Thread by @PonchoRebound

Hex And The City, a reboot of SATC about a game group of four women who, despite their different tastes in games and ever-changing lives, remain inseparable. (thread)

CARRIE BRADSHAW is the narrator and main character, and each episode is structured around her train of thought while writing her popular weekly column for Board Game Geek, also called Hex And The City.

A member of the board game media glitterati, Carrie is a tabletop convention staple known for her unique taste in games, with an enormous collection that spans from cheap thrift store finds to expensive deluxe editions of classic games.

Carrie is in love with all aspects of gaming, and her quest for new topics to write about takes her to some unlikely places, like fantasy football drafts and bingo halls. She is constantly inspired and driven by the magic that happens whenever humans gather for a game.

Though Carrie’s tastes are seemingly very broad, almost all her games have one thing in common: beautiful artwork and graphic design. For her, a gorgeous presentation is a must, and she frequently buys games on the spot based on their art style.

CHARLOTTE YORK is the most traditional gamer of the group, the one who places the most emphasis on the established classics of the medium as well as the best-reviewed newer games.

Throughout the series Charlotte pursues a 250x1 challenge, attempting to acquire and play every game on BGG’s Top 250 Games list. (Charlotte has completed a similar challenge for the Top 100; in a running joke she constantly reminds the other women of this, to their annoyance.)

However, Charlotte does not eschew newer games, and is often eager to play them...provided they have gotten good reviews from the sources she trusts. An early episode shows Charlotte at a convention frantically searching SU&SD for a review of a game she was just asked to play.

MIRANDA HOBBES is a rulebook editor with extremely cynical views on the board game hobby and industry. She prefers wargames, though she also enjoys 18XX games, Diplomacy, M:TG (legacy only), Warhammer 40K, and D&D (3rd edition only).

Miranda is disdainful of the modern board game renaissance and dismisses eurogames as “Microsoft Excel: The Board Game.” She claims she’s only interested in what she calls Over 4 games: "over 4 maps, over 4 hours, over 4.0 weight on BGG."

However, despite her cynicism, Miranda is close with the other women and willingly plays the games they bring to game night, though not without grumbling: “Oh fun, another 19th century German farming simulator...”

Though she initially complains and rolls her eyes at these games, Miranda is quite competitive and is often shown getting very involved in whatever lightweight game she’s playing, no matter how far outside of her usual tastes it lies.

SAMANTHA JONES is an independent board game publicist and marketer who is always chasing the next hot game, especially if the game is imported, unreleased, or still in prototype.

If a new game has any buzz around it, Samantha has to play it, sometimes resorting to PnP or proxy versions of the game to get it on the table. Many of her comic set-pieces involve the ridiculous lengths she’ll go to be the first to play a new game.

Samantha proudly claims to have never played the same game twice, which might be an exaggeration but appears to be somewhat true: unlike the other women in her group, Samantha has no games displayed in her apartment at all. "Why get attached?" she asks.

Thanks to her career, her enthusiasm for games, and her vivacious personality, Samantha has numerous contacts within the board game world; a recurring joke is Samantha interrupted by a phone call from a different board game luminary. (“Oh hello, Reiner darling...”)

Though the heart of Hex And The City is the close friendship of the four women and their lives in the board game hobby, the series also focuses on the relationships they pursue away from the table.

MR. BIG is Carrie’s primary love interest, and their turbulent relationship forms a major story arc for the series. Big is an entrepreneur and financier who runs the global holding company that, on Carrie’s advice, eventually buys the largest board game publisher in the industry.

However, Big is not interested in games himself and he sees the game publisher only as an investment to be nurtured and eventually sold off for a profit. This leads to one of the many splits in his relationship with Carrie.

AIDAN SHAW is another of Carrie’s boyfriends. He is a sweet, good-natured illustrator who is the emotional opposite of Big. Carrie searches Aidan out after falling in love with his illustrations for a Kickstarter, and the two date during one of Carrie and Big’s many splits.

ALEXANDER SCHÄFER, "The German," is a famous game designer who becomes Carrie's lover just before her final reconciliation with Big. After living with him in Essen, she realizes that he will never reciprocate her love because his game designs will always come first.

TREY MACDOUGAL is Charlotte's first husband, and everything she thought she was looking for in a man. He is incredibly knowledgeable about games and has an exquisitely curated collection of classics both old and new.

However, despite Trey being her dream man, Charlotte can never reconcile her love for him with his job. As corporate VP in charge of games for a large toy company, he’s directly responsible for flooding big box stores with the puerile games that keep better games off the shelves.

HARRY GOLDENBLATT is Charlotte’s divorce lawyer and second husband. Though initially repulsed by him and his enthusiasm for Munchkin, Fluxx, and Cards Against Humanity, she eventually falls for him and they marry.

STEVIE BRADY is Miranda’s off-and-on girlfriend. They meet when Miranda spends hours at a board game cafe waiting for Carrie, who ultimately stands her up. Stevie, a barista, flirts with Miranda by gently mocking the grognard for even being seen inside the family-friendly cafe.

Their different relationship aspirations, as well as their wildly different tastes in games, leads to a cycle of breakups and reconciliations. However, Stevie is able to break through Miranda’s cynical exterior, and the two eventually marry and have a child.

At the end of the series, each of the four women have had their personal, professional, and gaming challenges resolved in one way or another and are on the path to future happiness.

Charlotte is seen gaming with Harry and his friends. However, she has taught them Cosmic Encounter, which they’re happily playing instead of their usual beer & pretzels filler. She smiles contentedly to herself as the table erupts in laughter and mock outrage at a card reveal.

Miranda and her wife Stevie have bought the board game cafe where they met and now run it together. We see Miranda kiss her wife on the cheek, pick up their son Brady, and go to a “secret” speakeasy room in the back of the cafe where hardcore gamers like her congregate.

Samantha has harnessed her love of The Hotness to become an independent developer of games, ensuring herself a steady stream of hot new games to play. We see her in a corporate office, excitedly pitching a game to the head of a large game company…

…who turns out to be Carrie. Mr. Big put her in charge of the company as a romantic gesture, but to his surprise she successfully negotiated a stock buyback from shareholders and made the company an independent entity once again.

Oh yeah and I guess her and Big got married, but who cares about that?

In the last scene of the series, all four women are together, digging through Carrie’s game collection for something they can all agree on to play. Despite all the ups and downs of the last six years, their friendship has remained constant.

Carrie pulls out an old and tattered burgundy box as a joke, and all of them roll their eyes and laugh. However, they eventually agree to play it again for old time’s sake and begin setting it up, joking and bickering like always.

As the scene fades out, we briefly flash back to 15 years before, when four young women in a college dormitory lounge sat bewildered but intrigued around a brand new copy of Settlers of Catan, unaware of how much their lives would change when they opened the box…

Which Hex And The City Character Are You?

A.Carrie, in love with any and all games
B. Charlotte, trying to build the perfect collection
C. Miranda, the heavier the game is, the better
D. Samantha, always searching for the next hot game