The Civilized Guide to Tabletop Gaming Read online

  Game Length

  The amount of time a game takes to play will affect how often you will play it. That doesn’t mean that long-playing games don’t have a place in a collection or aren’t enjoyable, but before you spend cold hard cash on a game that takes four hours to play, take a moment to consider not only whether the game is enjoyable enough to spend four hours playing it but also how many friends you’ll be able to regularly convince to play it with you.

  My own collection includes small-box games (some of which play in fifteen to twenty minutes) that I tend to play with my casual gaming friends and family all the way to meaty war games that take two to three hours to play. Those are played with my circle of mini war gamers, who are accustomed to that kind of gaming experience and structure their lives around regular gaming nights. If you don’t have friends with that kind of dedication, consider games that will fit into both your life and theirs.

  The Cost Factor

  Some games are more expensive than others. Import costs for certain games, high-quality components, fiddly bits that are costly to produce—all of these may increase the cost of a game. You’ve got to be able to justify the cost and measure whether the purchase is worth it for you.

  One of the ways I think about a game is whether I’ll get an hour of enjoyment from the game for every dollar I’ll be spending on it. I spend the time to paint the minis in many of my games, so games with miniatures are worth the higher cost, but that may not be the case for you, and the extra toys inside a box may not be as worthwhile.

  Ultimately you want a collection of well-used and well-loved games rather than a pile of shame hidden in the back of a closet.

  Store Smart: Managing and Storing Games and Their Expansions

  Most games often come in their own storage container. Storing them on a shelf in their box simply makes sense. However, some games, particularly those with expansions, complicate this simple storage system. For games that have expansions that come neatly in their own boxes, it can be a hassle to re-box them, especially if those additions become permanent staples of your game play (like the various expansions of Machi Koro and Small World). Furthermore, many expansions come in blister packs or expansions you'd rather store with the core game (like those for tabletop minis games like X-Wing Miniatures Game, Ninja All Stars, or Zombicide). Other games are expanded in blind boosters (like all collectible games). For games with contents that can’t be well stored for whatever reason, there are a variety of solutions beyond trying to salvage old shoeboxes to put your components in. And nothing undermines the coolness of a full shelf of games quicker than a beat-up shoebox.

  Option 1: Clear Bead Boxes/Plano Boxes

  For games that have a good deal of miniatures, tokens, and other components that can’t practically be stored and transported easily in their original packaging (like Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game), go to your local hardware store or craft store and purchase clear bead or plano boxes. These clear boxes are a great way to store and organize your collection and offer the additional benefit that you’ll be able to see exactly what’s inside each case.

  Option 2: Box Inserts and Organizers

  Companies like the Broken Token and Go7 Gaming make great box inserts that are custom cut for a variety of games so you not only can keep all the components organized and separated within the box without the use of ziptop bags, but also allow you to fit the expansions of the games inside the core box set. If you don’t want to buy a box insert, you can usually craft one yourself with a little help from online tutorials.

  Option 3: Blank Wooden Boxes

  I have a particular soft spot for blank sliding-lid boxes I acquire from Etsy, particularly for smaller box games with boxes that tend to get beat up from transport and that tend to be a little too big for the contents. You can put multiple games in one of these boxes, then either label them, customize them (using the old boxes and some Mod Podge to decoupage labels), or even paint them to identify their contents. They look stylish while also offering excellent protection for your small-box games.

  Game storage is both a practical skill as well as an aesthetic one—the way you sort and display your games makes it easier for you to grab the one you want. It’s extremely convenient to have all of a game’s components at your fingertips while also making it easier to transport and store the games you love enough to bring to your FLGS, a nearby café, or your friends’ homes to play.

  Pay Where You Play

  An FLGS is so much more than a store—it’s a community hub, a place you can network with other gamers, a place where you can get curated recommendations, and somewhere you can actually play games. It goes without saying that there are a few things that are just poor form to do. Here are a handful of unspoken rules that you should keep in mind when dealing with your FLGS.

  Support Your FLGS

  Your FLGS is owned by real people and staffed by people who legitimately love games. But that also means that those real people need sales in their store to do things like keep the lights on or feed themselves and their families. So if you play in a store, or use the expertise of the staff for recommendations, don’t buy your games elsewhere. Pay where you play.

  Don’t Expect to Get Online Prices at a Brick-and-Mortar Store

  A brick-and-mortar store has costs that online retailers don’t have. Take, for example, the square footage most stores dedicate to gaming that is generally provided for free to the gaming community. Most local retailers have to lease their retail space by the square foot, so space dedicated to gaming has an actual cost associated with it. That doesn’t even take into account heating and cooling costs to keep patrons comfortable or things like washroom supplies (again, for the comfort of the gamers in the store).

