Kid Wizard vs. DM Chuck - My First RPG Experience

Since the beginning of the Living 4 Crits blog I've wanted to tell the woefully short tale of "Kid Wizard", my very first tabletop role-playing game character.  I'm still not sure why it's taken me so long to write about my first experience with an RPG, especially since I hear so many gamers on podcasts share their own first times.  Actually, given the way the whole experience turned out you'd think I never would've returned to the table.  

It helps that I had an extremely talented Dungeon Master.

DM Chuck

It all started twenty-five years ago, with a simple game of Dungeons & Dragons.  Chuck, my Dungeon Master To-Be, was a year older than me and lived across our street in Levittown, Pennsylvania.  Growing up, Chuck was a natural leader and organizer, always gathering the kids on our block into various activities.  If there was football being played on "The Hill" (the mound surrounding a local drainage ditch), Chuck was arranging teams.  If street hockey was on the menu, Chuck provided the net and all the pads.  Of the eight boys who lived on the lower end of Handy Road, Chuck was the group's ever present event planner.    

I need to point out that Chuck's parents had an extremely high tolerance to loud kid voices.  Their house was always filled with children of all ages, pretty much taking over their living room, den, kitchen, bedrooms, and backyard.  I don't know how they put up with us all.  

My dates may be a little shaky, but sometime between the winter and spring of 1991 Chuck started talking about something called "RPG".  Not "an RPG", or "the RPG", just "RPG."  At first I thought the game had something to do with "rocket propelled grenades", probably because of my overexposure to Rambo movies.  I blame '80's cinema.  Eventually this conversation led to the arrival of a mysterious red box...

... the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules, Set 1 with the Larry Elmore cover!

Word got out that some of the other kids, including Chuck's two younger brothers Jeff and Chris, were "making characters" for this game.  Naturally I wanted to be a part of the group, so I scheduled some time to sit down with Chuck and create my first character. 

Okay, at the time this was probably just me walking over and asking to make a character, and then his mom telling me to come back later, but in my mind I will always remember "being summoned" for that very special moment.  

Kid Wizard

Chuck's house had a den in the very back, with a bunch of comfy couches.  That's where Kid Wizard was born!  The name sparked a bit of an argument because Chuck insisted that I couldn't be a "kid" if I were a Magic-User.  I would need a long beard and a pointy hat.  My counter argument was probably rooted in Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series, and Presto the Magician.  

Here's all I remember about Kid Wizard's stats:

• Class: Magic-User
• Language: Pixie
• Starting Spell: Ventriloquism
• Weapon: Dagger 
• Money: Not enough gold for a silver dagger

Being able to speak Pixie confused the heck out of me.  In my twelve year old mind Pixies were a combination of the fairies from The Legend of Zelda and Popples.  The starting spell also kind of stunk, especially when I realized that I could only cast it once per day.  

Really?  I'm a great and powerful sorcerer with one spell that I could cast once per day?  What good is throwing my voice going to be?

Chuck assured me that I would be the most powerful character on the entire block, because no one else was playing a Magic-User.  But this would take time, and I'd need to attain a bunch of levels before attaining true mystical might.  

Kid Wizard wouldn't last the evening.

Character creation was quick, and Chuck's dad wasn't finished cooking dinner, so he offered to run me through a short session to try out the rules.  Here's my attempt at an adventure recap of something that occurred back in 1991.

The Legend of Kid Wizard

Kid Wizard's career began in a small town.  Unhappy with only having a dagger as his weapon, Kid Wizard longed for a silver dagger to add to his arsenal.  So Kid Wizard walked into the local weaponsmith's shop and asked to purchase a silver dagger.  The weaponsmith looked at Kid Wizard's pitiful pile of silver and copper and declined to make a sale.  

"This dagger's twenty-five gold," the burly weaponsmith stated.

At first he was disappointed, but then Kid Wizard thought up a plan.  The young Magic-User grabbed the silver dagger from the weaponsmith's hand and bolted out of the shop.  But before he could make it to the nearby alley, Kid Wizard heard the weaponsmith shouting.

"Guard!  Guard!" the man screamed.

