Bunco debrief

15 women between the ages of 21 and 94 gathered at our house last night.  Hub escaped to his man cave while we ate way too much food and threw way too many dice.

Bunco, for those who may not know, is merely an excuse for people to;
1.  Clean their houses a little bit better than normal.
2.  Invite as many of their same sex friends (or maybe even mixed sexes, although that might destroy some of the appeal) to a party.
3.  Eat way too much yummy food.  (Always offer fruit and veggies.  Just putting it on your plate reduces the calories in the HUGE CHOCOLATE CAKE!!)
4.  Drink a little bit.
5.  Play a mindless game which requires no strategy and little concentration.
6.  Gossip.
7.  Chatter. - not the same as gossip.  Chatter covers all kinds of subjects.  Gossip is about people.
8.  Have fun.
9.  Laugh a lot.

And after all that, some of the players go home a little bit richer.

There were many topics last night.  Politics was NOT one of them.  Allelujah!  Husbands got brief mentions.  Our kids probably had ringing ears.  Our grandkids - one of the 21 year olds had a grandma in the house - were praised to the sky.  Work - yeah.  Food - yeah.  Gardens, chickens, hobbies - yeah.  Books and TV and movies - yeah but not so much.

But I was most surprised when someone (she knows who she is) rated the four tables we played on.  It appears - why had I not considered this? - that the noise that dice make when tossed on different surfaces adds to the excitement of the game.

Someone should write a dissertation on that subject.

I had a tablecloth on a wooden table.  I will never do that again.  The cloth muffled the clatter of the dice making each roll less exciting.  And my card table has a padded top.  Great for cards, I guess, but that top made getting a bunco just a little dull.

Then there was the height issue.  The oak coffee table had just the right tone but it was lower than dining table height.  So, though it won in the sound department, its comfort rating suffered.

The small, dining height, hard plastic table ended up being the Table Winner of the night.  Exciting sound, comfortable level- it is a winner.

The next time we play, I know I can do better.  Thanks to Suzanne for her enlightening assessment.

Feel free to use this post as the jumping off point into your doctoral study of how sound heightens game dynamics in non-digital play.

Well, anyway.  Bunco is my excuse for forgetting to Let's Not Forget this weekend.  I'll catch up.