Summer and Gaming

This month the Blog Carnival over at rpgba.org is hosted by Dice Monkey and is about summer and gaming. This is a rather wide open topic and can be anything about gaming in summer.

Please note that the below post is meant as satire. I love gaming and love the gaming community. The purpose of this post is to poke fun at the stereotypes we have all endure because of our hobby, as well as share a little bit of what happens at my local hobby store.


So what does gaming in the summer mean to me you ask?
The scent in the local hobby shop makes the transition from overwhelming smell of Subway to the nauseating scent of Subway and lack of deodorant. Looking on as our local Warhammer players stuff extra foam into old gun cases to protect their miniatures paint jobs. Gaping in horror as the sweat pours over the XXL D20 t-shirt of our resident rules lawyer. Becoming hypnotized as the pit stains under the arms of my groups munchkin continue to grow and glisten like a radiant pool of sweat. Shaking my head as the Magic: TG players wipe their hands before every draw in a vain attempt to keep their cards dry. Realizing that without their trench coats and eye-liner the Vampire players do sort of look like people. At some point and time I will be chasing character sheets and adventure notes through the parking lot as a cool summer breeze whisks them away. Someone at some point will get the idea that gaming in the park would be awesome, it will rain. my mind will spend many nights pondering how, with the sun so bright, can so many people be so pale? Being asked to remind the Yu-Gi-Oh players that heat related injures are five times more likely in children than adults. Apologizing when I realize that the Yu-Gi-Oh players are 35. For the next three to four months I must substitute at least one Mountain Dew per session to a bottle of water. This is done to ensure I stay hydrated and can continue to eat Cool Ranch Doritos. The fights over 4th edition vs 3.5 dissipate because it is "just to damn hot to argue." Calling my group to confirm a gaming session only to find that at least one of them will be on vacation and well will have to reschedule. The rescheduled date is normally some time in October. Almost falling out of my chair when I saw that Fantasy Flight Games finally released Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. Seeing people fall over from heat exhaustion as they attempt the hill climb up the parking lot to the hobby shop, arms filled with dice and books. My local shop fills with creepy anti-social kids because school is out. I like it better when it is filled with creepy anti-social middle aged people better. The Warhammer players convert half the gaming tables to "painting tables" because they do not have air conditioning at home. Due to the close proximity of the Subway and the A/C a select few people will live in the shop, attempting to lay out sleeping bags in the back gaming room under Berlin, right in the middle of a game of Flames of War. D20s fall at a snails pace as the humidity sinks into the shop. Finally, and by far the best thing about gaming over the summer, it's only three months long here and then its fall.