Operation: Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation: Game Night
Joint Ops June: Have A Seat With Amanda Lee (ft. Travis from OGN)!
Welcome to our first episode of Joint Ops June!
Travis Smith from Operation Game Night podcast joins Have A Seat With Amanda Lee to share how three Air Force officers created a board game podcast to stay connected when stationed across the globe, combining military precision with gaming enthusiasm.
• One-third of Operation Game Night podcast alongside Clay Gable and Jared Erickson
• Air Force officer for 12 years who met his co-hosts while teaching at the Air Force Academy
• Each host brings different gaming preferences – Jared (party games), Clay (technical games), Travis (thematic games)
• Describes their podcast approach as "just a couple of dudes hanging out talking about board games"
• Shared memorable themed nights including their Western Legends night with cowboy attire and whiskey
• Currently enjoying Stone Spine Architects, BGA online games, and button shy games while preparing to move
• Interested in trying one-shot RPGs like Root RPG and other storytelling games
• Plans to restructure OGN podcast into shorter segments and launch "Joint Ops June" featuring other content creators
Huge thanks to Amanda for inviting us to be a part of her amazing podcast! If you want to check out the rest of Amanda's content, you can find her on Instagram @EmptyNestBoardMama, and on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/show/5IGBbdghTqguP9jNP4cRTR?si=GQ4sv2j5SHCfB5cKzgKAag
As always, come interact with us online, let us know if you have any feedback, and leave us a review/comment anywhere you get your favorite podcasts!
https://www.instagram.com/operation_game_night_podcast/
Show your support for the OGN Crew by contributing to the OGN War Chest:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2396881/support
I believe at the heart of board gaming is storytelling, and everyone has a story to tell. Welcome to have a Seat with Amanda Lee and join me each week as I introduce designers, publishers, content creators, artists and more from the board game community. There's room for everyone at my table, so have a seat. Hello and welcome to Episode 8 of the podcast. My name is Amanda Lee Anderson. I am your host, aka Empty Nest Board Mama on the gram. Today, I have with me one third of the greatest board gaming podcasts to infinity and beyond Operation Game Night. With me is Mr Travis Smith.
Speaker 2:What is up, amanda?
Speaker 1:Glad to be here, so grateful to get you here. We have a little bit of a time zone issue, as anybody who listens to OGN knows that you are in Germany, so it's always fun to try and schedule those things, but I'm glad we made it happen, welcome.
Speaker 2:Now have a Seat is international. It's an international podcast.
Speaker 1:International podcast. Yes, absolutely, I have one international listener every week, excellent.
Speaker 2:That's probably me listener every week.
Speaker 1:That's probably me Awesome. So, as you know, we are a three part parter here at have a Seat with Amanda Lee. Very first thing is, I would like you to have a seat and tell me all about yourself.
Speaker 2:Okay, I am Travis Smith, and most of your other guests so far have said you know, I am a board game designer, I'm a board game artist. Well, I'm none of those. I am an Air Force officer that happens to have a board game podcast and, like you said, I'm one of three members of the Operation Game Night podcast. So me and my buddies me, clay Gable and Jared Erickson all kind of went our separate ways. We had a really tight-knit gaming group in Colorado. All kind of went our separate ways. We had a really tight knit gaming group in Colorado. We kind of all scattered to the wind, went all over the world and we kind of missed just hanging out talking about board games. So we decided to form Operation Game Night Podcast just as an excuse to get together and rant about board games to one another every week. If nothing else, it's just an excuse to talk to my friends. So yeah, we've been enjoying it. We're on episode 36 this week and we are going strong. We're enjoying doing it. We've met some awesome people through the community.
Speaker 2:You know you were our very first guest on the podcast. So, yeah, we are humbled by the amount of people that support us and we love, you know, just talking to people about games that they love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You're, like I said, one of my favorite board game podcasts. I think the reason behind that is just because just a couple of dudes sitting hanging out talking about board games, it's very relatable. You know, it's not at all technical. You know, like Paul Solomon's podcast, it's not at all technical. You know, like Paul Solomon's bag has a little too much for my smooth brain. But yeah, it's just like every time I listen to you guys, you know, usually you get about seven texts from me as I'm listening, like, hey, what about this? Hey, did you know this?
