Most diners in the 3rd Coast Cafe are discussing their weekends, their jobs or their mortgages. But at a long table in the corner there’s a group that stands out. They’re at war. “Ha, ha, warlord! My king cannot be destroyed by your assassin!”
Despite their bloody boasts, they’re not attracting too much attention from fellow diners. They’re simply a group of young Chicagoans who gather here at 1260 N. Dearborn St. each month to play board games. Tonight it’s Citadel, which challenges players to build medieval cities before their opponents.
In their jeans and sweat shirts, they don’t dress as well as some of the other patrons in this hip bistro. And the occasional outburst (“I’m going to dispatch my assassin and take over your castle!”) may sound strange. But they don’t care; they’ve got a kingdom to build.
“Gamers fall into that geeky stereotype,” says Rob Auch, a network administrator and computer-program writer when not portraying medieval characters. “You’re not going to find a lot of frat guys doing this.”
Who controls the castle?
Rob comes to these board-game gatherings with his wife, Amanda. Both 25, they love each other and they love playing games, but compassion goes out the window when the dice roll. “We have two shelves of games at home,” Rob says. “And she normally kicks my butt.” Amanda isn’t listening. She’s too busy stealing gold coins from another player’s kingdom.
Eventually she gets a break in play and Amanda chimes in. “Getting together to play board games is a great way to meet people,” she says before stealing her husband’s castle.
“That’s it. You’re not getting a ride home tonight,” he says.
“You didn’t drive here,” reminds his wife.
There are a few loosely organized gaming groups in the city. Many players commingle among the groups–Thursday nights at Guthrie’s Tavern (1300 W. Addison St.), Sundays at the Bourgeois Pig (738 W. Fullerton Ave.). The members of the 3rd Coast board-game group, all six from the Chicago area, schedule their gatherings online (at www.meetup.com) and bring their own games. Tonight they also play Fluxx and Sequence. But Citadel, from the newer genre of role-playing games, is the big hit.
Although most Americans grew up playing the classic games (Candyland, Clue, Monopoly) the modern games are more complicated. Hi Ho Cherry-O they ain’t.
“Take this game,” says Nate Scheidler, holding up Citadel. “People who are accustomed to old Parker Brothers games would get horribly confused by this.”
Scheidler is an admitted game addict. When the 31-year-old is not playing board games or working as an engineer with a video conferencing company, he’s at his computer, “blowing things up online.” He stresses that these gaming sessions are not competitive, but a little rivalry starts up between him and the player to his left.
Trash talk replaces pleasantries as the two try to vanquish each other. “Ohhhhh. You didn’t want to do that,” warns Scheidler when Tucker Bennett trades in gold coins for a piece of property.
Minutes later Scheidler miscounts his cards and Bennett responds, “This game is great for teaching basic arithmetic, isn’t it, Nate?”
In the battle of insults, at least, Bennett has an edge. As a linguistics student at the University of Chicago, he uses board games to keep his mind and tongue sharp. The only problem is, he’s too good–this group won’t play the word game with him anymore.
“But I can’t hold a candle to the Boggle players on the Internet,” he admits.
Genuine spills
Many in this group work with computers, and references to the Internet sprinkle their conversations. In cyberspace, accidents don’t happen, but in a restaurant hazards arise. When Bennett spills a glass of water, his opponent’s cards get soaked.
“This is the biggest risk of playing in a venue like this,” moans Scheidler. “We lost the magician.”
“Vanished in a puff of smoke and napkins,” chirps Bennett. The two spend the next five minutes haggling over the cost of plastic card protectors. “This is the problem with playing with too many geeks,” Rob Auch whispers.
“Board gamers are not hip,” Bennett says between games, when the players chat and the coffee cups are refilled.
The other patrons of the 3rd Coast are hip. They’re a well-dressed, young, attractive crowd. And the weird thing is, they keep peeking over at this table of people playing board games.
