Scott Tepper: Auld Game Syne

So last week was New Year’s, and with that came my annual New Year’s Eve game party.  I think this was my 7th year hosting it, which, now that I think about it, is pretty wild.  My parents didn’t entertain much when I was growing up, so throwing a party for 40 people is an art that I’ve had to learn by doing.  My hosting this annual party really came out of a desire to not be in a bar on NYE.  My friends and I celebrated New Year’s a few times at a country/western bar that we frequented regularly but it wasn’t a very enjoyable experience since the event would attract people who went not because of the atmosphere or the people, but rather as a way to get their money’s worth of alcohol at an open bar.  Spending New Year’s eve in a haze of cigarette smoke surrounded by sloppy drunks…Whoo-Hoo!

It was around that time that I was bitten by the Eurogame bug.  On a whim I invited several of my friends over to my house to play games to welcome in the new year.  I think there were 10 or so of us.  Not being not much of a cook, I ordered in Chinese food.  The party was relatively sedate, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

The following year, I decided to take it up a notch.  I had read about the game, Werewolf, and ordered it online.  At that time, the game was only available in French, and there was no English translation.  Luckily, I speak passable French, and was able to translate most of the rules.  When sending out the invitations, I told my friends that we were going to do something a little different later in the evening on New Year’s.  One of my friends pushed me for details and I explained the basic premise of Werewolf.  After my slightly confused game overview(remember, I had not yet actually played the game) his response was an unconvinced, “Ok, well, maybe it’ll be more fun once we play it”.

As it usually happens, my worrying beforehand was unnecessary.  I had made a little cheat sheet to help me through the rules of Werewolf, and had practiced the patter that I wanted to use.  We started playing around 10:00p, and as soon as we finished the game(with one Werewolf winning), everyone insisted that we immediately play again.  I actually had to pause the game to bring out noisemakers and hats so we could welcome in the New Year at midnight.  But at 12:10a we were back playing Werewolf again.

Over the years, my New Year’s party has undergone a few refinements.  I certainly have more games for my guests to choose from.  I also came up with an idea that would make this game day a little different from all the other ones during the year.  Every time someone wins at a game during the party, they get to pull a wrapped present from the basket I have set aside.  I fill it with all sorts of little inexpensive gifts that I pick up throughout the year, like funny magnets, little ornaments, cute keychains, etc… It’s always fun for me, when someone wins a game on NYE, to say, “Go pick your prize from the basket!” People get surprising excited about winning.

After a couple of years of ordering in, upon the promping of my friends, I changed the event to a pot luck dinner.  This proved to be a great change for a couple of reasons.  Now we wouldn’t have to rely on a delivery service that was overworked on a major holiday, and thus might deliver cold food.  Even better, though, was that we get a fantastic smorgasbord of foods that ends up being a much better assortment than any one person or restaurant could provide.

Something else that has evolved over the years is how we celebrate the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve.  Nowadays at about 11:45p we break out the glasses and start pouring out champagne and sparkling cider while I start pass out the party hats and party bags.  Each party bag contains a noisemaker, a horn, a beaded necklace, a holiday popper(pull the ends and a toy pops out), a glow-in-the-dark bracelet, a Chinese yo-yo, serpentine streamers, confetti poppers, and a miscellaneous toy(stickers, or a puzzle, etc…).  I’ll also give out some sort of larger confetti shooters to some people.  So when midnight strikes, the air is full of confetti, streamers and noise.  I used to provide several cans of Silly String, but after a few years of finding errant strands of yellow and blue during the subsequent months on gameboxes and hidden corners of the walls, I thought it best to discontinue that practice.

This past year had the most guests attending of any year.  During the day(as the party started at 2:00p), at the peak, all 6 tables that I had set up for gaming were filled, with other people wandering around chatting and eating.  Since every year we get more and more “gamer wives”, and now some younger children, it’s important to me that we have some non-game activities for those who want to take a break from playing games. 

Along those lines, one of the options I had for my guests this year was a quiz about my Christmas tree.  I made up sheets with 20 questions about ornaments on my tree, like, “What is sitting on the Penguin’s stomach?”, or “What time is it on the snowman’s pocketwatch?” The person who got the most questions right won a prize.  Surprisingly, about 15 people or so entered this contest, and the winner (the only person who answered all questions correctly) picked the box that had a set of serving dishes from Crate & Barrel.

This year I also wanted an activity that would allow participants to do something artistic, so I baked up 2 batches of gingerbread cookies in all sorts of shapes, put out cookie decorating supplies, and had a cookie decorating contest.  The winner, decided by group vote, would win a prize.  As expected, we saw many creative entries, including two different 3-dimensional snowmen and a sleigh cookie decorated to look like a swimming snowman, but the winner was the person who turned a gingerbread man into Bjork at the Academy Awards.

