>> GAMES > GAMING CULTURE

Like Crack, Except Plastic...and Legal.

For the first time in a good long while your friendly neighbor Geek found himself with a completely free weekend. Tempted I may have been to sit on my butt and frag digital demons all weekend I decided to get out of the Hall of Justice and wander the city. (Plus, the lovely Illusionaire has this thing about "getting out", chicks). During our various weekend adventures we found ourselves in Beaverton with a dangerous amount of free time on our hands and being the dork that I am, I suggested we burn some time at the local comic book shop. You see, my newest obsession is to hunt down all the old West End Games Star Wars RPG books that I foolishly got rid of years ago (with the exception of the 2nd edition core rules, just couldn't part with it). Clearly I am not the only person with said obsession, as there is nary a book to be found when only a few months ago the clearance racks were sick with them. Turning to leave beaten, but not defeated my girl pointed at a rather flashy box displaying Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader engaged in mortal Lightsaber Combat... Rather innocently she asked

"Is this the one you were looking for?"

Still I was strong.

See, I know my own addictive nature and I know that if I enjoyed the game in even the slightest I would find myself buying booster after booster of the little collectable plastic pieces. It would be high school all over again as I attempted to convince my parents that Magic cards were not only good drug free fun, but also a potential investment in my financial future. Well, my Chaos Orb and Black Lotus never covered a down payment on a car, but they did get me the cash to pay for a signed copy of Batman #497. (What? A Geek’s gotta’ have priorities). With age does indeed come wisdom and I was able to fight the temptation that was Star Wars Miniatures each and every time. Until I heard the phrase that both excited me and marked my doom...

“Is it like a board game? Would it be something I’d like?”

Damn, Jenn was expressing interest in a game that was, at the very fringes, a role playing game. Hell, what kind of a dice tosser would I be if I tried to convince her not to play the game. A few short minutes and $19.95 later we were leaving Beaverton with a starter set of Star Wars Miniatures - Rebel Storm! All my strength and willpower tossed to the wayside, I tore open the box as we made our way back to Portland. They say that scent evokes some of the strongest memories and as I ripped open the starter box I was taken back to the days of cracking voices and all night fragging. As the scent of fresh plastic and card coating filled my senses I couldn’t help but grin. In the same fashion as new car smell or new baby smell, all games have a certain odor to them. The scent of whimsy wrapped up in industrial plastics. Okay, so that doesn’t sound too great to you straights, but to us gamers... That is the scent of home. After mulling over the rules, which I basically knew as they are based on the D20 system, I sat down the lovely Jenn and began to explain them to her the best I could.

The look was almost instantaneous.

She was lost. I had blown it. I had taken her precursory interest in role playing games and blown them by tossing too much at her all at once. Mind you, she is no slouch when it comes to such things (just take a look at this site), and yet here I was confusing someone who had exponentially more brain power then myself. Doing my best to backtrack and cover anything I may have missed she finally looked at me and asked if we could just start playing and she would learn as we skirmished. (A quick note as to what you get “out of the box” when you buy a starter set. As promised on the box you get a random sampling of figures but are guaranteed a Luke Skywalker, A Hew Hope era, and a Darth Vader. It doesn’t take a statistician to realize that whomever has the Dark Lord is going to kick Bantha ass). Seeing that I wanted her to learn and not be routed instantly I chose the Rebels while she controlled the Empire. (Yes, the game is designed to be balanced, but it requires that you buy more sets before you can play a truly balanced game). The first few rounds went less then smoothly, even for yours truly as I would often mix the real D20 rules with the massively scaled down rules for Star Wars Miniatures. My quest to get my girl into RPGs wasn’t going very well.

Then something happened.

About 25 minutes into the game, something within Illusionaire clicked. The rules made sense and she was in every way enjoying the strategy of the game. By then, my lowly Rebel forces had taken out all but 1 of her figures... Guess which one? Yes, my girl had fallen fully into the Dark Side and was getting much pleasure in decimating my troops one by one. Even going so far as to “Take out the stronger ones first, so your lesser troops have time to shudder in fear.” (Yes, she can indeed be cold and heartless...and I love her for it)! As my final Rebel fell to Darth Vader’s Force Choke (she didn’t have the decency to use his Lightsaber on me) she grinned and raised her arms victoriously. Look, I was proud of her and all, but did she have to take such joy in my decimation? Asking her if she liked the game she gave me a resounding “yes”, that we would have to play it again. Then she said something quite matter of factly that made my day, week, possibly even year.

“But you’re right, you need more figures to play it correctly... We need buy some booster packs.”

This time it was my turn to raise my arms in triumph! Success! I had done it... My girlfriend had taken her first steps into a Geekier world. I chanted for all to hear: “One of us, one of us, one of us!” She looked at me in mock horror as she realized what she had just said. Jenn, the woman who a little over a year ago had wanted to black out the 5 and 6 on a die to pick driving directions, forgetting that I owned dozens of D4s, here she was...Wanting to buy booster packs to a Star Wars Miniatures game, the closest thing we dice tossers have to a gateway drug.

Excellent.