Where I experience cozy tabletop gaming at PJ’s Adventurers’ Hall

The columnist recounts a nostalgic evening spent playing Magic: The Gathering (MTG) at Adventurer's Hall, a gaming store near Taman Bahagia station, attending an all-female MTG night.

Despite being away from tabletop gaming for two decades, the experience invoked cherished memories of a burgeoning hobby and enduring friendships.

The writer humorously notes the parallels between the chaotic universe of MTG's Reality Fracture set and the current state of global affairs, while expressing enthusiasm for learning and participating in the evolving gaming landscape at Adventurer's Hall.

OCTOBER 14 — I spent a night playing Magic: The Gathering (MTG) at a little gaming store that was just a short train ride away from me.

Adventurer's Hall is a few metres away from the Taman Bahagia station on the first floor of an unassuming shoplot, with a paper sign on the stairway door grille.

I was there only because Facebook showed me a post saying it was an all femme MTG night and after meeting the Mana Coven, an all female MTG group at a recent event, I was somewhat intrigued.

Also, I really needed to learn how to play the very popular MTG format, Commander.

MTG started out as a two-player game. The premise of it is that you are planewalkers or basically, wizards, duelling with spells and creatures, all this done via cards.

"Oh just like Harry Potter ."

Please do not mention that franchise to me, especially now that JK Rowling has declared she will spend her earnings on her anti-trans activism.

Why couldn't she be like Enya who made her millions and now just shuts herself up in a literal castle with her cats and is blissfully not on social media?

Commander however is a different format — you play in groups of two to four people and the objective is to be the last planeswalker standing.

Harry Potter -rants aside I wasn't sure what I'd experience when I arrived at Adventurer's Hall but it was a very chill old kopitiam -vibe.

A menu with finger food, a couple of separate rooms with tables, a Warhammer display, Dungeons & Dragons books and of course a counter with MTG cards.

One random dude misunderstood the theme of the Commander session and thought the "Femme" thing was a Lord of the Rings reference.

He ended up joining another group to play boardgames so all's well that ends well.

My "pod" for the night as they call them apparently these days consisted of two other lovely women, one a Master's student and another who worked in tech.

They both absolutely trampled my deck but it was a good learning experience and I look forward to being stomped on as I continue learning MTG.

My current limitation for MTG is that I am strictly only buying or getting products from the newly-released Reality Fracture set because otherwise I will not be eating.

As many of you know, I really do love food.

Adventurer's Hall, I found out later, is run by a group of friends who all have day jobs but run it as a part-time endeavour (though one of them is going to make it his fulltime pursuit due to, well, reasons).

It has been nearly two decades since I stepped away from tabletop gaming, besides playing board games (that aren't Monopoly ) and it's been interesting seeing how the hobby has expanded.

The commodification of trading card games might have somewhat contributed to the scene and the frenzy for Pokémon cards thanks to influencers.

At Adventurer's Hall, though, it was a bunch of people just having some fun either participating in roleplaying game sessions or card games.

It reminded me of two decades prior when I spent my nights hanging out at a game store, watching people paint Warhammer figures, play MTG (of course) and making friends.

One of those friends is now my housemate and colleague, and one of my dearest friends.

Quite a few of the people I met in those days are now my friends on Facebook too.

I don't want to revisit nostalgia by picking up MTG now; the game has changed, as have the players.

Just like before, though, I'll watch and learn, about people, about games, about life in general.

The MTG set Reality Fracture is about a wizard trying to remake the world and remove all suffering, but ends up creating more suffering as his new universe devours the old one.

It is a strange parallel to our current times where tech bros are trying to remake the world by replacing talent and thought with randomised word generators, claiming it will lead to prosperity for all.

While in reality, the forests are burning, our reservoirs are drying up, GPUs cost the same as cars or a house downpayment and the world as we know it is being gobbled up by private equity.

Anyway I'm not getting paid for this but you can check out the events at Adventurers' Hall on their very shiny website .

Maybe I'll see you there — I'll be the half-blind middle-aged woman squinting at the too-small text on her MTG cards.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.

