My Addiction

Newsletter 2023-08-05

I’m a board game guy. I live in the city that hosts one of the biggest annual board game conventions in the world. Before this weekend, I’d never been to that convention. That tracks. I’ve also never been to the Indy 500, which is pretty much the only other thing Indianapolis is known for. In my defense, I drive everyday, and when I do, I actually get somewhere instead of going in circles. Also, I have a minivan, which is objectively cooler than any race car. Thursday, I finally broke my streak of ignoring famous local events. I attended Gen Con for the first time in my life, and I have some thoughts. So did the other fifty thousand people in attendance, all of whom are very grateful I won’t be going back.

This was all my friend Seth’s idea. A few years ago, my group that plays Halo together on Friday nights started taking an annual summer vacation together. Our first outing was a trip to Vegas, and our second was a board game weekend at my house. Friendscation 2 was objectively better than Friendscation 1, mainly because I didn’t have to buy plane tickets or pay for an Airbnb. Also, I could fall asleep in my own bed, which is way better for hangovers. For Friendscation 3, Seth suggested that we go to Gen Con, which he attended a few times years ago. I was immediately on board, mainly because it’s half an hour from my house and I once again wouldn’t have to book a flight or pay for a hotel room. Better yet, everyone could stay with me and pile into my amazing minivan, which would whisk us to my free parking spot four blocks from the convention center. I don’t have many connections in life, but I do have a place to stash my vehicle in downtown Indianapolis for zero dollars all day. At event-day rates, that probably saved me a grand total of thirty-five bucks, a fact I brought up repeatedly like I had gotten us all bumped up to first class on a transatlantic flight. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, and if you don’t, talk about that great parking spot some more.

The crew arrived at my house Thursday morning. It was actually just Seth from my hometown and my friend Greg from Chicago, plus Lola, who always gets roped into my adventures because she made the mistake of marrying me sixteen years ago. I’m lucky she doesn’t have a time machine. Everybody else sent their regrets, even though I’m sure they felt the opposite of what that word means. There’s no greater delight than having a legitimate excuse to avoid a weekend-long social engagement. It ended up being a hectic morning. Besides being the opening day of Gen Con, it was also the first day of school. I spent the pre-dawn hours driving my oldest two girls to class breakfasts and hunting for details about the bus pickup time for the younger two, none of which had been relayed to us ahead of time. I hoped that was a simple oversight and not a way to quietly expel my kids. Fortunately, a bus popped up on the tracking app, and I put them on it under the assumption that it would take them to the right school. Then Lola and I frantically cleaned before Seth and Greg showed up. They arrived, and we headed downtown.We pulled into my amazing parking spot shortly before noon. The four-block walk from there to the convention center felt significantly longer than I expected. When the farthest you normally travel is from your computer chair to the fridge, your sense of distance tends to get skewed. These days, my legs are just for decoration.

Finally, after a not-that-long hike in the hot sun that left me exhausted, we arrived at the convention center. To say the place was big would be an understatement. It didn’t occur to me until that moment just how enormous of a number fifty thousand really is. There were more people inside on that Thursday afternoon than there were in the entire city where I grew up. As far as I could tell, all of those attendees were congregated in the hallways, which were each the size of aircraft hangers but that still somehow felt cramped. We had our passes shipped to us ahead of time, so we didn’t have to wait in line to check in. We also had no idea where to go. We wandered for quite a while, unable to find any board games at this seemingly endless board game convention. Finally, Seth committed the ultimate man sin and asked for directions. A helpful attendant pointed us toward the main room. We were in.

This was like the Super Bowl for board game nerds. But despite being perfectly suited to my interests, it was also very much not for me. While I love board games, I absolutely don’t need any more of them. I have yet to play or even learn the rules for all the ones I already own. Then again, no one in the history of the world has ever actually needed a board game. Even with all of the time I’ve spent in the hospital, I have yet to hear a doctor tell someone, “You have to buy the collector’s edition of Axis and Allies or you’ll die.” Board games are an elective extravagance for people who prefer cardboard over trendy clubs and vacations to Cabo. Then again, that cardboard can be extremely expensive. My preferred way to acquire board games is second-hand on Facebook Marketplace. I don’t even want to pay for shipping since that wipes out the savings. I always search for local pickup only, even if that means I have to spend an hour driving to the other side of Indianapolis to save ten dollars on a game. For most people, time is money, but my time is worthless, which is why I spend all this money on board games to kill it. My absolute least favorite way to get a game is by paying regular retail price, yet that’s exactly what a board game convention is. It’s a giant pop-up store featuring brand new, full-MSRP products aimed at the kind of enthusiasts who pay top dollar to get things right away. I’m not sure which it hurt more, my budget or my soul.

