As someone else said, Snakes and Lattes is one of the more geeky places in the city at least for board games. The Games Tender there has told me that they tried MTG and didn't get much of a showing. There is a DnD bar called Dmen Tap up in avondale that has a campaign on Weds, open to new people. Dice Dojo up in Edgewater is much more neckbeardy. I never did my FNM there but they sold cards and the clerks seemed knowledgeable. Avoid Bonus Round its super woke, wouldn't even stock secret hitler because it was made by "those people" according to them.
I've been to both dice dojo and had been hanging around with some of the bonus rounds people when they were just a board game meetup and didn't buy the place yet. Went to the place too for a few months but I kind of got the impression they didn't like me/my group very much and they are indeed very woke. As far as I can tell most board game enthusiasts simply do private gatherings, which is the direction I went as soon as I had gathered a stable group.
I actually disagree with the whole private gathering exclusivity idea. my experience is that most people meet through meetups or they bring their existing friends. I know a couple groups in Chicago, that do the exclusively euro-style, long, strategy games in a rotating manner, and they use meetup to find new games/and or people and occasionally get together privately for a very specific game. Since moving away from Chicago a couple months ago, I'd say my new city has 11 board game bars in the area and I play at many of them through both meetups and private gatherings with people I met from those meetups.
I'm very much not against meetups in general, I got to know the person who ultimately set me up with my fiance through a board game meetup so I have a kind of fondness for them as an idea. I'm just describing my experience with the Chicago boardgame scene and why it may different from other towns.
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Notes -
As someone else said, Snakes and Lattes is one of the more geeky places in the city at least for board games. The Games Tender there has told me that they tried MTG and didn't get much of a showing. There is a DnD bar called Dmen Tap up in avondale that has a campaign on Weds, open to new people. Dice Dojo up in Edgewater is much more neckbeardy. I never did my FNM there but they sold cards and the clerks seemed knowledgeable. Avoid Bonus Round its super woke, wouldn't even stock secret hitler because it was made by "those people" according to them.
Actually Dive Dojo is the place I mentioned that was a ghost town full of diversity lingo, so the neck beard stronghold has fallen.
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I've been to both dice dojo and had been hanging around with some of the bonus rounds people when they were just a board game meetup and didn't buy the place yet. Went to the place too for a few months but I kind of got the impression they didn't like me/my group very much and they are indeed very woke. As far as I can tell most board game enthusiasts simply do private gatherings, which is the direction I went as soon as I had gathered a stable group.
I actually disagree with the whole private gathering exclusivity idea. my experience is that most people meet through meetups or they bring their existing friends. I know a couple groups in Chicago, that do the exclusively euro-style, long, strategy games in a rotating manner, and they use meetup to find new games/and or people and occasionally get together privately for a very specific game. Since moving away from Chicago a couple months ago, I'd say my new city has 11 board game bars in the area and I play at many of them through both meetups and private gatherings with people I met from those meetups.
I'm very much not against meetups in general, I got to know the person who ultimately set me up with my fiance through a board game meetup so I have a kind of fondness for them as an idea. I'm just describing my experience with the Chicago boardgame scene and why it may different from other towns.
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