Gamers entering the Newington Tabletop Gaming Center are met with a large pride flag hanging from the ceiling and a dilemma. Go right or left? On their right are the shelves of paint pots, brushes, cards, epoxy putty, scalpels, scissors, Dungeon and Dragons (D&D) books, miniature model boxes, and eager workers. On their left are rows upon rows of tables full of players indulging in Magic: The Gathering, D&D, Warhammer, Pokėmon, or just painting their models quietly, like the old man who attends every Wednesday just to paint miniature soldiers. The Tabletop Gaming Center is as diverse as their paint selection. Large crowds of all colors, ages, and gender united weekly for geeky hobbies.
“Hey guys, welcome! Do you need any help with anything?” calls Jorge, a thirty-year-old tabletop hobby enthusiast and UConn graduate, standing near the front door holding the newest issue of White Dwarf, a Warhammer magazine. Jorge has been a player and employee of the Newington Tabletop Center for around three years. Jorge is often seen fawning over a new box of miniatures, or reading an old Warhammer rulebook from 1997. He has seen countless community members take their first sip from the tabletop gaming fountain. The Center prides itself on creating a welcoming and safe environment. “I actively try to make it that way. When I was first here, I had just moved to West Hartford. This was the closest game store around and I came in with a huge cardboard box of old Magic cards, and was immediately welcomed and helped out,” He shuffles in his seat as he watches more customers enter the store, almost as if he is going to spring up to greet them. They disappear behind the aisles of art supplies. “I got to sit down and spend most of the day trying to de-sleeve everything and some of the employees came and helped me out. I immediately felt welcomed, like I had been going here for years. And I’ve been trying to pass on that kind of welcoming spirit and atmosphere since I got here.”
One way the store creates a hospitable spirit is by not charging a door-entrance fee. They instead rely on their community’s good will in which they will make a purchase when attending game nights and events. Players choose to make small purchases such as soda, art supplies, brushes, or paints, all while being tempted by a menacing dragon head sculpture with a two hundred dollar price tag.
On a busy Wednesday afternoon, tabletop gamers flock to Newington. There are six large five-by-four foot tables for the wargaming groups, ten rectangular cafeteria tables for the card players, and four extra tables for the painting and D&D groups. A group of young teenagers, dressed in hoodies and drooping pants, playfully shout at each other over an intense match. Children wearing capes and costumed hats sit politely at a table as an employee acts as their dungeon master for a youth D&D group. An elderly man unzips his suitcase, neatly arranging his brushes in order of size and shape, next to his color organized paint pots, across from another elderly hobbyist. Cardplayers fill the rows of brown paint-stained tables, happily discussing the latest competitive strategy for Magic: The Gathering. A passing man talks with other players and workers alike about what cards he will be purchasing from the store next. Over at the wargaming section, entire armies and battle formations of plastic miniature toy soldiers maneuver around fake trees and buildings. Dice clatter onto the table, and sometimes accidentally onto the floor, lost to the ever-feasting carpet of lost dice. The gamers playfully compliment their opponent’s finely painted custom models, all the while annihilating them.
Two middle aged gamers sit at a table playing their favorite wargame: Warhammer 40,000. It takes twenty minutes setting up a village for their armies to battle over. “We feel like fighting over feudal Japan today,” the one with glasses says. He lays out fake Japanese homes made out of balsa wood onto the rubber mat covered in fake grass dyed a vibrant 1990s green. His opponent, a slightly older fellow with a bright oversized yellow shirt and jeans, intricately checks each building making sure they are in the proper arrangements. They spend the night rolling dice and moving their hand-painted armies while discussing the latest updates to the game, and chatting up passing players and spectators about their opinions on their battlefield tactics. This is a weekly game between old friends. “My tank is going to shoot at your demon now,” Yellow Shirt asks his friends, then adds, “Anyways, how is your grandmother in New Jersey?” The two will battle for the next two hours until Yellow Shirt loses all of his remaining troops, conceding the Japanese village to his opponent and friend. Next week they may battle on the red dusty surface of Mars, the bombed out ruins of a city, or in a French farmer’s field in World War II Europe.
Tabletop gaming as a genre has seen a recent rise in popularity over the last few decades, leading to established “third places” creating safe, diverse, and inviting locations that enthusiasts flock to, forming their own communities. Community members seek the Center as a third place to hangout, a place away from work, school, and home. ”You’ve got home and you’ve got work but this place acts as a nice little neutral third space, where it’s not quite either of them,” says Jorge. “It’s a different kind of atmosphere where you can relax and be comfortable. You don’t have to keep the work-life mask you have to wear daily. It’s just chill, you know?”
Tabletop gaming dates back over 7000 years ago, all the way back to 5000 BC where the first dice were cast. Dice were rudimentary and almost unrecognizable, being simple sticks with two flat sides. More recently, chess was born in 400 AD in India as a simple wargame. Tabletop games weren’t a luxury passtime until the industrial era when all classes found time to enjoy games. The first international tournament for the tabletop game Backgammon was held in 1967 in Las Vegas. Dungeons and Dragons was founded in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and it was purchased by Wizards of the Coast in 1997. The English company Games Workshop launched the super popular Warhammer 40,000 in 1983.
On a bright spring day in April 2024, Ben Therrien walks through the doors of the Center, past the posters plastering the front windows, to meet his friends. He comes in twice a week to either hangout while browsing the shelves, or to sit down and roll dice in a friendly game of Warhammer. Ben often meets his friends at the Center to play, and describes the people who are not his friends but also are members of the community as friendly and welcoming. He frequently rants to the staff about new strategies for the games he plays, as if they are not just employees, but fellow gamers.
Heather Napier is the store’s community manager, and her path to the Tabletop Center is shared by many community members. In Fall 2018, she nervously joined a new group for D&D. “I had been super nervous about joining a new group but the store made me feel really welcomed.” Encouraged by the collegial spirit, she applied to work there on a whim and has been with the store ever since. “As someone who was the certified ‘weird’ girl in most circles growing up, I was never made to feel like that here and was encouraged to open up and just be myself. It helped make the store a new home for myself.” As the community manager, Heather’s job is to maintain that third place for the community. “That’s what this store does, it brings people together and gives them a home, a place to find friendship, and a place to let their nerd flag fly. I have heard this from customers time and time again about how wonderful our store is, and it honestly makes me so happy and so very proud of our staff and community for helping make our store somewhere people want to go and feel comfortable.”
“The store made me feel really welcome… they let my nerd flag fly.”
Heather eases tensions and uncertainties that potential new community members may have, especially when facing discrimination. She welcomes customers with a large grin and a polite hello, finished off with a gleeful wave. “It’s all too common where certain demographics of people feel unwelcome in tabletop spaces, or nerd spaces in general.” Post-Covid gamers like other hobbyists were eager to reunite in groups. New members should not feel nervous about joining new organizations for fear of discrimination. “Our community has jumped in and told others to come give us a visit because of how we actively fight against that type of behavior.” New members are welcomed into the community every day.
A little girl, who looks no older than three, wearing a bright pink raincoat glossed over the rows of dice, ogles at the giant chest full of the colorful cubes. Her parents browse a few aisles over. She clutches her little notebook, full of pages of her first ever D&D character. The store’s employees watch the girl run back to her mother. Another player is born.
Samuel is a Tabletop Gaming Center community member and staff writer for Blue Muse Magazine.
Photos courtesy of Tabletop Gaming Center and Samuel Belliveau.
I admit I knew nothing about Tabletop games until students started to write first person stories about them in CNF1. But this feature gives me the fullest portrait yet!