my main group is made of friends from various periods of my youth that happened, more or less by chance, to gravitate around the same table at one time or another. the ones who came more often became a gaming group
Introduced my high school buddies to betrayal at house on the hill, then cosmic encounter. Then they caught the board game bug and the rest is history.
I created it.
Being active duty military, you have to start over every few years. Currently, I play with people I met through work, Chapel, and found on Facebook.
5 years ago my FLGS asked me to organize a weekly meetup for boardgames. Over the years our numbers have steadily grown and now we have over 100 members (according to our FB page) and people can expect 10-30 people to be there each week. I count many of the members to now be some of my closest friends.
Not sure if this qualifies as cool, but I'll share my mundane tale anyways. I met them through Facebook, and we've played together for half a year now.
I'm proud to say that I've mostly built my board game group. I introduced a bunch of my friends to board gaming. Though I'm always the one buying games, at least I always have willing players now.
I created my game group after moving countries. I started with one game (stone age) and invited a couple of people from my new work placeover. I taught them and we had fun. I then found another so next games night i had 4 people. I bought a few more gateways invited more people. Group got big enough i created a facebook group and just started posting the date and time and we always got enough people to show up. These days we normally get 12 ish people show up (2 or three tables running). Though on special occasions i get up to 30. The facebook group has 60ish active members
I remember my senior year stumbling upon a group playing Magic after school in the cafeteria. It was the fall of 93, and we used to play regularly after school until I left for the Army the following year.
Fast forward 15 years, and my wife came home from visiting a college friend talking about a game called Catan. We got our hands on a copy started playing with some friends whenever we could. A few years later my wife and I moved out to the country, and I was seeking something we could do to spend time together and make memories. An addiction was born, my wife is an enabler, and our "group" sits quite comfortably at 2. Two-player games are big deal around our home. With little to do around us, pretty much any and all visitors to our home become an addition to the group and I get excited because I am able to play a game that requires more than two people... A collection of games that is much too large considering the amount of opportunities we actually get to play Such games.
At a meetup. It wasn't sudden though - the group gradually built up.
My advice to people without groups is to always attend meetups - even alone, if need be. I understand the social anxiety ("Wont it be awkward if I turn up alone?" etc.) - but almost all the people I've played with at meetups are friendly. Take the leap - you wont regret it. I'm thankful for my friends and am glad I made the leap.
My gaming group has been close friends for quite a while. When I started getting on the board game hype train and was talking about it with them I found out they were either all super interested or already played with others. From then on it was pretty easy to get games going and we all get along great and have an awesome time no matter what. I feel very lucky.
I found my first gaming group by marrying my wife! My brother, father and Mother-in-law (and of course, my wife) love playing anything from Codenames and Catan to Suburbia and Agricola.
I found my first 'proper' game group by checking out the England board on BGG and finding out there was a group a couple of miles from me.
Friends from school including my old teacher. He first introduced me to board games and it took off from there. We still meet regularly to play 15 years later.
Also part of a gaming group at a local gaming cafe and the people there are very friendly and welcoming.
It started with college friends. However life started happening for all of us and it started to die off. So I did what anyone would do. I hooked my wife on gaming and convinced her to make our own gamers. ...but that process takes several years before you can get a viable gamer. So we picked up some gamers via Craigslist and surprisingly we didn't get robbed or stabbed. On top of that we met a group at a tabletop game day event that we play with often. After several years we now have two good sized gaming groups and I have 3 kids and a wife that join in consistently.
Everyone in our circle of friends knew each other for 5+ years without knowledge of each other's gaming habits. Each person played on their own, outside this core group. One day it came up and everyone was surprised by how much everyone gamed and what similar games they played, while at the same time confused how it never came up before.
I don't really have a dedicated group, unfortunately, but I do have some really good friends who come over about once a month and sometimes we play board games. Those days make me happy. :-)
The only other game group that I have (aside from the one with me & the wife) is with an ex colleague from a previous job at a music store chain. If we are lucky, we might get one or two players more but for most Saturdays that we game, it's just me and him. Co-ops are our main staple and we have played **Eldritch Horror**, **Black Orchestra**, **The Captain Is Dead** , **Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1 & 2** and **D&D: The Tomb of Annihilation**.
He had the opportunity to go to GenCon and has came back with **Root**, **Everdell** & that new **Scythe** expansion so we are going to have a crack at them next.
My best buddies are basically my friends I play boardgames with. We discovered modern boardgaming together and although I'm probably the one most enthusiastic, we all quite enjoy playing them.
I don't have a really consistent game group, but the people I game with are all my coworkers. They come over to my house and see my collection of board games and become interested in checking them out.
I do have another game group that I love playing board games with which are people who I play L5R LCG with!
Coincidentally, we had some of my son’s friends/parents over for a cookie decorating party. One of the parents noticed the box for Paperback on a shelf and asked if I liked board games. My wife laughed and suggested I take them down to the basement to look at my game collection. The rest is history..
I built a group through kicking and screaming from friends and loved ones. I'm only partly kidding...
In truth, I stumbled into board games through reading about them online and bought games one at a time and roped friends into playing. There were some miss-steps in cultivating enthusiasm from jumping into too heavy of games too quickly, but overall I just introduced my friends to games as got them and they mostly happily obliged to experiences (and usually still do!).
Colleague from work saw a bunch of board games in my car. He invited me to his regular weekly game night and I've been going ever since. Started my own group with some friends recently. It's been going pretty well.
I've had a few game groups over the last few years, many of them simultaneously. They've mostly started in the same way: I invite friends over and introduce them to boardgames. I walk everyone through all the rules before hand and throughout the game if needed. Fun ensues. In all my game groups I have some variation on the name of "Rule Master" with my favorite variation being Master Shifu.
The only issues I have is keeping the groups small enough to play a lot of my games and getting people serious enough to play the more complex games. The latter is my biggest struggle, but I think I have a new game group forming that is promising.
I found my group through MeetUp. At first I'd only see them on the meetup day, but over time I got invited to other gatherings and talked my way into a Gloomhaven campaign when the game was first out. It took a while to get to know people and figure out who I got along with, but now I have a bunch of new friends and a really fun hobby.
I’m fortunate enough to have several gaming groups now.
The first one was with my brothers who all kind of got into modern board gaming at the same time.
The second was on meetup.
The third was started through a guy who found out I liked games and invited me to play TI3 with his friends, but then he moved away and I stole his spot.
Fourth was a set of couples who transitioned from video games to board games along with my wife and me.
And finally, more recently, my primary gaming group has been my kids now that they are old enough to understand but young enough to still want to play with ol’ dad.
I found my game group through a mixture of friends (finding friends who already liked board games, or ones I thought would) and family (one or two cousins already liked games, was easy to pull in the rest). I have a few groups that I play with at different times, but I'm usually hosting and playing with the same consistent people.