Sure enough a pair of guards saw the young pilferer and gave chase.  But Kid Wizard was prepared for this.  Using his trusty Ventriloquism spell, Kid Wizard mimicked the voice of the weaponsmith from behind the two guards.  

"Let him go!" the fake voice shouted.  

One of the two guards fell for the spell, but the other continued to chase Kid Wizard.  Eventually the guard reached the Magic-User, and cut him down with a single blow of his long sword.  Kid Wizard died, still clutching his beloved silver dagger.

The End. 

Back for More

It took a few months to get back to Chuck's table.  It wasn't long before he purchased the AD&D 2nd Edition rulebooks, which quickly became our game of choice.  My second character was a Paladin, who would die on the Isle of Dread, sacrificing himself to save the life of my friend Ryan's Thief.  I would play in Chuck's games up through high school, returning during the summer of 1998 for a reunion game using characters that we had played for years.  To this day, some of my fondest memories as a D&D player come from sitting in Chuck's upstairs bedroom during an all-nighter, battling the minions of evil until the early hours of the morning.  

Chuck's red box would eventually make it into my hands, and I remember first running D&D sessions during the summer of 1991, overly-inspired by the blockbuster hit Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  

Chuck was also my first player.  He gave me tips and pointers on how to run my own adventures, and over the years would share some of the materials he would amass from our local hobby store Allied Hobbies at the Oxford Valley Mall.  I was allowed to use his bookshelf as an occasional library, checking out a rulebook or copy of Dungeon Magazine to help further my craft.  

I will be forever grateful for that very first invite to join Chuck's D&D game.  

I've participated in countless tales told around a small table with a only handful of dice and a small stash of gnarled books and discarded soda cans.  I've met creative, thoughtful, and downright legendary game designers who have shared their own stories and experiences.  Most importantly, I've shared this storytelling art form with my children, and continue to watch them make it their own.  Hours upon hours of experiences and memories that would never exist if I hadn't rolled up one single, crappy, dagger-wielding Magic-User in Chuck's family's den.

So Chuck, just in case you're reading this, thank you.  

Thank you for bringing me into the fold twenty-five years ago, and for inspiring me to create my adventures.  I just have one question that remains after all these years...

... couldn't you let me start with a better spell than Ventriloquism?

My Favorite Green Books

Early one Christmas morning in the 1990's, I stumbled out of bed and into the living room of my old house in Levittown, Pennsylvania.  I think I was around fifteen years old, but can't be certain now.  Although it had been years since I believed in Santa Claus, my parents never gave up the tradition of leaving presents for both me and my brother under the Christmas Tree.  Being the good, geek-inspiring parents that they were, typically I find a gaming book or two waiting for me amidst a sea of classic computer games like Privateer or Master of Orion 2.  

This Christmas in particular I discovered a book that I didn't even know existed.  It was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition softcover book, very similar to my Complete Book of Elves or Thief's Handbook.  But instead of the brown cover, this book was green, with bright gold lettering.  

"The Glory of Rome - Campaign Sourcebook."

What a perfect gaming gift!  My mom and dad knew that I was a fan of Roman history, ever since watching the original Spartacus with Kirk Douglas.  Opening this intriguing guide I quickly learned how to run complete AD&D 2nd Ed. sessions in the ancient Roman Republic, and how to integrate some classical mythology into my existing campaign.  This was where I first learned about the "pilum", the devastating Roman heavy javelin, and that "garum" was a funky fish sauce made from rotten guts.  From the chronology of the Roman world to detailed accounts of Gladiatorial combat, The Glory of Rome had everything that a multi-classed History Fan/Tabletop Gamer could desire!

The Glory of Rome sparked a love for historical role-playing, that has stuck with me, and certainly blossomed as I've grown older.  I continued collecting these beautiful green gems, and each would play a significant role in developing my craft as a game master.

Age of Heroes, a sourcebook covering Ancient Greece, showed up in my house during the last days of high school.  I used it briefly during a Planescape campaign, and then later during a full-fledged, home-brewed, Greco-Roman inspired college campaign.  Once I acquired the Celts Campaign Sourcebook, my collection covered the entire ancient Mediterranean.  Although Age of Heroes tends to spend a lot of time on the shelf (I prefer the grittier realities of Rome to the flamboyant gods and goddesses of Greek mythology), Celts showed up in a long running D&D 3rd Edition campaign as inspiration.  