  Consider this: If you like the staff who work at the store, you hope they’re earning a decent living wage. That’s pretty much impossible if brick-and-mortar stores match online prices. Some stores even do things like run free demo days or offer painting lessons for game miniatures, again with various costs associated.

  Hopefully all those little niceties that your FLGS offers makes the slightly higher prices more than worthwhile. You can’t really put a price on having a great atmosphere to play games or a resource for solid game advice.

  Don’t Smell

  I’ll admit this might not be an unspoken rule at your FLGS. I’ll cover why this might be and how to handle it fully in Chapter 3: Essential Gamer Social Skills, but simply put, mind your hygiene. Like culture, it’s also in your hands (or pits).

  Be Respectful

  Talk to the store owner or staff if you have suggestions or concerns. Here’s the coolest thing about your FLGS: The staff and the store owners are literally invested in making the store a great place for people to be. If you have suggestions or concerns, you can always just talk to them. This is no weird “tell us how we did” suggestion box, where feedback goes into the ether. Rather, there’s a real human who will take your suggestions into consideration.

  Don’t expect the store to change just to accommodate your wishes, but if you have ideas to make your FLGS a better place, go ahead and communicate them. I’ve done things ranging from recommending hobby products I felt my FLGS should carry to talking to the owners about running more organized events. They’re responsive, and even if they don’t do exactly what I’d want, they take my concerns seriously and try to accommodate my suggestions. This is why I say that you set the culture in your FLGS—because you as much as anyone else have a hand in creating it.

  When it comes to getting on well within a gaming store, the big points to keep in mind are to be respectful of the space and the staff, considerate of the other patrons, and thoughtful of the kind of community you want to support and foster. That’s ultimately what these rules are about.

  Host Games at Your FLGS the Right Way

  If you want to get into gaming and hosting games but your home isn’t well suited to gaming, there is a fantastic way to jump in. Many gaming stores have a purpose-bu
ilt space for gaming. Why not take advantage of this? It’s also a great way to get more visibility for a game you like but that isn’t commonly played, since people in the gaming store will be wandering by and seeing how the game works.

  There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to do it. You want to be sure to follow proper protocol so you and everyone else have a good time.

  Ask Your FLGS If You Can Host a Game and When the Best Day Would Be

  You’re using their space, so you’ll need to ask permission to host a game. Most FLGSs are pretty cool about people running games in their space. Knowing the best time, however, can be a bit of a tricky dance. A lot of stores run regular events on most days of the week, and these take up most if not all their space on those nights. Asking which days are best means you won’t get stomped on by gamers who expect to use their space on their days.

  Make Sure It’s a Game That Your FLGS Stocks

  It’s a bit of a douchebag move to play a game in a gaming store that doesn’t sell that particular game. That said, sometimes stores are just happy to encourage people to play, so it never hurts to ask, especially if it’s a game the store can bring in but hasn’t because the staff wasn’t familiar with it and nobody expressed an interest. If you get a no, don’t be salty about it. It’s mega weird to play a game you can’t say you bought at the store (see the rule about paying where you play).

  The other thing you want to check is if the store is okay with the game you want to play at their tables. As popular as Cards Against Humanity is, it’s not a game that is especially family friendly. If the store is oriented to families, including small children, that might not be a great game to play there.

  Broadcast That You’re Gaming at Your FLGS

  Checking in on your social media networks, letting people know you’re playing at your FLGS, and broadcasting that you will be gaming there is a way to let people know about your FLGS, your favorite games, and how cool your FLGS is with you playing your fave games in their store. Helping to share the love of the hobby, not only by elevating awareness about gaming but also the venues for gaming, is what all the cool kids do. So be a cool kid.

  There are downsides to gaming in your FLGS; having to adhere to store hours and working around previously scheduled events are the biggest ones. But having a central place for you and your friends to play, where you don’t have to worry about the number of chairs or if your table is big enough, or what happens if Kevin forgot his dice again (he can just go and buy some more), is pretty fantastic. And it’s a service that helps the staff get more people in the store and playing games. Take advantage of it.

  Side Note on Getting the Best Bang for Your Buck at Your FLGS

  This isn’t really a rule—just a little secret: Because an FLGS can’t match online prices doesn’t mean you can’t get a great deal from it. Here are a few ways you can stretch those hobby dollars while still supporting the place you play.

  See if your FLGS offers bundle prebuys or bundle deals. Some FLGSs have great prebuy deals for new releases of games or bundle deals. My FLGS gives discounts if people buy collectible boosters in larger quantities. Inquire about it.

  Sign up for your FLGS’s loyalty program if it has one. Some stores offer a points system allowing customers to bank up points based on purchases that they can then use for discounts, free products, or other cool rewards for shopping at the store. Brick-and-mortar gaming stores know that they’re competing with online stores, so many of them reward customers who shop with them. Ask your FLGS if it has one.

