My Reintroduction to Tabletop Games as a Parent

For the last year or so, I have become more and more interested in the world of tabletop gaming.  You are certainly more familiar with the term "board game" and this would include classic games like Monopoly, Risk, The Game of Life, and Sorry.  Tabletop gaming is a bit more diverse, because it includes card games, dice games, and role playing games.  Online gaming can include these types of games, but in my experience, often is more a combative type of video game that can include role playing type games such as League of Legends or World of Warcraft and also includes first person shooters like Halo and Call of Duty.  I will fully admit that I have not played very much of any of the games that I just listed and this has created a huge bias for me and I am pretty sure if I was a teen instead of a 30-something parent, I would be much more invested in these type of games.

My status as a 30-something parent, however, gives me a perspective that leads me to believe that there is a place for gaming in my household.  It exists, however, sitting across from my children playing tabletop games and not playing a first person shooter with somebody else's kid.

My re-introduction to tabletop games happened by chance about a year and a half ago.  In following the suggested video on Youtube, I came across a video of Wil Wheaton (from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Big Bang Theory fame - as a fan of the TNT show Leverage, I must also point out his work on that show, also - Go "Chaos").   I was a huge Wesley Crusher fan so I decided to continue watching.  In the video, Wil was playing a tabletop game on his show Tabletop which appears on the Geek and Sundry Youtube channel.  As I discovered that there were multiple episodes of the show, I began to watch more and more of them until my binge watching was stopped by the fact there were no more episodes.

One episode in particular caught my interest and that was the Ticket to Ride episode.

I thought to myself - "Self, this is totally something that you could do with Bethany and Kaitlyn".  Bethany and Kaitlyn are my two daughters who at the time would have been 10 and 9.  I was a bit skeptical of how I would make this work as I had not played games in a long time because, and I have to be honest here, I hate to lose and have been known to be a poor sport.  I truly blame "only child" syndrome and would like to believe that I have matured and done some growing up.  The fact is, I have gotten much better, and don't mind losing, because I have a new goal in mind when playing.  I will get into that a bit more in a moment.

So, I happened upon a copy of Ticket to Ride in a local Chapters book store a couple of months later and introduced it to the girls.  And boy am I happy that I did.

What an amazingly rich experience it was.  The new goal of my tabletop gaming experience became one of having a great time with my two daughters.  Who won or lost was inconsequential.  IF the experience for them and for me was a positive one, I was a winner.  No trophy or victory dance was necessary.  The opportunity I had to sit down for 45+ minutes with my girls, our focus on a similar experience was amazing.  We were certainly not victims to the relatively short attention spans everyone seems to have these days, rather we were able to engage with one another, talking about our lives while our fellow player strategized their next move.  The tabletop game created time for us to enjoy one another.  It was fantastic.

Ticket to Ride has become one of our family's favourite games and I plan to continue to write this blog reviewing new games to us and sharing our learning and experiences.  Keep checking back for more blog posts in the very near future.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I am becoming a huge fan of tabletop games, but they are not cheap.  So, I signed up to Amazon's Affiliate program and anything that is purchased from Amazon through the links on my site, get me a small portion of the profits.  My plan is to use this "revenue" to purchase more games that I can then play with my kids and review.  So, if you would like to play a game I have reviewed, click on the Amazon link.

To purchase a copy of Ticket to Ride from Amazon, click here.