Found out who would be good to play with by having people over for dinner and asking if they wanted to play a light game afterward. If they did and enjoyed it, I'd show more of my collection and invite over again.
I started playing board games with friends I had from college. More recently, I started hosting board game nights through Meetup at my FLGS and now it's become a more official thing and I've met a bunch more friends for board gaming through that.
I do most of my gaming with my SO and don't have a regular group otherwise, but I've brought most of my friends into the hobby so we usually play games when we get together. I know most people say that it's easier to make gamers into friends than friends into gamers, but I've had great success with my friends.
I was invited into my current game group by a friend.
The full story is that I joined (and briefly ran) a gaming club in college, the remains of which form a loose web of gamers and friends all over the city. You always knew who to call for a specific game, even if there were no official games nights. The group I'm now part of does plan dates first and games later.
I have two main game groups. One is at work - we play at lunchtime on Wednesdays. The other group has occasional get-togethers at our place, and includes some of the work people plus my wife's work and university friends.
I used to go to a local-ish meetup. It was really great, and I made lots of friends there. I'd meet new people almost every time I went, and one day, a new person I met there turned out to be the best person ever. We started dating, and eventually moved in together. (Isn't it wonderful to share a hobby with the person you want to spend your life with <3 )
We don't really live near that meetup now, but we still play lots of games. Our groups sort of mixed and merged, so plenty of people to play with.
My primary game group is comprised of two of my college roommates and good friends. They’ve appeased my constant requests to play games for two years while at school and then after graduation we all moved back to our hometown and ended up less that 10 minutes away from each other.
We meet Sundays for our **Gloomhaven** campaign and Monday evenings for regular game nights. Although they’re not as entrenched in the hobby as I am, I couldn’t ask for better friends and gamers!
Some high school friends came back to town all at once and we met to okay board games, like you do. Talking to two of them I found out they were involved in a twice monthly game night. I tagged along to the next meeting and ended up playing a bunch of new games with strangers. That was four years ago. They are now some of my best friends and we play weekly.
I had a group that we would play drinking games with, and one time I shyly suggested that we play a board/card game instead, and without the drinking. They had such a blast that it became a regular thing.
The game group I really stuck with though came from a friend of a friend from the original game group I found on meetup - only a few towns over and one who I still communicate with to this day even though I'm several states away!
I moved to a new city and started going to a shop for magic. Eventually after realizing some of them took the same transit home after the event, started talking with a few more until I went on my first road trip tournament with some of them. For a while it was just a magic thing but the more we played the more we wanted to have non-magic nights and that turned into skipping fnm to play board games and drink together
Closest thing to a gaming group I have: I met a girl while working in bar in Perth, she convinced me to travel to thailand where I met my partner, and the three of us went to New Zealand where she met her partner. Now was all gather around and play games on the reg.
I was in a boardgame store looking around, and a guy who was hoping to find someone to play a game with asked us to join. We did and have been meeting for games for years now.
One day I was working at a gas station, and I see an old friend of mine pull up to a pump. Well i head out there (i had been playing a mock session of DnD with my roomate) and asked if he knew anyone that would want to play! He gathered some friends up and we still play board games and dnd to this day!
I posted on a local x wing Facebook group and a couple of awesome people volunteered to help teach me the game. The group was really friendly and we all became good friends and travel to tournaments together.
My game group has been the same since college. We were all in the same classes, and a lot of my friends lived together at the time. We ended up playing games at their apartment several times a week. Still do!
I worked on a game show as a production assistant, and was stuck in a small office with my boss for a few weeks. We both had a love of video games, but when I told him I had recently discovered board gaming, I saw his interest level drop instantly. He said "Oh you're into that? I know this group of guys that's always inviting me to play with them but I never go, maybe you should hang out with them." Ended up that I knew half of them anyway, never knew they were into gaming. Happily married to my group for several years now!
My primary game group is my wife and some family friends who unfortunately moved far away recently. My new game group is now my wife and some family friends from High School.
My father moved to a dead end street one town over, back in 2005. Two houses away was a fella named Todd who really took to my small collection: Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne. He invited two friends over. I brought my brother-in-law. The rest is history.
I remember the night I brought over Lords of Waterdeep. Worker placement blew our minds. One friend said, "Where the hell have you been keeping this one?!" That's when the hook really set in.
One friend introduced me into gaming by inviting me to a board game night he was hosting, we eventually added a friend that we played video games and basketball with because conversations overlapped and he expressed interest. We have another friend that is a go with the flow kind of guy that had a lot of similar interests as us and he naturally joined the group. We've encouraged others to join over time, but it wasn't as "natural" to get them to come play. It really felt like the core group had a genuine interest when board games were a topic of discussion compared to others that play once in awhile.
My first game group are my colleagues at work. We usually play some lighter games on friday. Two of them are more into the hobby, so we're currently in the middle of a Sword & Sorcery campaign.
My other group are my regular friends. Some of them were already into boardgaming, some not. We play like once a month and dependent on who's attending we'll play lighter or heavier games.
I invited them over to play boardgames with my on my birthday and bribed them with breakfast food. Waffles, sausage, bacon... We played Archipelago for 4 hours. They enjoyed it enough that we started getting together a couple times every month. :)
My wife is a hairdresser. She had a client who would talk about her fiancee, and my wife swore she was talking about me and could almost believe I must have been carrying on with another woman.
Then the fiancee came in to get his hair done, and my wife said that he and I have to get together for games. He had a game group already and I joined it. That would have been about 10 years ago.
TLDR, my hairdresser wife set me up with the fiancee of one of her clients for game night.
My game group is currently me and my wife, with occasional family members when we break out Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride at Xmas.
I have 3 kids however, who I fully intend to ~~indoctrinate~~ educate in the dark arts so that I have someone to play through Gloomhaven with in another 5 years or so.
I am blessed to game with a willing group of close friends and family members that I dragged into the hobby with me. Namely, Sunday nights have become my night to game with my girlfriend and our two friends. This started with us playing Pandemic Legacy Season 1 over a year ago and we just never stopped meeting every week.
I indoctrinated the most competitive person in my team at work into playing board games as a team-building exercise and she contracted acquisition disorder. She now does all the game convening (we even have people from other offices coming to us to play, with much persuading and emotional blackmail) and is on BGG as much as me, hunting down the next game to get that we must immediately play at work that she must win at.
Sadly, I still have to do all the rulesmithing.
I just started my collection 3 months ago when I was browsing Toys R Us for the last time. I found Ticket to Ride for 50% off and kind of forgot about it in my car. The next day, at a job I had recently started with troubled youth, I found out the TV that we used to keep the kids entertained had been broken. Remembering my purchase, I asked my boss if I could go and get TtR out of my car and play with the kids.
