Fast forward to now and everything in the roleplaying garden is rosy.
So what happened?
The Grognard Files happened
Virtual Grogmeet happened
Tony's monthly gaming sessions happened
UK Games Expo happened
Owlbear & Wizard's Staff happened
Neil Benson happened
Dragonmeet happened
Andy Simcock and Mike Biggs happened which made Fight Club happen
HandyCon happened
I can't remember how these stacked up in terms of a broad sequence of events, but they all contributed to being "reassimilated".
So many people have been so helpful or inspiring or mostly both. *Every game has been great.
The one thing sliver of disappointment is that I haven't been able to give back in the same way. My contribution over all this time consists of one session of The Cthulhu Hack, one session of DCC and three sessions playtesting a Delta Green module.
I prevaricate, fudge, hedge, shilly-shally, vacillate and dither.
The problem is that *Every game has been great, the bar is set too high, so my natural instinct is to hide, hide, hide behind petrified eyes.
I even ducked out of GrogTen and missed meeting some of my online gaming friends because of the fear of running
The weight of not running games is starting to weigh too heavily.
If I don't crack it this year then it'll crack me. A hobby that has given me so much joy will be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Sunday 15 March 2020
Sunday 13 May 2018
False Dawn #3 - The Reluctant Traveller
Some more time goes by.
Some surly polyhedrals are burning a hole in my dice bag.
Some fidgety characters are climbing off their sheets and heading off to the tavern.
Then like a bolt from the blue Tony pings out an email saying he has a couple of spots free in his ongoing Traveller campaign. The skies clear and I can hear a celestial choir and the trumpeting of a thousand angels. There is a strange smell of burnt Stilton but you can't have everything.
The group is short of a pilot, so I'm tasked with rolling one up. Even without the original lethal character generation version of the little black books this is hard work. One early effort did give me a character with Pilot-2, but he was about 724 years old, so I keep going, changing the names each time in the hope of changing fortunes. By the time I've finished, the numbers on the dice have just about rubbed off completely.
After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we're on. Ian offers to ride shotgun/co-pilot for the journey to Bletchley, or in Ian's case Blearrrghhhchley.
Ian spends the first 20 minutes after arrival wandering around Tony's estate occasionally bending over and squeezing the last of his stomach contents onto the pavement.
The game itself goes well, but we're both quiet in the car on the way back to Wycombe. Ian nods off as an anti-emetic strategy. We never speak of it again.
Traveller? Nah, it makes me sick.
Some surly polyhedrals are burning a hole in my dice bag.
Some fidgety characters are climbing off their sheets and heading off to the tavern.
Then like a bolt from the blue Tony pings out an email saying he has a couple of spots free in his ongoing Traveller campaign. The skies clear and I can hear a celestial choir and the trumpeting of a thousand angels. There is a strange smell of burnt Stilton but you can't have everything.
The group is short of a pilot, so I'm tasked with rolling one up. Even without the original lethal character generation version of the little black books this is hard work. One early effort did give me a character with Pilot-2, but he was about 724 years old, so I keep going, changing the names each time in the hope of changing fortunes. By the time I've finished, the numbers on the dice have just about rubbed off completely.
After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing we're on. Ian offers to ride shotgun/co-pilot for the journey to Bletchley, or in Ian's case Blearrrghhhchley.
Ian spends the first 20 minutes after arrival wandering around Tony's estate occasionally bending over and squeezing the last of his stomach contents onto the pavement.
The game itself goes well, but we're both quiet in the car on the way back to Wycombe. Ian nods off as an anti-emetic strategy. We never speak of it again.
Traveller? Nah, it makes me sick.
False Dawn #2 - Ships, Ships, I See No Ships (Roll-Nothing)
Mid-Late 2017
Tony's front door and his Google Hangout door closes and the Roll20 door opens.
It's what all da kids (TM) use apparently innit.
Turns out there are precious few games in UK evenings, unless you want to play D&D and even then there's a waiting list that makes the queue for Lady Di's book of condolence look positively miniscule.
Finally, by choosing something ultra-obscure (Beat To Quarters), I get into a game. By which I mean I'm at least on the list. The other players are an interesting mix of unresponsive and/or odd.