The most important ingredient at any party, though, is the people.  I’m incredibly fortunate to have a really nice group of friends that make any kind of gaming event fun.  Every year, just to mix it up, I like to invite a few new people to the event.  This year I invited Michael Pennisi and his wife, Christy.  I had met them both through ChiTAG, and I knew they’d fit in fine with our group.  The wildcards I threw into the mix were my new neighbors who live in my condo building.  These were non-gamers, so I was hopeful that they wouldn’t be overwhelmed by all the gameplaying.  One of my neighbors left me a message (that I didn’t actually get till the next day) before she came over that said, in effect, “I’m pretty sure your invitation was for New Year’s Eve, but I think it said it started at 2:00p, so I wasn’t sure if it was an afternoon party or an evening party.” She couldn’t imagine a NYE party that lasted so long, but after she arrived and played all sorts of games including Ca$h&Gun$, Werewolf, and Zooloretto, she insisted that I include her in all my future game days.

My favorite NYE story started off several years ago.  Someone who saw on BGG that I owned Wise & Otherwise asked me to bring it to a boardgame Meetup event.  I didn’t have a great time that night because I got stuck in a couple of games with non-gamers who really didn’t want to be playing games.  As I was leaving at the end of the evening, I noticed that one guy had brought the game, Domaine, which is one of my favorites.  I told him that it seemed he liked games that our gamegroup played, and if he gave me his email, I’d invite him to my next gameday. 

It turned out that the next gameday that I hosted was New Year’s eve.  When I issued Tim the invitation, he asked if he could bring his girlfriend, Lindsay.  I learned a year later that when Tim told Lindsay about the invite, she was a little reluctant because she “had seen some of the people he played games with and didn’t know if she’d enjoy a whole evening with them.” But they had recently moved to Chicago and didn’t know very many people, so they accepted the invitation.  When they arrived at my house they did say that they wouldn’t be able to stay very long because they already had dinner reservations(a clever ploy so that they could excuse themselves when they they’d had enough).

At some point, someone suggested we break out The Pollgame, as a game we could play with Tim & Lindsay so we could get to know them better.  If you haven’t played it, The Pollgame is a good game to get to know people.  The players take turns asking questions that can be answered “yes” or “no”, and players receive points for guessing how many people at the table answer “yes”.  The game comes with all sorts of questions like, “Have you ever received a speeding ticket?”, but it also allows the players to make up their own.  During the game we learned all sorts of things about Tim & Lindsay, including that they had recently moved to Chicago and that Lindsay was a ministerial student. 

Well, one of my friends was feeling particularly impish and when it was his turn to pick a question he decided to make up his own.  I will not repeat what it was, but suffice it to say that it had an adult theme.  I was mortified!  Here we had just met this young couple and wanted them to have a good time, and already my friends were getting bawdy.  I balked, and asked that we choose another question, but I was outvoted.  Red-faced, and not wanting to make our new guests even more uncomfortable, I backed down, and we continued on with the question.  To their credit, they seemed completely unfazed.  And this is why…When we revealed the answers, I and all my friends answered “yes” to the question, while Tim and Lindsay answered “no”.  They later admitted that they were unsure what to guess as the number of people who would say “yes”.  They certainly didn’t expect that everyone else at the table would answer in the affirmative. 

The happy ending to the story is that they had such a good time that evening that they never ended up “going to dinner” and stayed till 3:00am.  Both Tim and Lindsay had a great time and became regulars at my game days.  My group of friends welcomed them with open arms and we even started doing non-game related things with them as well.  When they got married last year, I stood up for Lindsay as a bridesman.

So when people hear about my fascination with games, and dismiss it as inconsequential, I choose to think of how games can be the glue that brings people together.  I have been fortunate to meet so many nice people through gaming, and New Year’s Eve has become a hallmark at the end and beginning of the year to remind me how lucky I am to have such a great group of friends and family.

© 2008 Scott Tepper

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Comments:

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Thank you for a truly great column, a good story and an excellent happy ending! Posted by Patrik Strömer on Jan 7, 2008 at 12:37 PM | #

My father, who is also an architect, and my mother have used incorporated some of the games I’ve introduced them to in their office Christmas parties.  Your cookie baking contest reminded me also of their Gingerbread building contest--they are all architects, after all! Posted by Jeff Allers on Jan 8, 2008 at 09:16 AM | #

It was, without question, the best New Year’s party I’ve ever been to. I had a lot of fun and met a bunch of nice people. Posted by Mike Pennisi on Jan 9, 2008 at 08:04 AM | #

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