Gamerati Game Day

Last weekend I attended the Gamerati Game Day in Tacoma. It was an all-day gathering of gamers from the Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia areas hosted by Ed Healy of Gamerati.

For scheduling, the day was divided into 3 time slots with a choice of games in each that included miniatures war games, board games, card games, and a variety of role-playing games. I signed up in advance for the first 2 time slots, but wasn’t sure whether I’d stick around for the 3rd time slot (8:00-midnight). For the first slot, I picked BattleTech since I don’t get to play it nearly as often as I’d like. For the second time slot, I was originally signed up to play Burning Wheel, but then that game got moved to the 3rd time slot. At that point, I had a tough choice between 13th Age and Dungeon World, but I ended up deciding on Dungeon World.

On the day of the event, I woke up early and headed south to Tacoma. I got to the AmVets hall early enough to wander around a bit and take a look at the various games getting set up for the first time slot. For people who hadn’t signed up for games in advance (seemed like most people hadn’t), there were sign-up sheets for the various games. The large selection of door prizes were also laid out on a table so that you could look through them.

After a few minutes of looking around, it was time to start the BattleTech game. There were only 2 players plus the guy running the game, so we played a scenario where one assault ‘Mech, a Zeus, was trying to make it across the board before 3 smaller ‘Mechs, a Cicada, a Commando, and a JagerMech, were able to stop it. I got to play the Commando and the Cicada and we put up a pretty good fight against the Zeus despite being outgunned. We managed to knock it down twice, but it eventually managed to walk off the edge of the board and win. I had a lot of fun despite losing the scenario, and I really need to find people to play BattleTech with more often.

After that BattleTech game ended, I had a bit of downtime before the next time slot so I ate lunch and then joined a game of Munchkin to fill the time until the next scheduled game.

For the second time slot, I was playing Dungeon World for my second time. The game was run by Jay Loomis, the game’s editor, and we had a great group of players. I chose the ranger playbook and created a wild man named Halek and his pet owl Artos. I had a lot of fun as we explored a cavern, especially when Halek blundered through his attempt at negotiating with a tribe of BearRatCoonMen and only managed to convince them he was crazy (not surprising, since he was crazy¹). Dungeon World is a very different take on the dungeon delve genre and I strongly recommend playing a session of it.

After a trip out with most of the Dungeon World players for dinner, we returned to the hall and started an unscheduled game of Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries. I had never heard of the game before sitting down to play, so I wasn’t sure what I was getting in to but knew that the group would be fun. The game ended up being a lot of fun though as we described a wacky journey to Atlantis featuring snake people, Antarctic gypsies, and a pack of feral corgis. I’m thinking about writing more about the game for my next Game of the Month post over at This is My Game.

Overall, it was a great day and well worth the $20 entrance fee. I got the chance to meet some new gamers from the area, played four different games, and got a book that would have cost more than I spent to attend. If you’re near Pennsylvania, there is another Gamerati Game Day in Jamestown, PA this weekend. It also sounds like they are planning another game day in the Pacific Northwest sometime in 2013, so I’m looking forward to the chance to attend another one next year.

1. Jay has shared a new move on Google+ that was inspired by Halek pulling mice out of his beard to feed Artos.