Tuesday, June 7, 2011

It's All Fun and Games!

This is another brainchild of the blogfest behemoth: Alex J. Cavanaugh! I don't always have time to take part in Alex's incredible ideas, but this one sounded easy, and I couldn't resist talking about games.

Okay, admittedly, I did it to Alex, again, missing the actual festival by a day, but he's used to it by now, and Alex is very understanding, as well as being the nicest guy you could ever meet.

Let me get to my three favorite games:


There is no game in my entire life that has influenced me more than dear old D&D. I first started playing in like 2nd grade, with my best friend Bill, and his 7 older brothers. Okay, not all of them played at once, but it did make for some big parties.

D&D did more to expand my vocabulary than any other game, teaching me words like contingency, illusionist, paladin, cleric, claymore, flail, morning-star ... I could go on. D&D also taught me to love language. Some of the original modules written by Gary Gygax were full of purple prose, but he also had a flair for description and for clever naming conventions.

And, of course, finally, it was D&D that led me to my love of all things Fantasy. Well, technically my dad read LOTR to us kids at night sometimes before I started playing, but it was D&D that led me to Anne McCafferty, Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, The Forgotten Realms, The Call of Cthulu (which used be a horror RPG, in addition to the incredibly creepy short story by H.P. Lovecraft).
My family's favorite "board or card game," or basically the only game we really play together on a regular basis is Apples to Apples. This is a simple, but hilarious, word association game with several variations the never cease to fill the room with fun, language, and psychological hijinks. If you aren't familiar with this game, please run out and get it.

You won't be disappointed.

But the game I've been having the most fun with lately, whenever I'm drunk and bored, or just have some free time, is playing around with hashtags on Twitter. If you don't know what a hashtag is, I'm probably not the one to school you, but if you do know, then by all means, read on.

One of my favorites lately was #LovecraftPictureBooks. My best tweet during that round of hashtag madness was probably "At the Mountains of Madlibs." Get it? Do you see how this works? Credit for this hashtag goes to @ShaunieDarko.

Another favorite of mine was a few months ago, #BetterFirstLines. That search is apparently too old to yield any results, but my favorite (of mine) from that round of hilarity was "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to the Bravo channel." Okay, technically that's not a better first line than the awesome opening line of William Gibson's Neuromancer, but it is funnier. Sometimes that's the point. Credit for this hashtag goes to @SimonCLarter, at least as far as I know.

Then there is always the venerable #ZombieProverbs, like my best "A brain in the hand is worth two in the bush ... nom, nom, nom." See? Such fun!

I could give you more examples, but I imagine you get it by now. If you'd ever like to play hashtag madness with me and my wild friends, you know where to find us (on Twitter, wink, wink).

37 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

D&D geek? Knew you were cool! D&D teaches so much - those who've never played don't understand what they're missing.
LinkyTools crashed this morning, but I'll add your link as soon as my blogfest link appears again.

Donna K. Weaver said...

Apples to Apples if fun but I like Boxers or Briefs better.

I never thought of Twitter hashtags as a game. Clever.

Matthew MacNish said...

Is not very organized, but it's fun. Just come up with a funny hashtag, start tweeting, and see how many people you can get to join in.

Li said...

I chose playing #hashtags too. Unfortunately, it's becoming addictive...

Bryan Russell said...

I totally have to write about D&D one of these days...

Natalie Aguirre said...

I bet I'd love D&D being a fantasy nut. If only I had time.

S.A. Larsenッ said...

Okay, so I still suck at the hashtag lingo thing. I must take a class. But Haha...to the zombie one. That rocks!

Unknown said...

Ooo I didn't think about #hashtags being some sort of games but I love it!!!! I'm going to have to check the one's out you've listed because I'm always looking for some time wasters... and we both know that twitter is definitely capable of that!!!

It's been so long since I've commented here! Gosh it feels so good to be back in the game! HOORAY!

Kelly Polark said...

Great idea to include the Twitter hashtag games!! Those are fun!
And of course I love playing Apples to Apples!!

Sommer Leigh said...

D&D is one of the most under appreciated games out there. I'm 31 years old and I still play (and so does my husband.) There's nothing like putting grown up worries aside to sit down with your other grown up friends and hunt orcs for four hours on a friday night.

We are also big Apples to Apples players in my house. I love that game!

Unknown said...

Apples to Apples is one of my favorites.

Michael G-G said...