Speaker 2:That's a great thing. It's like you know, we are not the most knowledgeable guys out there about board games, but every everybody that engages with us and hits us up on instagram or writes us or follows us or whatever. They all have these opinions and we learn so much more about gaming through the podcast. So we might not be the wisest guys, we might not be able to deep dive into minuscule little details in in board game decision making like paul solomon, but we're certainly learning a lot. We're we're enjoying it, we're having fun doing it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, just having a great time, and I love that. I think that's what people really are drawn to you guys about, because, just like I said, some dudes from the air force chatting about board games just a bunch of dudes just a bunch of dudes. And then the occasional, you dudes. And then the occasional, you know hose story. That's right Men's health. If you need your men's health, you know update. Check out OGN.
Speaker 2:Yeah, check out OGN if you want to learn about leaky hoses.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. So what else? You're an officer in the Air Force. How long have you been in?
Speaker 2:I've been in going on 12 years. I'm a civil engineer, Jared's a civil engineer, Clay is a Space Force officer and yeah, we've been kind of stationed all over the place. But we'll have vast different experiences. Clay is at a different point in his career where he's getting out and you know, forging his civilian career afterwards.
Speaker 1:So trying to look for a real job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trying to look for a real job, trying to grow up and figure out what he wants to do when he grows up, just like all of us. So, yeah, we've enjoyed it. Our careers have been good. Air Force has been good to us. We were all classmates together at the Air Force Academy.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so Jared and I had a couple of classes together. We weren't like tight knit friends until we actually kind of all went back to the Air Force Academy a couple of years ago to teach and to do different things. Okay, and you know, I was actually teaching a class with Clay and I said oh, clay, what'd you do this weekend? And he's like oh, you know, I played board games.
Speaker 1:And he's kind of like dejected about it Kind of like his nerd up a little bit. I was like oh what, what game did you play? Yeah, that opened the door.
Speaker 2:Huh, yeah, we struck up a conversation. He invited me to a game night and the rest is history. So, at the cardboard castle, yeah, the cardboard castle, cardboard yeah. So we, uh, we got big things in the future and some fun times behind us, but uh, yeah, we're looking forward to it all.
Speaker 1:We're enjoying what we're doing do you remember what the first game you guys played together was?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a good question. I honestly don't. I don't remember. Uh, you know clay, his collection was gigantic, mine was not that big okay you know clay frequents uh Petri's Family Games in Colorado Springs.
Speaker 2:That's like his go-to and man. He has a constant rotation of board games, an impressive collection, and even though he just offloaded what did he say? 125, 150 games. That's insane, something crazy like that. His collection is probably still larger than mine. So we play a lot of different games. We have pretty vast tastes. I think that's been a cool thing that's emerged from the podcast over the episodes. That we've done is Jared has his taste in party games.
Speaker 2:He's got the vibe of the game night and getting people excited to get together and gather around food and games and stuff. It's very technical, technical and he enjoys mechanics and he enjoys, you know, decision-making and he enjoys a bunch of different games and developers and publishers and all that stuff. You know I tend to support, like smaller developers.
Speaker 1:Yes, I kind of like those weird little niche things.
Speaker 2:I'm the one like crossover video game enjoyer and I play more solo games than the other two. We each have our unique takes and we each have our unique tastes and we all bring them to the table and are able to have a discussion about it every week, and it's always fun.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite memory of the most epic game night the three of you have had?
Speaker 2:My favorite, my personal favorite. I know that they'll probably say the uh, dead reckoning night where they all dressed up like pirates. Unfortunately, I was not able to be there for that one, so I'm gonna go with our western legends night. Okay, we planned it like a week in advance. It was western legends night.
Speaker 2:Everybody come ready, we're all gonna dress with cowboy attire okay, so we got our our belt buckles on and our cowboy hats, cowboy boots and we drank whiskey and we played and we listened to country music and we played western legends and clay's got a great reel from that on his cardboard and clay instagram. That is just like so perfect. He's got some alan jackson playing. We're sipping whiskey and playing western legends. So it's one of my favorite games for that reason and one of my fondest gaming memories with those guys I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when you do your big uh crossover here, when you come back to the states and do you have something planned, a game in mind that you guys are all looking to to get? To the table and and dress up for and just recreate that you know next big memory I.