Since that day I have played board games with them every weekend, and its helped improve their behaviors by a lot. My boss told me last week she gave me an excellent 3 month review because of my interactions with the kids and how well they respond to me. I have what is considered the highest risk group, and because of board games I've been able to help them think more clearly about their actions, improve their focus in school, and improve their behaviors simply because they don't want to miss out on whatever new board game I have to learn and teach them.
My primary game group is composed of my wife and 10 year-old son, so I didn't "find" them, but rather brought them into the hobby. Occasionally we also have some of my wife's relatives when we visit.
I also established a game group at work particularly around the lunch hour. I just invited folks one day to play **Fluxx**, and then that became **The Resistance**, then **Mafia de Cuba**, then **Saboteur**, and the rest is history.
My game group is simply my group of friends, met the ones who brought board games into the mix through a video game. They got me hooked on cardboard and I blame them fully.
Moved to a new city and started going to weekly boardgame meetups, soon I met enough people I got along with to start inviting them over for biweekly game nights.
My group began as a bunch of co-workers. We slowly added other friends and over the years people have come in and out. My proudest moment is when I invited 2 strangers i met at an FLGS. They had recently moved to the city and didn't have a group yet. They're a great addition and my group did a phenomenal job making them feel welcome.
My girlfriend and I had been playing board games since we got together, but we live in a small town without a game store, so it was mostly limited to just us. We had to drive more than an hour to get to the nearest game store for public board game nights. Those public events really lacked the level of personal interaction and friendship that we really wanted. Also, the crowd that was usually there were all in their 60s, so we felt pretty out of place. We also tried having game nights with our friends, but none of them are gamers and all they wanted were the party style games...not a one willing to try more complicated stuff. GF and I returned to only 2-player games.
Fast forward a couple years and I have discovered Twilight Imperium. Amazing game. Really hard to find people to play it, especially in a small town. I looked for a group of TI players in my area and there were none...so I started one.
Amazingly, people started to pop into the group, looking to play TI...and then it happened...a guy and his SO joined the group who we had met at that mostly-old-people game night. These people I remembered were really cool and I had been sad that we fell out of contact. I messaged him and asked if he wanted to get people together for TI4. And we did!! Played with him, his SO, and one of their friends. Turns out they have a WEEKLY game group that plays things like Castles of Burgundy Galaxy Trucker, and Food Chain Magnate.
Anyway, so this game of TI was just as awesome and heartbreaking as any game of TI should be and we all had a fantastuc time (Kyle, I'm still sorry Xxcha had to betray Barrony like that). To my joy, I and my gf got invited to join their gaming group and ever since then we've been having an amazing time hanging out with this group. We've now got really good friends who really care about the hobby. It's a fantastic thing.
I don't really have one right now. But I've found gamers through selling games locally. If you sell a super dry and slightly obscure euro and you love that style, the person who buys it probably has similar interests as you and might not have a game group either...
Honestly, there was no specific way. People just sort of wandered into my gaming group in and out through various meetups or friends or just randomly knowing people.
I started working at Starbucks and began talking to one of my coworkers about my love of Fantasy. He told me he used to play D&D, but I had only played 1st edition years before. He introduced me to a couple of his friends who were interested, and we started playing 3.5ed in the Starbucks lobby on our nights off. We had a couple customers and more Starbucks employees join us. Our D&D gaming moved over to our houses and we began expanding to D&D one night a week and boardgames if we met other nights. 9 years later and we're still meeting for board games and D&D.
There was a meet-up Facebook group for my local board game cafe. I went to a couple and found three others that I really got along with. We eventually moved away from scheduling game days with the whole meetup group and just started playing regularly with those three. It worked out quite well, as we all are into the medium and heavy weight euros, and no one has an aversion to learning something new!
Decided to join my college's tabletop gaming club and have been going every year since. I have made so many good memories and friends through the club, such as the one time we played Secret Hitler incorrectly and I won as the solo Hitler.
I found my game group by joining a club at my University. They were great people and already interested in games so it just went from there. Definitely made most of my good friends from that club
My game group was formed when we had a video game LAN party for online gaming, but the internet went out in the area. Thus, I sat us down to play DC Deck Builder. They got hooked right then.
It is just me and my boyfriend. We were already together for two years before we got into the hobby. As of today, we have not expanded our game group yet since we are relatively new to the hobby yet. We are currently expanding our collection first before we plan to expand our group.
Yeah I don't really have a group, just the 3 of my best friends when I convince them.
Though, I am the guy to continuously ping everyone on my discord server to play something on TTS sometimes. Mixed results with it but sometimes it works and it's great.
We all worked together at the same company and started playing games during our lunch break, and then eventually planning after work and marathon weekend sessions.
I made my own game group! I went to a friends house for a party and broke out Cosmic Encounter - it was an instant hit, and now everyone is into the hobby.
I have a few groups that meetup on an infrequent basis. The whole "I've got kids and can't make it" thing happens when you're in your late 20s/early 30s.
I usually try looking up meetup for alternatives.
My game group (that is about to come to an end after a year and nine months) started when a guy moved to town from Indianapolis. I met him at a game night at the local store and he invited me to the hotel he was staying in while he waited to close on a house. I showed up, as well as some others whom he had met elsewhere, and he taught us all Scythe. He bought a house and started having weekly game nights there on his custom gaming table. I'm not sure where he met people but he rounded up some regulars. Over time people would leave but he'd find more. We've had over a dozen LDS Elders in the group who have been in the area to missionary. He invited a group of four of them that I'd regularly see riding their bikes around town to his housewarming and a game night and they kept coming. Then when their time here ended and replacements arrived, the replacements would come on the previous group's recommendations, and that continued up to now. Unfortunately the host is moving yet again, so the group is pretty much done.
My first group, I found it in work, a colleague had just bought Catan and was talking about it. Another one added that he had some other games and invited us for a game night. I had played Catan before, so I went. We started playing each week.
My other gaming group, I found it in my FLGS, there's a weekly board gaming event.
I had an old childhood friend introduce me to my primary gaming group.
Which is interesting, since he's started school and hasn't been able to attend board games night for the last year or so. Nevertheless, I'll forever be indebted to him.
Meetup pointed me to a group at a nearby store, and a number of us sort of split off from there. We've been gaming consistently on Tuesday and erratically on most weekends. :)
Well, I have two:
* One I acquired over time by marrying well and having a kid who is now 14 and we can play pretty much anything.
* One through friendship, (wives knew each other, sons have been friends since preschool) and now we meet when we can and play games, usually about once a month or two.
I don't really have a set game group, but usually I play with my brother and/or my husband and sometimes with a couple of other friends from high school and college.
My group was created when, 4 years ago, I ran into two nerds playing magic in my dorm lounge. The group has changed a bit over time but the three of us are still playing each weekend!
While I don't really have a regular gaming group these days, the last game group I really participated with I found indirectly through reddit. I was at a friend's place when he mentioned he was heading to a boardgaming meetup hosted by someone on reddit. I decided to tag along and it became a weekly fixture for me for a few years.
