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
Special Ops: Three Friends Hunt for Players in New Cities
Relocating to a new city comes with many challenges, but for passionate board gamers, one of the most significant hurdles is rebuilding a gaming community from scratch. In this heartfelt and humor-filled episode, we explore the emotional journey of seeking new gaming companions when your established gaming circle suddenly disappears.
Clay shares his unexpected struggle with loneliness despite returning to his Pennsylvania hometown surrounded by family and old friends. His candid admission that he "used to look forward to Fridays" with regular gaming sessions resonates with anyone who's experienced the void left when reliable game nights vanish. We discuss his cautious approach to cultivating gaming interest among family members without overwhelming them with complex titles right away.
The conversation takes a deep dive into the psychological barriers that keep us from attending store gaming events. That universal fear of rejection, wasted evenings, and loss of control over the gaming experience can paralyze even the most enthusiastic gamers. We offer practical strategies for easing into these communities, from simply observing before participating to using subtle conversation starters like stickers or casual mentions of gaming during introductions.
Jared shares his promising leads in Virginia, including a local bookstore hosting regular game nights and nearby friends with gaming experience. Travis contemplates how to navigate the professional military environment to identify potential gaming partners without coming on too strong. Throughout the discussion, we balance practical advice with the emotional reality of putting yourself out there in pursuit of meaningful gaming connections.
Whether you're currently facing the challenge of building a new gaming group or simply want to expand your existing circle, this episode provides both encouragement and actionable approaches to finding your gaming tribe. After all, our beloved board games aren't meant to collect dust – they need people to bring them to life.
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Welcome to the Operation Game Night podcast. We are back with another special operation Joining me, as always. One is the loneliest number Clayton Gable. How are you doing, clay?
Speaker 2:I'm doing really good, travis. I am lonely, I don't have people to game with, and I'm hoping that we can work through this together today in this special operation.
Speaker 1:Speaking of lonely Mr Lonely himself Jared Lonely Erickson, how are you doing, jared?
Speaker 3:I'm a lot better now that I have you two here with me not so lonely anymore. Well, I did see behind you, clay, I did see mary walk by a couple minutes ago and you might not be so lonely. You just have to maybe look up and look around.
Speaker 1:You know, like a mirror. If you're gonna have the door open, you need like a mirror because she's going to be lurking in the background like a serial killer and you got to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Kind of scary Actually. I'm going to close the door now.
Speaker 3:Hey, we're on the. We're on the hunt for a VIP on operation game night.
Speaker 1:It could be Mary.
Speaker 2:I think we need to have all the spouses on.
Speaker 1:I, okay, well, yep, send them this episode. That's the next special operation. Uh, yes, we should do that. Uh, also, clay. Yeah, she struck an excellent like bigfoot pose on the way across, like perfectly look, like turning to the side and looking right at the camera and everything. So I'm gonna have to crop that out and post it on the socials.
Speaker 1:Yes please do. Anyways, today we are lonely boys and we are talking about how we are going to find game groups in our new locations. We are now in new cities with new friends, new family, and we need to build up our game group again. We talked about this in episode four of Operation Game Night way back when and this is kind of a revisit slash twist on this episode, because before we're talking about just building a game group. Right, we talked about finding new people to invite to game nights, how to find new gaming groups, but now we some of us are in established locations where we have family and friends nearby. Some of us are moving to places that are well populated and probably have huge amounts of game meetups, and some of us are in montgomery, alabama, where there's no gaming going on. So, uh, jared, I want to pick your brain a little bit about what you did while you were here. So, uh, clay, how are you going to approach like building up your game posse there in PA?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I should have listened back to episode four, knowing that we were doing this. It would have been helpful. But alas, I'm not that professional. But I do know I was pretty cocky in that episode. I thought I had it all figured out. You know, I had a lot of people to game with. I was like this is what you do, it's going to be so easy. And now I sit here.
Speaker 2:I all but cried to Mary the other night. I said I used to look forward to Fridays. We had the headings. Usually Saturday we played with the Spanglers. Like I have nothing to look forward to. I have no game nights with the Spanglers. Like I have nothing to look forward to. I have no game nights. I'm just a sad boy just looking forward to unpacking boxes and staring at my wall of games, hoping that maybe my children will play with me at some point.
