On Saturday, I was asked to check out a time-traveling phone booth that landed in Burbank. It was one of those invitations you don’t refuse.
When I arrived, I was cordially ushered into the middle of an old-west gunfight. The local sheriff had just placed a suspect in jail and, in the name of justice and winning, shot at her for good measure. Sure, the bullets were cardboard and the two held their respective titles only on paper, but “Bang!” is a cutthroat card game and the emotional wounds can run deep.
“Shooting someone while they’re in your jail is a little questionable,” cried an incredulous Kaya Cummings, who watched Alessandro Signorini flip over each card that indicated she’d been “shot.”
They joined about 40 other game players outside Clockwork Couture Saturday for International Tabletop Day, an event devoted to role-playing card and board games.
Besides the shootout, I visited a group of school bullies gleefully stealing each other’s pennies in the appropriately titled “Lunch Money,” while at a table next to me a Jedi sought to wrest control of the universe from a young lady clad in Victorian-era replica garb.