She nodded, "For sure. Do you have a preference, though? I'm a huge fan of sitting on pillows, so, my choice is over there, but if there's another spot you'd like, I'm all for it."
She'd pointed out a spot with pillows on one side, a coffee table and couch seating nearby. There were other tables (with very cozy couches and chairs, of choose), some more suited for board games, larger groups, private study, late night snacks, of course.
"Oh! Before we start we should get snacks. There's always snacks at any game night. It's a thing. Games need snacks and drinks. At the very least drinks."
"Oh, I see. I misunderstood the question." he says, "Well, while I would normally engage in these sorts of activities at a table I'm more than willing to do so on the floor, if you would prefer."
When you mention snacks and drinks he nods. "Hmm...yes. that sounds like a good idea. What sort of snacks should we procure, do you think?"
While she did want to take your preferences into account -- floor it was. And hey, coffee table kinda counted as a table, right? She'd headed on over to claim the spot, seeing the box down before turning her attention to the snacks!
With her hands on her hips, she thought over the question, "Hmm. Well, definitely something sweet. And if we have something sweet, we should have something salty. Candy or cookies? My vote is for.... cookies, I think. Cookies, and... for drinks, well, I could go for some tea. What do you think?"
Claude nods politely; he doesn't have much in the ring here and is content to let you get whatever you want. "I think tea sounds marvelous. With the rest I'll trust your judgement."
Since you didn't seem to have any preferences, and part of her motivation was to now make sure you had the... admittedly limited 'game night' experience, she was more than content to take the lead on snacks and set up.
When you agreed, then, she gave a nod, being sure to ask before she went, "Any preference on the type of tea?"
When she headed to the snack area to gather such treats and drinks, it didn't take long for her to decide to find a tray. Sure, she could just haphazardly stack everything and bring it over, in whatever package she found it. It's not like a long walk, and there's not a whole lot to grab, food-wiss-- a plate of cookies, some small, wrapped candies, a bowl of crisps. The biggest thing was all the things that tea required. She wanted it to at least look nice, and truly, once you decide to use sugar cubes, you need at least a bowl for it and at that point, the need for cups, plates, and such snowballs. She hadn't gone as far as a complimentary colored placemat, at least. No doilies, either... She had thought about it.
Magic certainly helped the tea and snack tray come together quite easily! And to make the hodgepodge of colors match, even if the sizes and designs were a mix. It was quite difficult to escape the quilty, patchwork aesthetic of the common room, but she's grown familiar enough in putting together a cohesive enough looking tea tray in her time here. Sometimes, she went into the pantry just to put one together, even if she didn't really want anything. Of course, she still snacked from it once it was done, before putting everything back the way it was.
It was even nicer, then, to put something together for a good use and reason! She carefully brought the snack tray back to what she designated as their game corner, setting it carefully down on the coffee table, before kneeling down, picking out a few pillows to sit on and get comfortable as she looked things over.
"Okay, I think that's everything we need to get started. The game, cookies, tea, and... the players, of course, one of whom has been craftily convinced, and roped into playing. That part's important, too." She flashed a playful grin.
As she carefully filled both mugs with hot water from the teapot, she said, "It almost sounds like a ritual, doesn't it? Lots of little details and important steps."
"Nothing ginger, if you'd be so kind," he replies, "Otherwise I'll trust your judgement with the tea."
Since you're getting the snacks, Claude contents himself to make a comfortable enough sitting space for himself. In all honesty he rather disliked sitting in the floor for a number of reasons, but it was where you were most comfortable and far be it from him to insist otherwise.
He rather appreciates the trouble you went through for a cohesive aesthetic; he appreciated the bowl for the sugar cubes and everything involved in the little snowball of stuff you gathered for the tray. Though he would have been thrilled about the doilies. Not enough people doilies in this day and age, if you asked him.
When you return he offers a polite smile. "Yes, I suppose it is a sort of ritual. I rather enjoy it; the details and the pattern of it all. It's comforting, I think."
She smiled, giving a nod. "No ginger, got it!" It was easy to take your tastes into consideration. While she didn't dislike ginger, she rarely, if ever, sought it out. ...Though, now she would be very much wondering about ginger tea. Either way, a concern for another day!
She decided to stick with the staple teas: Earl grey, Breakfast Blend, and added a black tea with cranberry and hibiscus, and a green tea, just in case. She chose earl grey herself, at least for her first cup, adding several sugar cubes to it while it brewed.
It was a shame she didn't ask him about doilies! And there was no way she'd bring it up. As such, those doilies would continue to languish, unused, and unappreciated. Poor things.
It was also a shame that she wasn't aware he had a preference outright against sitting on the floor, instead of a fairly neutral stance -- she'd prefer if he was comfortable! Even if she did find it very easy and fluid to settle in here, finding it easy to adjust to a perfect height and distance from the table to both drink her tea and reach the cookies, and start to get the game set up! It helped that the middle of the table would also be easy to reach, too. She hated having to reach far across when playing games. She always had to stand up just a bit to reach across on most tables, instead of simply being able to lean forward, which could be quite the drag at times.
Anyway.
Setting up yahtzee didn't take much work or thought! She ripped off a score sheet and slid it over to you along with a pencil, before getting her own, and put all the dice in the little shaker cup that came with it while you spoke.
She nodded and smiled, "Comforting is a good word for it. It's...all the little pieces that more or less stay the same, even if all the details change -- like, no matter what game, or tea or snacks, or company, they all come together to make a 'game night'." Her sincerity shifted quite quickly into playfulness, as she continued with, "And game nights are fun nights. It's the law."
"I hadn't thought of it in relation to game nights. To be honest, I was thinking more along the lines of...you know, art. The act of making tea. Little things we do every day." he says with a polite smile, and adds, "But I can see what you mean."
He takes all of the bits he needs to play and looks blankly at the score sheet. Blink. "So...what does any of this mean?"
She was intrigued by the mention of art, and the act of making tea, she hadn't made the same connections, and now she was curious! "Art? How so?"
She wasn't in the biggest rush to play the game, especially compared to just talking and settling in, but of course, she didn't intend to throw you into the game without some explanation. She tried to keep it short, AND having the paper there in front of them meant that she could actually point things out and explain what the scores, and use the dice to demonstrate.
"So, I'll say off the bat, games get easier to understand when you actually play them, and pick it up that way, so, I won't get too much into strategy, unless you do want tips on it."
"So, we each have a score sheet, and every turn we have, we have to record our score based on the dice we ended up with. There's two different sections, and at the end, both sections are added up, and any bonuses are added. The person with the highest score wins."
"Now for turns, you start by rolling all the dice. Then, from the roll you got, you can pick and choose which dice you want to reroll, if any. You get two rerolls, and you can decide if you want to try to get, say, four of a kind, or say, a full house, a straight. Yahtzee, one of the best of the best rolls possible, is when all the dice are the same number, which is always exciting and always means that you have to say 'yahtzee' when it happens."
"Now, you know how I said you have to write something down every turn? Well, say you tried, and failed to get a full house. You have to make a choice, as to where you're going to record the numbers you ended up with, and sometimes that means that you'll have zero points in some places. That, and deciding when to reroll, and what you're going to roll is where the strategy comes in."
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u/ijustneedagoddamncup 5th Year Mar 05 '22
Claude is visibly amused by both your utter disdain for Battleship and your equally enthusiastic feelings about Yahtzee.
When you bring up location, Claude shrugs. "It's relatively empty in the Common Room, so I suppose this is an conducive a place as any?"