Speaker 2:But I think you know, out the gate, my first instinct. Like Travis mentioned, I am here in Pennsylvania where I'm surrounded by a lot of old friends and family. This is where the roots are. I got people all around that know I'm a nerd and will be easy to at least lure over a time or two. Uh, so hopefully I come correct those, those initial times that I can get some people over.
Speaker 2:My cousin and her husband are actually we play games on vacation. They blow my mind, you know they're, they're great gamers but they're very busy. Doctors Um, I don't doctors, I don't know. I don't know how often they're going to be willing to to roll up here and really, you know, get into the midnight hours of Running back games, a hot streak. But I do have a lot of hope that I can eventually groom them into a good gaming partnership. Groom them into a good gaming partnership.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, and you know, we're always having family get-togethers but it's always a lot of people and I I don't even want to broach the idea of, like, trying to facilitate games with that many people. So I'm kind of trying to, you know, pick them off onesie, twosie for now, um, and then, you know, later, once I've cultivated a real passion, we can, we can start getting big. But that's first thoughts. And I also, you know, there is a game store about two miles away. Not a lot of board games, they're more into the, you know, warhammer D and D stuff, but I was on their website and they do have a Tuesday night board game night. Maybe, if I'm feeling extroverted and desperate, I will go there and see what that's all about. But that scares me to no end. I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's intimidating. When we were leaving germany, you know, I was packing up all our board games and stuff we're doing our out processing and I walked through one of the buildings that we had to go for out processing and on the door on the way out they had a big poster that said, like join the great gaming expo or great great gaming gala or whatever. They had like a weekly thursday meetup on base just to play board games and I was like, wow, where has this been for the last two years? So, yeah, wasted, wasted time. But you you feel like you have to like build up the people in your family as gamers, like they're all very entry level and like you got to get them to like big boy game nights. Is there anybody that you think like can really go deep on the big boy game nights?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think the my cousin and her husband are the two that first strike me. My aunt she lives in Pittsburgh but she comes around a lot and she like really loves the idea of gaming and and like she plays wingspan and loves that, and I think she would be down for literally anything. She's that type of person. So I'm I'm hopeful that the next time she comes to town we'll get something in. But just going back to the game group meetup and Jared, we'll get you involved here in a second.
Speaker 3:I can see, don't worry I'm just sitting here licking my chaps.
Speaker 2:I'm loving it I can see you itching to say something. It isn't like it's intimidating, and it's intimidating because I don't want to waste my time. You know we're all busy people and I don't want to go somewhere and then be stuck somewhere with people that I'm really wish I wasn't hanging out with for an evening. You know when I could just be kicking back watching TV with Mary, or, you know, working on the house, doing important, you know, family stuff. So that's like my biggest fear about going to one of these meetups is that you know, know I'll go there and just not drive jiving with the people. Or they're taking it too seriously, or you know you get wrapped up in a game that takes forever because they're got analysis, paralysis, or they're playing wingspan with six people, like you know, just so many unknowns could happen. Um, I like to be in control of that environment.
Speaker 3:So well, is there any? Um, there's like board game geek. Do any kind of geolocation for like I really want to play uh like feast for odin around this zip code. Do they do?
Speaker 1:I don't think they don't do any like specific games like that, I don't think, but like you can definitely go into their community tab and they, I don't think, but like you can definitely go into their community tab and they have like events and stuff and you can join guilds and they have like events that people can post into board game geek. In fact I think that's how I found my germany meetup was the board game geek uh community thread for germany.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I will say Clay, I had the same apprehension on going to that one, especially because I could show up and not speak the same language as all the people there and they were more than welcoming. I kind of just hovered around some tables until I got invited in and they were super helpful. And even if you go just to scope it out, don't go to participate Go once Check out the game store itself while the game event is going on. Scope it out, See what it's like. If they're like going hard with like laser levels and stuff for Warhammer, maybe it's not your scene, but it's like they have tables that are available. Yeah, Laser levels for Warhammer, hammer, maybe it's not your scene, but it's like they, they have tables that are available.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's how you like your levels for warhammer, I might be in the warhammer, yeah laser levels.
Speaker 1:It's like line of sight. They sell like line of sight lasers. I'm getting out of rabbit hole, whoa, but uh anyways. Yeah, maybe go like check it out while that event's going on and then you can kind of see what the vibe is like and then integrate yourself. People will have already seen you before the next time you go and then you can say like hey, I was here last week. I was just kind of poking around. I saw that you guys were gaming. I want to.