Speaker 2:I don't know if we're gonna do a theme tonight like that, but, um you know, jared has his eyes set on the world series of board gaming yes, I heard about that, jared is like he is a fierce competitor when it comes to board games okay he might not have the whitest taste in board games Like he doesn't play all the games out there, but the ones that he plays he is insanely good at Okay, and so he's got a couple of games that he wants to play. He's been big on terraforming Mars lately.
Speaker 2:So, I sent him a couple of different terraforming Mars. I sent him Ares expansion or Ares expedition. I sent him the dice game. I sent him the dice game.
Speaker 1:I sent him underwater cities, which is kind of like the terraforming Mars. That was so cool, little bubbles.
Speaker 2:Little domes underwater, and then I sent him Azul because he's got to practice that.
Speaker 1:Is that one of them too?
Speaker 2:Is it just a?
Speaker 1:base Azul.
Speaker 2:I think so. He's in the middle of his training montage right now.
Speaker 1:So we'll probably get a couple of those yeah.
Speaker 2:And he had never played that one. So, he's got. He's got some work to do before he's ready, so we're going to probably play a bunch of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about what you've been playing lately. Oh, man. What have you gotten to the table? So we have been. You've been my BGA bestie lately. I think Jared's the only one that I haven't played with solo, Like I know we all played. Yeah, now I'm scared. I don't know he's going to kill me If you play any game that he's familiar with.
Speaker 2:He's pretty intense when it comes to BGA stuff.
Speaker 1:So don't tell him. But I have never played Arnak, Don't tell him.
Speaker 2:Well, he'll invite you and he'll just roll you. He's been rolling me in clay for years, so I would not recommend that be the game that you go to or invite him to. Maybe invite him to one that he has no idea what he's doing. But yeah, I've probably played 50 games arnak that guy and he's beating me in every single one yeah, just rolls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think the only one I've played with him is when we played all four of us um, let's go to japan. And definitely not going to make the first game that I invite him to arnak or Fistroden Neither one, so we might have to go to. Well, cascadia isn't on there, but I'll find something a little more my speed.
Speaker 2:You better bring it that first time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you and I we've been rocking on BGA. We played Sky Team.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That was a little rough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it took us what four or five tries to beat the Madera airport?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so whenever you're ready for the next level up, let me know let's fire it up, let's do it. The one that I think it was Clay was talking about where the kerosene runs out. I took a peek at that one.
Speaker 2:I'm like, ooh, we had no challenges, other than some like left and right banking yeah, yeah, that that one's not too bad, honestly, like you just have to attribute one die to that gauge every time, otherwise you lose a extreme amount of fuel. But yeah, it's, it's more manageable than some some of the challenges.
Speaker 1:So I think part of my issue with sky team is that I forget one of them can be there first. Correct, is it the right one?
Speaker 2:I don't think so, because you have to that's why we have to get the altitude and the distance at the exact same time, and so what you're trying to do is like, if you end up getting ahead in distance, you have to like, drop significantly in altitude. And so you have to like balance those two as they go down so that you arrive at the same time.
Speaker 1:It has to be the exact same time. For some reason, I thought one could be like I don't know, but I think that was part of my problem. I'm going to have to double check in before the next time.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna double check in before the next time. And what else have we played lately?
Speaker 1:uh, stone spine architects yes, I loved it, you and I am really enjoying that one, that's been a lot of fun and, um, I love the fantasy element to it.
Speaker 2:I love the uh dungeon building. It kind of gives me. I don't know if you've ever played uh boss monster by brother wise no no boss monster is. You are playing as like a 16-bit, 32-bit era video game okay, boss, and you are building out a dungeon that is supposed to entice heroes to come in and try and face your dungeon, but you want to defeat them before they get to you and start damaging the boss. Okay, and so, uh, the cards play off of one another game.
Speaker 1:I think I found it at a rummage sale.
