and helped stimulate the local economy by buying many, many games. I traveled to gaming events in the Bay Area and found some new gaming partners in my local area. I attended a gaming convention (Conquest LA) in February 2005. Four days of non-stop gaming. It was heaven! I've started a local gaming group at work. Four or five of us get together every-other week. It's a small beginning, but successful so far. And I get to play games!
In 2005 my gaming is going full steam ahead. I've already attended one gaming convention this year (Conquest LA) and plan on attended KhublaCon in May, Conquest SF in September and BGG.CON in November.
So that's it. My gaming life in a nutshell. I'll bet I've played more games in the last few months than in the entire previous decade. My gaming life is good right now. Hope you enjoyed the tour.
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