So what did I do at the board game convention? Bought board games, of course. I’d already paid a significant sum just to get in. The only way to get a worse deal at that point was to pay the entrance fee and go home empty-handed. The convention preyed on my greatest weakness. I can’t ask someone to demonstrate their game for me and then not buy it. I hate spending money, but I hate social awkwardness even more. Looking some desperate vendor in the eyes while I slowly backed away was never an option. I should have invested in some ninja smoke bombs so I could have disappeared without a trace. Instead, I quickly ended up with more board games than I could carry. My greatest moment was when I found a wholesale retailer who sold the same games from other people’s booths, but for seventy-five percent off. It’s possible he was robbing other sellers. I made the strategic decision not to ask too many questions. I bought six games at fire sale prices, which would have been the deal of a lifetime were I not already so massively in the hole from dropping all that money on convention tickets. Then I had the privilege of walking four blocks back to my car in the heat of the day to deposit everything so I could fill up my arms again with more unneeded purchases. It was like sending a heroin addict to a poppy-growing convention. Gen Con is run by the worst kind of enablers.

The fact that all I did there was buy stuff was entirely my fault. There were literally thousands of other things to do. When I looked at the schedule beforehand, each hour had over a hundred options. My finger got exhausted just trying to scroll to the second time slot of the day. Overwhelmed, I didn’t sign up for anything. I thought I’d figure it out when I got there, but that’s not how I operate at all. If I don’t have it planned out well in advance, it’s just not going to happen. My life is where spontaneity goes to die. Rather than listening to featured speakers or sitting down for organized game sessions, I walked around the buying floor for six straight hours. By the end of the day, I had traveled 22,000 steps, which isn’t something my body could handle. While I’ve mastered sitting with my open wound, I hadn’t pondered the effect of a day-long hike. By closing time, I was limping like I’d been shot in the butt. It’s a mistake to ever let me out of the house.

Thankfully, I could fall back on the healing power of meat. We ended the day by going to a Mongolian steakhouse where servers bring you unlimited skewers of meat until you flip over your coaster to the red side to show that you give up. I left mine green the entire time, yet, eventually, the meat guys stopped coming to my table. My new crowning achievement is that I discovered infinity has an end. At the point when normal people get full, our server began to check in on me to see if I was waiting for anything in particular. She expected me to say some fancy cut of steak, but I just wanted meat, period. Finally, we left when it became clear that I had exhausted their resources and their patience. I defeated the Mongolian steakhouse. I think that makes me the new Genghis Khan. Next stop, the rest of the known world.

The second day was the best part of Friendscation. Sometimes the real prize actually is the friends you made along the way—or the friends you had beforehand so you didn’t need to make any more among the fifty thousand people at the board game convention. I didn’t want to walk another 22,000 steps or to spend all the money I would waste along that journey. I paid for admission for four days and only went for one, but for once, I grasped the sunk cost fallacy. I decided to use day two to do what I actually loved. After the kids left for their second day of school, the four of us stayed at my house to play all the new board games we bought the day before. Well, that I bought. Everyone else exhibited some level of self-control. Our friends Peter and Lila joined us again (They also met us at the steakhouse the night before because who doesn’t like almost-but-not-quite infinite meat?), bringing our player count to six. It was a day of drinking and snacks and arguing over rules that we tried to learn as we went along. I was in heaven. Best of all, my house doesn’t have an admission fee, although maybe it should. Time to start making some money off the four freeloaders who live here year-round.

When the kids got home from school, they joined in. I specifically picked up games at the convention that I thought they would play, which is usually a fool’s errand. Getting something I think my daughters will like instantly makes them hate it. This time, though, I hit the mark. My girls were especially fond of a block stacking game where you try to make the tower collapse on someone else’s turn. You basically get to use geometry to be a jerk, which is the only way math will ever be interesting. Unfortunately, Lola and my oldest daughter, Betsy, both have incredibly steady hands and great minds for structural stability. In other words, they’re witches. They might be unbeatable, but I love them anyway. I have to say that so they don’t turn me into a newt. I can’t wait to see what terrifying truths I learn about them next year. Time to start planning Friendscation 4.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James