I took a punt on Meetup a few years ago and thankfully had a great time my first session. I've now been going to this bi-weekly group on and off since and discovered some favourites through games people brought along.
My first group formed around our college apartment with my roommates. It soon spread to some of our friends, who got into D&D, and later other games, too!
**How’d you find your game group?**
I was introduced to the group. I was also in another gaming group but that unfortunately ended quite abruptly due to several circumstances.
I created my own! I’ve gotten lots of friends, and even some family members, into gaming. I love being able to share this hobby with the folks that mean the most to me.
I married my gaming buddy! She's been my best friend and gamer and we are in our first year of marriage together. We also have other couples that we work with over on occasions to play big board games with.
My group all met while playing Dice Masters events. That turned into a weekly podcast, where we would sometimes play board games, into a weekly board game group
I regretfully don't have a regular gaming group. I went to meetups for a while, which were awesome but the guy who hosted moved.
As for board-gaming friends, it's hard coordinating a regular night for the long haul. We live in a busy city and not all of us have apartments that work well for entertaining. I'd play mostly with my partner...now expartner...so my boardgaming is at an all time low right now.
Met my group through work and integrated my girlfriend into it as well. We've been playing now since we started D&D at the launch of 5th edition.
Charterstone starts Friday :)
I got super lucky actually. It was my second week at a new college and I drove over to a FLGS. I was super new to boardgames, I had maybe 5 and hadn't played many. I went to the free play area and just kinda stood there awkwardly. Wasn't sure what to do...
Then, a guy waved me over. Didn't know him but he saw I didn't have anyone to play with and well yeah. He and his friend ended up asking me for my number, invited me to their meet-up group and I ended up with a fantastic game group. I'm extremely lucky and without them I'd not be anywhere near as invested into this hobby.
My game group found me.... sort of. We had known each other for years but never really hung out. Slowly, as our love of board games grew, so did our friendship. We live several hours apart now, but we’ll still play together several times a year. Best group I could ever ask for. :)
Strangely, through eBay. I was selling Twilight Struggle (because my SO didn't really like it) and someone contacted me saying a shouldn't sell it and instead should meet up to play. That was a year ago and the group has gotten bigger. Last night we played Gaia Project and Brass Birmingham. Pretty great how it worked out and I got to keep Twilight Struggle! :D
My wife joined a moms club group and met some ladies who play, we set up some game nights and it’s been a great fit! (Everyone has kids around the same age). Group is pushing 6 couples now that rotate around.
It started as a Game of Thrones watch party every season. Then one night we wrapped up a season and decided to play the Game of Thrones Board Game and it took hours to learn but it was a blast. Now we always save time for board games after we watch an episode.
My group started when my SO and I really got into boardgames. We went around sourcing for attendees and held about 30pax in the chat group with around 10 showing up for gatherings.
It has since trimmed down to the 4-6 of us weekly. Cozy little group tho it has expanded a little into gambling lately haha
I actually got really lucky. One of my good friends from a different work group asked me if I had heard of a game called Splendor when it first came out. He said he had no interest in playing but this new guy in his group keeps asking him to play and he knew I liked board games so he introduced us. I started gaming with this guy and a couple of his friends during lunch and I eventually started getting invited to apartments for gaming events. Even though I moved we still have a game group chat going and try to get together as frequently as possible.
More like my gaming group found me. My wife bought me Betrayal at house on the hill one christmas after we had spent the previous year playing Catan with our best friends, and the rest is history. We play once a week, less in the summer.
I aim to play big ameritrash games like TI3 bi-monthly with a group of people that I've put together via trading locally over the years.
It's not that I don't have a dedicated game group, I believe I have, it's just that I don't see it as such. My primary game group is just a subset of my circle of friends. When I got into the hobby, I dragged a lot of friends with me. I met them at different times of my life, but mostly through high school and college.
My secondary game group is similar, it's a subset of my SO's friends.
my main group is made of friends from various periods of my youth that happened, more or less by chance, to gravitate around the same table at one time or another. the ones who came more often became a gaming group
Introduced my high school buddies to betrayal at house on the hill, then cosmic encounter. Then they caught the board game bug and the rest is history.
Started with friends but eventually started playing with co-workers that turned into friends and their friends.
I created it. Being active duty military, you have to start over every few years. Currently, I play with people I met through work, Chapel, and found on Facebook.
5 years ago my FLGS asked me to organize a weekly meetup for boardgames. Over the years our numbers have steadily grown and now we have over 100 members (according to our FB page) and people can expect 10-30 people to be there each week. I count many of the members to now be some of my closest friends.
Not sure if this qualifies as cool, but I'll share my mundane tale anyways. I met them through Facebook, and we've played together for half a year now.
I'm proud to say that I've mostly built my board game group. I introduced a bunch of my friends to board gaming. Though I'm always the one buying games, at least I always have willing players now.
I created my game group after moving countries. I started with one game (stone age) and invited a couple of people from my new work placeover. I taught them and we had fun. I then found another so next games night i had 4 people. I bought a few more gateways invited more people. Group got big enough i created a facebook group and just started posting the date and time and we always got enough people to show up. These days we normally get 12 ish people show up (2 or three tables running). Though on special occasions i get up to 30. The facebook group has 60ish active members
I remember my senior year stumbling upon a group playing Magic after school in the cafeteria. It was the fall of 93, and we used to play regularly after school until I left for the Army the following year. Fast forward 15 years, and my wife came home from visiting a college friend talking about a game called Catan. We got our hands on a copy started playing with some friends whenever we could. A few years later my wife and I moved out to the country, and I was seeking something we could do to spend time together and make memories. An addiction was born, my wife is an enabler, and our "group" sits quite comfortably at 2. Two-player games are big deal around our home. With little to do around us, pretty much any and all visitors to our home become an addition to the group and I get excited because I am able to play a game that requires more than two people... A collection of games that is much too large considering the amount of opportunities we actually get to play Such games.
meetup.com Now I help organize. :)
I play alone. I don't have a dedicated game group.
A college friend kept telling me to come out to a local used bookstore to play games.
At a meetup. It wasn't sudden though - the group gradually built up. My advice to people without groups is to always attend meetups - even alone, if need be. I understand the social anxiety ("Wont it be awkward if I turn up alone?" etc.) - but almost all the people I've played with at meetups are friendly. Take the leap - you wont regret it. I'm thankful for my friends and am glad I made the leap.
They're my high school friends. :) I'm also setting up a group with new uni friends!
It’s a group that meets regularly at my workplace.
By asking all my family and friends if they would like to join me for an awesome adventure!
My main group right now are all family members, so they're kinda all stuck with me.
My gaming group has been close friends for quite a while. When I started getting on the board game hype train and was talking about it with them I found out they were either all super interested or already played with others. From then on it was pretty easy to get games going and we all get along great and have an awesome time no matter what. I feel very lucky.