Interested in exploring Europe's Dark Ages, I discovered Charlemagne's Paladins while in college as well.  I used the themes of Carolingian Western Europe for a very successful Ravenloft campaign one summer.  To this day, I use Charlemagne's Paladins alongside the Vikings Campaign Sourcebook when I want to give my Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG sessions a historical twist.  

A Mighty Fortress arrived late on my bookshelf, at the tail end of AD&D 2nd Edition and the beginning of D&D 3E.  This dark and gritty book covers the battles of the Thirty Years War, and is brought completely to life by the interior art.  

Here's a quote from the credits that shows the authentic direction of A Mighty Fortress:

"All of the interior illos in this book are the work of contemporary artists and illustrators, as noted."

That's right!  Rembrandt is the interior artist for this Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook!  

The only green AD&D 2nd Edition Historical Reference sourcebook I haven't really used that much is The Crusades.  Not that there is anything wrong with the book, it was an interesting read and would match up very well with a campaign mirroring the first Assassins Creed game.  I've just never had the desire to run a game during that period of history...

... but to complete my collection I had to have the book!

*     *     *

Next time you are in a used game store, and you happen to spot one of these green-bound historical references, pay the $10 and walk away with a winner.  Who knows, maybe you will learn a thing or two!

If, like me, you are a fan of these historical references, share your experiences.  How have you used these books at your table?  Do you run entire campaigns during these time periods, or do you pilfer the parts that work best?

Magic is Lazy

A Magical Arcane Sorcery Filled Ruin

An adventuring party enters a forbidden chamber, deep within the dark recesses of an ancient ruin.  Worn and crumbling stone pillars line the room, with a glowing golden throne situated neatly in the center.  A robed skeletal figure rests upon the throne, the fine quality of the long deceased’s garments a hint that this skeleton is out of place.  

The party’s thief carefully sneaks into the chamber first, her confidence bolstered by her enchanted elven boots of stealth.  The wizard quietly whispers a few words, creating an arcane barrier protecting him against opposing magic.  With a swoosh, the warrior draws her giant two-handed sword from its rune-carved sheath, while speaking a secret phrase that causes the blade to glow with white fire.  Fearing for the worst, the cleric quietly calls out to the thief, begging her to keep away from the throne until he has the chance to investigate the skeleton using one of his scrolls.

But it is too late.

While the thief succeeded in being silent as she crept into the chamber, she never saw the dark sigil carved into the stone floor.  Instantly struck by some form of dark magic, the thief falls at the feet of the robed skeleton.  Revealing the truth of its undeath, the skeleton rises and points its finger towards the fallen thief, a faint hum of energy filling the room.  But before the skeleton can act, the cleric charges forward with a holy symbol in hand, as he cries out in desperate prayer to the sun god.  An arc of golden light stretching out from the holy symbol strikes the skeleton in the chest, causing it to collapse.  

The thief awakens just a few minutes later, roused by one of the wizard’s potions.  Once the party regroups they begin to raid the chamber for loot, riches, and magic items.

*     *     *

This is a pretty typical scene for a dungeon crawl in any fantasy role-playing game.  A team of magical or magically augmented characters engages a magically cursed undead creature.  I would venture that most of my gaming-life has been spent in these kinds of encounters, especially as I grew up playing Dungeons & Dragons over any other RPG system until I entered my mid-thirties.  Actually, over the last few months when I haven’t been gushing over Star Wars, I’ve focused a lot of my time on fantasy gaming between my Dungeon Crawl Classics and Cypher System Fantasy campaigns.  

But looking back on the obviously stereotypical encounter I described earlier, as well as many (if not “most”) other scenarios in my fantasy games, I’ve come to discover a dark secret:

Magic is lazy.  

Magic certainly powers a lot of themes and tropes in a fantasy campaign setting.  I guess it is safe to say that the setting wouldn’t be “fantasy” if some kind of magic wasn’t already at work.  Some fantasy settings may use very little fantasy, keeping it mysterious and sinister, while others have entire worlds dripping with arcana.  I remember running Eberron in D&D 3.5 and 4E, where just about everything in the campaign was infused with some kind of magical power.

