A big part of the tabletop gaming experience is food. Back in the early days of the Blackrazor campaign, we prided ourselves on trying as many sodas as possible, eventually compiling The Great List of Soda. That list included the expected flavors like “Coca-Cola” and “Diet Mountain Dew” (which those long ago geeks scorned as being the False Mountain Dew … but that was before we had kids and gained 20-30 lbs.). It also had more unusual flavors, such as “Sparkling Green Apple”, “Pineapple”, and “Livewire Mountain Drew” (whatever that was).
Signature food dishes included The Green, a nicely hot green salsa that our friend Bill used to make (he’s since moved to Alabama, so we have t had The Green in decades).
Back in our 20s and 30s, we often ate like crap – lots of pizza, Mountain Dew, and chips. Our diet’s improved over time as we added some healthier options to our menu, like hummus, carrots, and other veggies … and beer, because quite a lot of us enjoy good beer.
Some of my favorite times with the Blackrazors have been during convention downtime at restaurants in Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Columbus. Drinking flights of beer samplers, eating steak, discovering titan toothpicks, and having lots of great conversations. When GenCon stopped by an annual pilgrimage, we took that tradition to local restaurants when we realized how important it was for us to just hang out, talk, and eat.
Years later, it’s all a pleasant blur and one I hope we can bring back into focus once the pandemic is over, and we can return something like our regular gaming life.
This post is part of RPG a Day 2021, a month-long celebration of role-playing games. Join the Facebook community to learn more or read other Nuketown posts in this series.
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Soda – a staple of most gaming groups. Credit: Ken Newquist