I love that hashtag about the color of television and the Bravo channel, but the only one of these games I've played (with the fam, of course) is Apples to Apples. (Sad secret: I'm not a big gamer. I prefer going off by myself to read.)

baygirl32 said...

I'm still trying to figure out the #hashtag game, sounds fun

vic caswell said...

i have absolutely zero understanding of twitter, but i love the zombie proverb! and sometimes i skim through twitter feeds in blog sidebars. steph slinkhorn's were really funny today, hashtag was yakills and tweets were about meeting your end via mindlessly mimicking ya literature. pretty funny!

Sarah Ahiers said...

neeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrddddd!

Nah, i'm just kidding. My brother has his friends over here every other sunday for some tabletop D&D (he also plays every other friday and every wednesday)

OOh i forgot all abotu apples to apples! I haven't played that in years!

K.C. Woolf said...

Confession time: I didn't play D&D, but I did play White Wolf games. Does that count?

Twitter hashtags sounds fun. I've never played along, but that might change. :-)

Donna K. Weaver said...

Woot! Matt, you were my 200th follower. FANKS!

Precy Larkins said...

Twitter hashtags are fun! And people get so creative (the ones I loved recently are #reluctantblurbs and #lessinterestingbooks --search it, you'll find a lot of funnies.)

Anonymous said...

Okay, I've GOT to run out and get this Apples to Apples thing. A lot of people really recommended it. Sounds like fun.

And I am relatively new to Twitter. You know how much I am lagging when it comes to this techno stuff.

So if I say "#&*!@$*" on Twitter, is that considered a hashtag? Ha!

Motto of the day: Better late than never. Good stuff!

Old Kitty said...

Twitter hashtag!!I read on anyway even if I dont a clue what it's all about! LOL!!! And I still don't get it! LOL!!

Yay for DD!!! Take care
x

Jeff Beesler said...

Wow, I never would have pegged you as a fan of D&D, Matthew. Probably because you have a relatively high cool factor or something. But hey, it's awesome that D&D helped you to appreciate prose even more!

Nicole Zoltack said...

I have to play D&D! I'm missing out. Love Apples to Apples though, it's awesome!

Steve MC said...

Wish I'd been able to play D&D and write lots of #OrcHaikus.

Sara {Rhapsody and Chaos} said...

You know... I signed up for a D&D account this year, because everyone loves it so much. And... I sucked at it. Sigh.

But I LOVE apples to apples :) Especially the blank cards because we always fill those out with crazy things.

Shari said...

Twitter is over my head. I can't even imagine how that could be fun, but I'm lame like that.

We love Apples to Apples, though!

Theresa Milstein said...

I'm not familiar with any of these. And now I feel extra out of the loop with Twitter!

Cole Gibsen said...

I love D&D! Have you ever played the mini-version Munchkin? Flux is also another really awesome card game. (I prefer the Monty Python edition.)

Angela Ackerman said...

I like Apples to Apples, too!

Angela @ The Bookshelf muse

Cassandra Frear said...

Our family found the Aristoplay Games to be great choices. Very educational, too. But the one we've played most (aside from cards) is the old standby: Monopoly.

Funny, I don't really like Monopoly at all, but it's the one we can all agree on. Another oldie but goodie is Clue.

Trisha said...

Hi, thanks for stopping by my blog :) Not sure how you found it either, but yay!! hehe

mshatch said...

omg I loved D&D. My brother was the best dungeon keeper. I remember one Christmas staying up late and playing all night :)

Nate Wilson said...

Somehow, I've made it this long without ever playing D&D, which is odd considering how big a geek I am. I was in my high school's Math League, for god's sake. How do you like them apples? #ilikeapples

Susan Fields said...

Apples to Apples is one of my family's favorite games, too. I love it because it's one of the few games where the kids are on equal footing with the adults.

Joe Lunievicz said...

Dungeons and Dragons rocks. My son and I like Pokemon card games too!

Anonymous said...

Dude. #BetterFirstLines FTW. My favorite was "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream, and it had been eighty days now since he had taken a dump."

Scatological humor. Do we ever outgrow it? Lulz.

Sand Castles and Snow Forts said...

D&D once again. How is it that I did not get to play this when I was younger? Twitter...... I still haven't jumped in and played in there.

Michelle Merrill said...

Although I've never played D&D, I do play Magic the Gathering. The hubby got into it a while ago and then I got sucked in because I wanted to spend more time with him. Have you ever played?

And I LOVE Apples to Apples. We are big gamers here. If you ever want more board games suggestions, let me know :)

I think you'd like Dominion.