One of the best things about ASL is that it has a large, active and friendly gaming community.  Many ASLers who first meet across the gaming table become friends for life.  The ASL community is friendlier and more mature than many other gaming communities, such as the collectible card game community. 

First, keep in mind that there are thousands of ASLers out there, so no matter where you live, you can probably find an ASL opponent for face to face play.  Among the countries that have active ASL communities are the United States, Canada, Japan, Great Britain, Australia, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden and Finland.  Many other countries also have ASL players. 

The large size of the ASL community means that there are many organized ASL events around the world (including every country mentioned above).  These range from relatively informal day or weekend get-togethers for ASL players in a particular region to a variety of formal tournaments.   One of the largest ASL tournaments is a week-long extravaganza called ASLOK (short for ASL Oktoberfest) held in Cleveland every year in the first week of October.  It routinely attracts some of the best ASL players in the world, but is equally friendly to newbies!  Regional tournaments are held in every corner of the United States as well as in many other countries.  Larger tournaments may have more than 100 people, while regional tournaments may have attendance that ranges from 20 to 80.  

Not only are there ASL tournaments and events, there are also a large number of ASL clubs.  In the United States, one of the largest is the Southern California ASL Club, which has chapters in various southern California cities, runs a number of events and tournaments, operates a major ASL website, and even publishes scenarios!  It is a great resource.  There are other clubs across the U.S. and internationally.

People from all of these clubs and countries can meet not just in person at tournaments but on-line in the vibrant on-line ASL community.  There are active ASL discussion forums in many languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and Swedish.  English language discussion forums allow people from around the world to meet and talk.  See the section on Web resources for more details.