Communication with the GM is sketchy, but I put together a character and get ready for action. I'm so committed to this new role that I find my gums have turned black and my teeth have started to fall out. I pop down to Waitrose to get some Hardtack and Grog, but have to make do with Rusks and Lemon Barley Water.
The time of the game approaches ...... it's cancelled.
The time of the game approaches ...... it's cancelled again.
Just before the session approaches for the third time, they suddenly decide that they won't be using Roll20 for audio, it's Discord. My laptop won't download Discord. I'm cast adrift in an open boat and washed up on Pitcairn Island.
The game is canned. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Tony's front door and his Google Hangout door closes and the Roll20 door opens.
It's what all da kids (TM) use apparently innit.
Turns out there are precious few games in UK evenings, unless you want to play D&D and even then there's a waiting list that makes the queue for Lady Di's book of condolence look positively miniscule.
Finally, by choosing something ultra-obscure (Beat To Quarters), I get into a game. By which I mean I'm at least on the list. The other players are an interesting mix of unresponsive and/or odd.
Communication with the GM is sketchy, but I put together a character and get ready for action. I'm so committed to this new role that I find my gums have turned black and my teeth have started to fall out. I pop down to Waitrose to get some Hardtack and Grog, but have to make do with Rusks and Lemon Barley Water.
The time of the game approaches ...... it's cancelled.
The time of the game approaches ...... it's cancelled again.
Just before the session approaches for the third time, they suddenly decide that they won't be using Roll20 for audio, it's Discord. My laptop won't download Discord. I'm cast adrift in an open boat and washed up on Pitcairn Island.
The game is canned. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Saturday 16 December 2017
False Dawn #1 - Google Hangups
So, I've filled the house and my hard drive with tons of roleplaying ephemera, but I'm still no closer to actually playing a role; unless of course you count "sad spendthrift recluse" as a character archetype.
Finding other people with a gaming inclination is still pretty hard. Although there's a bit of a renaissance in the world of boardgaming, announcing to your office buddies that you used to play D&D and fancy giving it another try is to take on the mantle of dangerous weirdo pariah. Even Harvey Weinstein would be more likely to get invited to the Christmas party.
It's not that I don't know other roleplayers, they just don't live anywhere near me (that may or may not be coincidence). But surely (I hear you scream with 2 points of SAN loss) that's what the internet is for.
"Howard, get out of the bloody 70's and join the online revolution".
It so nearly worked.
Tony, who owns more games than anyone else I know, including the Chinese warehouse of Hasbro, was the instigator and pitched the idea of getting some folks together to play Rocket Age on Google Hangouts. We got a pdf copy of the rules and some pre-gen characters and booked a slot 47 months into the future when everyone was free. What could possibly go wrong?
Tony - video feed looks like his face has been melted by a chip pan fire
Howard - can't be seen at all (a blessing in disguise)
David - moves like a 90's robot dancing video
Nick - sounds like the warbly bit in that unbelievably terrible Cher song
Ian - a flicker, a sound like someone's leg being sawn off then no sound, no vision, no nothing
Thirty minutes later .....
Tony delivers tension, excitement, drama and a great plot, but somehow I am increasingly distracted by the pile of washing up in Nick's kitchen that I can see over his left shoulder. Ian slowly moves further and further out of shot. Either his webcam is deliberately panning to take in a view of his picture rail, or he's being eaten alive by something under the table. At the end of two sessions, we all say how great the game had been, but you can tell there's a sincerity shortfall.
We plough on with two more sessions of Würm, which pits the 4 plucky adventures against the harsh reality of life in Ice Age Europe. Things appear to be getting better, although we nearly lose Ian to a bear and David to a hole in his broadband, but it still just doesn't quite gel. One of the team plays his character like a 21st century explorer/scientist and I'm ready to throw in the Palaeolithic towel. Tony brings the exercise to a close and declares online gaming a miserable failure.
The search goes on ......
Finding other people with a gaming inclination is still pretty hard. Although there's a bit of a renaissance in the world of boardgaming, announcing to your office buddies that you used to play D&D and fancy giving it another try is to take on the mantle of dangerous weirdo pariah. Even Harvey Weinstein would be more likely to get invited to the Christmas party.