Speaker 2:I think it's on my shelf yeah, that one uh, that was pretty early in my, like, board gaming career was boss monster and they've spun it off to a bunch of different things like um over boss and things like that. Dungeon cart is another spinoff. If you've ever heard that one, it's like a racing game, that's like mario kart the board game um, yeah, but boss monster.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy that game. It's got some cool expansions and stuff too, but uh, stone spine architects really gives me boss monster vibes yeah, I really love the artwork in that one and you know thunderworks games based out of of Wisconsin excellent, even better yeah, I've been trying to check out.
Speaker 1:Um, I want to check out Emerald Skulls. I just saw that was another Thunderworks oh yeah, I don't. I don't know why, the artwork just really intrigues me. Yeah, I like the little goblin guy in uh Stone. Spire, and it's funny when you, um mentioned it on the podcast. I also call it stone spire all the time. I don't know why. It's just like it.
Speaker 2:You, you feel like that rolls off the tongue more than stone spot yeah, I'm not sure why it was stone spine, but yeah, stone spire, stone spine, yeah, but really enjoying that one. Uh, clay talked about pixies the other week, yeah, and so I've been playing a lot of that on BGA, okay, and honestly, right now BGA is kind of the majority of my gaming, because we're packing up and we're getting ready to move.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're literally sitting on the floor. I'm sitting on the floor Do you have a table to play games.
Speaker 2:We do have a table, we have like a rental table, but I kept out a bunch of uh, I kept out a bunch of button shy games. Okay, uh, kept out a couple of, uh, small box mint tin. Been really enjoying a lot of those mint tin games lately. Um, I kept out doom pilgrim pocket, which is like a much larger game called doom pilgrim that they shrank down into like kind of a deeper mint tin. It's like maybe an inch deep, okay, and yeah, it's like a RPG in a mint tin that you kind of flip these cards through. It's like a choose your own adventure book but shrank down into a small little pocket size thing.
Speaker 2:And then I kept out a couple of like solo games. So I kept out coffee roaster and I kept out a conservance, because I never got all that far in conservice and I really want to give that another shot, cause I really enjoyed that. Like anytime I have to draw things out of a bag, I'm in, I love that. So, uh, I kept out a couple of games that I will carry with me and take with me while I travel.
Speaker 1:So Okay, awesome. Yeah, I have a little, not a goodie bag, but I have a binder prepared for you that I'm going to send and I think you'll like that. The one that's that Quest Silver Coffee, I think you'll like that one.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited about that.
Speaker 1:So, and then there's there's also something to do with the post Dungeon Post. It's the same creator as Quest Silver silver coffee, so it's got this super cute artwork. I'll show you. These are the cards oh, that's great but there's one of them that's got a mailman on it, but it's. Where is it? Oh, of course it's the one I can't find. You got a whole pile here that I gotta laminate and get ready for you.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not it anyways I think, I think those guys actually those guys actually just launched a new kickstarter like this week oh really, the quest over copy guys. I can't remember what it's called, don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure that they just launched one this week with another print and play slash.
Speaker 1:Printed version, physical copy yeah yeah, I'm a I'm a sucker for print and plays on Kickstarter. I'm like it's five bucks, like I'll back it. I think I have probably about 10 of them that I haven't even looked at or printed, but I'm like I just want to support, you know, these designers, and there's one of them. It's quilted or quiltable or something like that. And I think they've had three or four Kickstarters. I've backed every single one of them and I've never looked at any of them.
Speaker 1:That's okay, I'm going to print that one for you too, shelf of shame.
Speaker 2:Shelf of shame doesn't count if it's digital.
Speaker 1:Digital shelf of shame. Oh my gosh, if I had to go into that one, that would be horrible.
Speaker 2:Well, I, I know you know on the podcast I've talked before about how we make this big deal about board games as a hobby because people have these shelf of shames and I relate it to the video game world or the video game, you know, community and when they have their backlog they say like, oh, we have this huge backlog that I have to work through. It's very different having a backlog of digital games, since everybody's going digital now with their video gaming, versus a shelf of shame for board games. It takes up physical space in your house most of the time.
Speaker 1:You got to look at it. It's staring you in the face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you spend money on it. It sits in its shrink maybe if you're not like me and I have to unwrap it and punch it immediately. Oh do you? Oh, I love punching board games.