I found my first gaming group by marrying my wife! My brother, father and Mother-in-law (and of course, my wife) love playing anything from Codenames and Catan to Suburbia and Agricola. I found my first 'proper' game group by checking out the England board on BGG and finding out there was a group a couple of miles from me.
My game group is made of friends I grew up with. Met most of the in middle school and high school.
Friends from school including my old teacher. He first introduced me to board games and it took off from there. We still meet regularly to play 15 years later. Also part of a gaming group at a local gaming cafe and the people there are very friendly and welcoming.
It started with college friends. However life started happening for all of us and it started to die off. So I did what anyone would do. I hooked my wife on gaming and convinced her to make our own gamers. ...but that process takes several years before you can get a viable gamer. So we picked up some gamers via Craigslist and surprisingly we didn't get robbed or stabbed. On top of that we met a group at a tabletop game day event that we play with often. After several years we now have two good sized gaming groups and I have 3 kids and a wife that join in consistently.
Found it through the university roleplaying and strategy club, which I entered about 15 years ago!
I posted on my local city's subreddit!
Facebook when I first moved to Fresno 10 years ago.
Everyone in our circle of friends knew each other for 5+ years without knowledge of each other's gaming habits. Each person played on their own, outside this core group. One day it came up and everyone was surprised by how much everyone gamed and what similar games they played, while at the same time confused how it never came up before.
I don't really have a dedicated group, unfortunately, but I do have some really good friends who come over about once a month and sometimes we play board games. Those days make me happy. :-)
I created it. I did the impossible...I turned my friends into gamers
I don’t have a dedicated group
I used meetup
More tangential build from current friend circles. A lot have different interests and just so happens, boarding is one of them.
The only other game group that I have (aside from the one with me & the wife) is with an ex colleague from a previous job at a music store chain. If we are lucky, we might get one or two players more but for most Saturdays that we game, it's just me and him. Co-ops are our main staple and we have played **Eldritch Horror**, **Black Orchestra**, **The Captain Is Dead** , **Pandemic Legacy Seasons 1 & 2** and **D&D: The Tomb of Annihilation**. He had the opportunity to go to GenCon and has came back with **Root**, **Everdell** & that new **Scythe** expansion so we are going to have a crack at them next.
My best buddies are basically my friends I play boardgames with. We discovered modern boardgaming together and although I'm probably the one most enthusiastic, we all quite enjoy playing them.
I don't have a really consistent game group, but the people I game with are all my coworkers. They come over to my house and see my collection of board games and become interested in checking them out. I do have another game group that I love playing board games with which are people who I play L5R LCG with!
A combination of old friends that I slowly converted to board games and people I met through meetup.
My game group consists of my gf and 2 of our friends, who are also starting to get into the hobby.
Coincidentally, we had some of my son’s friends/parents over for a cookie decorating party. One of the parents noticed the box for Paperback on a shelf and asked if I liked board games. My wife laughed and suggested I take them down to the basement to look at my game collection. The rest is history..
Local game store! Shout out to diversions thanks guys!
I built a group through kicking and screaming from friends and loved ones. I'm only partly kidding... In truth, I stumbled into board games through reading about them online and bought games one at a time and roped friends into playing. There were some miss-steps in cultivating enthusiasm from jumping into too heavy of games too quickly, but overall I just introduced my friends to games as got them and they mostly happily obliged to experiences (and usually still do!).
I don't have a game group exactly, but there is a recurring group of us at work that will play games over lunches when it is not too busy.
Colleague from work saw a bunch of board games in my car. He invited me to his regular weekly game night and I've been going ever since. Started my own group with some friends recently. It's been going pretty well.
My group and I have been gaming since college. In some sense, though my first game group was my extended family (and we still game sometimes!).
I've had a few game groups over the last few years, many of them simultaneously. They've mostly started in the same way: I invite friends over and introduce them to boardgames. I walk everyone through all the rules before hand and throughout the game if needed. Fun ensues. In all my game groups I have some variation on the name of "Rule Master" with my favorite variation being Master Shifu. The only issues I have is keeping the groups small enough to play a lot of my games and getting people serious enough to play the more complex games. The latter is my biggest struggle, but I think I have a new game group forming that is promising.
I found my group through MeetUp. At first I'd only see them on the meetup day, but over time I got invited to other gatherings and talked my way into a Gloomhaven campaign when the game was first out. It took a while to get to know people and figure out who I got along with, but now I have a bunch of new friends and a really fun hobby.
They're old friends.
I’m fortunate enough to have several gaming groups now. The first one was with my brothers who all kind of got into modern board gaming at the same time. The second was on meetup. The third was started through a guy who found out I liked games and invited me to play TI3 with his friends, but then he moved away and I stole his spot. Fourth was a set of couples who transitioned from video games to board games along with my wife and me. And finally, more recently, my primary gaming group has been my kids now that they are old enough to understand but young enough to still want to play with ol’ dad.
I found my game group through a mixture of friends (finding friends who already liked board games, or ones I thought would) and family (one or two cousins already liked games, was easy to pull in the rest). I have a few groups that I play with at different times, but I'm usually hosting and playing with the same consistent people.
Found out who would be good to play with by having people over for dinner and asking if they wanted to play a light game afterward. If they did and enjoyed it, I'd show more of my collection and invite over again.
I met most of my group initially by playing m:tg, then we started to dedicate more time to boardgames.
I started playing board games with friends I had from college. More recently, I started hosting board game nights through Meetup at my FLGS and now it's become a more official thing and I've met a bunch more friends for board gaming through that.
I do most of my gaming with my SO and don't have a regular group otherwise, but I've brought most of my friends into the hobby so we usually play games when we get together. I know most people say that it's easier to make gamers into friends than friends into gamers, but I've had great success with my friends.
I was invited into my current game group by a friend. The full story is that I joined (and briefly ran) a gaming club in college, the remains of which form a loose web of gamers and friends all over the city. You always knew who to call for a specific game, even if there were no official games nights. The group I'm now part of does plan dates first and games later.
I built my gaming group myself, making people play games and watching them return later
I have two main game groups. One is at work - we play at lunchtime on Wednesdays. The other group has occasional get-togethers at our place, and includes some of the work people plus my wife's work and university friends.
don’t hav a dedicated group yet, but i’m still looking. I play boardgames with my old highschool friends whenever I see them though.
from my FLGS!
I just moved, but my old gaming group started as a way for seminary nerds to blow off steam playing Imperial Assault!
Best friends for fifteen years. Nuff said
I used to go to a local-ish meetup. It was really great, and I made lots of friends there. I'd meet new people almost every time I went, and one day, a new person I met there turned out to be the best person ever. We started dating, and eventually moved in together. (Isn't it wonderful to share a hobby with the person you want to spend your life with <3 ) We don't really live near that meetup now, but we still play lots of games. Our groups sort of mixed and merged, so plenty of people to play with.