Speaker 3:So do at these board game meetups? Um, do you bring your own games or do you? I guess it depends on every meetup, but at a board game shop, if they have a meetup, do you just play their games or do you bring your games? I guess you can do both, probably varies shop to shop.
Speaker 2:I think most board gamers are going to roll up with a bag full of games these are mine, yeah. So everybody's always kind of jockeying to see whose game's going to get played and somebody has to, you know, tuck their tail and be like, okay, fine, we can play mine next week or whatever. But at least that's what I've seen. I think I followed diligently on Discord. There was a Colorado Springs board game club. Discord never went to it, but I followed their discord and they would post like before the, before the afternoon. They people would just be like, yeah, I'm planning on playing, you know this, this and this. And people would be like, oh, yeah, I've been wanting to play that, and so it seemed like a pretty good place to like kind of go and know what you might be getting into. But again, I had I, I was lucky enough to have people to play with, um, so I never was bold enough to show my face. I'm just so scared of being like, you know, standing around, you know, like that kid that's not picked in gym class.
Speaker 3:Is it the fear of rejection?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what if they don't like me?
Speaker 1:He'd rather try than be exposed as a fraud. He is George Costanza. He is George Costanza. He's just going to rather not try than be exposed, exactly All right, right. So you got. You got your family that you're building up. Do you have any like people at work or anything that you're trying to hone in on? Do you think, have a hint that they might be gamers?
Speaker 2:this is. We're no longer working in the space force with a uh, relatively nerdy audience. These guys have hard hats now yeah, I walk through. Walked through the offices at my, at my new company, and a lot of deer heads on the wall. Almost everybody's got a hunting cabin or fishing cabin. Hell yeah, brother, I'm not saying I'm not going to prejudge and say they wouldn't be interested, but I am not staking my, staking my claim on getting a lot of gamers from Garrity Glass.
Speaker 1:As somebody who's been stationed in Wyoming and has antlers hanging on walls in the house, I take offense to that you should take a stab and go ask some people.
Speaker 2:Never look by its cover. I said I was trying not to. I'm just not, not optimistic, but I'm not rolling it out. Jeremy, what?
Speaker 1:are you? Gonna do man maybe just segue them in like play a little glass road or something like oh my rarity, glass, glass road board games. What do you know, sagrada ever had ever heard of sagrada stained glass you guys are smart.
Speaker 3:I don't know if they dabble in that you guys are passionate about glass.
Speaker 1:Let's play some games about glass.
Speaker 3:I have a challenge for you, clayton. Why don't you put up your Operation Game Night sticker? Yeah put that somewhere in your office.
Speaker 2:You haven't heard that, yet I don't have a hard hat. Ocean Game Night sticker yeah, put that somewhere in your office. Do you have a hard hat? Yet I don't have a hard hat.
Speaker 3:They haven't let me do work. You were going to get a hard hat or something like that. They were going to take you somewhere. Someone was going to, maybe.
Speaker 2:I was trying. I've been lobbying for it, but nobody's. I don't look like a person they want as a liability on a job site. Let's just say that okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm gonna save some stuff for over the fence, but okay, yeah save it. Talk about that, okay. But yeah, I challenge you to put your little operation game night sticker somewhere in your workspace and maybe it'll be a conversation starter and you'll be like, yeah, you ever play some board games. Hit them with a little spots, a little gateway game, boom. Because if we learned anything from the episode four, which, from what I remember, remember I just talked about food the whole time that was, you mean feed them feed
Speaker 3:them, feed them, it was. It was more about the. You know the connection and if you like them, you can do anything with people you know. Yeah, with this group of three right here, I'm pretty sure we can do anything. I mean, we could probably do Warhammer and we could probably crush it All right. I remember hearing something about Hulky Bulky Marines.
Speaker 2:We could probably do that pretty well.
Speaker 3:It's about just find that little. Put a little Operation Game Night sticker in there, You'll find them Well.
Speaker 2:I'm sick of talking about me. I want to hear what you're going to do, Jared.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what? What I'm going to do? Actually, adri, she's the one who got me onto this. Down the street from my place is a bookstore got me onto this. Down the street from my place is a bookstore. The bookstore, every other Wednesday, does a game night meetup. The other Wednesday is D&D. I've never done D&D one shots. They only do one shots, oh nice.
Speaker 1:Listen, I've been telling you we've got to get a root, one shot going. I know I've.
Speaker 3:I was listening to our join ups june and you were talking about one shots um, and so I I know, so I might have to get into that vick.