  See if publishers are rewarding customers for shopping at an FLGS. If your favorite publisher has a newsletter, sign up for it, because sometimes they’ll reward customers who shop for their products at FLGSs. Companies like Privateer Press and Wyrd will occasionally send free stuff to customers who send photos of their receipts when they buy the publisher’s products. I’ve gotten free limited-run items from publishers for shopping at my FLGS. That’s pretty darned cool.

  Play in organized events at your store. Participating in events at your FLGS is a great way to get a little extra for the cost of product you were going to buy anyway. In booster-draft organized events, often there’s a small discount offered for the bundle of boosters you need to buy to get into the game. For other games, there are sometimes prizes for players who participate, including participation prizes, which are otherwise unavailable outside of organized play. It’s a great opportunity to play games as well as get a little something extra.

  Sales are still a thing. If your FLGS has an e-mail newsletter or a Facebook page, subscribe to that. Newsletters often let you know about deals going on in the store, and being looped into those can help you make your hobby dollars go a little longer.

  Split a purchase with a friend. There are a lot of starter games that can be split—particularly those that are deck/pool building or are otherwise collectible. Buying in with a friend and splitting the contents is an economical way to make your dollars go further, and something you could not do if you were buying online: There is no board game eHarmony out there to help you find an online match to split a box, without also eventually costing you money in shipping. Even local online groups are a product of strong gaming stores that have invested in the gaming culture, and your local FLGS is a pretty easy place to meet up to split a box (and maybe even start playing it right away).

  Just because you’re helping to do things like keep the lights on in a gaming space by paying higher prices than found on Amazon doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to get more toys for less money. Plus the staff and the patrons at your FLGS will do things like laugh at your bad jokes because they like you, which is something that Amazon can never do.

  Check Your Attitude at the Door

  The community and culture of a gaming store is defined by both the staff and the patrons, which means you. If every member of the community has a creative, respectful attitude toward the FLGS and its patrons, that’s great. Sadly, too often it’s uncommon.

  I’ll be blunt: Being a dick in the store means poisoning that culture, and there’s no room for that. Instead, be a force of positivity when it comes to encouraging gaming and other gamers. Be willing to learn, and be willing to teach when you play games in the store or get into conversations with other people. By being the best that gaming has to offer in the store, you’re investing in a gaming culture that you’ll benefit from in the future. You are ensuring that other people will also support the store, and you’re making certain you’ll have a place to game for a long time to come.

  First and foremost, you are not entitled to any more or less special treatment than any other gamer. Every rule applies to every person equally, whether that’s within a game or within the game store. Just because you spend x number of dollars in a store doesn’t mean you’re entitled to act as though you’re better than anyone else who walks through the door of your FLGS, even if that person has never spent a dollar. The special person is the one who treats all gamers and patrons as though they’re special.

  You’re Not Always Right

  Don’t be the jerk who is always right. I’ve seen gamers who have been playing a particular game for years find out that they’ve been playing a game wrong—sometimes from someone who doesn’t have the same stake in the game. Your own investment (time or money) in a game doesn’t make you always right. Everyone else’s opinions and perspectives are equally valid.

  When it comes to conflicting interpretations of the rules, there are always ways to keep the game moving forward (even if it’s a dice roll). Not every rulebook covers every scenario, and when rules conflict it’s better to be gaming than it is to be right. When it comes to conflicting opinions, a differing one from your own doesn’t negate your perspective. There’s room in this world for people who believe Twilight Imperium is the best game ever, as well as people who would rather lose toenails painfully than be forced to play it.

  Finally, don’t treat your FLGS as though it’s a private club for you and your friend
s. Insofar as you’ve got such a place, it’s your dining room table, or your basement. It’s not a public store. That means being welcoming to new people who express an interest in playing games with you. It also means helping them find their own path within a game rather than imposing your own views on them.

  One gentleman I eventually became close friends with would consistently denigrate my purchasing decisions for a particular army in a game he had been playing for years. I was just starting it, and his comments not only insulted my decisions but also insulted my intelligence for liking them. It wasn’t cool, but eventually we worked things out. You don’t want to be the person who has to be publicly called out in order for your dickish behavior to be forgiven.

  Chapter Two

  Learning and Teaching Games: Be a Gaming Guru

  Gamers need to learn how to play games, and sometimes that’s not the easiest thing to do. The fact of the matter is that learning games and teaching games can be really, really hard. Rules can be complicated, poorly written, or just plain confusing. They’re a set of instructions that are often provided without context. When you learn and teach a game, what you’re really doing is understanding and articulating the context and the mechanics simultaneously.