My regular gaming group decided to take a break from roleplaying and try our hand at a Legacy style game, Pandemic Legacy to be precise. This past Saturday on International Tabletop Day, we broke the seal on the box and began our foray into this co-operative legacy experience. I won’t give any spoilers for the game, because that is not what I want to muse about here.

Experiencing our first card tearing! Hard for people who love to keep their games in good shape. Love how each of us show different emotions while doing this. Quite the gang of actors in my gaming group. Love these guys!

While playing this game, cheering at our successes, groaning at our mistakes, laughing at our quotes, and cringing at the permanent Legacy aspects of the game, I was reminded so much of why I love gaming and the impact gaming groups have had on my life. While playing we kept bringing up references to previous games we played, things that happened in our lives, and shared insider jokes. So many shared memories experienced that day while playing a game that remembers from session to session how you played the game. Pandemic Legacy has become quite the allegory for my life as a gamer.

Legacy
noun
anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor
(Source: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/legacy?s=t)

This got me to reflecting this week on how my gaming group today and my past gaming groups have impacted me as a person. I had a gaming group in junior high/high school, then a new one in college, then one while in graduate school, then one after college, and now one that has varied some in membership but has been with me almost twenty years now, ever since I started my career here at Taylor and moved to Upland. I still game with many of the former members as well as they leave and rejoin the group at times.

Each of those gaming groups has taught me about gaming and friendship. I have grown as a gamer and a person through the friendships, camaraderie, and shared experiences. Over the years, these gaming groups have built a legacy in my life of permanent changes just like these Legacy style games are permanently modified while playing them. I have some shared scars as we have all worked through life’s challenges and some heartwarming shared memories of joys as we have celebrated together life’s blessings.

Now, I share my passion for gaming with an additional gaming group, my daughters. It is my privilege to pass to another generation the Legacy of a gaming group and all that entails. Where will this lead them? How many gaming groups will they have in their lives? I don’t know, but I do wish that they are as blessed with such amazing friendships, memories, and experiences as I have had with my gaming groups.

How have your gaming groups impacted your life? What legacy have they passed along to you?

Legacy Gaming or Gaming Legacy?

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2 thoughts on “Legacy Gaming or Gaming Legacy?

  1. I think you’ve said everything I could possibly say about what my gaming group(s) have meant to me. My gaming friends are still among my closest friends and they’re the ones I go to when I have news or difficulties to share or just rant about. Gaming brought so many people into my life that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise come to know and for that I can’t say enough good about it.

    1. Agree completely. Gaming brought amazing people into my life that have become even more than friends to me, they are family. We share our lives together, not just our hobbies.

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