Need a magic train?  Shove a magic engine inside!  Magic airship!  We’ve got trapped elementals!  

Actually, at least the trapped elemental makes some kind of sense.  There’s a reason that airship is flying, an arcana-infused scientific reason.  Of course then I start thinking about “what is an elemental?”  

Perhaps my recent television and gaming habits are the culprits for my constant need to question everything in an obviously fictional universe.

Ninth Doctor, Ninth World

Let’s travel back to November 2012.  My wife and I were looking for something interesting to watch on Netflix, having just ditched traditional cable television.  We were both fans of Torchwood: Miracle Day, so we decided to start watching the original series.  The two of us were so in the dark at the time that we didn’t even realize that Torchwood was a spinoff of Doctor Who.  Soon we were a pair of neophyte “Whovians”, starting with the Ninth Doctor in the relatively new Series 1, gobbling up episode after episode.  

What captivated my interest with Doctor Who, aside from the many well-written characters, was the way the show handled the supernatural.  A lost spirit wasn’t a “ghost”, rather it was some kind of temporal echo, or perhaps an ethereal alien stranded on earth trying to communicate with its home.  There was a common theme for many of the episodes, of starting a story with something resembling the arcane or occult, but ending with a relatively plausible explanation.  This was unlike anything else I had ever seen on television.  

I simply fell in love with the idea that everything has some kind of scientific explanation.  At the time I was running a regular Savage Worlds homebrewed steampunk campaign called “Clockwork”, and I stole heavily from the Doctor Who and Torchwood concepts.  Nothing was magical; everything had either a scientific or pseudo-scientific background.  

What Doctor Who started, however, Monte Cook finished.  

In the summer of 2013 I got my first look at Numenera, a science-fantasy world where the “magic” and “sorcery” is all powered by a billion years of science and technology far too advanced for a futuristic society to fully comprehend.  A nano (science-wizard) may summon forth a “fireball,” but the flames are not enchanted, but just the air combusting due to rapidly moving nanites.  The healer may pray while closing a wound, but actually it’s her mutation that allows the cells of her own body to assist those of her patient.  

Often in Numenera, neither the game master nor player truly know “why” a power, cypher, or artifact “works”, but can rest assured that the answer isn’t just “it’s magic.”  Even with Numenera’s sister game, The Strange, the idea that an alien dark energy network creating new realities adds a little validity to worlds powered by magic.  

Magic This, Magic That, Magic Everything

By far, my largest “issue” with magic is how it has the capability of stopping the creative process.  Once the storyteller says that something is “magical”, the players stop asking questions.  

Eureka, the item is magical, case closed!  Now let’s add it to our stash!

Perhaps the characters will pick up the item, and make sure that it isn’t “cursed”, but really that’s just another way for something to be enchanted.  If it’s a doorway or portal, they may need to dispel the magic to move on to the next chamber.  Rarely is there an opportunity to figure out “why” something is enchanted, or how it came to be so, unless the item is some kind of artifact.    

Personally, I’ve had more fun placing non-magical yet unique items in fantasy games than magical artifacts.  At least it forces players to keep looking for answers regarding the item, or find more creative ways to use them in the game.    

Magic weapons are by far the worst offenders.  In the many incarnations of Dungeons & Dragons there are many monsters that can only be hit by some kind of unique substance… or a magic weapon.  Finding a handful of cold-forged iron spears or a quiver of silver arrows could make for their very own adventures.  Or the players just grab their regular magic swords (since they all have them by fourth or fifth level) and take down the were-creatures or ghosts head on.  

This is just another reason why I’ve come to enjoy Dungeon Crawl Classics so much… magic is so limited, and so mysterious, that magic items are incredibly rare…

… but me being “me”, I still crave a deeper explanation on what is making something “magic.”  

