Hi! I'm Bob Meyer, owner of this site and Play With Bob, Hobbies and Games here in Paradise, Ca.

The Par-o-Dice Game Club is my own creation intended to be the foundation for a group of Board and RPG players in and around the town of Paradise, Ca.

We have a mailing list for general communication and planning.

We also have a general forum you can use if you would like.

The following has been borrowed without permission from the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society

Boardgaming

Board games provide an excellent forum in which to gather friends and family for an intriguing, challenging

and stimulating social experience. Very few other activities provide the opportunity to gather with others and spend quality time together with wonderful amounts of social interaction.

If only more families would spend quality time together playing board games at the kitchen table as opposed to each doing their own thing in different rooms of the house, or wasting time mindlessly watching television or movie rentals, we would have stronger families in America and society would be much better off as a result.

Further, many board games actually challenge us in a number of ways. They force us to think, use our intellect, and often match wits with our fellow gamers. It develops and sharpens skills which aid us in many other facets of life. And as a developmental tool, the skills and lessons learned by children while playing good, quality board games are invaluable. Truly, the board game experience is usually an extremely rewarding one, socially, intellectually and developmentally.

In addition to all of this, playing board games is just plain FUN! Some of the best memories one has involve playing games with family and friends, sharing laughter, challenges and good times.

Over the past few years, more and more German style board games are entering the United States market. These games offer so much more than the usual "roll the die and move" mindless drivel. Hopefully, as more and more people become exposed to these games, adults will begin to realize that board gaming is not simply a pastime for children. On the contrary, board games are the perfect vehicle for sharing an afternoon or evening of stimulating, challenging fun with family and friends.

What are "Simulation" Games?

Simulation game topics run the gamut of human activity. There are military board games set in every period of human history: from Ancient times, to Napoleonic's, to present day, to the distant future. There are also games on railroading, sports, elections, business, gangsters, and many other historical subjects. Often different scenarios allow the use of the same pieces and map to play out different situations, thus

turning one board game into several. Sports games for example can simulate single games or entire seasons.

We'd like to welcome those of you who are new to simulation gaming and want to learn more about it. You've come to the right place. If you have even the slightest passing interest in history, you will quickly discover how captivating it is to recreate history through gaming simulations. Equally, for the experienced "grognards" among us, we hope you find that Par-O-Dice Game Club captures the essence of what makes simulation gaming such an enjoyable past time.

What are "War" Games?

While a wide variety of games are played at our meetings and by our members, some are interested in what are called conflict simulations, or 'wargames'. A wargame is just that. It is an attempt to create a realistic (to a degree) recreation of war in a game style manner. Its uses are many, and not just for entertainment. From the earliest times to the recent Gulf War, armies of the world have used wargames in one form or another to train or plan for future conflict. While it is true that the apparent subject is about war, it is not true that those that play wargames are warmongers any more than any other group of people.

Chess is a very abstract form of a wargame, while games such as Risk add "flavor". A wargame can be as simple or complex as the designer (and players) desire. It can be on paper, computer, or actual people (such as the Civil War reenactments popular here in the USA). It can be about historical, future, or alternate history events. It can be as simple as Risk, or as complex as required for actual military planning and training (and can take as long to play as the actual battles or even the whole campaign!).

What are "Euro" Games?

The majority of the finest card games and board games produced in the past many years have originated in Northern European countries, especially Germany. These are predominantly games of light strategy; some demand cunning strategy, some hardnosed negotiating skills, and some have an element of luck thrown in.

Why are these games so great? Well, they don't drag on all night; the longer ones clock in at about three hours, and many of the family-oriented titles can be played in 30-60 minutes. As far as game play is concerned, it's hard to top the "Euro" games. Many will have you bartering and negotiating with your friends and family. Finally, the Germans have been producing these games en masse for many, many years, so the quality of the cards, counters and other components cannot be matched by North American companies.

What are "Role Playing" Games?

A role-playing game (RPG) is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters and collaboratively create or follow stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines. Within the rules, players can improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.

A role-playing game rarely has winners or losers. That makes role-playing games fundamentally different from board games, card games, sports and most other types of games. Role-playing games are typically more collaborative and social than competitive. A typical role-playing game unifies its participants into a single team, known as a "party", that plays as a group. Like serials or novel sequences, these episodic games are often played in weekly sessions over a period of months or even years, although some gamers prefer playing one session games.

Role-playing games are a form of interactive and collaborative storytelling. Like novels or films, role-playing games appeal because they engage the imagination. Interactivity is the crucial difference between role-playing games and traditional fiction. Whereas a viewer of a television show is a passive observer, a player at a role-playing game makes choices that affect the story. Such role-playing games extend an older tradition of storytelling games where a small party of friends collaborate to create a story.

While simple forms of role-playing exist in traditional children's games such as "cops and robbers", "cowboys and Indians" and "playing house", role-playing games add a level of sophistication and persistence to this basic idea. Instead, participants in a role-playing game will generate specific characters and an ongoing plot. A consistent system of rules and a more or less realistic campaign setting in games aids suspension of disbelief. The level of realism in games ranges from just enough internal consistency to set up a believable story or credible challenge to full-blown simulations of real-world processes.