It's all about taste ~Intro~

Board gaming as with every hobby is all about taste.  Our personal likes and dislikes influence pretty much everything we d from what TV shows we enjoy and what cuisine makes us smile down to what toilet paper we buy and the use of chemicals in our homes.  And all of these things are influences on a micro level, for example, I don't use chemical cleaners in my home, but i dye my hair with products other than Henna.  Our reasons are our own and it's all influenced by our tastes and values.
With that in mind board gaming is the overarching hobby name and yet there are so many levels underneath that arch.

Before i embark on the meat of this series of entries though i'm going to make sure the mind set in which i approach all of this is made clear.
I don't think anyone is or even can be a 'fake geek' per say.
This means in terms of gaming, if a person doesn't enjoy the heavy hard core space games but prefer instead the lighter party games, they are still a gamer.  They are not a fake.  Equally, if a persons gaming collection doesn't include one of any one particular genre within the gaming world, they are not a fake, there are many reasons why someone might  not to own a 'type' of game.
Some people aren't gamers, that's OK and every gamer is their own kind of gamer.
I for instance don't really play computer games, not a lot of them, i do not in terms of computer games consider myself a gamer.  I am a gamer though, board games, card games, Role Play games.  On that note, i haven't done table top role played in years, i play online in an open system...i'm not less a role player than someone who is a table top devotee.
We are what we are.  Own it!

The second mind set is a pet peeve of mine.
I'll start by saying i listen to P!nk, Kelly Clarkson, Beethoven, Powderfinger, Glee, Muse, Aqua, Bond, Clive Mansel, Britney Spears and Eric Calderone.  Amongst so many other kids of music.  And I'm not ashamed of any of them.  I liked what i liked when i liked it, before or after it was popular or after.  I sometimes read the book first, sometimes i don't, sometimes the movie really IS enough for me.  I don't feel guilty for feeling as i do on any of these things.  Nor do i feel guilty about the food that i eat when i eat it.   Why should i?
This is something I've tohught for a long long time and then my husband read this out to me the other day and i was doing my version of jumping up and cheering for it (which is to say i was sitting on the sofa grinning like a fool).

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you fucking like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong with our generation: that residual punk rock guilt, like, “You’re not supposed to like that. That’s not fucking cool.” Don’t fucking think it’s not cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” It is cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic”! Why the fuck not? Fuck you! That’s who I am, goddamn it! That whole guilty pleasure thing is full of fucking shit.”

― Dave Grohl

OK...with all that said this entry is long enough so i'll state what i'm about to embark on and gt on with it.
Board games come in many genres sci-fi, fantasy, steam punk, trains, horror, and even these genres can be broken down by a different set of 'genres', party games, gateway games etc. so i'm going to look at my admittedly limited experience with games, and my favorites in each genre, what i like, what i don't the best I've tried in each or in some cases i only have word of mouth on what is good and what not.
It'd be fun to do this again next year to see how and if I've changed my mind on some things.
here' goes.


Here's some further reading on what i'd said here while i'm writing the next entry.
Wil Wheaton is known to have a voice on this matter.