Making the Typical Atypical

Let’s take that short scenario I crafted earlier.  Here’s a list of everything that could be powered by some kind of magic:

1. The glowing throne
2. The thief’s enchanted elven boots
3. The wizard’s shield spell
4. The warrior’s flaming sword
5. The cleric’s scroll
6. The dark sigil in the stone
7. The undead skeleton
8. The sun god
9. The priest’s light spell
10. The healing potion

Why do these items/powers/creatures work or exist?  The easy answer, as I’ve mentioned already, is to just say “magic”.  Perhaps your campaign would categorize some as “wizard magic” and others as “priestly magic”.  

But as a fan of both Doctor Who and Numenera, I’m fairly spoiled and want more answers.  If I were to give this a “weird” twist for Numenera the list would look like this:

1. The throne is surrounded by the glowing guano of mutated bats
2. The boots are crafted with leather from a very quiet feline creature that lurks the Beyond
3. The nano’s shield “esotery” is actually a swarm of quickly flying nano-bots
4. The flaming sword is actually part of a crashed starship’s reactor, and the flames are just exhaust
5. The words on the priest’s scroll (a cypher), if spoken with the proper pitch and tempo, can allow the user to access a dormant portion of the Datasphere
6. The dark sigil just marks the boundary of a high frequency sleep inducing harmony
7. The skeleton is a mostly destroyed cybernetic organism, but the processing unit in the skull still allows minor motor control of the synth “bones”
8. The sun god is an AI that exists in the Datasphere
9. The sun god creates a “portal” between the sun itself and the skeleton, allowing a gout of hot plasma to destroy the creature
10. The healing potion is a perfectly sealed Crystal Pepsi from a billion years in the past

Okay, I’ll admit that my first ten items were very stereotypical, and I spent much more time on the Numenera list, but that gets to my point.  As game masters, perhaps we should be spending this kind of time when we are creating magical items or encounters.  I’ve been running mostly fantasy campaigns since the middle of the summer, and I’m certainly guilty of an overreliance on stereotypical magic-based explanations.  

Let me see if I can find a happy medium between the two lists… a way to embrace the fantasy world while still adding some plausibility to the creation of these items:

1. The glowing throne is surrounded by bio-luminescent fungi.  Not magical, but definitely worth some gold pieces as alchemical reagents.
2. The thief’s boots are made from real elf skin, which makes them exceptionally silent.  These could be magical and quite possibly cursed by the ghost of the dead elf used.
3. The wizard’s shield is conjured from the elemental plane of air.
4. The warrior’s flaming sword gains its power not through the weapon, but the rune-carved scabbard.  The soul of a long-dead general is trapped in the scabbard, and she imbues the blade with magical power each time it is drawn.
5. The cleric’s scroll is just a list of directions of things to look for in order to determine whether or not something is or is not cursed.  
6. The dark sigil in the stone is a cautionary boundary marking the safe distance between the characters and the bio-luminescent fungi.  The fungi is toxic!
7. The undead skeleton is still simply an undead skeleton, its soul forever trapped and bound to the chamber.  
8. The sun god may be good and just, but is also parasitic in nature, as a portion of the god’s power actually takes over the cleric’s body and soul as move up the ranks of the priesthood.  
9. The priest’s light spell is the parasitic sun god letting off a little energy.
10. The healing potion is a curative tonic that has crossed space and time to find itself in this fantasy world.  In reality, it’s still just a refreshing Crystal Pepsi.  

I may have to use this list in an upcoming adventure now!

Bringing Magic Back

What are your thoughts?  Is magic a complex power source in your campaigns, or an under embellished crutch?  Do you find yourself trapped in worlds infused with too much magic, or have you found some kind of balance?  

How have you been able to keep magic mysterious and wonderful in your games? 

You know… now that I think of it… The Force is kind of lazy too.  

Seller's Remorse

If it says 4E or Eberron, its gone...

Losing Your Treasures by Choice

Recently I’ve been thinking of all the role-playing games I’ve sold over the years and how I occasionally regret these exchanges months or years down the road.  But despite my tendency to kick myself for letting go, I still find myself repeating the same process over and over again.  As with most gaming collectors, I purchase far more products than I could ever possibly read or use, and while there are many that I would never give up, even if I were never to play them, whenever there is an edition change, or a new and improved update, I get the itch…

… because there is always some other product out there that I need to get my fingers on, and spare cash can be hard to come by!

