The Last Game of the Year

It may not have been the first time, but the first time I remember guest-hosting Flashback for ToddLok was the last Wednesday of 1995, which would have been December 27. Todd, of course, was pretty strict in limiting the years he covered in his games to 1960 or later (with a couple of exceptions). And he always began with a question that revealed the year.

My background is in history, so I thought it would be fun to run a game on a year way before 1960, in fact, one hundred years before the year we were about to begin. So I wrote a game about 1896. I began it just like Todd did, with a question that required people to guess the year. I don't remember the question (my pre-1999 games were destroyed when a hard drive fried) but I do remember the reaction, which was pretty close to emptying the room. A few friends remained and a few others who came in (back when the rooms needed to be wedged into to get in, remember that?) stayed, but there was a lot of "WELCOME TO FLASHBACK TO 1896" followed by a TOS-approved version of "WTF?" and "Online Host: ______________ has left the room."

I don't remember if I hosted for Todd at the end of 1996, but by 1997, I was the permanent host of Flashback, and the question at the beginning to set up the year went out soon afterward. I was starting to experiment with years all over the place, and it just didn't make sense to surprise people who might be expecting a pop music game to give them the popular music of 1655. So instead, the next game was announced at the end of the prior game, met with anything from groans to applause.

But the tradition of doing the "century" for the last game of the year continued. And having just written a game for December 22, I am now confronted with writing the next game, which tradition dictates will be 1911.