Shep's Games

Work has been crazy lately.  It interferes with my gaming at home, playing with my friends after work, my weekend gaming opportunities, my podcasting, and my blogging.  I spent the last week on business travel in Denver, Colorado, and I was determined to find some way to get some gaming contact after-hours.  A little internet searching turned up Shep's Games, and on blind faith I showed up there at about 6:00 pm last Thursday hoping to find some open gaming.

Shep's Games is a nice little FLGS run by a young couple who opened the business about a year and a half ago.  They don't have a lot of inventory on the shelves, but it is clearly a store run by gamers for gamers.  The games that they do have are well-selected.  Many are highlighted with a little sign on the shelf that say, "As seen on Geek and Sundry's Table Top."  They also have a substantial collection of Dungeons and Dragons books and Magic: The Gathering cards, the typical series that might reasonably help keep a store in business.  The back half of the room has a few tables with a fairly substantial open gaming library of options to "try before you buy."

Quality, if not quantity, on the
shelves at Shep's Games

Shep said that Thursdays were usually busy, but at the time I walked in, there was only a group of four playing Settlers of Catan.  I sat down to watch, hoping that they would finish early enough that I might get a chance to play something with them afterward.  It turned out that Shep was sponsoring a boardgame league in which regulars would come and play games to accumulate points on a weekly basis, and this Settlers game was an event in that league system.

One other person came into the store shortly after I sat down to watch, but she sat at another table, ate her dinner, and did homework the entire time I was there, so my hopes to start a separate two-player game didn't pan out.  I chatted with Shep and his partner for a while, and went back to watch what turned out to be a longer-than-average Settlers game.  The session finally ended around 7:30, but unfortunately closing time was 8:00, and no one expressed any interest in playing a filler for the remaining half-hour, despite such candidates like 7 Wonders and Splendor in the open gaming library.  A few more people came into the store late, looked at games on the shelves, and chatted with the people who had finished the Settlers game, but it became clear that I wasn't going to get to play.

I got up to leave, and one woman said, "Did you enjoy watching us play?" or something like that.  I said I did, and took my leave.  It occurred to me on my way out that that was only the second time that anyone other than Shep had spoken to me the entire evening.  The first time was when I asked if I could watch, and one of them said, "Sure."  Other than that, I might have been invisible for all the interaction I had with anyone at the table.

Maybe it was my personality, but it occurred to me also that I was still wearing my tie and overcoat from when I had been at work.  I hadn't gone back to the hotel room to change because I had worked so late and because I was so interested in getting to the game store and not missing any action.  As I was leaving, one of the customers actually said, "Goodnight, sir."  So I realized that these younger people in their very casual setting might have been a little put off by my business attire.  At Game Parlor Chantilly, where I used to play after work, it is not uncommon for government contractors and others to show up in a tie, or at least in some kind of business casual.  I didn't think about it at the time, but perhaps I looked like didn't belong there at Shep's on Thursday night, a long way from home, alone among friendly gamers in a friendly game store.

Shep's is a nice little venue, humble but "growing" as Shep said, with a thriving community of players.  I would encourage anyone who finds himself or herself in Aurora to stop by.  But next time I'll change out of my tie and into my jeans.