I can still remember the first time I sold off part of my gaming collection.  It was at Lehigh University’s EPIC Convention in the spring of 1996.  I was sixteen years old, and showed up to the convention with my entire collection of Magic the Gathering cards.  I cannot recall why I had the cards with me, as I had no intention of playing Magic the Gathering while at the convention.  I signed up to run two RPG events, and play in another three or four, and that left precious little time for anything else.  But I had recently purchased West End Games’ Star Wars Role-Playing Game, and on a break between sessions I found myself in the dealers’ hall staring at a bunch of sourcebooks that I needed to purchase.  

Since I was in high school and didn’t have a job, money was pretty tight.  I was about to walk away when the guy behind the counter asked if I had anything I wanted to trade.  

Trade?  Really?  I could do that?

I wasn’t actively playing Magic the Gathering at the time, so I showed the gentleman my deck and we worked out a price.  An hour later I was admiring the new books I acquired.  Two years later I was lamenting my lack of an awesome White/Green deck.  

The process would repeat itself year after year all through college.  I’d buy a bunch of books, maybe play with half, and sell a few off to fund my next purchase.  For example I sold my original Planescape 2^nd Edition books to pay for Wraith the Oblivion stuff which I sold a year later for the Mordheim miniatures game and some extra figures.  In an interesting and costly merry-go-round fashion, I sold a lot of my AD&D 2^nd Edition books when 3^rd Edition came out, and then ditched most of my 3^rd and 3.5 Edition books for 4^th Edition.  But when I got tired of 4^th Edition I decided that I wanted to boost my collection of “old-school” products, and went back and re-purchased many of the AD&D 2^nd Edition stuff I ditched in the first place!

I hope I’m not the only gamer out there that treat’s their collection like a used car lot!  

Judging by eBay, Amazon.com, and Half Priced Books, I know that there is strong market for used gaming materials, and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to correct some of my bad decisions as a younger gamer.  I’ve been fortunate to re-collect all of the 2^nd Edition Planescape, Dragonlance, and Spelljammer books that I ditched in the early 2000’s.  Some of the products I’ve sold over the years, like Wraith the Oblivion, I don’t exactly “miss”, but in hindsight I wish I would’ve kept because they were an interesting read, even if I had no intention to run the game again.

The reason I thought about writing this post stems from that very first trade: the “1996 Magic the Gathering for d6 Star Wars deal.”  I ended up amassing a huge d6 Star Wars  collection, only to partition it off when Wizards of the Coast released the Revised Edition and then the Saga Edition.  Those books that I didn’t sell, I gave away, figuring I’d be playing the new game, and would be completely content.  But I miss those old books.  I miss the basic rules, even the clunky parts that I mistakenly believed I had to “fix.”  I miss the Millennium Falcon screaming across the cover, and the old black-and-white sourcebooks created back when the expanded universe was still precious and the prequels were far, far away.  

I can’t say for certain that I’m completely finished trading in older books and older editions.  But I hope that “future Jim” will be more careful before letting go of tried-and-true games he grows tired of, in favor of something new and shiny.  Sometimes an old favorite doesn’t need to be replaced.  It just needs to spend some quality time on a shelf or in storage, so that it can be rediscovered like buried treasure a few years down the road.  

So am I alone?  Does anyone else buy/play/trade/and sell their books and games constantly?  If so what sales do you still regret?

Let us know, we’d love to hear from you!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

All the players signed our last foe

When Great Gaming Groups Disband

I am sure there are some gaming groups who have been together for decades, but I’d reckon for most of us, we’ve changed “parties” at least a time or two as we’ve grown in our hobby.  I played Dungeons & Dragons for three and a half years (2009 - 2012) with a creative, sharp-witted, tremendously outgoing group of close friends.  But at the end of our epic campaign, the group split up, most of the players going their separate ways.  As a thirty-something, happily married man, this was the closest to a break-up that I have ever felt. 

Let’s rewind a bit…

… and be warned, this gets a little sentimental...

