A Stolen Extra Lap With Dominion, the Buzz-Building Game
Getting an old friend back on the table with new friends
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.