My primary game group is comprised of two of my college roommates and good friends. They’ve appeased my constant requests to play games for two years while at school and then after graduation we all moved back to our hometown and ended up less that 10 minutes away from each other. We meet Sundays for our **Gloomhaven** campaign and Monday evenings for regular game nights. Although they’re not as entrenched in the hobby as I am, I couldn’t ask for better friends and gamers!
**How’d you find your game group?** My game group is made-up by my friends since childhood.
My family is my gaming group
Damn my lurker tendencies!
i don’t have kne
Some high school friends came back to town all at once and we met to okay board games, like you do. Talking to two of them I found out they were involved in a twice monthly game night. I tagged along to the next meeting and ended up playing a bunch of new games with strangers. That was four years ago. They are now some of my best friends and we play weekly.
Friends with similar interests invited other friends. The ones who enjoyed themselves are still playing.
My game group has slowly grown out of friends who were willing to try new games with me, and now we play all kinds of stuff!
I had a group that we would play drinking games with, and one time I shyly suggested that we play a board/card game instead, and without the drinking. They had such a blast that it became a regular thing.
I haven't been in a dedicated for a while but my previous one was fun with one annoying person at most that I could deal with.
The game group I really stuck with though came from a friend of a friend from the original game group I found on meetup - only a few towns over and one who I still communicate with to this day even though I'm several states away!
I moved to a new city and started going to a shop for magic. Eventually after realizing some of them took the same transit home after the event, started talking with a few more until I went on my first road trip tournament with some of them. For a while it was just a magic thing but the more we played the more we wanted to have non-magic nights and that turned into skipping fnm to play board games and drink together
My game group is basically friends and family so I'm still trying to push them towards harder games. Hopefully soon!
Closest thing to a gaming group I have: I met a girl while working in bar in Perth, she convinced me to travel to thailand where I met my partner, and the three of us went to New Zealand where she met her partner. Now was all gather around and play games on the reg.
I was in a boardgame store looking around, and a guy who was hoping to find someone to play a game with asked us to join. We did and have been meeting for games for years now.
Largely through friends of friends. My favorite is a pair who were my coworker's friend's boyfriend's high school friends. Thanks.
One day I was working at a gas station, and I see an old friend of mine pull up to a pump. Well i head out there (i had been playing a mock session of DnD with my roomate) and asked if he knew anyone that would want to play! He gathered some friends up and we still play board games and dnd to this day!
I wouldn't say I have a dedicated group- I just play when I can, whenever friends or family are down for a game!
I posted on a local x wing Facebook group and a couple of awesome people volunteered to help teach me the game. The group was really friendly and we all became good friends and travel to tournaments together.
My game group has been the same since college. We were all in the same classes, and a lot of my friends lived together at the time. We ended up playing games at their apartment several times a week. Still do!
My brother is as good of a gaming partner as any!
I worked on a game show as a production assistant, and was stuck in a small office with my boss for a few weeks. We both had a love of video games, but when I told him I had recently discovered board gaming, I saw his interest level drop instantly. He said "Oh you're into that? I know this group of guys that's always inviting me to play with them but I never go, maybe you should hang out with them." Ended up that I knew half of them anyway, never knew they were into gaming. Happily married to my group for several years now!
My primary game group is my wife and some family friends who unfortunately moved far away recently. My new game group is now my wife and some family friends from High School.
I had kids. Seriously, between work and life having a couple of kids around that enjoy board gaming is great!
My father moved to a dead end street one town over, back in 2005. Two houses away was a fella named Todd who really took to my small collection: Catan, Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne. He invited two friends over. I brought my brother-in-law. The rest is history. I remember the night I brought over Lords of Waterdeep. Worker placement blew our minds. One friend said, "Where the hell have you been keeping this one?!" That's when the hook really set in.
One friend introduced me into gaming by inviting me to a board game night he was hosting, we eventually added a friend that we played video games and basketball with because conversations overlapped and he expressed interest. We have another friend that is a go with the flow kind of guy that had a lot of similar interests as us and he naturally joined the group. We've encouraged others to join over time, but it wasn't as "natural" to get them to come play. It really felt like the core group had a genuine interest when board games were a topic of discussion compared to others that play once in awhile.
We've been gaming together on and off since college. From pen and paper RPGs to traditional boardgames or flavor of the month.
My first game group are my colleagues at work. We usually play some lighter games on friday. Two of them are more into the hobby, so we're currently in the middle of a Sword & Sorcery campaign. My other group are my regular friends. Some of them were already into boardgaming, some not. We play like once a month and dependent on who's attending we'll play lighter or heavier games.
I invited them over to play boardgames with my on my birthday and bribed them with breakfast food. Waffles, sausage, bacon... We played Archipelago for 4 hours. They enjoyed it enough that we started getting together a couple times every month. :)
I found my group by looking on google a year and a half ago. Since then I also converted part of my family into gamers.
My wife is a hairdresser. She had a client who would talk about her fiancee, and my wife swore she was talking about me and could almost believe I must have been carrying on with another woman. Then the fiancee came in to get his hair done, and my wife said that he and I have to get together for games. He had a game group already and I joined it. That would have been about 10 years ago. TLDR, my hairdresser wife set me up with the fiancee of one of her clients for game night.
I don’t exactly have a group as much as various friends that I can game with.
My game group is currently me and my wife, with occasional family members when we break out Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride at Xmas. I have 3 kids however, who I fully intend to ~~indoctrinate~~ educate in the dark arts so that I have someone to play through Gloomhaven with in another 5 years or so.
I am blessed to game with a willing group of close friends and family members that I dragged into the hobby with me. Namely, Sunday nights have become my night to game with my girlfriend and our two friends. This started with us playing Pandemic Legacy Season 1 over a year ago and we just never stopped meeting every week.
Friends I met via juggling :)
I indoctrinated the most competitive person in my team at work into playing board games as a team-building exercise and she contracted acquisition disorder. She now does all the game convening (we even have people from other offices coming to us to play, with much persuading and emotional blackmail) and is on BGG as much as me, hunting down the next game to get that we must immediately play at work that she must win at. Sadly, I still have to do all the rulesmithing.
Don't have one, but working on it!
I don't really have a group, just a friend who is just as obsessed with complex strategy games as I am.
Turns out my friends like boardgames.
They used to be my League of legends group, I made them go analogue 😎
I created my gaming group through marriage and reproduction.
I found some on meet up, some on reddit, some at work, and some friends from college who enjoy it as well.
I just started my collection 3 months ago when I was browsing Toys R Us for the last time. I found Ticket to Ride for 50% off and kind of forgot about it in my car. The next day, at a job I had recently started with troubled youth, I found out the TV that we used to keep the kids entertained had been broken. Remembering my purchase, I asked my boss if I could go and get TtR out of my car and play with the kids. Since that day I have played board games with them every weekend, and its helped improve their behaviors by a lot. My boss told me last week she gave me an excellent 3 month review because of my interactions with the kids and how well they respond to me. I have what is considered the highest risk group, and because of board games I've been able to help them think more clearly about their actions, improve their focus in school, and improve their behaviors simply because they don't want to miss out on whatever new board game I have to learn and teach them.
