I have a battered copy of 1830 – arguably the godfather of the genre – which I opened up for the first time in decades. I was surprised to find my handwritten records of games I played in the early 1990's, when I was in my early 30's. Five games dated between Oct 1991 and Oct 1993, which I played – and this is the bit that astonished me – with colleagues at work (at the time I worked for Winterthur Life in Basingstoke). There were also records of three more games dated between Nov 1994 and Nov 1995, which were played – less surprisingly – with my gaming group in Salisbury.
But back to the 91-93 games – how on earth did I manage to persuade three of my colleagues to play 1830 with me?! Tom Smith, Ian Mitchell, and Chris Whitley (may they be blessed forever) – none of these were hobby gamers. 1830 is not a short game, especially when played by relative novices; you're facing 6-8 hours of intense concentration. Did I pay them to play? Or am I more persuasive than I imagine? And how did it work logistically? I vaguely remember meeting in the staff restaurant after work. Surely we could not have completed an 1830 session in one evening (some of us, me included, had a substantial commute to get home) so did we leave the game set up to carry on (unmolested by cleaning staff) next day? Or did we record and pack away the game every time (seems unlikely). But then the whole thing seems unlikely. Nevertheless, there is the evidence in Quink washable blue. It happened.
Which leaves me impressed with my hunger to play such a chewy game and my willingness to drag non-gamers into the fun. Mind you, these non-gamer colleagues were fellow coders and techie's, so perhaps that explains some of it. Is this something that I would have done more recently? Well, writing this post has reminded me that in my last lab position, just a handful of years ago, I allowed a colleague to talk me into playing NetRunner with him after work. It's the circle of life.