Casting Shadows

Today’s question for #RPGaDay2022 has me thinking of the theme to the classic (ie old) sitcom Cheers. It asks us to consider where we like to play and, of all the places open to us, which we would consider to be a “favorite” place. Like most of this type of question we can root ourselves in reality, leap boldly into the theoretical, or wax metaphorical. Those who spend enough time with Fraser and Lillith might contemplate assailing a mélange of the arrayed options, time allowing.

There have been times in my life, and this is one of them, where I have had access to an ideal gaming space. There have been other times where I really have not. Early entries in this year’s event have shown that as a newcomer to the hobby, a lot of my gaming was done in stairwells and on long walks. I have gamed in cars, both driving and as a passenger. I have gamed in a rowboat on a lake. I have gamed in a tent pitched on the side of a hill on an overgrown, mosquito-infested, uninhabited island. I have gamed in noisy coffee shops, and in rented meeting rooms. Most of my adult life, however, I have gamed in the living rooms of the group.

Since getting to a place where adopting dogs became possible in Korea, I have not been able to game at home in good conscience. Some of our pack have no reason to fear strangers, but some of them do, and more of those who have passed on did. That is coming up on 12 years of no gaming in person at home, and that has at times made me feel like a bit of a drifter as we move from one temporary location to another for our in-person sessions. This is another reason why I adopted online gaming so early and with such interest. The friends I have met by playing via Hangouts then Zoom are both life and sanity savers.

What I have come to realize over that time is that my favorite place to play is not a physical spot I can go to, but a condition of togetherness in the moments of play. I have found that getting to know cool new people in a Jungle-themed coffee shop in Daejeon to play Star Wars, and in a deafening Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Seoul to be musketeers. I have found it in bizarre purple-velvet-appointed board game cafes and in soulless chromed meeting spaces rented by the hour.

It turns out that the building we enter is our shared enjoyment of the setting and characters. We sit around a table of expressed imagination, supported by everything we bring to that table. We are kept warm by our laughter and surprise. We are nourished in our endeavors both great and small by memories of the sessions before and the anticipation of sessions to come. The decor?

It is woven of the very stuff of dreams, of course.

What else?