Speaker 1:I'm going to just send you my games to punch.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like a sub-hobby.
Speaker 1:There's something about punching games and organizing those game boxes and sleeving cards.
Speaker 2:That just like, oh, it just triggers something in my brain that I love so much. Do you sleeve everything?
Speaker 1:I don't sleep everything it's too expensive.
Speaker 2:But uh, true, yeah, it's. It's the games that I really care about. I do sleeve, like my. I have marvel champions, I have like huge boxes of that and I find so much joy sleeving those guys um.
Speaker 1:But do you have? Like cool different hero sleeve backgrounds or I don't know, because I they don't make sleeves for every hero.
Speaker 2:Gotcha and I it like drives my neurotic brain crazy. If I were to have like a spider-man back on a black car or whatever. Oh my god, I can't do that so are you like the?
Speaker 1:you cannot wear like a a Nike hat with an Adidas shoes kind of guy. It's either all Nike or nothing Not sponsored, not an ad.
Speaker 2:But Nike. If you want to have like a Nike board gaming division, then we'll talk.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Hit us up, hit us up, we'll get some Empty Nest Board. Mama Operation Game Night crossover. I like that. Can we do it with Puma like they did with the Ninja Turtles?
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are sweet.
Speaker 1:Those are so cool.
Speaker 2:Puma does some really cool stuff.
Speaker 1:They really do.
Speaker 2:Adidas did a whole series for Spider-Man when they released one of the Spider-Man video games. Those kicks are amazing. They're so cool. They actually put their shoes that they developed into the game, and vice versa.
Speaker 1:Get out of here, that's awesome, that's cool. Vans has done postal wear on a few of them, but they have postal vans. They're pretty cool.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool, like USPS.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So what else have you been playing? Anything new other than BGA? No epic game nights there in Germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not a whole lot of epic game nights. What have we played lately? We've been loving rebirth. We have talked about that on so many of our recent podcasts. Rebirth is just such a simple design. Have you played that one yet?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I've only played the Scotland side.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Have you played both?
Speaker 2:I, I am just enjoying scotland right now. So I we've run that back probably four or five times already. Um, really enjoying that. We haven't even needed to do the ireland side yet, because we're just loving that simplicity.
Speaker 2:So much of the scotland side I haven't even read what the difference between ireland is yet so yeah, I think the only difference is like when you place a chip that's around these different spires it triggers some sort of effect. For your next couple chips you can play off these different spires to give you different bonuses. Yeah, but it's super easy to introduce, easy to get to the table, fast to play. I've been really enjoying those. I just got in the mail. I got Tussie Mussie from Elizabeth Hargrave. That game is super simple and it's like a miniaturized, simplified version of Fantasy Realms in a little pocket thing. I got the button-shy version, not the big box they sell Barnes Noble.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just saw that In the Fando I the big box that they sell Barnes and Noble. Yeah, I just saw that. Yeah, in the fan, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really liked that one. And then just tons of BGA. You know I'm setting aside games getting ready to travel and been a little busy Haven't been able to get all that many games to the table, but got a couple of epic game nights coming up in June that I'm really looking forward to Kept out a couple of games that I will get to the table before we leave. But you know this, this past month has been crazy for us.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I understand, yeah, I, you better keep me posted. It's about three to four hours to drive, okay. So if I don't get an invite to one of these epic board games, I will not listen to podcasts anymore.
Speaker 2:It's a threat. Wow Ultimatum. That is the ultimate ultimatum.
Speaker 1:One-tenth of your viewership is leaving.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm teasing.
Speaker 2:It's probably true, though.
Speaker 1:No. We'll definitely keep you posted yeah.
Speaker 2:One you probably have a larger collection than both of us and two it would just be great to have a meetup in person and get some real games to the table for once. We'll definitely keep you posted.
Speaker 1:Yes, you could teach me some big boy games, yeah. Jared can wolf our butts at both of them as long as Clay sends me the video first, I will watch the video. So, out of the three of you guys, who's like is clay the rule book guy? Is he, though, like, I'm gonna check this, uh yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know if he's like the one guy that's always checking things or like checking people on the rules, but he's the person that definitely comes most prepared okay, he's the guy that will watch the 10 videos that requires to learn the game and to set it up and to get all that stuff squared away.
