Wicked Die #1 I Like Games, But Buzzers Freak Me Out

Deacon Kole’s Wicked Die #1: I Like Games, But Buzzers Freak Me Out

Games are an obsession of mine. I’m sure you like them, too, or you’d probably be investigating lewd and excruciatingly bizarre video clips instead of reading this. When I say obsession, though, I really mean it. I’ll play anything, anytime, anywhere, with whatever barnyard animal isn’t out shooting those previously mentioned clips. Board games, card games, dice games, role-playing games, sometimes even mind games&I can never get enough of them. When a new product comes out, or a friend shows me a game I’ve never played, I can’t wait to fully immerse myself in whatever new challenge that game presents. I may just have an overactive imagination, but I can really see myself in any games scenario, whether I’m a bloodthirsty pirate, an infamous rogue, a Chez Geek slacker&anything. Okay, so the slacker part isn’t imagined. Regardless, games help us be anyone or anything we want.

It wasn’t always that way for me, though. The first game I really remember playing was Perfection, that motorized game that gives you a very (very) short time to put all the intricate little pieces into their own special spot before an extremely nerve-wracking hateful buzzer goes off and all the little pieces are spit out dejectedly. Remember that one? If I somehow end up in Hell when I leave this mortal coil (I say that as innocently as I can muster), my damnation will be playing that game with a missing piece for all eternity. Anyway, as a little kid, that game would frustrate me to no end. Sure, most little kids start with Candyland or Chutes and Ladders. Not me. This may be why I’m a little edgy. This may also be why I feel like I lost every time the alarm clock’s buzzer goes off.

Things got better on Christmas in 1986. My uncle gave me Clue, and my parents (my Santa delusions didn’t last long) presented me with Monopoly. Those two games started a fire in me that hasn’t yet and will probably never die down. Just to prove that I was worthy of the Awesome Ability to Play Games, I swore that I would win the first time I played those games. First was Clue. Yeah, my reasoning for choosing the Conservatory as the place of the murder was slightly irrational (I guessed based on where I thought that wicked old Ms. Peacock would must likely want to strangle someone), but I guessed correctly. A week later, when I finally had a decent understanding of the rules to Monopoly, I dominated the first of many games against my family with the under-appreciated Orange properties. I was from then on a gamer for life.

My teenage years brought some interesting changes. No, not puberty, I’m talking D & D here! My exposure to Dungeons and Dragons reached way back earlier, but at the time I had no idea what my older cousins meant by “I cast magic missile.” I just thought the colorful little dice were cool . Kind of like how my girlfriend feels about the whole thing now. As teenagers, though, my buddies and I would all sit around and try to think up something really cool to do. Something besides throw firecrackers at people. When Nate’s mom walked into his family room one day and showed us all what she got for us to play, it was like some wondrous old wizard had cast Charm Person on us all. Apparently, the old codger also cast Conjure Geek Humor. Immediately, we rolled up and showed off our new characters, of which I remember two: my thief character, Erik the Shriek and Gideon’s fighter, Penis the Dwarf. Pen-is with a short e sound. Yeah, it wasn’t long before Gid wanted to make a new character. Craving more, we graduated to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and after a few years, many characters, and multiple campaigns we tried new roleplaying games. Then came collectible card games, collectible dice games, collectible broken glass games&.and we played them all. We played them until it was time to leave our small town and our gaming sessions for college, jobs, the military and the other hack and slash dungeon crawls of the Real World.

Compared to that, I was hard pressed to find a gaming group that was as much fun to play with as the old gang. Not only that, but now that I was out of the house and “allowed” to own a video game system, my gaming for the next few years was pretty self-contained. My new groups would heavily compete for video game championships and bragging rights. A new kind of gaming experience for me during this time was party games, which always struck me as an odd name because most parties I’ve gone to are much too crowded and hectic (not to mention slobberingly drunken) to whip out the ol’ Win, Lose, or Draw home game. You know what I mean, though, games like Taboo, Outburst, Balderdash (of which I am STILL undefeated and I openly invite anyone that thinks they can b.s. me to try), and other games of that ilk. We played when we weren’t working, sometimes when we were. Gaming had lost some of the luster of getting together with sodas, pizzas, and billions upon billions of multicolored dice, cards, and friends. I missed the all-night game sessions of yore.

That brings me to the past couple months. After repeated Texas propaganda assaults and explanations that Austin, Texas is an excellent city with lots of gaming potential, I coerced one of my old gaming pals to pack up his dice and move to the Lone Star state. That buddy was none other than Gaming Outpost’s very own Nick Lalone, who had the dubious honor of playing the most tortured character in my Ravenloft campaign, Riorg the RedSkull. Since he got in, it’s been the whirlwind of gaming that I have been craving. We starting a new gaming group that frequently plays board games, card games, Cheapass Games of all kinds, and the tragically unsupported Ghostbusters RPG. Not only am I getting my recommended daily intake of games, but now I get to do things I thought impossible a few years back. I’ve playtested a new Steve Jackson Game and been given a tour of Warehouse 23, I’m involved with some projects for Alderac Entertainment Group, and I’m finally on the verge of finishing my very own game creation. If I could make my full time job gaming, I’d be in eternal dice-chucking bliss.

You may wonder why I’ve chronicled my gaming history for all to see. The answer to your pondering, my friend, is that reminiscing on my introduction to all these games has reminded me that being open-minded about new things has opened some doors for me, and has resulted in a lot of amazingly fun times had with friends. If I hadn’t given any one of those games a chance, I’d have definitely missed out on some laughs and even some chances to flex my imagination. I’m willing to bet that if you were to think back on your earlier gaming experiences, you’d come across a similar conclusion. So, to all the games I’ve ever played, the games I will play, and to the games I’ll sadly never get a chance to enjoy, I dedicate this first of hopefully many Wicked Die columns. Don’t knock a game until you’ve tried it, and even if you didn’t like it the first time, try it again. The name of the game is having fun. Now that I’ve gotten about as philosophical as I can, I’m going to wind up some Perfection and kick that sorry buzzer’s ass this time!

- Deacon Kole