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专栏作家回忆起一个充满怀旧气息的夜晚，她在 Taman Bahagia 车站附近的一家游戏商店 Adventurer's Hall 玩万智牌 (MTG)，参加了一个全女性的 MTG 之夜。

尽管已经二十年没有接触桌面游戏了，但这次经历唤起了我对这项新兴爱好和持久友谊的珍贵回忆。

作者以幽默的方式指出万智牌现实裂变系列混乱的世界与当前全球局势的相似之处，同时表达了对在冒险者大厅学习和参与不断发展的游戏领域的热情。

10 月 14 日——我在离我家很近的一家小型游戏商店玩了一晚上《万智牌》（MTG）。

冒险家大厅距离塔曼巴哈吉亚站只有几米远，位于一栋不起眼的店屋一楼，楼梯门栅栏上贴着一张纸质招牌。

我去那里只是因为 Facebook 上给我看了一条帖子，说这是一个全女性的万智牌之夜，而且在最近的一次活动中遇到了 Mana Coven（一个全女性万智牌团体），我对此有点感兴趣。

另外，我真的需要学习如何玩非常流行的万智牌赛制——指挥官赛制。

万智牌最初是一款双人游戏。它的游戏设定是玩家扮演鹏洛客，或者说巫师，通过咒语和生物进行决斗，所有这一切都通过卡牌完成。

“哦，就像哈利·波特一样。”

请不要跟我提起那个系列，尤其是在JK·罗琳宣布她要把收入用于反跨性别活动之后。

为什么她不能像恩雅那样，赚了数百万美元，现在就把自己关在城堡里，和她的猫咪们一起享受幸福的单身生活，完全不碰社交媒体呢？

然而，指挥官模式则不同——玩家以两到四人为一组进行游戏，目标是成为最后存活的鹏洛客。

抛开哈利·波特的吐槽不谈，我到达冒险者大厅时并不确定会有什么体验，但那里却有着非常轻松的老式咖啡店氛围。

提供小吃菜单，几个独立的房间摆放着桌子，还有战锤展示、龙与地下城书籍，当然还有万智牌柜台。

有个路人误解了指挥官会议的主题，以为“Femme”指的是《指环王》。

他最终加入了另一个桌游小组，所以结局圆满就好。

当晚和我同住的“小团体”（现在他们好像是这么称呼的）由另外两位可爱的女士组成，一位是硕士研究生，另一位在科技行业工作。

他们俩把我的牌组彻底碾压了，但这是一个很好的学习经历，我期待着在继续学习万智牌的过程中被碾压。

目前我对万智牌的限制是，我只购买或获得新发布的“现实裂痕”系列的产品，否则我就没饭吃。

正如你们许多人所知，我真的很喜欢美食。

后来我才知道，冒险者大厅是由一群朋友经营的，他们都有正职工作，但把经营冒险者大厅作为兼职事业（尽管其中一人由于某些原因打算将其作为全职事业）。

自从我离开桌面游戏（除了玩棋盘游戏（不是大富翁））以来，已经过去了近二十年，看到这个爱好发展壮大，真是令人感到有趣。

集换式卡牌游戏的商品化可能在一定程度上促成了宝可梦卡牌的流行和热潮，这要归功于一些有影响力的人。

不过，在冒险者大厅里，一群人只是在享受乐趣，要么参与角色扮演游戏，要么玩卡牌游戏。

这让我想起了二十年前，那时我经常晚上泡在游戏商店里，看着人们给战锤模型上色，玩万智牌（当然），结交朋友。

其中一位朋友现在是我的室友和同事，也是我最亲密的朋友之一。

我当时认识的不少人现在也成了我的Facebook好友。

我现在不想通过玩万智牌来重温旧梦；游戏已经改变了，玩家也改变了。

不过，和以前一样，我会观察和学习，了解人，了解游戏，了解生活。

MTG系列《现实裂变》讲述的是一位巫师试图重塑世界并消除所有苦难，但最终却制造了更多苦难，因为他的新宇宙吞噬了旧宇宙。

这与我们当今的时代有着奇怪的相似之处，科技精英们试图用随机词语生成器取代才能和思考来重塑世界，声称这将为所有人带来繁荣。

而现实却是，森林正在燃烧，我们的水库正在干涸，GPU 的价格和汽车或房屋首付一样贵，我们所知的世界正在被私募股权吞噬。

总之，我写这篇文章没有报酬，但你可以去冒险者大厅的精美网站上查看活动信息。

也许我会在那里见到你——我会是一个半盲的中年妇女，眯着眼睛看着万智牌上太小的字。

* 这是专栏作家的个人观点。

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