It's not that I don't know other roleplayers, they just don't live anywhere near me (that may or may not be coincidence). But surely (I hear you scream with 2 points of SAN loss) that's what the internet is for.
"Howard, get out of the bloody 70's and join the online revolution".
It so nearly worked.
Tony, who owns more games than anyone else I know, including the Chinese warehouse of Hasbro, was the instigator and pitched the idea of getting some folks together to play Rocket Age on Google Hangouts. We got a pdf copy of the rules and some pre-gen characters and booked a slot 47 months into the future when everyone was free. What could possibly go wrong?
Tony - video feed looks like his face has been melted by a chip pan fire
Howard - can't be seen at all (a blessing in disguise)
David - moves like a 90's robot dancing video
Nick - sounds like the warbly bit in that unbelievably terrible Cher song
Ian - a flicker, a sound like someone's leg being sawn off then no sound, no vision, no nothing
Thirty minutes later .....
Tony delivers tension, excitement, drama and a great plot, but somehow I am increasingly distracted by the pile of washing up in Nick's kitchen that I can see over his left shoulder. Ian slowly moves further and further out of shot. Either his webcam is deliberately panning to take in a view of his picture rail, or he's being eaten alive by something under the table. At the end of two sessions, we all say how great the game had been, but you can tell there's a sincerity shortfall.
We plough on with two more sessions of Würm, which pits the 4 plucky adventures against the harsh reality of life in Ice Age Europe. Things appear to be getting better, although we nearly lose Ian to a bear and David to a hole in his broadband, but it still just doesn't quite gel. One of the team plays his character like a 21st century explorer/scientist and I'm ready to throw in the Palaeolithic towel. Tony brings the exercise to a close and declares online gaming a miserable failure.
The search goes on ......
Wednesday 13 December 2017
All You Need Is Books
So how do you go about getting back into the hobby?
Check out your old roleplaying buddies to see whether they can be revived from their cryogenic state?
Google new contacts/gaming groups?
Log into one of the online gaming portals?
No.
The obvious answer is to empty your virtual wallet into the gaping maw of the internet and buy up the rules and sourcebooks for every roleplaying system ever devised.
Is there any chance of ever playing "Hallo Kommissar", a game about survival in a 1960's Soviet gulag? Of course not, but it appeals to your sense of isolation and Weltschmerz (I don't really know what that means, but it sounds good). Besides which it's starting to get a bit nippy outside, so it feels kind of appropriate. On the plus side the pdf is only $0.50 or 5 Kopeks and a crust of mouldy bread in game terms.
There's just so much out there, but I know that the more I buy, the less I focus and the futility of the exercise increases. It's just that the books are so lovely and covetable (though shalt not covet thy neighbour's Dungeon Master's Guide for he shall smite you with a public order offence). The pdfs are cheaper and they don't take up any room. No matter that on my laptop screen they are pretty much unreadable and in an actual play setting totally impractical.
While the electronic postman (we shall call him ePat) and the real postman (hey there, wait a minute) strain their backs to deliver all this gaming goodness I could start rolling up some characters, learning some rules, building a campaign, an adventure, a (whisper it quietly) dungeon.
Nah, just easier to buy more books.
Check out your old roleplaying buddies to see whether they can be revived from their cryogenic state?
Google new contacts/gaming groups?
Log into one of the online gaming portals?
No.
The obvious answer is to empty your virtual wallet into the gaping maw of the internet and buy up the rules and sourcebooks for every roleplaying system ever devised.
Is there any chance of ever playing "Hallo Kommissar", a game about survival in a 1960's Soviet gulag? Of course not, but it appeals to your sense of isolation and Weltschmerz (I don't really know what that means, but it sounds good). Besides which it's starting to get a bit nippy outside, so it feels kind of appropriate. On the plus side the pdf is only $0.50 or 5 Kopeks and a crust of mouldy bread in game terms.