Speaker 2:Uh, he will send you rule books or send you digital rule books and videos to watch and homework to do before you show up, which of which we don't mind and usually we're pretty good participants in, uh, but he's like, when we do like, um, I don't know if you listened to episode when jared went back to colorado and they had like the epic game night with everybody. Uh, he had like a schedule like this time.
Speaker 1:This time he's eating and socializing. This table at six o'clock is playing yeah, that is that that is clay.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know I jared is like all about having fun and getting people around a table or around a plate of food or whatever it is. Uh, and then I am more of like a thematic type guy. I really like thematic games. Um, I like immersing myself in like some sort of other world or you know, if the game has a good story to tell. Um cinematic experiences like Nemesis or Western Legends, or one of my favorites is Wonderland's War, yeah, love those.
Speaker 1:Let's play Wonderland's War. I could be Alice, I'll dress up. You could be the Mad Hatter Perfect.
Speaker 2:That's a good theme night, or actually.
Speaker 1:Jared could probably be Alice better than I could be.
Speaker 2:He could jabber walk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Did you ever? Are you into D&D at all? If you're really into the storytelling, the immersive experiences, has that ever been your?
Speaker 2:That has always been a huge intriguing thing for me. I would love to get some one-shot RPGs done. Okay, I would love to get some like one-shot rpgs done. Okay, um, I would love to do that. Uh, they have like a root rpg. That super interests me. I love root uh they have like a batman rpg. They've got marvel rpgs, it got dnd. Obviously, you know I'd love to get it on some one-shot sometime, but it's not like something that can't.
Speaker 2:I don't know campaign yeah, the campaigns are hard to manage, especially while I'm over here, and I know that they have like online forums where you can sign up for one shots and stuff, but I honestly don't know anything about it, so yeah, if somebody's out there that's listening, that wants to teach me or walk us through a one shot. Yeah, I think it would be so much fun to get like a bunch of people together, like you, you know, uh tay, all these people together for a one-shot that would be awesome, I would love that would be epic.
Speaker 1:I would love that. Yeah, I just recently discovered the best like short episode series. It's called Dungeons and Drag Queens it is amazing and I have I've never.
Speaker 1:I you know I really didn't get into the board game industry I would say like into the hobby until like four years ago. So I'm not super immersed and I never. I knew what Dungeons and Dragons was. I knew what magic was. It was just never something that I seemed interested in. But now that I, the more that you learn about it and if you're open-minded to it, like I just think it's amazing. And I saw Debra I don't know what her last name is, but she's like one of the premier dungeon masters. She also does like playthroughs on Watch. It Played with the BGG crew.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about the blonde.
Speaker 1:She just did a podcast with. I am so unprepared for this conversation, but she basically was like hey, do you want to play D&D? And the guy was like sure, you know. And she's like no, right now. Did you see this?
Speaker 1:no, I did not I'll just send it to you. But she's like when she starts, okay, we're walking through the forest, and tells him, and then just kind of gets him into it. I'm like, so, that's all it is. It's storytelling. You're just and you have like your character and based on how you roll is how the story progresses, and I'm just like how, oh, did I lose you again?
Speaker 2:No, I, I'm listening. We got chicken screaming next door.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, I was like oh no, I lost him again.
Speaker 2:That sounds awesome, though. That's. That's so cool, and I've listened to a couple of like short podcasts where they do a one shot and it just sounds like so much fun. You sit down for like 45 minutes together, somebody walks you through a story, you make very simple decisions and you make those decisions collectively and you like, yeah, it has tense moments and it's got drama and it's got you know world building and I, I love all that stuff and I and I can appreciate like somebody that can do that with such skill and precision, that can get you immersed immediately and into the story and on your way without all this like extra fluff around it. Right, that's great. I love that streamlined experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't know that. I loved it. You know, the more that I learn about it, I'm like, oh, I want, I want to learn this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the more that I learn about it I'm like oh, I want to learn this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a little bit less expensive than board games because of paper and dice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah People, they invest heavily in their dice. Oh yeah, I've seen people with some serious upgraded dice or thematic dice, depending on what campaign they're going through, and stuff or what class they're playing, uh. But yeah, I that's something that I could get like way down the rabbit hole on and I'm interested in like dipping my toe a little bit. So, yeah, I'll have to check out that podcast and, uh, maybe we can get together and do a one shot or something yeah, I've heard that playing munchkin is like an intro to D&D.
