A Stolen Extra Lap With Dominion, the Buzz-Building Game
Delicious stouts in the fridge, hot cocoa coming off the stove ready to get spiked with cinnamon whiskey, three nice people coming over to play Dominion. I have another board game, Mysterium, ready to give away at night’s end as a door prize.
When I moved down here nearly five years ago, I thought it only a matter of time until the many classics in my storage room would come back to life. They moldered instead. I often imagine my bonds with others as stronger than they are.
Last winter I started pacing around the stacks and admitted that I’m probably never getting to play most of these ever again. Instead I resolve to pry a few stories from them and start letting them go, beginning with the least favorites.
It is impossible to show a new group how charged with feeling these boxes are. I have only the base Dominion set and two expansions, Intrigue and Prosperity, which always proved plenty for us. The old group is gone, connected to this moment only by a mess: Every single box is full of mis-sorted cards from a hurried pack-up. From when? 2015? Three days before the crew arrives, I pour a Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout and set about reorganizing them. Straightening a library when you know all the books are going to be read again is delirious busywork. I call the cards’ names and chant them back to order.
Dominion Deckbuilding and Samuel Smith’s Organic Chocolate Stout: I’m going to savor this.
They made the chocolate good and strong in this brew. I wish I’d picked up more than one. But the house is clean-ish by the Night Of, the drinks are ready and so are Bethany, David and Rygar. Two sets of headlights in my driveway. What a sight. I emcee the turns of the first game while they situate themselves, beating them handily on a simple supply of cards that seems bright with obvious (to me) choices.
They request a new setup for the second game. I get excited and have only stouts (Founders Breakfast Stout and Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrel-Aged) for dinner while they crush the saucepan of hot cocoa, put a dent in the whiskey jar, and mop the floor with me. There are two attack cards, powerful late-game conversion cards, and extra action/buy cards to consider. It’s late on a worknight and I’m being indulged, so I don’t begrudge Rygar feeding the supply to ChatGPT to get a quick strategy. Which Bethany overcomes anyhow because she timed her “greening” — when you start acquiring your final tranche of properties in a sprint and stop worrying about the efficiency of your deck — better than Ry.
Nobody walks empty-handed. Bethany wins Mysterium; Ryan and David each score a new paperback. I come back from seeing folks off and see that Bethany has neatly packed away all the cards and I feel like a country pastor with a brand new congregation.