There's just so much out there, but I know that the more I buy, the less I focus and the futility of the exercise increases. It's just that the books are so lovely and covetable (though shalt not covet thy neighbour's Dungeon Master's Guide for he shall smite you with a public order offence). The pdfs are cheaper and they don't take up any room. No matter that on my laptop screen they are pretty much unreadable and in an actual play setting totally impractical.
While the electronic postman (we shall call him ePat) and the real postman (hey there, wait a minute) strain their backs to deliver all this gaming goodness I could start rolling up some characters, learning some rules, building a campaign, an adventure, a (whisper it quietly) dungeon.
Nah, just easier to buy more books.
Saturday 18 November 2017
And So It Begins
I'm not sure how it happened. I was happy playing board games and some games by post. I even managed to get involved in some old school miniatures wargaming (although my diminishing eyesight hasn't done my painting skills any favours).
But there was an itch that just wasn't being scratched.
"You hear a sound like nails on a window pane and it suddenly feels cold, very cold.
There is breathing behind you, not the gentle even breathing of Tara, but a coarse sibilant panting. It is several minutes since you heard either Tara or Morgan speak. Do you turn and face whatever evil hunts in the dark, or do you try to run?"
The answer of course is that you're dead either way.
After Mick's great Pendragon campaign in 1992, in which we did some half decent deeds and slew a few gormless Saxons (who had it coming), the old dice bag went into temporal stasis.
There were some near misses, but everyone seemed to want to play the new games where they would be computer hackers in trenchcoats with difficult personalities or vampires living in attic appartments in Manhattan. If this was "adult mature" roleplaying then I didn't want any part of it.
Frankly, and this is terribly judgemental, they just weren't the kind of people I wanted to go to the pub with.
It did however spawn my own game "Katanas In Pyjamas" in which edgy blokes with dark secrets try to live normal lives as shop assistants or chartered accountants, while keeping dangerous animals from hell's 5th plane in the garden shed.
Anyway, I reluctantly let it all go and for a while there was neither motive nor opportunity.
Fast forward to a bit earlier than now. Seventeen years after the millenium bug was supposed to have airliners falling out of the sky and twenty-five since Sir Lucas (for that was I) rode across England in search of the Holy Grail, or a fair damsel (if the Grail wasn't available), I've decided that it's time to be someone else again; Khaldarth Ironhand (the dwarf from the 'Norf), Keefer (the ex-Scout and his Vargr sidekick). Maybe those Wilko reading glasses are just too rosy-tinted, but let's see how it plays out ... a critical hit or a sad embarrassing fumble.
But there was an itch that just wasn't being scratched.
"You hear a sound like nails on a window pane and it suddenly feels cold, very cold.
There is breathing behind you, not the gentle even breathing of Tara, but a coarse sibilant panting. It is several minutes since you heard either Tara or Morgan speak. Do you turn and face whatever evil hunts in the dark, or do you try to run?"
The answer of course is that you're dead either way.
After Mick's great Pendragon campaign in 1992, in which we did some half decent deeds and slew a few gormless Saxons (who had it coming), the old dice bag went into temporal stasis.
There were some near misses, but everyone seemed to want to play the new games where they would be computer hackers in trenchcoats with difficult personalities or vampires living in attic appartments in Manhattan. If this was "adult mature" roleplaying then I didn't want any part of it.
Frankly, and this is terribly judgemental, they just weren't the kind of people I wanted to go to the pub with.
It did however spawn my own game "Katanas In Pyjamas" in which edgy blokes with dark secrets try to live normal lives as shop assistants or chartered accountants, while keeping dangerous animals from hell's 5th plane in the garden shed.
Anyway, I reluctantly let it all go and for a while there was neither motive nor opportunity.
Fast forward to a bit earlier than now. Seventeen years after the millenium bug was supposed to have airliners falling out of the sky and twenty-five since Sir Lucas (for that was I) rode across England in search of the Holy Grail, or a fair damsel (if the Grail wasn't available), I've decided that it's time to be someone else again; Khaldarth Ironhand (the dwarf from the 'Norf), Keefer (the ex-Scout and his Vargr sidekick). Maybe those Wilko reading glasses are just too rosy-tinted, but let's see how it plays out ... a critical hit or a sad embarrassing fumble.
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