Cabin Con 2021 - Part I
I've written about gaming weekends before. I've written about my own experiences, Do's and Don't's, that sort of thing. I wrote two blog posts about playing games with some friends of mine, Biff and Cushman. "Cabin Con" is an event of which I became aware last year. My friend Suf was getting married, and I was performing the ceremony. So I joined him and all but one of his groomsmen at a cabin in the woods near some mountains, and that's where we had Suf's bachelor weekend. It was freaking epic. Before I got married, my groomsmen asked me what I'd like for a bachelor party, as they were well aware I'd have no interest in the stereotypical evening of getting drunk at a strip club. So we did dinner and drinks at a really excellent place in Buffalo, chatted, and had a hockey game on in the background. It was great! I had mentioned the possibility of board games, but I was so thoroughly enjoying catching up with folks that I never really wanted to play any.
For Suf's bachelor party, we each cooked a meal while staying at the cabin, and there was an insane pile of games waiting for us to play. I knew Suf's best man, Josh, as Josh was also a friend of mine from college. But I had never before met Drew, Johnny, or Mike. I gotta say that they were one gracious, incredible group of people. I learned that this gaming getaway at the cabin was something they had done each summer for the past couple of years; very similar to the one my friends Biff and Cushman and I had spent the last 7 or so years doing at Lake of the Ozarks. And while the final groomsmen (Ryan) was unable to attend Suf's bachelor party, he was able to attend this summer when the cabin gaming weekend (or Cabin Con, as they call it) happened.
To be fair, the cabin in which we gamed was way nicer. And had a view of some very misty mountains!
I rarely play games with 7 people, so I talked to Josh ahead of time, trying to figure out what it would look like and what games I should bring (I don't own many 7 player games!). He mentioned that the group already had a bunch, but that we might also split into smaller groups sometimes, so I should bring what I wanted to bring. He did mention that he had been wanting to play Root and Twilight Imperium. He had also recently decided to buy into Star Wars Armada, buying some Republic stuff for himself (the Venator and the Pelta). I was able to track down the Republic starter set for him here in St. Louis, as well as two Republic squadron expansions and an Upgrade Card Collection. So I said I'd bring my Separatists to teach him the game as well as deliver all of the Republic components I had collected for him. It was easy enough for me to pack up and bring Twilight Imperium and Root. I figured even if everyone wanted to play Root, I've got the expansions, so six people could play a full game, and I'd just walk around the table helping people. That wasn't such a bad idea, given how many questions I knew there'd be.
I was originally planning on making pork and pineapple tacos with an avacado crema, but taco night was already scheduled. So I decided to make some chicken katsu with rice and green beans instead. In my mind, the key to good meals for gaming weekends is not just cheap and easy. After all, gaming often means sitting for hours on end, snacking on stuff we don't need to snack on, alternating between drinking soda and booze. I figured chicken katsu (while still fried) ends up feeling decently light, even with the sauce. Also, I learned early that this group is not content with only sitting inside and playing games. Outdoor games, exercise (a combination of working out and running), some martial arts...so I brought my kendo sticks, knowing that I'd like to make sure I also got outside and moved around. So I have plans for food and physical activity, as well as a couple of games. But what else would I bring?
Ultimately, I did decide to just bring the games about which I was most excited: Plague and Pestilence, Quacks of Quedlinburg, Five Tribes, Almost Got 'Im, Beyond the Sun, Fortune and Glory, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Abomination, Oath, Euphoria, and X-Wing. I knew we wouldn't get to the majority of them, given that Twilight Imperium is really long (and I'd have to teach it, as I was the only one who had played it before) and other people were also bringing piles of games. But I was driving, so I figured it wasn't a big deal to throw them in the trunk either way. I can tell you that I arrived a day later than everyone else, so I'm sure I played the fewest games. But I still ended up clocking 21 games, several of which I played multiple times, and 12 of which were new to me. Not bad for a couple of days spent in the woods!
There's no way I could break them all down in one post, and I'm not going to try. I will be writing about each of those games and in more detail in coming blog posts. But I do want to talk a little bit about what I think made my most recent gaming expeditions (this one and the one I spent with Cushman and Biff) successful for me personally. The first thing is I think many of us learned during the pandemic that our time is valuable, and that we've sometimes given it away too freely, or to the wrong people. Many of us discovered that we have not been treating our time as the precious and personal commodity that it is. Can there be anything more generous or personal than giving someone our time? The time we can never get back, or spend somewhere else? To that end, I have been doing my best to prioritize how I spend my time the way I want to be spending my time, and not necessarily the way I think I am expected to spend it. I value and love my friends and my family, and I'm doing my best to give them more of my time while spending less of it when I don't want to be spending time. I value my time spent playing games. I get plenty of it, but it's still not as much as I'd like. I have already made the choice not to spend MORE time playing games, which means my gaming time is valuable to me. So I spend it playing with the people I want to be playing with. These gaming weekends were spent with good people whom I value and cherish, and that meant it was time well-spent. That's not to say I won't play games casually ever again. But it does mean there was inherent value to how I spent my weekends, whether or not I enjoyed the games I played. After all, I wrote a post complaining about Estella Drive after playing it with Cush and Biff! But it wasn't time wasted because it was spent in the company of those two men. The same was true of Cabin Con, during which I didn't love every game we played, and there were one or two I'd be happy not to play again. But it was never time wasted, for which I'm grateful. Consider who you're spending the weekend gaming with, because it's not enough to be playing great games. I know this sounds obvious, but honestly, it's the reason I was happy to learn and play 12 new games, even while running on very little sleep.
Another thing is getting outside and being active. Even if the weather doesn't allow for much time spent outside, be active. Don't just schedule board games from morning to night. Because it's not healthy, and it does lead to bad moods and arguments. I brought my kendo sticks with me several weekends ago so I could run through my daily strike routine, and I did the same thing for Cabin Con 2021. I didn't get out there every single day with them, but nor did I just sit at a table playing games for 18 straight hours. It makes a difference! And to that end, so does staying hydrated and eating well. I limited my snacking to peanuts and gold fish rather than demolishing bag after bag of Doritos the way I have during past gaming weekends. I drank some soda to help keep me awake after a very long drive, but I mostly drank water and tea along with some scotch when I felt like nursing a glass of it. By the by, my scotch of choice for the weekend was the Glenlivet Founder's Reserve. My friend Roger introduced me to it, and I'm a big fan. Especially at its price point. However, Josh had also brought the very last of a bottle of Laphroaig 10 year, and that was an excellent addition to the weekend, given that Laphroaig is my favorite distillery. I was fine with not having a whole bottle of it, but just savoring some of it on the last night of the Con was perfect.
Finally, I've said this before, but I'll say it again: be willing to learn new games, but don't feel forced to play games you don't want to, or if you don't feel like it! I passed on a couple of games and felt better for it. Whether it was because I didn't feel like playing or because I wanted to go to bed or whatever, I felt better throughout the weekend for it. It felt like what it was meant to be: an enjoyable vacation, rather than a chore. I could have played more games, thus adding to my total. It could have been a competition for all of us to see who played the most games, or who played the most new games, or who won the most games, or whatever. But it never was, and that makes a huge difference in my personal enjoyment of such a weekend. I'm looking forward to sharing more with you in the coming weeks about the games we played and how they went. But in the meantime, please enjoy these pictures of our game stacks!
**Also, if anyone reading this is interested in this most excellent group of adventurers and their exploits, you should check out their Twitter! They're the Champions of Valinwood! https://mobile.twitter.com/ValinwoodHeroes/status/1417585561817260038
So much fun awaited us!
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