Where to Play: A Trans-Inclusive Guide to Portland's Gaming Scene
From trans-owned game stores to queer game nights, board game cafés, RPG brewpubs, and the biggest pinball arcade on the West Coast. We put this together for our community because folks freakin’ love gaming. We’ve helped almost 100 trans folks move to Oregon… and pretty much everyone loves to play something.
Gaming spaces matter more than people think. They're third spaces, the not-home, not-work spots where you can show up, take up room, and actually be around people. For a lot of trans folks, finding a third space that feels safe isn't a given. It takes some scouting.
So we made you a guide.
What follows is every gaming hub we could find across the Portland metro, organized by what kind of night you're trying to have. We're leading with the two trans-owned spots because they should always come first. After that, we've flagged the places running explicit queer programming, then walked through everything from the big tabletop temples to the dive-y barcades to the suburban wargaming fortresses.
Quick honesty note: We haven't personally been to every spot on this list yet. As we visit them, we'll add photos and notes. If you've got intel on a place we missed, or a queer night we should know about, please send it our way.
Into game designing? Check out PIGSUAD ❤️
Trans-Owned Spots (Start Here)
Two gaming businesses in Portland have trans ownership. Both are excellent. Both deserve your dollars first.
TOTL Games Trans-Owned
TOTL (Top of the Line) is Portland's largest independently owned video game store and one of the warmest gaming spaces in the city. Located right across from the Oregon Convention Center, they carry everything from Atari 2600 cartridges to Nintendo Switch 2, plus Magic: The Gathering, Flesh and Blood, One Piece, Warhammer, Gunpla model kits, Japanese imports, and a wall of repair and modding services for legacy hardware.
They host Queer Game Night every Saturday, a free, drop-in, explicitly queer-centered space to play board games, card games, TTRPGs, or video games together. Bring your own or use their library. TOTL is also listed in the PDX Trans-Owned Businesses directory, which is itself a fantastic resource to bookmark.
TPK Brewing Co. Trans-Owned
TPK stands for "Total Party Kill," which any tabletop player will recognize as the moment a campaign goes sideways. It's also Portland's first dedicated tabletop roleplaying brewpub, with three equal co-owners: CEO Elliott Kaplan, head brewer Jess Hardie (a Mexican-American brewer and Oregon Brewers Guild Mashing Barriers scholarship recipient), and creative director Dana Ebert, who is openly bisexual and transgender Filipino-American. That's a majority queer and BIPOC women-owned brewery, with a trans co-founder running the entire creative gaming program.
They employ full-time professional Game Masters. You can book a table and get walked through a curated D&D session over thematic beers paired to the storyline. Their flagship campaign is "The Leyfarer's Chronicle," an original published world. They also run Drop-In Dungeons using the Shadowdark RPG, miniature painting classes with Corvid Creations, character creation workshops, and live tavern music. Food by En Vida PDX. The upstairs is 16+, the downstairs is all ages.
Spots Running Explicit Queer Programming
Puddletown Games & Puzzles Queer Game Night
A friendly local game and puzzle store in northeast Portland that hosts the long-running PDX Gaymers group every other Monday. PDX Gaymers is a community for LGBTQ+ gamers and allies in the Portland area with over a thousand members. They use Puddletown's free rental library, food and non-alcoholic drinks are allowed, and all experience levels are welcome. Their events are also sponsored by Place to B, an LGBTQ+-owned coworking space in SE Portland.
PDX Gaymers also runs nights at Giant Space Hamster Games for Pathfinder, and used to gather at Battle Grounds Gaming Cafe and Lucky Labrador Beer Hall. Their events calendar is the single best way to find a queer game night happening this week.
The Big Tabletop Hubs
Mox Boarding House
The premium one. Mox is a board game library, a curated retail store, and a full restaurant and bar all wrapped into one Parisian-style space. The food is genuinely good (Cubano pork sliders, Ethiopian lentil stew), the cocktails have names like "Royal with Squeeze," and you can rent "The Reading Room," a wood-paneled private space with a custom 4,000-penny table that seats nine, perfect for an actual D&D campaign with food service. They validate parking up to 90 minutes in their Morrison Street garage. Great for date night, group outings, or pre-Timbers/Thorns dinner.
Guardian Games
If Mox is the boutique, Guardian is the warehouse. Ten thousand square feet, the highest density of tournament play in the city, and the in-house Critical Dragon beer bar so you don't have to leave your table. Friday Night Magic across multiple formats, Pokémon Gyms, Star Wars Unlimited, One Piece Extra Grand Battles, Gundam Weekly Play, big prerelease events. If you want to find a competitive scene for almost any card game, it's here.
Neighborhood Game Stores
The Portland Game Store
North Portland's anchor tabletop shop. Coming up on a decade in business, strong Magic: The Gathering and Flesh & Blood communities, regular Monday Armory events, prerelease tournaments, and weekly Sorcery: Contested Realm play for the indie TCG crowd. They also partner with the Portland Game Library, a subscription service that delivers from a catalog of over 800 board games to your door. Their D&D summer camps for kids book up fast.
Red Castle Games
A clever hybrid setup where the game store and the attached Ruby Brews Café operate side by side. Big nightly tournaments for D&D, Warhammer, Star Wars, and Magic. The café has caffeine, real food, and a secret menu of drinks themed to specific game characters. Keeping the snacks one room over from the painted miniatures is genuinely smart design.
Cloud Cap Games
The cozy one. Cloud Cap leans family-friendly and cooperative rather than cutthroat. Puzzles, casual board games, a back patio, and the weekly Wednesday Strategy Board Game Night where five bucks gets you into the rental library. They stock Catan Zip, Adventure Time Card Wars, Arkham Horror, and host repeatedly sold-out D&D summer camps for kids.