Speaker 1:Vick is also down to do a one shot with us. Yeah, anyways continue.
Speaker 3:So, adrian's, like I mean I'm just saying there's this thing like would you be interested in that? Which think of that? Atri coming to me about game nights like whoa, yeah, that's, that's growth right there. I mean I was very excited to hear about that. But I mean I do have Cole that lives right down the street as well. He showed me his game collection just the other night. I mean he's got Ahoy, he's got some of the classics Raw. I mean I stuck my hand, I made Raw. I mean I stuck my hand. I made him open up his box a little box fart. I got my hand inside his bags. I was feeling his little tiles. He's got a great little collection, small collection, paxil Wallop. He'd also be a great VIP. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:Do you know, I curated that collection for him I, I had a taste of clayton, you know, yeah yeah, he gave me a set amount of money and he said buy me games to take to dc.
Speaker 2:And I said you got it, buddy dude yeah, I wish.
Speaker 3:I wish my collection was curated by Clay.
Speaker 1:It's curated by me, that's true.
Speaker 2:Even better.
Speaker 3:I've had many a box come to my doorstep via Travis.
Speaker 1:You may get another one, because I am stressing after unpacking all these games.
Speaker 3:Okay, More things to say for Over the Fence, because there's no room. I'm still in the hotel. But that's kind of why I was kind of very much looking forward to this podcast, specifically because, yeah, what am I supposed to do when I go to this? It's a bookstore, so it's not. I'm sure the bookstore has some board games, you know, because a lot of these bookstores these days do carry, you know, a handful of board games, um, so it's not exclusively board games. So do I bring oh, I'm not gonna bring our neck right off the bat um, but maybe, maybe in a couple weeks, weeks, I don't know Um, and then this is not like Barnes and Noble, this is like a local, local mall.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I feel like that'd be okay with you bringing our knack and bringing bring the big boys man, let it rip.
Speaker 2:Whatever you bring, just know you, you gotta be ready to. I gotta be teaching, you gotta be teaching. You got to be teaching and people aren't going to want to tolerate any rule book reading.
Speaker 3:No, I got to know this stuff like the back of my hand.
Speaker 1:You can't do that, Nope Look don't be pulling up Rodney videos while you're sitting there in a bookstore. Oh no.
Speaker 2:Don't start punching Undaunted.
Speaker 3:Oh, undaunted, oh my gosh, undaunted would be a badass one, man, if I could get a gang group here in Virginia that could hit Undaunted like I did down there in Alabama. Man, that's when you know you've struck gold, but I don't know You've got some promise be I do have some promise a little bit of promising leads.
Speaker 1:You got bookstore, you got cole, you got a curated collection and you better get on cole quick with what's going on in his life.
Speaker 2:Man, you better start those games because it ain't gonna last forever.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, no, uh, we're going to be holding babies soon, so but though, I got Clayton. Oh my gosh, we got our next visitor here, but I do also have Clayton two hours up the road. I mean, if you want to hit it real big, you call your big boy. Okay, your big boy, your big boy's coming up to Pennsylvania, bring it here, buddy, I'll do it. Say less Any advice. Do I bring the bad boy? Do I bring the heat? Do I lessen the personality? Do I amp it heat? Do I lessen the personality? Do I amp it up? Do I leave it the same?
Speaker 2:Well, I definitely no.
Speaker 1:I suppose a bookstore is not like a library where you have to be quiet. But I'm like I don't know. Just be your authentic self, jared, and if they kick you out for being yourself, then maybe that's not a place you want to hang out. How about that Exactly?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Don't put this light under a bushel, you know.
Speaker 2:Let it shine, baby Peacock gotta let you fly, Travis you're surrounded now, like Jared was, with a bunch peers in squadron officer school together. Yep, are you going to be as successful as jared was getting those little air force majors into into board games?
Speaker 1:I've been thinking about this. Uh one, I feel like you can mostly tell who would be on board for game nights just by like mostly tell who would be on board for game nights just by like their aura as they walk around in these halls, like with their peers, because people definitely like, especially when they're first meeting each other. I, you know, I sat there with maybe 200 people all sitting in a big briefing hall or whatever. People walk around with a certain air about them where you're like that guy's not cool with playing board games oh, that's not cool playing board games.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna write them off. I'm not gonna write them off, but I need. I need some help. Jared, you came to madeley with your flight, like the people in your room. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:well, I I mean I also have built-in buddies from previous relationships from the academy, so I leaned on um prior friends.
