Nearly Gamer

I was recently away with work and whilst waiting for the flight home I sat at the airport with one of my colleagues at work who I don't really know that well.

So we cover the usual topics of family, work history, holidays and then she asks what I do for fun...

Now, I've never been one to hide my hobby as for me that path leads to the dark side...  erm what I mean is that there is nothing positive to gain from hiding it so by embracing it you provide an opportunity to introduce someone to it.

The flip side to that though is that I can (and do) talk about The Hobby and My Hobby for hours given the opportunity.  Which is probably why this blog exists to some extent, it's an outlet.  Anyway, back to the post.

So anyway I talked primarily about board games and named a number of the "flagship" games like Settlers Of Catan, Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne and Pandemic.  Blank stare which was followed by "My family have a board game night once a week where we play ..." and she listed a number of mainstream family board games.

Most of the games she listed were as unfamiliar to me as the "flagship" games were to her but what this did was demonstrate that this Nearly Gamer was playing games for the same reasons that I do.

Social experience, Fun, Learning (she has 2 kids) and once again Fun.

So what is all this about then?  Why does it justify a post here?

Simple really.  Never stereotype a tabletop gamer.
Also!  Don't diminish the possibility of introducing someone new to the hobby especially when that someone may already be open to the reasons to play.

I've since pointed my colleague to some games that might be good at bridging the divide between mainstream and hobby games.  I don't expect to see any real change other than perhaps her family trying games like Hey, that's my fish!