Speaker 2:I believe it yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like you kick in the door, there's the monster. You know you're going to fight, you're going to run, so it's like intro D&D.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had these grand plans of like doing a root RPG, like a short RPG with like the people that we got together and played all the time. Those guys were not all that interested. I think the concept of D&D kind of scared them off a little bit.
Speaker 1:Just don't tell them say, hey, we're going to play this game. Just say it's a root expansion.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you don't need the, you don't need the board, and but you can still use your little guys, or yeah? Usual guys you could be the cat and I don't know if you saw uh jared.
Speaker 2:For christmas he got me my own like root faction.
Speaker 1:That was awesome, or?
Speaker 2:my own, like my vagabond for the root rpg is like the silver star Syndicate, Silver Spur Syndicate. Yes, and it's pretty awesome yeah.
Speaker 1:What a thoughtful gift. Who would have thought Like sometimes Jared just really surprises you, you know, as someone who doesn't know him as an outsider, when you guys were discussing that I was like wow, like what a thoughtful guy. And you know, when he talks about like kids and you know he's, sometimes I'm like what is this guy on? And other times I'm like he's such a sweetheart, like he is such a wild card, like how can you not love Jack?
Speaker 2:He is a wild card, that's for sure. And while these guys, while these guys may try and play tough like big, these big division one wrestler guys, those guys are softies at heart. So, yeah, they're surprising and they're interesting and I love those guys.
Speaker 1:they're great yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about operation game night yes, operation game night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's you know. So you just you said you guys were some friends that have now dispersed all over the world. The reason that you started the podcast was just know, kind of to have an excuse to get together and chat about your common hobby of board games. So what else can we expect from Operation Game Night? Can you give me any spoilers? Can you tell me what? What do we expect or what else does the listener need to know about Operation Game Night?
Speaker 2:OK, so, like you said, we're not like the most technical podcast out there when it comes to board gaming. We're not industry insiders. We're not taking like backroom meetings with these publishers or like getting sent these copies well in advance. We are people that enjoy board games and we like to diversify our tastes and try new things, but really we are there to just talk about board games in general, talk about, um, the games that we played that week and then we bought any sort of like board gaming experience that we had and we kind of debrief our week in gaming. And then we will have a like mission objective every week, which is like a special topic that we'll cover yeah it's a theme?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's like a kind of specialized discussion small box games or games for travel, or how to get your kids into gaming or you know whatever it is. And then, finally, we'll go over the fence and we'll talk about things that we've been doing outside of board gaming shows. We've been watching books, we've been reading video games, we've experienced like Jared talks about cooking pancakes and stuff like whatever we want to talk about.
Speaker 1:The uni.
Speaker 2:The uni. Yeah, he's a yeah, yeah, he's a big uh party host. So, um, yeah, it's. It's a little bit different than the normal board game podcast that you'd listen to. Um, we, you know we do it a lot very ad hoc, to be honest. Uh, week to week we're like what are we talking about this week?
Speaker 1:and it's like friday, so you don't have a month in advance. Clay hasn't built a schedule like this week we're talking about this. He's not planned three months out.
Speaker 2:You know, every time we get a little bit ahead, then all of a sudden our lives get busy and we fall behind. It's just a matter of like. Once we get our feet back underneath us, we'll have a more of a like drawn out schedule. When we have special guests, which we do every, every couple of weeks, we'll schedule those people out pretty far in advance. So this next week, two weeks from now, we're going to record with the owner of Petri's games, which we're really excited.
Speaker 1:Yay, that sounds awesome. Are you going to? Is Clay going to go to Petri's?
Speaker 2:I think he is going to do it in person with Cam, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Cam runs one of the best board game stores we've ever been in. It's a very small, nice and compact game store. It's very welcoming. They have great deals.