Speaker 1:So but you took a different. You took you might have to hit up uh, jason cons I think jason cons um you.
Speaker 3:He might be a tough nut to crack, but but any football-related board games here?
Speaker 1:Blood Bowl. There's Blood Bowl, which is also Warhammer-related. Okay, yeah, I've been kind of thinking about that, and you were not so upfront about it with your flight, though that you were a board gamer.
Speaker 3:No, I think the flight board gaming came on too late so I don't be late don't be late to the game, but don't be too early. Maybe hit it hard after we come back from world series of board gaming, because then they'll be like, oh, where'd you go this weekend? You'll be like world series of board gaming and even world series, you guys should be coming over to play board games with me.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about maybe like sprinkling in something like just a little drop in the bucket during like introductions, like, oh, it's so easy I'm an engineer, you know I come with my share of nerdiness. So you know I'm I'm all down for game nights or something. If anybody wants a game night, you know, just kind of throw it out, float it. Just float it out there and see if that message in a bottle comes back.
Speaker 2:Dude, all they do is icebreakers at these types of things, you know, and they're like oh, what's the interesting thing about you games? People are like what they made monopoly 200 times. Uh, so yes like I literally put that in my garrity glass. They sent out an email. Hey, welcome, clay the team. Here's some facts about him. He likes board games. I opened the door. People have stopped by my office and asked about it you know what.
Speaker 3:Maybe here's. Here's a challenge for myself. If I'm ever in a position, when I'm starting my new job, when they're like and say something interesting about yourself I haven't had this yet I'll be like I have a board game podcast with two of my best friends that I went to the academy with, that could open up some doors. It'd be like what Glass breaker, glass breaker, just break some doors. It'd be like what Glass breaker, glass breaker, just break some glass.
Speaker 1:Nice Ice breaker.
Speaker 2:I'm stupid, no we were talking about glass. I like it. I thought that was a clever reference.
Speaker 3:I thought that was beautiful, play it off no big deal. I was running with it. Fearless leader Hell, that's a good good. Yeah, when you're introducing yourself, boom, because you have to do it for every class that you start. Your teacher needs to know, uh, something um interesting about yourself and where you're from and what's your afsc yeah, you'll get asked that in your in your fellow flight mates will be like. I know exactly where he's from and how many kids he has and how many brothers All the boring stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, actually that's not always true, because sometimes people just stop listening, that's fair too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanted to pick your brain, because you had a pretty good rotation of board games by the time you left. Had a pretty good rotation of board games by the time you left, and while we did not get a chance to play any big boy games, I want to follow in your footsteps and use your trajectory as a launch pad to reach even greater heights. I want to stand on the shoulders of giants. That giant is Jared Erickson. I want to reach for the highest of heights and grasp what can be excellent board gaming.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you what. It's not necessarily the meetups. In that location I couldn't find too many of those. There's one game store. Did you go to it yet?
Speaker 1:so I found a shop called game exchange which does mainly like video games, movies like, and it swaps all that stuff. It also said tabletop games it's the very bottom of the list, tabletop games. So I popped my head in there and I took a look around. They had like trivial pursuit and like monopoly sitting on the shelf and I took a stab and I I asked the store owner. I said, do you guys like do an exchange program? Can I like bring in games for store credit? And they said that they were going to give me 20 of list value, 20.
Speaker 1:I'm like oh my gosh, it is not worth it. So, anyways, all that to be said, I'm going to probably start a game exchange on our like discord or something, because I need to refresh and get rid of some of these things and I just need to find an easy way to do that. So, anyways, discord, follow us on discord everybody, because I'll post the link in the show notes. But, yeah, join our Discord and maybe get on some game swaps. Heck, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3:And also let us know what you guys do for meetups and getting your game groups going. That's right.
Speaker 2:Is food enough.
Speaker 3:I don't know, maybe it's food enough, I don't know that's like subtitle for your autobiography.
Speaker 1:is food enough? The jared erickson story oh man. This has been another successful episode of the operation game, my podcast. Go ahead like, subscribe and share the podcast if you're enjoying our content or tell us what we can do better. Hit us up on Instagram at OperationGameNightPodcast and join our Discord for more board game shenanigans For Operation Game Night. I have been Travis, he has been Clay, he has been Jared and we are out. Thank you.
