The term ‘tabletop’ is used to describe games that are played with other people, but in person and usually gathered around a table.

To older folks, the concept might be a no-brainer, but nowadays in the age of Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and Steam, these boxes of bits are a novelty in the mainstream realm of gaming. These are the old-fashioned games, played with cards, dice, miniature figures and pen and paper. Those articles make up the trifecta of card, board and roleplaying games (RPGs). The latter makes use of hand-painted figures and often hand-crafted terrain, and tends to rely more heavily on storytelling than the other two varieties of tabletop gaming versus having very rigid and structured gameplay.

While many people now prefer to play games together online, there are still bastions of tabletop gaming in the area that are keeping this scene alive. Thanks to the revitalization of “Eurogaming,” European-style board games began flooding over and there has been a resurgence of tabletop gaming of all kinds. This started mainly with Settlers of Catan in 1995, a game the Washington Post dubbed “the board game of our time.”

Gathered around a pot of coffee at Shari’s on a rainy afternoon, Santa Rosa resident Blaine Bodie and Santa Rosa Junior College student Kyle Sopko talked RPG history before heading out to play a Wild Talents campaign.

“All this really evolved from the 1800s. H.G. Wells was into tabletop board gaming. He wrote a little article on it, that’s what kind of caused a takeoff in popularity,” Bodie explained. “He suggested that kids should play games and mock battles with their toy soldiers. And this in turn led to a big resurgence of popularity in the 70’s, the same time Tolkien got really popular.”

Sopko brought up his own personal experiences with the genre. “What got me started was getting into Dungeons & Dragons, because I’ve been a huge fan of fantasy books, y’know swords and dragons and things like that,” he said. “So when I found out there’s a game system that lets you play as these characters and sort of write your own stories, I was promptly blown away.”

As dungeon master, or DM, Bodie has to guide the players along and find a balance. “There’s a certain quantity of flexibility and improv that you have to be willing or comfortable with in order to be able to play a tabletop roleplaying game. Everybody has different things that they want out of a game,” he said. “This is one of the struggles of the referee, is balancing what they want, y’know. He wants to kick a lot of ass, but I wanna resolve family drama.”

Sopko brings up the learning curve of the activity. “It can be tricky to get involved in the beginning. There are a lot of rules,” he said. “But once you learn one system, you learn that there are a lot of parallels to other systems, so once you get familiar with something, it’s a lot easier to learn other things.”

At Baseball Cards and Memorabilia in Rohnert Park, roughly 75 participants came out for a Magic: The Gathering pre-release tournament. Once the clock struck midnight Feb. 1, players received their brand new booster packs for the latest set “Born of the Gods”. The tournament was in limited sealed deck format, meaning that everyone received six random packs of cards to make a 40-card deck from (the usual deck size is 60 cards).

Players were there for serious tournament play, but also just for the sake of it. “I play for fun. Some people take the game too seriously,” said local Anthony Rarang. “It’s a game.”

“You know what the funny thing about Magic is? Trying to explain it to your parents,” said player Autumn Pettigrew. “Mom, dad, I need 30 dollars for a card game I’m not very good at!”

Tournament player Michael Green shared how he got into Magic. “When I first started playing, all my roommates played. It was either learn to play, or be left out,” he said.

Another player, Kim Schultz, was sitting at the table and waiting for the next round to start. “I’d say that the community itself is very welcoming, so if you’re a new player or you’re trying to get into it, they welcome a lot of people,” she said.

Tensions were running high as skirmishes were fought in pairs. One by one, as each round ended, players went downstairs to help themselves to the store-provided feast and chat.

To players in the area, this shop is what’s known as an FLGS – a Friendly Local Game Store.

Matt Woods, owner of the shop, recounts the early days of Magic: The Gathering. He started working at card shops in 1991, and began playing Magic in 1994.

“I have very fond memories of being talked into buying the first couple boxes of Magic for our store,” he said. “I remember telling the distributor ‘that looks like a crappy D&D card game’, and that I’ve tried that before, and he left me with two boxes, and the next person to call on the phone said, ‘do you guys have Magic the Gathering?” After the customer immediately came and bought all of their stock, Woods changed his mind.

