Alpha gamer?  I have no idea what you’re talking about!  I think that my local group has a few “alpha” type gamers and we seem to have developed an informal pattern where the others defer to whichever one is hosting any particular session… That being said, I’m not entirely sure that any of us would really ever completely dominate the game selection.

However, at some point, I think every group needs someone who is willing to step up to the plate and decide what’s going to be played.  Otherwise, the group will play nothing but fillers and those frustrating games that people play only because they don’t grossly offend anyone—though the games themselves don’t really offer much when looked at in the individual sense.

Dale

Yes, I’ll admit to being what you refer to as an “Alpha Gamer” (though not so domineering as an “Alpha & Omega Gamer").  Same as you, when I was new to gaming and didn’t know the people here that well, I usually deferred to their choices.  Slowly, I started to bring my own games too, and as my confidence with German-gamer-speak increased, even started to teach the games that the others didn’t know.

We run into a different sort of problem in our group, though:  the Alpha Game Designer (or should I say “desperate game designer needing playtesters").  Since there are at least five of us who always have one or more prototypes to test, we often play a metagame of subtle suggestions, raising eyebrows, and reaching slowly into loaded backpacks, until someone finally spreads out his home-made creation onto the table.  I really don’t mind who goes first, as long as each designer gets a shot.

I’ve played with Alpha gamers, and enjoy it-- perhaps even prefer it, but I find it encourages me to be lazy.  Because I started in a group where there was basically one guy who decided what to play, and then taught people to play it, I really started to rely on him (or someone like him) to be there especially when games needed to be explained.

I’ve since been in situations where there was no alpha gamer, or where people looked to me to decide the game and/or teach it.  I can do it, and I’m not bad at it but it still makes me uncomfortable, and I wonder if that would be different if I hadn’t come into gaming under such a strong leader.

Maureen,
While I miss Kevin and my Athens game group tremendously, I definitely grew as a gamer once I didn’t have him to rely on any more.  Of course, at the same time I also started traveling to more game conventions as a way to see the friends that I missed--and that probably had a big impact on my gaming as well.
Valerie

Someone like Paul almost invariably winds up being an alpha game introducer because someone like Paul almost invariably spends a greater amount of money on games than the lightweights around him!  If he and his ilk didn’t get to choose what gets played as frequently as possible, we’d be stuck playing the same 7 games that everybody loves:  Munchkin, LCR, Das Wasser des Lebens, Fingerball,
20 Questions, Manga Manga, and Spy.

Yes, I’m definitely an alpha gamer. I believe there’s an ideal ratio of alpha gamers and other gamers in a game group. With all alpha gamers, game choice becomes a fight, with no alpha gamers it’s an endless mire of “what do you want to play, I don’t know, let’s play something, what shall we play, I don’t know”.

After several years in our game group, I believe that having enough alpha gamers choosing most of the games played is essential to using most of the time to actually play the games instead of choosing the games.

Maybe, Maureen, we need to implement a “young Alpha’s” training program:) Seriously, though, it’s always a good thing to encourage others to be more proactive, especially for some of us with “control freak” tendancies.

I have a game night with my youth group, and have been slowly encouraging them to learn how to teach the rules of their favourite games to others.  I’ve added the goal of holding a special “Family Game Night” in a Family Center in another part of town to introduce people to the hobby. The youth, then, will divide up and be actively involved in teaching the games while I roam around to help and encourage them.

By the nature of my game collection, I guess I have inadvertently become an Alpha gamer.  To your list of 7 choices, I have an additional one:  An older game that I haven’t gotten to play yet. 

Because I have so many games, I sometimes fall prey to analysis paralysis trying to decide what games to bring to a game day.

Heck, if I’d have known you had Through the Ages I’d have insisted on you teaching that rather then Phoenicia.

But yes, it’s always better to have a plan or you could get stuck playing not-quite-what-you-wanted all night.

Sniff - so you don’t like playing with me at the pub?  :)

Attendance started dropping once I started showing up. :-)

I tend to be an alpha gamer due to having a fairly large game collection.  Now that our gaming group has grown in size we’ve started to increase the number of alpha gamer candidates.  I don’t think we have any overly strong alpha gamers, as there is still a short amount of group-think that goes on before we break into groups.

The major issue is typically trying to divide our group into two (or sometimes three) playable groups.  Once that resolves, the games selected tend to fall into place.  However, I find that choosing a single game early and having those that want to play it flock to it is a good way to get the ball rolling.