Return and Report

This past Saturday I got together with my newly found gaming group. This is the second time I've met with them, and I can't tell you how much I had been looking forward to it. My wife's sister was in town so she didn't get to go with me - but there is always next week...babysitter willing.

There must have been around 10 or so people again. I wrote up some game sessions for two of the ones I played (Mississippi Queen and Knights & Cities of Catan), but I decided not to do one for the last game I played, Roborally.

Why?

We play in a public space that had a fair amount of traffic through it due to a college football game happening later that day. While I was playing K&C, two young boys (around 10 years old or so) came up to us and asked if they could play one of my games (I had brought quite a stack). Sure! I didn't have a problem as long as they were careful, besides their dad was with them. So they looked through and grabbed Roborally. (silent prayer to myself...PLEASE be careful!)

As we finished up K&C they brought Roborally back and thanked me. Not a problem. Several of the group had to leave and I wanted to get one more game in. Another of my fellow gamers (Eli) wanted to learn Roborally and invited the two boys to play with us. The way they were talking, I assumed they knew how to play...

Honestly, I have never wanted to act on the impulse to reach over the table, grab somebody by the head and scream to their face to shut up...until then. These two boys asked question after question (simultaneously) the whole time. I mean they didn't even wait for an answer before they started the next one....and almost none of them had to do with the game. Did I see such and such movie, do I like Star Wars, does your roommate not like games (I'm married), does your wife not like games (no she does), why doesn't he (pointing to Eli) babysit for you so she can play...

The just kept talking and talking and talking. I had to tell them several time (politely of course) to not distract us while we figured out our cards...to no avail. They (to all appearances) just randomly threw down cards and immediately wanted to start turning them over. I had to remind them (a lot) to wait for the rest of us to get our cards down. They both died by falling off the board or into a pit the first round....and the second round....and then preceeded to have a pushing match (while shooting each other to pieces) with each other on the third and fourth.

Through all this I conviently forgot to go over some of the rules (to speed things along) and Eli was doing a fairly decent job of grasping the idea. And to his credit, he managed to laugh off the whole aggravating experience. By the fourth round I was so far ahead it wasn't really fun for anyone (well for me and Eli that is) so I made up the excuse that I needed to get home and packed up (I think Eli gave a sigh of relief).

Afterwards the dad came up to me and thanked me for playing with his sons. I have the feeling that he knew what we had just gone through so I remained civil and said it wasn't a problem.

Now, I'm all for playing with younger folk, but....I'm just glad I wasn't the one who invited them to play.