I little while back I kicked off a competition to give away a Luma Wifi Set.

The challenge? Share a great community that you feel does wonderful work. The most interesting one, according to yours truly, gets the prize.

Well, I am delighted to share that Garrett Nay bags the prize for sharing the following in his comment:

I don’t know if this counts, since I don’t live in Seattle and can’t be a part of this community, but I’m in a new group in Salt Lake City that’s modeled after it.
The group is Story Games Seattle: https://www.meetup.com/Story-Games-Seattle/. They get together on a weekly+ basis to play story games, which are like role-playing games but have a stronger emphasis on giving everyone at the table the power to shape the story (this short video gives a good introduction to what story games are all about, featuring members of the group:

Story Games from Candace Fields on Vimeo.

Story games seem to scratch a creative itch that I have, but it’s usually tough to find friends who are willing to play them, so a group dedicated to them is amazing to me.

Getting started in RPGs and story games is intimidating, but this group is very welcoming to newcomers. The front page says that no experience with role-playing is required, and they insist in their FAQ that you’ll be surprised at what you’ll be able to create with these games even if you’ve never done it before. We’ve tried to take this same approach with our local group.

In addition to playing published games, they also regularly playtest games being developed by members of the group or others. As far as productivity goes, some of the best known story games have come from members of this and sister groups. A few examples I’m aware of are Microscope, Kingdom, Follow, Downfall, and Eden. I’ve personally played Microscope and can say that it is well designed and very polished, definitely a product of years of playtesting.

They’re also productive and engaging in that they keep a record on the forums of all the games they play each week, sometimes including descriptions of the stories they created and how the games went. I find this very useful because I’m always on the lookout for new story games to try out.
I kind of wish I lived in Seattle and could join the story games community, but hopefully we can get our fledgling group in Salt Lake up to the standard they have set.

What struck me about this example was that it gets to the heart of what community should be and often is – providing a welcoming, supportive environment for people with like-minded ideas and interests.

While much of my work focuses on the complexities of building collaborative communities with the intricacies of how people work together, we should always remember the huge value of what I refer to as read communities where people simply get together to have fun with each other. Garrett’s example was a perfect summary of a group doing great work here.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, congratulations to Garrett for winning the prize, and thanks to Luma for providing the prize. Garrett, your Luma will be in the mail soon!