About four or five years ago, I cautiously ventured into the outer reaches of a community of geeks that were shrouded in secrecy to me.  I’d spent time in the neighboring community of pen and paper role-playing geeks.  And I had my home set right up in the other neighboring community of video game geeks.  But I had never before ventured into the realm of the board game geek.  Growing up, I came across people who were really into stuff like fantasy novels, sci-fi movies, anime, comics, toy collecting, D&D, miniatures and so on.  Still, I never really talked to anyone online or in person whose main obsession was board games.   But the board game community is out there, it is large, it is active and it is awesome.

Since I was fascinated with pen and paper role-playing early on and always fascinated with video games, you would think I would have made the natural connection to board games earlier.  I think it’s because we think of board games like Monopoly, Sorry or Chutes and Ladders when we hear board games.  But there are tons of amazing games like Puerto Rico, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan and Caylus, to name a few, which are definitely made for adults and which put a much larger emphasis on skill rather than luck (not to say that luck can’t play a factor too - I definitely like a dose of luck).

[click to continue…]