Happy Holidays!

Well, here's hoping that one and all out there in the gaming blogosphere is having a great holiday season! May you get all the RPG goodies for which you may have asked!

Overall, I think it's been a great year for me as it pertains to gaming. I've had a great time exploring games old and new, digging up stuff I already had in my possession and making some purchases of new materials. I've done a lot of good experimenting with game systems, finally deciding on one or two that I really like. I've played and gamemastered games both at the table-top and online. As I enter the new year, I'm at the helm of a new table-top campaign that, for now, involves two old friends that I thought I'd never game with again! Yes, it's been a good year, and I hope 2011 will be even better!

During this time of year, many of us think about those who may no longer be with us. Beyond the family and friends I have known that have passed on, there are people that have influenced me that I have never met personally. Gary Gygax is, of course, one of those people. Another is fantasy author David Gemmell. If you've never read any of his novels, I heartily recommend them (a good starting place would be his first novel, Legend). Mr. Gemmell died in 2006 at the too-young age of 57. His work is visceral and gritty sword and sorcery, and has been a great inspiration to my own writing and gaming endeavors. Do yourselves a favor and treat yourself to his work. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Anyway, enough of maudlin thoughts! Happy holidays once again, and here's to more gaming in the new year!

Tales of the Wanderers, Session 2.5

So, let me educate my few readers about life in Southern New Jersey during the winter. We are wimps when it comes to snow. A light dusting of snow occurred last night in the Philadelphia region, in which I dwell, and of course this meant complete paralysis of the roadways! Now, to be fair, it WAS slippery, and the snow was not expected to stick to the ground. But it did. And it was very cold, so there was this weird mix of black ice and powdery snow. And since it was so unexpected, no salt trucks were sent out before the snow started. But still, it seemed to be too much gridlock for the amount of snow that fell.

My point? Last night was of course supposed to be a game night at my place. Only one of my players made it (there are currently only two, as you might know). Luckily, we are still in the small village in which the campaign started two sessions ago, so there was a good opportunity to do a "side" adventure with my friend Dan, who is playing a kender who has been magically transported from Krynn to Oerth. Again, anyone wishing to check out the campaign, feel free to check out the Obsidian Portal page for Tales of the Wanderers.

Anyway, we had a couple hours of side quest fun, with plenty of laughs of course (we are talking about a kender character, you know). I'll try to get a journal entry on the OP page ASAP. All in all, every game session we have just makes me more and more excited, and happier and happier about this return to gaming with some of the old group!

Tales of the Wanderers, Session Two

It's a busy Friday at work, so I don't have much time to write at the moment. But I wanted to say that last night we had session two of what I am calling my Tales of the Wanderers campaign. "We" refers to my two old friends and myself, as I related in my first post on this embryonic attempt to bring some of my old group back to table-top gaming. It was another good session, but a bit slow as we're still setting the stage for the adventures to come, laying down personalities, backgrounds, and relationships of the player characters and a growing list of NPCs.

If you're interested, you can check out the campaign's page on Obsidian Portal. I will try to do the next adventure log entry today sometime.

I'll check back in soon!

Happy Turkey Day!

To everyone out there in the gaming blogosphere, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving! I hope you, like me, look forward to setting aside some holiday time this season to be a kid again, if even for a short time, and spend some quality time with some RPG materials! I for one look forward to spending a bit of time reading over some RPG books and dreaming up adventure hooks and other surprises to spring on my players! Hope to hear from you all soon!

Something Happened in my Basement Last Night...

In my recent search to find some more potential players in my local area, I turned my thoughts once again to something I had considered forever beyond my reach: roleplaying with my old friends that composed the gaming groups of my youth. Something in me demanded that I try again to bring my friends back to the hobby.

So I proposed the idea to a few of my friends, and last night two of them came over to my house. There we gathered in my basement, where my computer room/home office/man-lair resides. We whipped up some characters and I put them through a short session where they had to fight their way out of a small subterranean area (I hope to post a session report soon).

I'm very, VERY happy to report that we had a great time gaming for about three-and-a-half hours, which is something we haven't done in eons (roleplaying or otherwise). There was laughter aplenty and not to mention some daring-do, as the dice flew across the table, maps were consulted, and all the rest. Bottom line: IT WAS FUN! And that's most important. And we're definitely planning on doing it again as soon as possible!

One of the guys is a veritable newb, who dabbled in roleplaying over the years but never really got fully into it when the rest of our group was in our RPG heyday. But after last night, his whole attitude changed. The big reason for that is simply because we're older now, and I've learned to better tailor my games to the needs of my players (it helps that I've known these guys for well over a decade). I convinced our resident newb that roleplaying doesn't have to have the pretentions or stereotypes that we used to labor under when we were younger (which was a major factor in limiting his interest in the hobby), when low self esteem sometimes made us into tyrants at the table.

The other friend that played last night is pretty much a veteran roleplayer, and he fell back into the RPG experience with barely a hiccup! And yours truly wasn't a slouch either ;-)

Suffice to say, last night we felt nostalgia in a good way, not in the sappy and maudlin way. Nostalgia that isn't an obsession with the long-lost past of our lives, but rather a subtle cherishing of once we once had, and can have again in some way. We are the masters of our fates, and the captains of our souls!

Now, if only I could convince some more of the old group to get in on the action...wheels are turning, my friends...

Can a Fella get a 20th Follower?!

Just a selfish aside: I've been staring at my Followers (what I call "Minions") on ye olde blog and the number's been on 19 for a looooong time, it seems. I would love it to reach 20, just because, you know, I'm horrible with numbers/math, and therefore numbers are somewhat magical to me. Anyway, is there anyone out there that's willing to help a guy down on his luck and become that mystical 20th follower??? I ain't too proud to beg, either...

Fighting the Good Fight

Hello once again, dear readers (however few may remain!). Just wanted to check in once more and let those who may be interested know about my current gaming status. My play-by-chat game, after three sessions, has lost two players. One sent me a pretty nice email about how she needed to move on, and the other player seemed to simply drop from the face of the earth. I don't hold anything against them (although it would have been nice to get a farewell email from the second player, who said she suffers from ever-worsening arthritis in her hands and therefore cannot endure long hours of typing for the game).

Meanwhile, that leaves just my two other players for the nonce. We're tossing around the idea of moving to using VOIP for the game so as to minimize the need to type so much, and getting much closer to using it for games I think (but this proposed move to VOIP was the main impetus for the one player to bow out, as she was not interested in the shift). But I for one need to invest in a headset/microphone before we can move in that direction.

So, we missed our fourth bi-weekly session this weekend. The looming holidays are often a bad time of year for gaming, I find.

In the meantime, in the non-virtual world, I've had an interesting development: some old friends with whom I used to game ages ago have recently resurfaced, and bring with them a resurgent desire for roleplaying! They have come to me after I've spoken a bit to them about my own return to gaming, and they've asked if I would be willing to get a side game going with them. Needless to say, I am very intrigued by this turn of events! Whether anything will come of it, I'm not sure, but I have to admit that I'm pretty excited simply from the fact that they've even come forward with this revelation. One of my main laments/motivations behind this blog is that my old group of friends who I played with has splintered over the years. But could I be seeing a regrouping in the offing? Time will tell...

Well, hope all is well out there with all and sundry. Hope to hear from you soon, and until then, as always, happy gaming!

P.S. I've decided to hold on to my Flame Princess box set, so that's no longer for sale. My financial woes have abated a bit, fortunately. I still have many other items for sale, however. But I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of that gorgeous box!