The guy next door is watching Frosty the Snowman. I love October. So, Chuck, not Charles or Charlie, or even "Chaz". Though it does make me long for a friend named Chaz. "Chaz"...I'm going to file that away under potential baby names if I'm old enough, famous enough, and rich enough to not give a shit. Baby Chaz. Future hall of fame shortstop for the Florida Marlins. That way I can watch him by driving my golf cart from my retirement community in Miami where I plan to finally hone my skills at Backgammon. Maybe Chuck can help me.
So, Gaming With Chuck, how did we meet? Google. And you had an inviting blog title. So, in that sense, the voice analysis starts here: Nice title Chuck. You didn't say, "Games with Charles", or "Charles Gaming Emporium", or "Wednesdays with Charlie", all potential titles for Mitch Albom tribute novels. (They have to start somewhere) You used your own nickname, and you invited me to read as if you yourself were inviting me to play a game with you. So, I clicked the link and started reading.
Wowzers! You really like board games! That's awesome! Even more so, you look to understand board games in an academic and explorative fashion. Simply playing a board game does not suffice, you delve deep into enhancing the board game experience. In calm prose, you provide an informative and self-reflexive look at board games. One of your posts takes a look at Edgar Allan Poe in Music and Gaming. Woah! That title is smart. I definitely think you look at board games on an all new level. The post goes on to take an investigatory look at what exactly the title suggests.
I like to think of you Chuck as a documentary filmmaker. There are a couple different types: there are the Michael Moores that center themselves as a character in their films, and then there are Warren Millers who loosely dangle themselves in the film as commentators, and then there are ethnographic filmmakers who desperately try to remain entirely omniscient, remaining an outside observer to reality.
You, Chuck, flirt between the two latter. You choose to write almost entirely in third-person, which makes you more of an informant. You provide insight: "Poe was an incredible influence on H. P. Lovecraft, who has had a huge impact on gaming", but you ground them in further support, "Robert Bloch (yes, the Robert Bloch that wrote the story used for the Alfred Hitchcock movie Psycho, amongst other horror tales) wrote a very interesting comparison of the two men." I trust you Chuck; you're not inundating the story with your opinion.
That said, I can tell you still have an opinion. You pose rhetorical questions as a method of communicating your own chain of thought: "All by Edgar Allan Poe, but how has Poe affected and influenced gaming?" Other posts aren't necessarily as academic, some even delve into first-person, but you still carry a necessary honesty. There is no heavy inflection or opinion, but more a presentation of facts. You are the Edward R. Murrow of board games. I think it would be worthwhile to find us a high-strung Joe McCarthy condemning 12-sided dice as the devil in our living rooms. In your featurette "Wargame Wednesdays" you provide a thorough breakdown of the actual gameplay experience before providing any type of editorial of your own. Thank you for your patience.
So, Chuck, here's to you shaker of the dice, weaver of the roads, and tallier of the scores. Your passion for games is obvious. You treat them almost like people. Withholding judgement and given them time to breath. You put wooden pencil to paper, tallying scores, and then you put hardened fingers to keyboards, reporting the news. The games may be foreign, but you take the time to make them feel at home.
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