Kris Hall: Say Hello to the New Guy

I was a wargamer long before I was ever a Eurogamer.  One day when I was a kid in Rhode Island, I found a copy of Avalon Hill’s Tactics II in a closet.  Someone had given the game to my father as a gift, but he had never played it.  The flat map and odd cardboard counters were fascinating to me.  I wasn’t sure if the game was going to be fun, but it sure looked adult.  Soon I was playing the game with my cousin.  This led to teenage years filled with Avalon Hill’s and SPI’s cardboard counters.

Decades passed.  I left Rhode Island, and then New York City, behind.  I got married and moved to Los Angeles when my wife was hired to run the Miss Piggy website for the Jim Henson company.  Although I still kept an eye on the wargame world, all my gaming was solitaire.

But many of my wife’s co-workers were computer geeks—and gamers, as I eventually discovered.  They introduced me to Settlers of Catan, and Knizia’s Lord of the Rings.  Soon, I was trying to host a game night once a month, although conflicting schedules often made that impossible.

The difference in Los Angeles and West Virginia real estate prices made a move to the mountain state attractive and profitable in 2004.  At first, I figured that my gaming days were behind me.  But then an e-mail message from out of the blue altered me to the presence of a gaming club right in nearby Charleston.  Ted Cheatham, West Virginia gaming cult leader extraordinaire, had found another innocent to lure to his basement lair.

The Appalachian Gamers are a small but devoted group.  Attendance at the weekly meetings is likely to include no more than three to eight gamers.  But Ted is a published game designer with Silk Road to his credit and Gumball Rally expected soon.  Several other members have prototypes in the works, and some of these are quite promising.  The Appalachian Gamers have sponsored introduction-to-gaming sessions at local libraries and were a big part of the first CharCon event, the West Virginia gaming convention held last October.  I feel lucky to have dropped into such an active group.

About a year ago, I started submitting guest essays to the Gone Gaming blog site.  Before long, regular contributors began to drop out, and I was asked to become a regular.  The blank page usually holds no terrors for me because in Los Angeles my job was reading movie scripts and writing reports on them for movie companies.  (If you think that reading early drafts of Lord of the Rings and Gangs of New York might be a fun job, you’d be right.  If you think a job like that would actually pay a living wage, you’d be wrong.)

Now, Boardgame News is giving me an additional chance to sound off about the hobby.  What can you expect from me?  I’m not sure if I can answer that, at least not in any detail.  I don’t have the analytical depth of Shannon Appelcline, and I don’t review massive numbers of new games like Greg Schloesser.  Usually each week’s theme suggests itself after (or during) the weekly meeting of the Appalachian Gamers.  Sometimes announcements on Consimworld or the Geek suggest topics for essays.

Of course, I do have certain prejudices.  I’m not fond of totally abstract games, and I am abnormally fond of wargame-Euro hybrids like Imperial or the upcoming Age of Empires III.  But I appreciate variety in writing as well as at the gaming table, and I try to keep my enthusiasms under control.

Eric suggested that I introduce myself by discussing my most memorable moment in gaming, and as soon as I heard that, I knew what to talk about.  I was one of the playtesters of the War of the Ring: Battles of the Third Age expansion.  I fear my participation in that project was more interesting for me than helpful for the designers, although I did have an impact on one detail of the final rules.  When playing the Gondor scenario as the Shadow player, I managed to lose both the Witch-King and Gothmog.  The designers decided to add a rule that any Shadow player who is so pathetic as to lose both his major leaders also loses the game.  I’m always happy to make a contribution.

And I’m happy to be a part of Boardgame News.  I look forward to your comments.

© 2007 Kris Hall

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Comments:

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"Hello to the new guy”. Sincerely, Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Apr 21, 2007 at 07:22 AM | #

Great to have you aboard, Saturday Tag Team Partner Guy.  It’s a good thing you didn’t tell Eric that you know Ted before he agreed to let you write for us--that’s pretty much instant disqualification around here.  My feeling is, that which doesn’t kill us only serves to make us stronger.  If you’ve survived both the LA movie industry AND Ted Cheatham, you must be one hardy dude! It’s also good to know that I am now one degree of separation closer to Miss Piggy.  Could come in handy when playing the Kevin Bacon game. Great start, Kris.  I’m looking forward to fewer late Friday nights and more entertaining reading on alternate Saturdays! Posted by Larry Levy on Apr 21, 2007 at 10:00 AM | #

Welcome, Kris. I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to write. Posted by David Reed on Apr 21, 2007 at 10:34 AM | #

Hey, Kris!  Glad you’re here, and I look forward to your musings. You also are one lucky man ... gaming with Ted Cheatham is a hoot!  He is one of the most “fun” guys I know, and it is always a joy to be with him. Posted by Greg Schloesser on Apr 22, 2007 at 06:39 AM | #

Kris, I am very glad you landed in our little piece of gaming heaven. Best of luck on the writing. Posted by Charlie Davis on Apr 24, 2007 at 08:18 PM | #

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