On February 11th, I went to one of the biweekly meetings of Miami’s Strategy Gaming Club (SGC). Although I have goe to SGC meetings since August, this particular Tuesday meeting was…interesting, to say the least. At a typical SGC meeting, there are over 20 games set out on the table for people to choose from, and there’s even an office room with two closets filled to the brim with all different types of games. With RECON, Miami University’s own small gaming convention, coming up, most of the games brought down to play were “play and wins” being given away at the convention. With games ranging from Adapt (which I only played to hopefully win the dice from) and Root (the cutest area control game you will ever see) I found it nearly impossible to walk into the room and find a person not enjoying any of the offered games.
In a previous paper, I mentioned that normally games function as a stress releivant, so I tend to stray from strategy heavy games. Typically, this leads me towards Azul, Shadowhunters or, a new find, Detective Club. This Yuesday had been particularly light and I was ready to test out something new. The past Sunday, I had ventured to play Too Many Bones (an amazing game even though the tutorial boss is impossible to beat) and had found enough confidence, as well as some new friends, to try another slightly more strategy based game. I know, playing a strategy game at the strategy gaming club is way out there. So, feeling adventurous, four others and I reached for Root.
Root is, in the least descriptive way possible, a freaking amazing game. Depending on who you are as a person, can be as stupid or as serious as you want it to be. Nearly all of the parties you choose to play as function as an area control game. A player has to take soldiers to different parts of the forest in order to craft certain items or do certain tasks in order to gain victory points. You can choose if you’d like to start as a big faction, a merchant faction, a combat based faction, or, hold your horses, quite literally an RPG character. Any of these choices leave the player with cute figurines and a good starting point for gaining victory points. Because I am terrible at strategizing in area control games, I decided to have a bit more fun and chose to play as the Vagabond.
Unlike all other parties, the Vagabond is a single character and single figurine. The Vagabond does not control any areas of the forest, but instead gains points by trading cards for items and forming alliances with the other factions. The Vagabond also has three quests available to them at any time for them to travel around the forest and complete for victory points. If Root was meant to be a story of fuzzy woodland creatures at war, the vagabond would be the main character. Although this comes as a surprise to nobody, I did not win the game. However, I played the Vagabond more mischievous than a devote player would. I went after quests and completed the ones I could, but for the most part I just went around to other players trading cards and taking items. The Vagabond can also attack players with a crossbow without rolling any attack die, and this made a great threatening tool. I could go around to the warring factions and simply say “it’s okay if you don’t craft an item for me, but I will shoot you,” and I soon had a full satchel of items. Yes, I played Root to be a murder hobo.
Root gave me the regular, enjoyable experience I have at SGC. What happened after Root was…still enjoyable, yet strange. Were Words is a game that combines 20 questions and werewolf. It’s fun and it’s a good filler game (it’s also great if you’re feeling too tired to function, but still want to play a game). If you go to SGC, there is a 98% chance that you will find somebody who has played over 30 games of werewords in the SGC membership lifetime. The students know the rules and roles in and out, and have even created their own fun, personal lists of words to choose from. Tuesday was the first time I met Dan. Dan played Were words and did his homework at the same time, which isn’t uncommon of any college student. Dan also had a deck of tarot cards on him. The nine of us playing were words then came to the conclusion that the best way to play were words would be with this deck of tarot cards. Confused? Yes, that was the general feeling at the time, but we were all too excited and brain dead to even care. The rules were simple: look at your tarot card and interpret it as the role you feel best explains it. This also became the way we chose who the mayor was and, twice, we had over three mayors in a single game. This mixture of craziness had riled up all of us and we soon had an even better idea: draw cards and determine who Jesus and Judas were. We then recreated The Last Supper and then immediately dispersed after. I proceeded to go home and study until 3am (as any good college student does).
SGC provides a warm and welcoming atmosphere to any student that wishes to join. It’s easy to make new friends and find new games you enjoy, and you might even find yourself wrapped up in what appears to be some kind of cultist rituals. If you like gaming and a little spark of crazy every now and then, I would strongly encourage you to come down to the student center any given Tuesday or Sunday night.