Speaker 2:They have cool events that they set up, they host all of the local trade, like swap meet stuff, um, and so we're just going to pick his brain about running a game store, what his approach to it, how we got into it, all that type of stuff, um. So that's coming up soon, uh, and then eventually, when we come back from all of our craziness moves, I think what we're going to end up doing is like breaking the podcast up into three separate listens throughout the week. So, instead of like sitting down and listening for an hour and a half cause we've kind of been running longer and longer as we get more comfortable we're going to break it up a little bit.
Speaker 2:So you have, like, your debrief for the week, and that'll be a short 30 minute chunk and then it'll be a special topic once a week and then maybe every other week we'll do over the fence and we'll talk about other stuff. But it's kind of just to make sure that the listener can listen to it shortly throughout the week without having to sit down and invest an hour and a half every week with us. They can kind of parcel it up throughout the week and we like talking and we sometimes talk a little long, more accessible for everybody so I have an hour commute to work, okay, so thursday morning is usually my favorite day of the week, sometimes friday, um.
Speaker 1:So I don't this listener does not mind the hour, long hour and a half, uh, simply because, simply because I have the commute time, but I do appreciate the more often so if I don't have to wait a whole week to get my fill of OGN.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so we're. We're still trying to work out the details of that, but I think that's the direction we're heading is, we're going to start breaking it up a little bit and maybe we can get more guests on and maybe we can do, you know, more special things. But closer to the boat is, uh, joint ops june. So, while we move and shuffle around through june, we're going to do our joint ops june, which is, uh, our, all of our board gaming friends that we've made this year, anybody that hosts any sort of podcast or youtube or whatever we're going to like, feature their stuff on our streams throughout the week. So have a seat with Amanda Lee, we, you know Vic from games, games he moss.
Speaker 1:You know he's the best. He's so much fun to talk to. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's such a like, such a such a good dude and um such a diverse like background that he comes from, that like he brings to the discussion. So, um, yeah, we're gonna do some stuff like that kind of shake things up a little bit through june till we settle again, get our feet underneath us and then we can keep pressing forward with more og and fun yeah, do you have a dream guest that you would like to get on the podcast? I mean always.
Speaker 1:I've been there already and I will be again.
Speaker 2:So don't you know, don't put me on the top of the list, but yeah, I mean we, we peaked with you coming on, but it's only downhill from here, you know uh, we, we were a little, we were a little bummed because uh jared out to Rodney, he reached out to Rodney and Rodney said he was scaling back his appearances. So we just barely missed that window. Maybe someday he'll come on if we can continue to spam his email.
Speaker 1:Rodney would be a big one. Phil Walker, corner him at a convention or something. Put a mic in his face. Hey, rodney, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:You live? Yeah, perfect, I like that um, you know, I've been keeping my hearting.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, phil walker harding.
Speaker 2:He's a big one. Uh, we have like those designers that we love. Uh, I live in germany. I'm always on the lookout for reiner kinesia out in the wild. Haven't run into him yet. I think he's a pretty reclusive guy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Lure him out with a bow tie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, been on the lookout for bow ties in Germany and it's probably Reiner. But you know, we just like talking to people that enjoy board games. You know, they don't have to be the biggest designers in the world, they just have to be people that enjoy talking about board games, and we always learn something. I feel like it's fun to introduce new people to your crew even, you know, even if they're not like the biggest names in the world, we just like talking to people that enjoy board games. So, yeah, people that have passion for board game, that is our ideal guest, absolutely Same.
Speaker 1:Okay, so did we do it, I think, we did it. We did it well. Chavis, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a pleasure, as always. You are my bga bestie and I wish you and the guys at ogn nothing but success and luck with all of your moves and everything goes smoothly. Nothing gets broken, no board games get lost.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's bound to happen. It's bound to happen. There's too many.
Speaker 1:Well, if you need to send some, you know in advance, I can hold on to them for you.
Speaker 2:Perfect.
Speaker 1:If it's cheaper to ship them via USPS than on a boat, perfect.
Speaker 2:I'll load up a box.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Travis. Thank you so much again for being here. I'll talk to you again real soon.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you Thank you for having me. Bye.
