Another post this week inspired by d4 Caltrops: d100 subject list. This week we're talking about eating during the game.
Rolled 73: What are the best snacks you've found that work during a game?
This is one that when I saw it I hoped I would roll. The act of sharing a meal with friends is very important to me. I use the phrase breaking bread a lot when I talk about this subject, because to me that is what it is. We gather for a communal meal to sit and enjoy each other's company. The act of cooking for my friends and sharing a meal means something to me. So we're gonna get a little (lot) off topic and hijack this topic to answer the question and talk about what those snacks really meant.
Getting the now out of the way: I play online now because I moved to a country where my ability to speak the language is similar to that of a pre-schooler. My snacks now are usually just chips, a local candy brand that I've come to love, and popcorn. My wife got me into the habit of eating my snacks with chopsticks to avoid a mess and it makes me wonder why I wasn't always doing that.
Some of my fondest memories of the table come from this sharing a meal. I come from a group that used to block off an entire Saturday once or twice a month and play for the entire day. We would rally at someone's house before the sun had risen. We would quietly set things up at the table and share coffee while someone made sausage biscuits and gravy. One of us would throw some eggs in a muffin tin and toss it in the oven, someone else brought this unhinged device to microwave bacon and turned the microwave into a fire hazard but made the crispiest bacon I've ever had. This sounds messy, like a great way to get grease on your character sheets, and it is! some of us would keep our sheet in a plastic sleeve from a binder page, some of us wouldn't. Rich's sheets were always the greasiest things. But we shared breakfast and discussed the weeks or month prior while the DM did his last minute prep and reviewed things. The shared meal at breakfast was important to us for a lot of reasons.
Around lunch time we wouldn't take a break, usually we would break out chips, pretzels, canned soda, and the fixings for sandwiches. Lunch was not one of the important meals and we might take a short one while the DM made a sandwich or take fifteen while the smokers took a break (often to buy us time to think about our next move). Occasionally we might order a couple of pizzas or pile into a car for a trip to Macca's or Arby's. A light lunch and snacking through the session got us to dinner. Snacks for me personally always included almonds, corn nuts, dry jerky, or something else small and crunchy that I could shovel into my mouth by the handful like I was feeding a furnace. I would always bring 4-5 of those tall cans of Arizona iced tea, drinking something like 6 times my daily value of sugar but always willing to share these.
Dinner was also important. This one also meant that we took a break. In the summer some of the guys would go out and load up the grill with burgers, dogs, and chicken breasts. No vegetables by the way. I don't know why but other than french fries we didn't eat vegetables during this. I remember a visiting player asking about this and someone asking if he wanted to make them, then it was never brought up again. In the fall and winter we would throw a stew in the slow cooker or a instant pot. I loved making Tex-Mex stew over rice for these games. We often took a break for dinner and would sit and discuss things we had been watching or reading. Sometimes we would break out magic cards and play magic over dinner. We always made way more than we needed for dinner so people would be comfortable going back for seconds or thirds over the course of the rest of the night. We would pick back up after dinner and play late into the night, picking at the leftovers and cleaning out the snacks we brought. Sessions would end around 2-4 in the morning and after we would spend at least an hour just talking before everyone scattered and headed home.
I look back on these times so fondly. I deeply miss these extremely long game days. I miss sitting at a table with friends and sharing meals while catching up on everything we missed. This group is one I played with for a decade, we had people come in and out but that vibe never changed. We had younger players some high school guys, all the way up to a guy in his 70's who liked to tell me "my youngest grandchild is older than you" for some reason when I was in my mid 20's. In this age of digital games where everyone is playing online I really feel like something important about games is lost. I am not breaking bread with friends for an entire day, I'm hopping on Discord and playing for a paltry 4 hours and feel that I barely had enough time to run the game before it ended. There is a social element that is lost online. I live in a tiny studio apartment now and lack the space to host like I used to but I long to play with a group of people at the table, people I am friends with, people who's lives I want to hear about and share their burdens and joys with them before we all get into our game of pretend with math rocks. Games were once a full day, shared human experience, and food was how we made space for each other inside that time.
This post is the result of Buster over on 19 Sided Die laying out a challenge to me to cover the whole d100 list of topics. Since my last post he has had three, including one that covered this same topic! check out "Are Holy Symbols Required" "Where does lantern oil come from" and "Gaming Snacks". Additionally Bombgoblin has answered the question of "What drugs are in your setting?" with a... unique answer and I strongly suggest checking it out.
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