Houston, Seattle, or Illinois?

[resistor]

So I just got accepted to graduate schools in Seattle, Houston, and Urbana-Champagne, IL. Of course there are lots of elements in making such a decision, but I thought I'd query the collective wisdom of ENWorld to find out which of the above has a decent gaming scene. I know the Urbana-Champagne won't compete with the other two just because it's smaller, but I'd still like to know how it is relative to its size.

So, ENWorlders of the above cities, tell me why your city rocks for gaming!

 

[pogre]

A lot of gaming here at the U of I.

Check out these links for more information:
A message board with a lot of "townies"
cugaming
A message board for the student organization
University of Illinois Metagamers
Finally, one of the best little cons (around 425 folks) I have ever been to - and I've been to a bunch:
WInterWar

There are a ton of game designers running around the CU area, but a lot of them are historicals. GDW was just down the road in Bloomington and Judges Guild was just down the other road in Decatur. Plus we're an hour and 25 minutes from GenCon Indy.

What graduate school are you looking at? - that would be the deciding factor for me. Both of my folks teach at the U.

 

[Galethorn]

Seattle (which I just moved about 80 miles north from in November) is home to a number of game companies, including WoTC, as well as surprisingly large Penny Arcade Expo, but, for pen-and-paper gaming, it's not exactly what I'd call 'vibrant.' There are literal boatloads of pen-and-paper gamers around Seattle, but there is little to no sense of community.

Some blame the lack of decent, centrally located game stores, but I think it has more to do with the way the area is divided up more between 'cities within a city,' like Bellevue, Kirkland, Ballard, and so on, as well as the different parts of Seattle proper; to get from one part of the area to another, you have to go through the narrow passage between the lake and the harbor, which happens to be where downtown and its associated traffic is nestled. Sure, a lot of people travel through the morass to get to and from work, but a lot of people simply avoid leaving their area on their days off.

Now, none of that is a problem if you're going to the UW (which I assume is the Seattle-area school that wants you). As far as I know, it's got a fairly large geek population, and, where there are geeks--in this state at least--there are gaming groups.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I'll sort of second Galethorn's comments.

I moved away from Seattle a while ago, but go back every year for the wife's family and my friends.

Overall, there never seemed to be much of a "community" feel to the gamers there. Plenty of gamers, usually friendly and not too difficult to find a group... but not exactly a cohesive community either.

If you're going to be in the U-District, you should be fine.

There still seems to be a decent spread of games played as well, so if you're looking for something beyond just D&D, it shouldn't be too hard. Seattle had a pretty strong Camarilla scene, although I've got no idea what is happening with that whole thing these days.

 

[Jdvn1]

What schools were you accepted to, and for what programs (I'm mostly curious)?

I'd wager that Seattle has the best gaming scene because, well, it's Seattle, the home of WotC. Still, as a Houstonian, I'd say that we have a lot of gaming opportunities, IMO, and if you end up going to Rice University then you can be part of a great club there that puts on a fun yearly con.

I'd also guess that Houston has way more stuff than Seattle, too, since it's a much larger city.

 

[pogre]

Plus weather. Don't forget about weather, man. This time of year I always wonder why I live in Illinois!

 

[resistor]

What schools were you accepted to, and for what programs (I'm mostly curious)?

UW, UIUC, and Rice. All for PhD's in Computer Science.

 

[jeffh]

Rice is an awesome school but I can't say I'm wild about the gaming scene - from that point of view I would have guessed that Seattle would be by far your best choice. There's a small annual gaming con on campus, which is fun but nothing special as such things go, and you would be close to a decent gaming store though their product knowledge on the roleplaying end of things leaves something to be desired.

As a philosophy grad student, all I can say about our compsci department is that I know our main logic guy has a lot of respect for some of the profs (and teaches some courses, e.g. on Godel's theorem and its implications, that compsci students might be interested in).

The best things about Houston are that you have no seriously cold winter weather, and that there are lots of big, cheap, reasonably nice apartments convenient to the Rice campus (e.g. in the Medical Center area). (The Rice campus itself is gorgeous and must get an honourable mention there.) The worst things about Houston are the ridiculously hot, humid summer weather and the extreme difficulty of getting around without a car. Except right around Rice itself, people simply don't walk in this town - sidewalks are an afterthought and tend to end for no reason or have inexplicable gaping holes.

 

[trancejeremy]

College is a lot more fun if the weather is nice. While there are places that have worse weather than Chicago, it still sucks in winter.

OTOH, cold weather is probably better for studying (and gaming).

 

[A Passing Maniac]

College is a lot more fun if the weather is nice. While there are places that have worse weather than Chicago, it still sucks in winter.

U of I at Urbana-Champaign, not Chicago. The weather's a bit nicer down here; this winter we've gotten barely any snow compared to the northern bits of Illinois, for instance.

While I doubt Champaign-Urbana's gaming scene will be anywhere near as large as Houston's or Seattle's, there is, I think, probably going to be more of a sense of a gaming community down here. Though that may just be my perspective from within the Metagamers student organization--which is a friendly bunch of people consisting of undergrads, graduate students, locals no longer associated with the university, the occasional visitor who never was associated with it, and I think perhaps a faculty member or two.

They're also fairly diverse when it comes to gaming tastes; there's D&D, of course, but I've also seen or played in Call of Cthulhu, Vampire (there's also two LARPs in the area, one Masquerade and one Requiem, by the way), Shadowrun, BESM (Tri-Stat and d20), 7th Sea, GURPS, Deadlands... heck, even Best Friends: A Role-Playing Game About Girlfriends And All Their Petty Hatreds.