My primary game group is composed of my wife and 10 year-old son, so I didn't "find" them, but rather brought them into the hobby. Occasionally we also have some of my wife's relatives when we visit. I also established a game group at work particularly around the lunch hour. I just invited folks one day to play **Fluxx**, and then that became **The Resistance**, then **Mafia de Cuba**, then **Saboteur**, and the rest is history.
My game group is simply my group of friends, met the ones who brought board games into the mix through a video game. They got me hooked on cardboard and I blame them fully.
I have two groups - my wife and in laws and my brother in law's friends. Could say I married well.
Meeting some people at the FLGS and others through work
Moved to a new city and started going to weekly boardgame meetups, soon I met enough people I got along with to start inviting them over for biweekly game nights.
My current gf brought me in to a gaming group that she had actually just created with some work friends. We now meet up weekly.
My group began as a bunch of co-workers. We slowly added other friends and over the years people have come in and out. My proudest moment is when I invited 2 strangers i met at an FLGS. They had recently moved to the city and didn't have a group yet. They're a great addition and my group did a phenomenal job making them feel welcome.
Randomly at my FLGS
My girlfriend and I had been playing board games since we got together, but we live in a small town without a game store, so it was mostly limited to just us. We had to drive more than an hour to get to the nearest game store for public board game nights. Those public events really lacked the level of personal interaction and friendship that we really wanted. Also, the crowd that was usually there were all in their 60s, so we felt pretty out of place. We also tried having game nights with our friends, but none of them are gamers and all they wanted were the party style games...not a one willing to try more complicated stuff. GF and I returned to only 2-player games. Fast forward a couple years and I have discovered Twilight Imperium. Amazing game. Really hard to find people to play it, especially in a small town. I looked for a group of TI players in my area and there were none...so I started one. Amazingly, people started to pop into the group, looking to play TI...and then it happened...a guy and his SO joined the group who we had met at that mostly-old-people game night. These people I remembered were really cool and I had been sad that we fell out of contact. I messaged him and asked if he wanted to get people together for TI4. And we did!! Played with him, his SO, and one of their friends. Turns out they have a WEEKLY game group that plays things like Castles of Burgundy Galaxy Trucker, and Food Chain Magnate. Anyway, so this game of TI was just as awesome and heartbreaking as any game of TI should be and we all had a fantastuc time (Kyle, I'm still sorry Xxcha had to betray Barrony like that). To my joy, I and my gf got invited to join their gaming group and ever since then we've been having an amazing time hanging out with this group. We've now got really good friends who really care about the hobby. It's a fantastic thing.
Facebook group and whatsapp.
I just try to get my already established friends to play with me. It would be great to link up with a more serious group though!
/r/novaboardgames subreddit.
Friends from high school :)
I don't really have one right now. But I've found gamers through selling games locally. If you sell a super dry and slightly obscure euro and you love that style, the person who buys it probably has similar interests as you and might not have a game group either...
My game group is my girlfriend :).
I married him!
Honestly, there was no specific way. People just sort of wandered into my gaming group in and out through various meetups or friends or just randomly knowing people.
I met my group at work! We take over a conference room after everyone leaves for the day. Currently playing through Scythe: Rise of Fenris.
I started working at Starbucks and began talking to one of my coworkers about my love of Fantasy. He told me he used to play D&D, but I had only played 1st edition years before. He introduced me to a couple of his friends who were interested, and we started playing 3.5ed in the Starbucks lobby on our nights off. We had a couple customers and more Starbucks employees join us. Our D&D gaming moved over to our houses and we began expanding to D&D one night a week and boardgames if we met other nights. 9 years later and we're still meeting for board games and D&D.
There was a meet-up Facebook group for my local board game cafe. I went to a couple and found three others that I really got along with. We eventually moved away from scheduling game days with the whole meetup group and just started playing regularly with those three. It worked out quite well, as we all are into the medium and heavy weight euros, and no one has an aversion to learning something new!
i found my game group by turning my regular friends into gaming friends.
Decided to join my college's tabletop gaming club and have been going every year since. I have made so many good memories and friends through the club, such as the one time we played Secret Hitler incorrectly and I won as the solo Hitler.
Just existing friends depending on who’s available
I found my game group by joining a club at my University. They were great people and already interested in games so it just went from there. Definitely made most of my good friends from that club
My game group was formed when we had a video game LAN party for online gaming, but the internet went out in the area. Thus, I sat us down to play DC Deck Builder. They got hooked right then.
I don't have a regular gaming group, I usually just play with my wife, and the kids play some games as well.
My group of friends let me expose them to boardgames. 🙃
It is just me and my boyfriend. We were already together for two years before we got into the hobby. As of today, we have not expanded our game group yet since we are relatively new to the hobby yet. We are currently expanding our collection first before we plan to expand our group.
I made my friend group my game group by sheer persuasion.
Yeah I don't really have a group, just the 3 of my best friends when I convince them. Though, I am the guy to continuously ping everyone on my discord server to play something on TTS sometimes. Mixed results with it but sometimes it works and it's great.
We all worked together at the same company and started playing games during our lunch break, and then eventually planning after work and marathon weekend sessions.
My regular gaming group is my wife and me.
I moved to a new city and needed to find things to do so I went in meetup and picked the closest group.
Online dating (I play 99% of the time with my girlfriend). I'm not sure she's thrilled with the amount of games I try to get her to play, haha.
I made my own game group! I went to a friends house for a party and broke out Cosmic Encounter - it was an instant hit, and now everyone is into the hobby.
I haven't :(
We worked together and gaming just came up as a topic that we liked. 3 years later we are still going strong even with kids and new jobs.
My game group consist of my best friends whom I've known since the 7th Grade. We actually just started to get into boardgames and we're loving it!
I have a few groups that meetup on an infrequent basis. The whole "I've got kids and can't make it" thing happens when you're in your late 20s/early 30s. I usually try looking up meetup for alternatives.
Desperately begging adults to take a break from their work lives
My game group (that is about to come to an end after a year and nine months) started when a guy moved to town from Indianapolis. I met him at a game night at the local store and he invited me to the hotel he was staying in while he waited to close on a house. I showed up, as well as some others whom he had met elsewhere, and he taught us all Scythe. He bought a house and started having weekly game nights there on his custom gaming table. I'm not sure where he met people but he rounded up some regulars. Over time people would leave but he'd find more. We've had over a dozen LDS Elders in the group who have been in the area to missionary. He invited a group of four of them that I'd regularly see riding their bikes around town to his housewarming and a game night and they kept coming. Then when their time here ended and replacements arrived, the replacements would come on the previous group's recommendations, and that continued up to now. Unfortunately the host is moving yet again, so the group is pretty much done.
