Geektopia started as a the Chicago-based gaming group including Roman F (John), the blog’s author, fooyongfoo (Ian), the site’s designer, Erik, his brother and CageyBB, our friend.  Roman also became part of a second Chicago-based gaming group, formerly known as “Star Wars Minis League 1670” including some of the best-known SWM players in the world like Timmerb, Docmogs/Fingersandteeth (also known in Epic Duels), and xcrudo. We are also a 3-hour drive from Indianapolis and hence annual visitors to GenCon.  The 1670 group has (mostly) moved on from SWM, moved from Wicker Park to Jefferson Park, added new members like Televator and the Cowboy Poet, and become very good about trying out new titles.  Many gamers trying many titles gives us great access to review new tabletop games.  In more recent years, Dystopia Dave (Matt), another Chicago resident, also joined the blog and the group, bringing a lot of hands-on game-modifying to the group.  Before Geektopia, Roman had other gaming groups, leneek being his primary gaming friend.

The Geektopia group tends to like tabletop games that are strategic, but also those that can be completed within a couple of hours, think of Epic Duels or Puerto Rico or Terraforming Mars  We like to play through several games in a night, giving everyone a chance to win a game by being on Cagey’s team.  Our favorite game probably remains Epic Duels but a 2004 boardgamegeek.com post called Games played by the 3 A-Holes probably better captures who we are.  These days, we’ve been rolling some D&D 5e.

The 1670 group will try 1-2 new titles almost every time they meet, sometimes mixing in old games, as we’ll play for 8 hours or more at a time.  Therefore, this group has no aversion to playing or even trying out games that take 3-4 hours at a time; even a 6 hour game like Eclipse is on the table.  Other times, smaller contingents will meet to play Star Wars Minis exclusively.  Four of its members, including Roman, also have an ongoing campaign of Pathfinder the Adventure Card Game (and now that it’s 2018, it’s high time we wrapped that one up!)