Giant Space Hamster Games
Smaller neighborhood RPG shop that hosts PDX Gaymers Pathfinder sessions. Worth knowing about specifically for the queer programming.
RPG Brewpubs & Themed Taverns
Wyrd Leatherworks & Meadery
Portland's first dedicated mead hall, set in a historic (and reportedly haunted) 1950s building that used to be Ye Old Towne Crier. Thirty-foot bar, two fireplaces, and cosplay or LARP garb is actively encouraged at all hours. The Warriors of Wyrd Adventurer's Guild runs D&D every Thursday. Magic: The Gathering on Sundays. They also handcraft and sell leather goods. It's a vibe and a half.
The Paladins League
Five-dollar daily entry (waived if you're dining, free for kids under 10) gets you into a library of over 700 board games. The big room is beautifully refurbished, plus several private rooms for rent. Their kitchen does smash burgers, shareables, big ice cream sundaes, milkshakes, plus beer, wine, and cocktails. Their youth programming is exceptional: Afterschool D&D clubs, the Dungeon Master Academy, Friday Night D&D for ages 10 to 14, and a worldbuilding program called The Inklings.
The 4th Wall PDX
A wild combination: coffee shop, pizza joint, comedy venue, tabletop space, and movie lounge all under one roof, with a massive cinema screen as the centerpiece. No admission charge to hang out. They run Magic Mondays, Tabletop Thursdays, Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart tournaments, D&D nights, Star Wars marathons on May 4th, and Slasher Saturdays. Food is Scotty's pizza, Doe's vegan ice cream sandwiches, and Sisters Coffee.
Covert Café
Intimate restaurant, bar, and event space tucked next to a mini-mart. Open-play D&D every Wednesday, Marvel superhero RPG nights, legendary Star Trek trivia. They also livestream the comedy and music shows they host. Divey in the best way.
Vault 31 Bar
An explicitly eSports-themed bar across the river. Super Smash Bros, League of Legends LAN parties, "Smersh Bergs" smash burgers, handmade pizzas, and a "Donkey Kong Punch" cocktail. Five-dollar all-day play cover, ten dollars for a dedicated PC. They will absolutely remind you that you're financially responsible for those 30-year-old controllers.
Retro Video Games
(TOTL Games is at the top of this list too. Go there first.)
Retro Game Trader
Massive volume, exclusively video games. They removed their card tables to focus entirely on retro stock. Community art contests, deep inventory, multiple suburban locations.
Video Game Wizards
Neighborhood staple that's been doing classic buy/sell/trade for years. Small but well-curated, with knowledgeable staff who actually want to talk shop.
Retro Game Bar (RGB)
Over a thousand vintage console games played strictly on original hardware with HD RetroVision cables and professional video monitors for zero input lag. Japanese food, themed cocktails, 80s and 90s nostalgia at full volume. Adult-focused.
Arcades & Pinball
Portland has more pinball machines per capita than any other US city, so this is a deep category.
Next Level Pinball Museum
This is the destination. Twenty-seven thousand square feet, over 650 immaculately maintained pinball machines and retro arcade cabinets, the largest arcade on the West Coast. The model is pure free play: pay $23 at the door, stay all day, no quarters, no friction. Family-owned, family-run, and absolutely worth the drive out to Hillsboro.
Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade
The downtown anchor. Open since 1999, expanded in 2018, two levels, over 100 video games and 40 pinball machines, full bar, full food menu. All ages noon to 5pm Friday through Sunday, 21+ after that. Monthly free-play parties for $6 to $12 at the door. They host Killer Queen (the 10-player cabinet), pinball tournaments, and Portland Pinbrawl. Service industry discounts on Tuesdays.
QuarterWorld
Historic theater converted into an arcade with nearly 100 games and pinball machines, two full bars, and a $2 admission. The food menu is pun-heavy ("bytes," "Super Smash" burgers, "Luigi's Mansion Party Bowls" for adults). They host live Tessi shows (a custom musical Tesla Coil) the first Thursday of every month at 9pm. Open to minors until 7pm on weekends.
Electric Castle's Wunderland
The classic nickel arcade. Family-owned, nominal admission, every game runs on nickels (actually a Fun Card now, but priced in nickels) starting at five cents a play. Around 100 arcade games per location, redemption prizes, plus laser tag, mini golf, and movie theaters at some spots. The Belmont location is inside the historic Avalon Theatre, which has housed a nickel arcade since 1925. Cheap, family-friendly, foundational Portland.
The ZED & Lents Pinball
Food hall and entertainment complex housing Zoiglhaus Brewing, multiple restaurants, and Lents Pinball, which hosts the Oregon Solid State Pinball Championship. Open daily 11am to 9:30pm.
Suburban Tabletop & Wargaming
Dice Age Games
An absolute warehouse of a hobby shop. Deep inventory across board games, RPG modules (old D&D editions, Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics), and the entire Games Workshop ecosystem (Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, The Old World, Necromunda, Legions Imperialis, Kill Team). They've got the space to host weekly Bolt Action, SuperSystem, BattleTech, Alpha Strike, and Gaslands campaigns, plus Saturday morning "Modelers 'R' Us" meetups for kit builders.
Other suburban shops worth knowing about: Guardian Games Aloha (for everything Portland Guardian does, in the western suburbs), plus the broader Beaverton and Hillsboro corridor has multiple specialty shops serving the Washington County tech-industry crowd. We'll fill in the specific stops here as we visit them.
One More Resource
The PDX Trans-Owned Businesses directory is a continuously updated list of trans-owned shops, services, and providers across the Portland area. It's not just gaming. Hair, electrolysis, food, art, everything. Bookmark it. Share it. Spend there.
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