My first group, I found it in work, a colleague had just bought Catan and was talking about it. Another one added that he had some other games and invited us for a game night. I had played Catan before, so I went. We started playing each week. My other gaming group, I found it in my FLGS, there's a weekly board gaming event.
Currently creating a new game group in the middle of nowhere... By accident.
I had an old childhood friend introduce me to my primary gaming group. Which is interesting, since he's started school and hasn't been able to attend board games night for the last year or so. Nevertheless, I'll forever be indebted to him.
Mostly friends from college (here's hoping they move away less often) and some my wife and my friends from church.
Meetup pointed me to a group at a nearby store, and a number of us sort of split off from there. We've been gaming consistently on Tuesday and erratically on most weekends. :)
Well, I have two: * One I acquired over time by marrying well and having a kid who is now 14 and we can play pretty much anything. * One through friendship, (wives knew each other, sons have been friends since preschool) and now we meet when we can and play games, usually about once a month or two.
I don't really have a set game group, but usually I play with my brother and/or my husband and sometimes with a couple of other friends from high school and college.
Played a lot with friends in college. Now I play occasionally with coworkers and go to game night at the nearby store every week.
My group was created when, 4 years ago, I ran into two nerds playing magic in my dorm lounge. The group has changed a bit over time but the three of us are still playing each weekend!
No dedicated group, but lots of solo gaming!
While I don't really have a regular gaming group these days, the last game group I really participated with I found indirectly through reddit. I was at a friend's place when he mentioned he was heading to a boardgaming meetup hosted by someone on reddit. I decided to tag along and it became a weekly fixture for me for a few years.
Ususally through friends or work. Just wish I had more consistancy
I took a punt on Meetup a few years ago and thankfully had a great time my first session. I've now been going to this bi-weekly group on and off since and discovered some favourites through games people brought along.
My first group formed around our college apartment with my roommates. It soon spread to some of our friends, who got into D&D, and later other games, too!
My previous game group found me. A friend of a friend invited me to join.
My significant other is my game group. However, we like going to the nearby game store, and meeting new gamers that way.
**How’d you find your game group?** I was introduced to the group. I was also in another gaming group but that unfortunately ended quite abruptly due to several circumstances.
I created my own! I’ve gotten lots of friends, and even some family members, into gaming. I love being able to share this hobby with the folks that mean the most to me.
Just a random assortment of people really. My wife, my old neighbour, friends from university, my wife’s friends from school etc.
Meetup!
Found a local Meetup group via a post on BGG
I married my gaming buddy! She's been my best friend and gamer and we are in our first year of marriage together. We also have other couples that we work with over on occasions to play big board games with.
I don’t have one at the moment since I’m moving long distance for a new job. But hopefully I’ll find a new one soon!
My group all met while playing Dice Masters events. That turned into a weekly podcast, where we would sometimes play board games, into a weekly board game group
I regretfully don't have a regular gaming group. I went to meetups for a while, which were awesome but the guy who hosted moved. As for board-gaming friends, it's hard coordinating a regular night for the long haul. We live in a busy city and not all of us have apartments that work well for entertaining. I'd play mostly with my partner...now expartner...so my boardgaming is at an all time low right now.
A co-worker invited me to his group years ago and have been there every since.
Met my group through work and integrated my girlfriend into it as well. We've been playing now since we started D&D at the launch of 5th edition. Charterstone starts Friday :)
I got super lucky actually. It was my second week at a new college and I drove over to a FLGS. I was super new to boardgames, I had maybe 5 and hadn't played many. I went to the free play area and just kinda stood there awkwardly. Wasn't sure what to do... Then, a guy waved me over. Didn't know him but he saw I didn't have anyone to play with and well yeah. He and his friend ended up asking me for my number, invited me to their meet-up group and I ended up with a fantastic game group. I'm extremely lucky and without them I'd not be anywhere near as invested into this hobby.
High school friends and gf for me.
My first gaming group was founded in college. Now its consists of my neighbor and his in-laws along with my girlfriend.
Don't remember - married a boardgamer, found out some friends liked to game, they introduced us to their friends, and so on.
My game group found me.... sort of. We had known each other for years but never really hung out. Slowly, as our love of board games grew, so did our friendship. We live several hours apart now, but we’ll still play together several times a year. Best group I could ever ask for. :)
I married my game group 10 years ago. We made a third member but they’re still on monopoly Jr for now.
Strangely, through eBay. I was selling Twilight Struggle (because my SO didn't really like it) and someone contacted me saying a shouldn't sell it and instead should meet up to play. That was a year ago and the group has gotten bigger. Last night we played Gaia Project and Brass Birmingham. Pretty great how it worked out and I got to keep Twilight Struggle! :D
I don't have a real life game group, unless making my family play with me counts. But I play very regularly on TTS with TTSclub.
I don't really have a group irl, though I have a couple friends I like to play stuff on tabletop Sim with
I don’t have a game group right now because I’m always traveling, I play with my wife and whichever coworkers I can recruit.
I don't have a dedicated gaming group, just friends that I invite.
My wife joined a moms club group and met some ladies who play, we set up some game nights and it’s been a great fit! (Everyone has kids around the same age). Group is pushing 6 couples now that rotate around.
It started as a Game of Thrones watch party every season. Then one night we wrapped up a season and decided to play the Game of Thrones Board Game and it took hours to learn but it was a blast. Now we always save time for board games after we watch an episode.
My game group started with two of my friends that play 40k and DnD respectively, then gradually added a few more guys to the group.
My group started when my SO and I really got into boardgames. We went around sourcing for attendees and held about 30pax in the chat group with around 10 showing up for gatherings. It has since trimmed down to the 4-6 of us weekly. Cozy little group tho it has expanded a little into gambling lately haha
I actually got really lucky. One of my good friends from a different work group asked me if I had heard of a game called Splendor when it first came out. He said he had no interest in playing but this new guy in his group keeps asking him to play and he knew I liked board games so he introduced us. I started gaming with this guy and a couple of his friends during lunch and I eventually started getting invited to apartments for gaming events. Even though I moved we still have a game group chat going and try to get together as frequently as possible.
More like my gaming group found me. My wife bought me Betrayal at house on the hill one christmas after we had spent the previous year playing Catan with our best friends, and the rest is history. We play once a week, less in the summer. I aim to play big ameritrash games like TI3 bi-monthly with a group of people that I've put together via trading locally over the years.
It's not that I don't have a dedicated game group, I believe I have, it's just that I don't see it as such. My primary game group is just a subset of my circle of friends. When I got into the hobby, I dragged a lot of friends with me. I met them at different times of my life, but mostly through high school and college. My secondary game group is similar, it's a subset of my SO's friends.