My weekly game setup

Ravenscape

Six years ago I started my first online role-playing group with some friends from Levittown, Pennsylvania, where I grew up.  I was still relatively new to social media, having just joined Facebook a few months earlier, and it didn’t take long for me to connect with people from my high school years.   Since most of us were gaming-geeks, we shared stories of our amazing quests and campaigns from the old days, and lamented about gaming as an adult.  It was the tail-end of the 3.5 Edition era of Dungeons & Dragons, and I was starting to burn out, not just on the d20 system, but on the campaigns I had been running.  

I needed a fresh start, with some creative players, and new ideas.  It would be great to get back together with my old friends, and just play a few games together.   Before I even had a method to play, I was out recruiting on Facebook and managed to dig up a terrific ensemble.  To bridge the distance between the players and myself I started plotting a way to game online.  Over the years I had tried some chatroom RPG’s, which could be fun for the occasional evening, but was slow and ponderous.  There had to be a faster and more efficient way of gaming online.  

Organizing the players on Facebook, I soon turned to Yahoo Groups and created “Qualanthorus’ Keep”, the name derived from an old NPC in a AD&D 2^nd Edition campaign.  I would use the Yahoo Group to organize play sessions and send group messages.  To talk to everyone, we used a newfangled program called “Skype”.  Since we started off with D&D 3.5 and eventually transitioned into 4^th Edition, we would need a map-grid and miniatures.  Maptool would eventually become our virtual table of choice, since it was easy to create pogs, and I could drag .jpg maps directly onto the screen.  

Our goal was to play at least once or twice per month, but after only a few sessions we all realized that we had found something special.  At the time I was drowning in homework, since I was going back to school for my MBA.  I was also trying to balance a pair of campaigns, the online game, and an offline campaign, with my personal life.  It was becoming too much work.  Given the ease of play, and the quality of our games, I chose to continue the online game, and backed away from the in-person group.  

We called the campaign “Ravenscape”, and it was a hybrid Ravenloft/Planescape setting, where the players started off as “monster themed” characters (Goliath, Tiefling, Goblin, and Shifter) in the xenophobic Demiplane of Dread.  During the early sessions the party spent considerable time having to ally itself with traditionally evil creatures, while fleeing monster-hunters and angry villagers.  Over time the campaign shifted to the planes, as we introduced a massive story-arc:  the great demon Orcus wanted to usurp the Raven Queen, goddess of death.  Some of the highlights of this “kitchen sink” campaign concept included the following:

• The tiefling bard character found out that he was the son of Orcus
• The party’s shifter escaped slavery-by-vampires on a ship called the “Downeaster Alexa”, only to return and rescue all of shifter-kind as a savior.
• The goblin sorcerer character became a chronomancer (time-mage)
• Time travel became a critical element to the campaign, and the party eventually realized that a “Tome” they had been following as an in-game “guidebook” was actually written by a party member… from the future.
• Strahd von Zarovich acted as a benefactor, and friend for most of the campaign until he killed off a beloved NPC.  
• When we added a new player, at level 21, we let him be the actual “Lady of Pain”, built as a Deva Ardent.
• The party at 24^th level came back to Barovia and killed Strahd (challenge rating 18, if I recall) by surrounding him and pummeling him mercilessly in only a few rounds.    
• The party killed the Tarrasque
• The tiefling’s drow lover became pregnant, which meant Orcus was going to be a grandpa.
• At the very end of the campaign, after introducing the Astral Sea, I threw Spelljammer stuff into the mix.

In other words, we did just about everything you could possibly do in a D&D campaign, as the party went all the way from 1^st to 30^th level.  

This dragon's nickname should be "Kitchen Sink"

The Dark Road Ahead

But in the summer of 2012, as the campaign started to approach its epic conclusion, I started feeling things slip.  Some of the players had been talking about taking a break after Ravenscape, and interest in another campaign seemed lukewarm at best.  Instead of recognizing this change for what it was, “player burnout”,  I desperately tried to hold onto the group.  I constantly bombarded the players with new ideas about future campaigns.  I felt that I just needed the proper spark to keep everyone interested, and once I found it, we would be good to go for another one-hundred sessions!  Some of the ideas I hatched were great, others were just desperate:

• I bought Shadowrun 4^th Edition and ran a demo of the game, even though there was no interest in sci-fi gaming from two of the players.
• I tinkered with an Alternity-based post-apocalyptic campaign.
• After picking up Savage Worlds in May of 2012, I offered to run a Steampunk spinoff of our Ravenscape campaign, blending Deadlands into the mix, and calling it “Plane Justice”.
• I offered to return to a classic fantasy setting, like Dragonlance.

