Status Report: 7/16/10

Now that I've told my life story as it pertains to gaming, I thought it might be good to start thinking about my current status, with regard to where I am in the gaming flux in which I find myself.

"Me as Player" Status: As I stated in the third part of my testimonial, I reached out through the Internets and came across a friend of a friend who is, in all appearances, a gamemastering superman! Seriously, this fellow runs three games, and plays in several others. He's gaming several times a week! I am very, VERY jealous. Anyway, I had a sit-down with him within the last week in order to see if I was a good fit for one of his games, a Pathfinder game using the Council of Thieves adventure path, and I think we hit it off very well. So, the next step is character creation. We talked about possibilities (I think I'm leaning toward a sorceror) and determined the next step would be another meeting (probably over phone, actually) in order to create my character.

As a player, Pathfinder wasn't my first choice of games to get into. I never really played 3rd Edition/3.5; I just collected the core rule books. But at this point I am just eager to get into a group with good people and start building up my roleplaying chops again, as well as grow a network of potential players, so that when I do start a campaign, I might have a good pool of people to mine.

Pathfinder might be a bit more complex of a game system than I like, but I think I'll be fine as a player. On the other hand, I definitely know that I would have NO interest in running a Pathfinder game. I couldn't handle it, with regard to rules.

At any rate, there's a game session on July 24th, and that might be my first session! Can't wait! I'm nervous and excited. I feel like a little schoolgirl.

"Me as Gamemaster" Status: Check out my post from last night. It pretty much sums up where I'm at with gamemastering at the moment. In summary: I know my gamemastering skills are rusty as heck, so I am holding off on starting a campaign of my own indefinitely. Realistically, I probably won't start a campaign until 2011, but you never know. It sort of depends on how things go with the Pathfinder game I am trying to get into. I pretty much can't run a game and play in one at the same time. That's just the reality of my life right now. So, I figure I'll play in a game, see how long that lasts, and let that help shake off some of the rust. Then, when it comes time to move on from that game, I'll turn my attention to gamemastering.

In the meantime, I am still very relieved that the furious months I spent this year vacillating between potential game systems, specifically the retro-clones (Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Basic Fantasy, etc.) and went into a vicious circle of failed house rule attempts. Then I checked out Castles & Crusades and liked what I saw, determined that it had the rules set that appealed to me the most, and started buying. I'm still reading the C&C PHB at this point, but I'd like to give a review here before too long.

But again, along came James Raggi and his cursedly enchanting product! Now I'm second guessing myself, and I haven't even gotten my boxed set from him yet! I can be so fickle sometimes...at any rate, I'll try to keep reading my C&C while I wait for LotFP to arrive.

That's it for now! As always, happy gaming!