My wife and I went out to a bar in downtown Baltimore on Saturday night, with all of the typical inner city driving escapades that we love so much. What we didn’t expect, however, was what happened as we walked to our car. We decided to walk up a car-only entrance ramp as it appeared to be the only way into the garage from the side we were on, which thanks to some ominous car sounds from above caused Becky to comment, “Never have I felt more like I’m inside of Half-Life.” Once we finally made it into the actual garage, we noticed a tall man dressed like a security guard walking towards us. We both immediately thought we would somehow get yelled at for walking up a car ramp with minimal side areas to walk on.
Security Guard: Sorry to bother you, but do you play Scrabble?
Me: Umm, excuse me?
Security Guard: The board game, Scrabble, do you know the rules?
Me: Yea…
He led us over to a small security room where another man sat behind a desk with windows looking out into the garage behind him.
Security: Okay, now we have our judge. (to me) Can you play a game of Scrabble without the ‘X’? Is it important?
Desk Guy: Wait wait wait, let me tell you the story.
They proceeded to argue for a few seconds, in a very jovial and competitive fashion. It turned out the other night they played a game of Scrabble which resulted in the Security Guard winning by 4 points, and only after finishing the game did they figure out that the set was missing the ‘X’ piece. They argued quite a bit back and forth, the Guard clearly thinking that his victory was valid while the man behind the desk obviously felt he easily could have won had he drawn the ‘X’ piece since it is worth 8 points. Clearly they’d seen through my intricate lay-person disguise and straight into my gaming heart. I attempted to eliminate some issues that might have come up.
Me: Well, what word would you have spelled with the ‘X’ to add to your score?
Desk Guy: Ox! That’s at least 8 points! I would have won!
He had definitely been thinking about this for a while now, picking a simple word which utilizes the 8 point letter with maximum efficiency and adaptability. The next glaring issue that I expressed was that the lack of a piece reduced the number of turns one player had, and since the Security Guard had finished the game, Mr. Desk had a very valid argument. By this point they had both unanimously agreed to make me the ultimate and indisputable judge on the matter, which put quite a bit of pressure on me. I quickly pointed out the fact that only one of them was wearing a badge, which could greatly influence the outcome for me were my car to somehow ‘go missing’ from the garage, or the gates not open to let us out. All joking aside, no matter how late it was or tired I felt, I had set myself on being a fair judge to these fine gentlemen.
I determined that there was no fair outcome to the previous game, as the loser was unaware of the missing piece until after the game and the final score was so extremely close. I managed to get them both in agreement to a rematch with the prior knowledge that the ‘X’ piece is missing from the set, and they both seemed to feel this was a fair way of going about it. The winner had a chance to defend his first victory, while the loser would get a more informed chance to claim what could have been his.
After the fact I feel that this was the best way of going about it, and I was particularly happy to see how much emotion and excitement a game like Scrabble had inspired in these men. At first I pegged it as a case of the loser finding any reason to invalidate his defeat, which happens all too often, but it turned out to be a valid case where the lack of a piece turned into a crucial factor that threw the whole outcome into question. It would no doubt be preferable for them to play again with all of the pieces, but hopefully if the Security Guard wins again the Desk Guy won’t have an easy excuse for losing and will accept it.
Ha. Good story. Your gaming heart shines bright as a beacon to all who find themselves thirsty in the desert of rules. And, in this case, Missing pieces.
Thanks! I’m a bit concerned that I read that easily from 20 ft. away as, “Oh hai I’m Game Nerdz plz talk to meh!”
Security guards tend to have higher Spot check modifiers…
I get a lot of conversations like this:
“Hey Dave, you look like you’re into games”
“Yes, that’s true”
“Cool, lemme ask you about Playstation 3 games…”
“Actually, I don’t know anything about PS3, I’m mainly into tabletop games.”
Awkward silence.
Well the Tattoo on your forehead that says “Ask me about all things Game” doesnt help much.
But seriously wierd incident. Im usualy the one asking random strangers wierd and sometimes disturbing questions, cant say its ever been the other way around!
I’ve put myself in those situations rather than been drawn into them…mostly when it comes to D&D rules, but sometimes grammar works its way in there amongst other things…
That is definitely a strange situation. You can’t write fiction like that.
I only hope I get some chance to follow up with them and find out who won the next game. Hopefully the second time around they weren’t missing an E or something.