Chico >> It started online with a post on Reddit’s active Chico page.

“If anybody is interested, trying to get a gaming group together,” user Steven Allison wrote.

There were a few responses, asking about what kind of games and where they would meet, with people offering to bring a few of their own games.

Then Allison, known on Reddit as Thorthedark, and his friend Dan Jarman grabbed a table, set up the game boxes in a display and met new people who wanted to play.

Board and card games are nothing new in Chico with a few “gaming rooms” available at places like Heroes Corner at 1380 East Ave and Chico Magic at 300 Broadway offering a place for people to get together and challenge each other to games.

The community on the forum website Reddit often has live “meet-ups,” where people come out from behind their Internet personas and greet each other in real life. The site is broken into smaller “subreddits” found by adding /r/ and the name of the subreddit to www.reddit.com. One of the most active in Butte County is Chico’s subreddit, /r/chicoca. Allison’s post asking if anyone was interested in gathering for board games quickly gained traction and Woodstock’s Pizza was selected as the location, with 6 p.m. June 30 elected as the time and date.

Since the first game meeting, Allison and Jarman have organized two more, one per week, with the day fluctuating depending on their work schedules.

Seven people, including Allison and Jarman, showed up Wednesday, a couple who had been to previous meet-ups and three new faces.

Allison brings several games and they encourage others to bring their own as well.

“I’m pretty excited about this,” said Analiese Riga as her husband, Ben Etherington, ordered a dessert pizza. “We actually just moved here two days ago from Chicago, and this is a good way to visit some new places in the city.”

Etherington saw Allison’s post online while the couple was in Salt Lake City on their way to Chico for his job. They reached out and made plans to get involved in their new community and play some games.

“It’s the best way to meet new people,” said Sal Mitchell, a Reddit user who has been to all three of the game meetings.

Mitchell said she has also been to several larger meet-ups in Toronto, where she lived before moving to Chico.

She met Russell Judkins on Reddit and the two started dating and came to the first game night together.

Judkins said he plays card and board games regularly, and he brought a few games to the meeting the first time he came.

“This group has been a lot of fun,” he said.

Allison and Jarman would like to keep the gatherings happening, and they’d like to make them a regular thing on a specific night.

“We tried playing games with own group of friends,” Jarman said.

Their friends wanted to play simple games and usually wanted to drink, Jarman said.

They aren’t opposed to drinking —most of the players gathered Wednesday showed up early to take advantage of Woodstock’s happy hour —but the group is there to play games with more in-depth rules than drinking games, Jarman said.

“We just wanted to get together with like-minded people and play some games,” he said.

Reddit in Chico

The popular website Reddit has several popular pages called “subreddits” that cover Chico and the surrounding area. Here are a few:

• /r/ChicoCa

• /r/CSUC

• /r/NorCal

To visit a subreddit type the URL www.reddit.com followed by the name of the subreddit.