MACON, Ga. — Many of us played board games when we were young, but there is a whole community of people who love them into adulthood.
There is, in fact, a growing community of people in Central Georgia who adore tabletop games and play them often.
“Boy, there is a lot of people that play board games here. It’s been growing. I’ve been here for two years now, and the community's really grown,” Owner of Dice Drop Games Pat Casey said.
A tabletop is just like the name implies -- it's any game you can play on a table. This often includes board games, role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and card games like Magic: The Gathering.
Casey’s specialty is board games. He sells what the community calls "boutique games."
At Dice Drop Games, you might not find classic games like Monopoly or Life, but you will find new and exciting games that the average player might not have heard of.
There are different types of tabletop games, and the key is knowing what you like best about playing.
There are games of strategy, games where you battle other players, ones where the goal is to collect land or money, or role-playing games where you can play a host of different creatures and characters.
Casey has been a board game hobbyist since 2014 and has been operating Dice Drop Games' storefront for two years.
“My wife and I, we were living in Baltimore at the time, and we walked into a small little game store and I just got hooked immediately and I kept going back, and every week I’d buy a new game,” he said.
He has a personal collection of at least 1,500 games and he lets visitors to Dice Drop Games play from his collection for free.
“It’s just a nice way to get people together in a room, and we need social experiences nowadays,” Casey said.
Visitors can also come during their open play nights on Fridays and Saturdays to learn how to play new games and meet up with other gamers.
Casey says people frequently come by to play games with their friends on the weekends.
He says on open play nights, he will try to get people involved in what are known as "gateway games," which are games that are relatively easy to teach and learn, to get people comfortable with tabletop gaming.
As players get more experience, they may want to try out games where the rules are more complicated or the game takes longer to complete.
Casey says getting into board games or any other type of tabletop is all about knowing what you enjoy.
“Some people love games that have a lot of confrontation, hit and roll, something like that. Other people really don’t care for those kinds of games, and so it’s all about playing some different things to find out what you enjoy,” he said.
Casey says he wants people to know that there are a wide variety of fun games to play that maybe aren't the ones they grew up with.
“I wish that people understood that there's just this whole universe of games out there that out can explore and that you can do it here free of charge,” he said.
To try out different games you can visit Dice Drop Gaming at 3121 Vineville Ave. You can also check out their website and Facebook.
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