“…a good handful of breweries and bars have started housing their own D&D nights in town. Amongst these is Garden Grove Brewing and Urban Winery who hosts their own D&D night every other Tuesday night, and encourage anyone curious in learning the game to come.
After realizing that a bunch of the folks at Garden Grove already play and love D&D, the desire to want to bring a game night to the brewery only felt natural. After seeing that Strangeways hosted their own night, Chris Sarnoski reached out to Goblins and Growlers (who host the game) to see if they could do the same for them.
“We always thought that was really cool, that whole community aspect of folks coming out to play games whether alone or with other people,” said Sarnoski. “We wanted to see if we could take something we were passionate about outside of Garden Grove and do more there.”
Much like other folks in the area who play D&D or who host the nights, Sarnoski has always enjoyed it even if he hasn’t always kept up with it the entire time. So why does he love it so much? Pretty much for the same reasons we all do, just stated a bit more eloquently, honestly.
“It’s kind of like a theater of the mind based role playing game,” said Sarnoski. I love playing video games at home, but it’s really a good chance to write your own story or develop your own character and see what they’re about. It always gives me a chance to disconnect from the daily stress of work and have fun playing and developing a different character.”
Even though it’s hard to ignore that Richmond does tend to hop on any trend involving decompressing and relaxing, especially in ways that remind us of simpler times, it’s still a valid question. Why D&D in Richmond, and why now?
“With a lot of the games I’ve seen pop up in Richmond, they’re low-commitment based opportunities,” said Sarnoski. “They’re drop in, drop out style games. You can show up this week and then miss the next two weeks, and it’s totally okay — whereas a lot of the private style games, if you miss one week, you’re not playing the game anymore. I think we’re a fairly young city, and gaming is definitely a big aspect of this generation for the most part; at least for all the circles I travel through.” ”
