What is gaming without games? What is life without memories? In Gaming Memories Volume 03, our team shares happy, sorrowful, or deeply impactful memories of their lives, seen through the lens of tabletop gaming. Please join us for Gaming Memories, and if you have one you’d like to share, drop us a line.
Board Building – K. David Ladage
I was about five years old when I realized I had a thing for board games. I was about nine years old when I discovered role-playing games, and that took over much of my gaming energy. Once I was in the Navy many years later, Magic: the Gathering had taken over most of my board gaming time, and GURPS was the linchpin in my RPG space. Once I left the Navy, my circle of friends for playing anything dwindled.
My Navy buddy, Rich, returned to civilian life not long after I did and moved to Iowa. While he was working, looking to get back into school he opened his own game store. He would often come to my place to show us new games he was selling. We discovered a lot of games in those days, some of them quite eye-opening.
One of the first of those games to alter my view of what a board game could be was Carcassonne. Not only was the game beautiful, it was also subtle and intriguing. I mean, here was a board game where building the board was the game! When he brought it over, a group of us played it, and he asked what we thought. Before anyone could answer, three of us were getting things set up for another play. If memory serves, we played six or seven games of Carcassonne that evening. I purchased a copy, and being the completionist I am, I sought out every expansion.
These days, I have a box that contains The Tower expansion that also has a distilled collection of tiles and components that is marked as my Standard Play Set. This includes tiles and meeples from multiple expansions and the core set that my game group agrees result in the most satisfying experience for us. After years of play, several of us believe that Carcassonne peaked with the first edition of Hunters and Gatherers. That version of the game got so many things right that rules from that game have seeped into the house rules we use for the original. We have played the most recent edition of Hunters and Gatherers, and (in our opinion), the original version of that line is the best.
Still, you have to love a game that opens your eyes to what a board game can be.
Type of Memory/Experience?
♥♥♥♡♡ – Beautiful memory/experience
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
Queen’s Gambit – K. David Ladage
I would not call my childhood a pleasant one. Although if I am being honest, I have known quite a few people who make my early life look like a Norman Rockwell painting. The reason I can say this is that almost always, there was someone somewhere that would put forth the effort to ensure that I knew something of love and compassion. One such person was Alina.
My biological mother hails from a deeply Appalachian region of the country; a place called Clintwood, Virginia. This is deep in the south-western tip of the state. My mother’s family has lived there for generations. The culture of the area, and the idiosyncrasies of that side of my family meant that I was an outcast at best.
Alina was the first wife of my uncle Mike (my mother’s youngest brother). This was a marriage he wanted no part of. However, due to his paternal responsibilities, he had it thrust upon him. Despite his siblings and parents insisting he bring Alina over to America and marry her for the sake of his future child, once all was done (the move, the marriage, and the birth), they treated her and her daughter with contempt. I was very young when all this happened. I did not understand the situation. All I knew was that this beautiful lady and her daughter were treated worse than I was. The two of us bonded as outsiders in the family.
One thing we did was play chess. She knew the basics of the game, and I had a simplistic understanding of the moves. She taught me elements like castling and en passant captures (although she did not know what they were called). Suffice it to say, we were both pretty bad at the game. That said, anytime I visited my grandparents and saw Alina (she and Mike lived just up the ridge from my grandparents’ home), the two of us would find each other and spend some time over a chess board forgetting about the pain of living with this group of people.
One last thing, as a side note: not everyone on that side of my family was awful. I had a few cousins whom I loved and who cared for me. I had a couple of aunts who tried their best to keep me and others in the family protected. But these were umbrellas trying to hold back a typhoon. I love them and I appreciate them. But most of them, too, shunned Alina, leaving most of my memories bittersweet.
Type of Memory/Experience?
♥♡♡♡♡ – Distant memory/experience
Read more articles from K. David Ladage.
