We play a lot of games in Numenism. Games bring us together as a community. More than that, games teach us and help us develop new skills. As we play together, we discover our strengths and weaknesses. Those who are elders watch the players and we can see who will become priests and ministers and even future elders by their gamesmanship. And we see who will gain proficiency in our magic.
Let me share with you some of our games and what an elder looks for in the playing of them.
One popular game is "Elf Chess", not the chess game known as Elf Chess, which is an awesome game, but different from ours. Ours involves a clear tabletop and weeks to play. The table is set somewhere safe, where the items plaed on it will remain undisturbed and yet is still easy to access. The goal is to create a pleasing arrangement of a variety of found objects, ranging from gears and sprockets and nails to interesting seed pods, leaves, twigs, rocks.
To play: Start with a clean and empty table. There can be one to 20 players. There are no specific "turns" unless 2 or more players are present at the same time in which case the oldest goes first. Each player brings and places 1 item on the table. Play continues until everyone goes off to do something else.
There are no winners, because the goal is to cooperatively create an ephemeral piece of art. When everyone agrees no further moves are possible, a picture is taken and the table cleared. A new game can be begun, if desired, and it can incorporate pieces from the previous game(s).
Memory games are popular with us, too, both commercial and homemade. These can be card games where you turn cards to get matched pairs, or they can be a table top game where various found objects are placed on the table, the players given a set amount of time to study the table, objects and their placement, then covering the table and having the players describe or write down what they saw and where. Then their answers are compared to the table. They can also be games where we compete to see who can recite the longest poem or re-tell stories or histories or recite strings of numbers or other memory strings.
The Minister's Cat is a favorite of all ages - it increases our vocabulary while having fun. The game starts with everyone sitting in a circle. One person starts with "The Minister's cat is a ___ cat" where "_____" is an adjective beginning with "a", as in "active cat". The next person repeats "The Minister's cat is a (different adjective beginning with "a") cat" and continues around the circle until someone falters or cant' come up with an "a" adjective. That person then sits out and it continues with adjectives beginning with "b", and so on until only one person is left - the person with the largest adjective vocabulary.
The Trinket Game is a favorite pocket, waiting game. Most of us carry little organza trinket bags, filled with tiny objects (often doll house items, but any small object will do). We use these to tell stories, drawing an item from the bag and going until a set time has passed, when the next person draws an item out and weaves it into the story the first person started, and so on. Or one person draws several items out and the other creates a story incorporating all the objects before them. Or it can be used as a micro-Elf Chess set. Or as a small Memory Game.
Fictionary, aka Balderdash gets played a lot when we have 4 or more people. One persons picks a word, the more obscure the better, then one person gives a definition for that word. Theother players can agree with the definition or offer an alternative definition if they feel the first definition was not a real one. The person who picked the word confirms the correct defintion. Sometimes, the fake definition becomes an accepted one among us as kind of an in-joke.
Charades, Apples to Apples, Encore, Set, Scruples, Spin the Bottle (a storyteller's version), Botticelli, Articulate, and assorted dice and card games are often played when we get together.
Pattern games, both ones where we match patterns and ones where we guess what comes next are popular, too.
All of these games are fun. On the surface, we're just playing games, passing the time, having fun. But on other elvels, we are learning and reinforcing skills that are vital to being active Celebrants in Numenism. All of these games are pattern and memory games because we believe our minds are the most imprtant tools we possess. Honing them, keeping them sharp, and improving our minds, whether it's vocabulary or memory, recognition or prediction,is as important to us as learning one another's abilities. When we play games together, we learn about one another and we learn to trust and depend upon one another.
Playing games makes us a community.