Katrina and I started Friendly Tahoma Geeks with the mission to provide a safe and welcoming space for marginalized people who, all too frequently, encounter hate and prejudice in the larger geek/nerd community. As we all watch the horrific footage of aggressive and violent police responses to those protesting the death of numerous innocent people of color at the hands of law enforcement, we would like to take a moment to clearly communicate our position:

Friendly Tahoma Geeks, and both of us personally, stand with the #BlackLivesMatter movement. We recognize that

• our society is infested with systemic racism throughout, and
  
• police forces as a whole have a long history connected to racism, and
  
• people of color are disproportionately affected by the racism inherent in our institutions.
  

• people of color have very different life experiences than white Americans, and
  
• it is not our place to dictate to marginalized people how they should feel or protest, and
  
• those suffering should not have to expend emotional labor explaining their pain to each person, therefore
  
• it is incumbent on those of us with Privilege to educate ourselves and to do better.
  

• Our mission statement has been updated to clearly communicate our support for marginalized people.
  
• I'm reviewing our Code of Conduct to see if there are any clarifications we can make there.
  
• Personally, we have donated to legal defense and bail out funds as well as Geeking Out Kids of Color (https://www.gokic.org/ )
  

Katrina and I, along with some other members, have been working on trying out several online games and now have a list to share with everyone. These are the games we've played at previous online meetups and with each other.

https://friendlytahomageeks.com/online.php

If you have another game you'd like to play at this week's meetup, let us know so we can try it out. See everyone on Saturday 

https://ftg.link/cal

- Shawn

Our first attempt to play online as a group didn't go very smoothly. Most of the tabletop sites have seen a massive increase in players. Because of this, the one we chose has instituted a policy of not letting free accounts log in during high-traffic times. We don't want to require anyone to pay for access, so we're continuing to gather information about online resources.

You can now find that list here:

https://friendlytahomageeks.com/online.php

If you know of any other ways to play tabletop games online, please let us know.

- Shawn

Gaming from home, Part 2

After doing some research, I've identified a couple of sites we can use to play tabletop games online. I've just set up a premium account, and group, on Boardgame Arena:

https://boardgamearena.com/group?id=3319238

It's free to create an account, and we'll be able to host the Premium games, which include:

• 7Wonders,
  
• Carcassonne,
  
• Kingdomino,
  
• etc.
  

In keeping with instructions to #FlattenTheCurve and #ProtectTheHerd, we are going to try something new:

This Saturday, starting at 1pm, we'll be playing Mystic Vale Online.

The game isn't free, and we normally try to make sure we don't do anything that has a barrier to playing, but a few of our members speak highly of it and I wasn't able to find anything better this week. I will continue looking for no-cost options, however. And, of course, we're always open to suggestions :-)

The game is available from Nomad Games for PC, tablets/phones and :

Windows & Mac ($15)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/908070/Mystic_Vale/

Android ($5.50)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...mysticvale

Apple App Store ($5)

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mystic-vale/id1456125882

For many months now we've seen a growing number of what appear to be bogus account registrations on the forums (https://ftg.link/forums). This week I'm tightening the anti-spam measures, so if you know of anyone who's trying to create an account on the forum but can't please let me know.

- Shawn

Shawn and I are once again healthy!! YAY!!!

We'll have our regular tabletop game day this Saturday, the 8th of Feb, at The Game Shelf in Kent, WA.

There is no theme this time, but please limit the number of games brought. We only have 3 hours!  One or two please.

We will be bringing:
Elder Sign, 1-8 players
Mysterium, 2-7 players

Hope to see you this Saturday!
Katrina

FYI, Sikh Captain America is pretty cool.

From the Kent Reporter:

Quote:Singh will speak about stereotypes in our lives as part of the city of Kent’s Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13, at the Kent Memorial Park Building, 850 Central Ave. N.

Enjoy the holidays everyone!

There are no more official Friendly Tahoma Geeks events for the year, but Katrina and I will be at The Game Shelf for New Year's Eve celebrations.

See you "next year,"

- Shawn

Greetings gamers!

Our next tabletop meet-up is this Saturday, December 14th.  We'll meet at The Game Shelf in Kent from 1pm to 4pm.

We will be bringing Terraforming Mars and Mysterium.  Please feel free to bring a game or 2 to play also.

Hope to see you this weekend!

Katrina