Game Night at Work
Last Thursday marked the third instance of doing a board game gathering at the office, which is becoming an increasingly popular regular event on the team, which I'm pretty proud of.
This time, we had double the attendance of any previous events, and during the early part of the night, our organization's VP, who was in town for the week, also wandered by the table where we were playing. "Our game night," one of my teammates started to explain. "Kind of a team building, fun thing. Do you play board games?"
"That's why I came over here," he answered. "I used to, but now mostly play computer games. But I wanted to make sure you didn't have a game of Diplomacy going."
You see, Diplomacy . . . well, it's a classic game, decades old, and I've never played it personally, but . . . um . . . there's a reason for that. Characteristically, I'm sort of a non-confrontational gamer. I like all the happy friendly games where you sort of build your own little thing, or maybe even help each other out in various ways, or perhaps block someone's access to one or two things they wanted to do, but can't really screw them in any kind of royal way.
But if you do a Google search for the Diplomacy game you get results like:
a Diplomacy meetup group calling themselves "The Society of Trustworthy yet Backstabbing Diplomats" [meetup] a forum thread titled "Diplomacy – Friends Betraying Friends" [bgg] another forum thread titled "Why would anyone play this game?" [bgg] a blog post listing several mini-reviews under the title "Games: Friendship-Enders" [dy] including the fantastic reader comment . . . and another comment on the same post:
So, now that you're caught up to speed. . . .
I (alone) laughed loudly at the comment, proving, unfortunately, that in some ways I'm perhaps the geekiest member of a whole team of geeks.
I felt a little better once I saw that our VP seemed pleased that at least someone got the joke. But his smile may have merely indicated relief that, yes, someone in control knew the game in question and wasn't going to accidentally foist such a ticking timebomb of doom (a lot of people seem to unwittingly buy a copy at garage sales and thrift stores, and place it on their family dinner table with looks of doe-eyed innocence, for example) on his otherwise fairly happy, well-adjusted department, wrecking years of team-building inertia in a single blow.
"Oh, I see," he said. "You're building cities and placing little coloured wooden people on them. Never played that one but looks alright. Carry on, then."
This time, we had double the attendance of any previous events, and during the early part of the night, our organization's VP, who was in town for the week, also wandered by the table where we were playing. "Our game night," one of my teammates started to explain. "Kind of a team building, fun thing. Do you play board games?"
"That's why I came over here," he answered. "I used to, but now mostly play computer games. But I wanted to make sure you didn't have a game of Diplomacy going."
You see, Diplomacy . . . well, it's a classic game, decades old, and I've never played it personally, but . . . um . . . there's a reason for that. Characteristically, I'm sort of a non-confrontational gamer. I like all the happy friendly games where you sort of build your own little thing, or maybe even help each other out in various ways, or perhaps block someone's access to one or two things they wanted to do, but can't really screw them in any kind of royal way.
But if you do a Google search for the Diplomacy game you get results like:
Ah, Diplomacy. I remember well finishing an all night game of Diplomacy in college and having my dear non-gamer friend turn to me and say, "We shall never speak of this night again. Because unless I can forget this night completely, I will never speak to you again for as long as I live." Ah, good times. Good times.
I have seen people thrown to the ground and physically assaulted over games of Diplomacy. There really is nothing else quite like it.
So, now that you're caught up to speed. . . .
I (alone) laughed loudly at the comment, proving, unfortunately, that in some ways I'm perhaps the geekiest member of a whole team of geeks.
I felt a little better once I saw that our VP seemed pleased that at least someone got the joke. But his smile may have merely indicated relief that, yes, someone in control knew the game in question and wasn't going to accidentally foist such a ticking timebomb of doom (a lot of people seem to unwittingly buy a copy at garage sales and thrift stores, and place it on their family dinner table with looks of doe-eyed innocence, for example) on his otherwise fairly happy, well-adjusted department, wrecking years of team-building inertia in a single blow.
"Oh, I see," he said. "You're building cities and placing little coloured wooden people on them. Never played that one but looks alright. Carry on, then."