“Needless to say, I bought more Magic, it got more popular, and right now, Magic is its own monster,” he said. “It creates and defines its own market, it is the number one most liquid collectible that I’ve seen in 25 years, and it shows no signs of slowing down.”

Outer Planes is another example of an FLGS. Located right in the heart of downtown Santa Rosa, this store caters to tabletop gamers of all types – card gamers, board gamers and RPG players. In addition to an array of prominently displayed board games, RPG books as well as booster boxes and packs of cards, you are also able to purchase comics, books, paints for miniature RPG models, terrain and dice.

“Magic’s probably the number one game in the store,” said Outer Planes store manager Andrew Bullene. “Pathfinder is definitely the number one roleplaying game in the store.” In terms of board games, he continues. “Settlers of Catan is probably the most popular, games like Munchkin are very popular, Ascension is very popular. Basically the old standbys.”

Jhi Roxas was a judge for the Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon card games for about five years. He originally started with Pokemon, but then he eventually got more into Yu-Gi-Oh. “I started playing Yu-Gi-Oh when I was in sophomore year of high school,” he said. “I liked it better, so I was more competitive,” he explained. “It’s easy to be a judge. You just need to know the rules, and when you’re done studying them, you take a test.”

As with any competitive or ‘niche’ activity however, there are bound to be issues and rivalries.

Bodie grew up in the southeast, and had trouble being one of the only tabletop fans in his area. “Growing up in the southeast, for me, there’s a different attitude towards fantasy in general. I faced a lot of stigma,” he said. “There’s a lot of backlash against people playing roleplaying games. Growing up, I heard a lot from people, saying ‘Oh, it’s satanic!’ It’s not, and I can show you right now. I can substitute this demon bad guy with a bad wolf, and guess what, it’s the exact same thing. It serves to be an antagonist.”

Still, he manages to keep a bright outlook. “Dungeons & Dragons has been a very positive thing to me. It’s definitely been a boon to my imagination,” Bodie said. “It’s been a boon to my ability as a storyteller and as a writer. It’s one of my favorite hobbies.”

There are a number of people who both collect sports items and play tabletop games, but this overlap is a small percentage. “It’s very interesting because we sell gaming and sports pieces here, and for the most part, it’s almost as if you can draw a very clear, concise line throughout the store,” said Matt of Baseball Cards and Memorabilia. “Aside from making it to the register, most people don’t cross their section. Here at this store, on the staff we have a lot of people that are pretty well-versed at both.”

Players can even turn against each other. Roxas explains some of his experiences. “When I was a judge for Yu-Gi-Oh, that was a lot more entertaining because everyone gets so aggressive when they lose,” he said. “They usually accuse their opponent of cheating. All I know is that Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh players dislike each other,” he said. “Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments I must say are the most hostile environment in any card game.”

Andrew Bullene of Outer Planes brought up a challenge with stocking popular game releases. “Certain games that are super popular right now, we can’t even carry – for instance, Cards Against Humanity. It’s an Amazon exclusive,” Bullene said. “In order for us to carry it, we’d have to buy it at retail price from Amazon, mark it up, and sell it to the store. We get about three to five calls a week calling in to ask if we can sell them a copy.”

Despite these setbacks, many see tabletop gaming as a good force in their lives. SRJC student and Warhammer 40K player Peter Barnette shared why he likes to play. “There’s certainly an aspect of kind of building something that you then play with, that is really appealing to me,” he said. “It’s kind of like exercising my brain in a way that just talking to people, or social interaction, or going to work, going to school doesn’t feel. So it’s a different kind of stimulation.”

Barnette had one last thing to add. “I would tell anyone who thinks that they might be interested to at least give it a try. It’s certainly been worthwhile,” he said. “There are some characters you have to avoid, some stereotypes that make playing the game unpleasant or weird, but on the whole it’s definitely a fulfilling hobby or set of hobbies.”