There was some interest from a couple of the players in returning to 2^nd Edition AD&D with Dragonlance, and I pounced on the idea.  At the very last Ravenscape session, which was held at our “tiefling bard’s” house near Philadelphia for a two night “sleepover”, the party defeated Orcus, saved the multiverse, and we celebrated only briefly before trying to build 2^nd Edition AD&D characters.  In hindsight, we should’ve taken some serious time off, at least a few weeks, but I wouldn’t yield.  I felt that the only way to keep the game alive was to push it forward.  Didn’t work.  

Little did I know that when Orcus died, so did the magic of this group.

Some of the players seemed keen on 2^nd Edition nostalgia, while others still preferred the modern rules of 4^th Edition.  After an unproductive character creation session, I threw together a last ditched attempt to come to a middle ground:  4^th Edition Dragonlance.  This only aggravated the players interested in returning to 2^nd Edition.  I tinkered around, offering to try Pathfinder or D&D Next, but it was too late.  

The players of Qualanthorus’ Keep, a.k.a. the “Monster Squad”, broke up.  

As a somewhat obsessive game-master I was devastated.  After playing every week, sometimes twice, online for three and a half years with that incredible crew of players, losing the game left me feeling very empty.  I second-guessed myself constantly on how I concluded the campaign, and secretly hoped that the group just needed a short break before getting back together.  When that didn’t happen, I resigned myself to starting something new, but I didn’t want it to be Dungeons & Dragons.

My wife baked a special cake for our very last Ravenscape adventure

New Beginnings 

Ultimately the story has a happy ending.  I started playing Savage Worlds, but found myself not having enough players, so I founded a game club where we also started playing Numenera, and then I was introduced to many of you who read this blog.  Along the way I got my wife and kids to start gaming too… bonus points!  

One of the special aspects of being a game master is that you get to put your heart and soul into your ideas, your writing, and your play sessions.  You are opening your imagination to the players, and allowing them to go on a “guided romp” that is unique and special.  Truly great role-playing experiences leave you feeling warm, excited, and eager for the next encounter.  It is easy to see why so many of us who game-master, continue to take on the role.  But sharing our imagination also leaves us vulnerable when our ideas fall flat, or don’t create that spark with the players.  It’s natural to feel sadness when you end a campaign, leave a group, or lose a player, especially when things are going well.  

In hindsight, I think my fears and anxiety over our online group's end were based on a misconception that, as I got older, it would be harder and harder to find new people and share in our collective imagination.  I saw Qualanthorus’ Keep’s ending as a finale rather than just a simple transition.

I’m so very glad that I was wrong.  

Your Thoughts?

Have you had a similar “break up” of a special gaming group, or collection of players?  Maybe you moved away, leaving old friends behind?  Perhaps you still want to play Pathfinder but the rest of your party is jumping into 5^th Edition?  

Let us know.  Share your story, and let’s celebrate those special memories.  We’d love to hear about it!

PS… Tom, Frank, Randy, Tym, and Cone, if you do happen to read this I just want to say “thank you”.  Thank you for the best campaign I’ve ever had the pleasure of running.  You guys were phenomenal!

Jen's Pro Gen Con - An Interview with my Gamer Wife

Transforming my Wife of Twelve Years into a Gamer

I started dating Jen back in August of 1997.  Those were some great years!  I was a freshman at Penn State, Matchbox 20 had just released their debut album, and Harrison Ford kicked Gary Oldman off of Air Force One.  The first time I met Jen it was an amazing whirlwind evening, as we walked all over campus talking, and finished up with coffee and cheese fries at the Ye Olde College Diner.  The next afternoon I introduced Jen to my roommate, which meant showing her my dorm room.  Despite the Council of Wyrms and Dark Sun posters, and the totally wicked, custom campaign setting map next to my bed, Jen had no idea what she was getting into with that relationship.  

A year later and Jen was starting to get the idea of what a role-playing game was all about. She didn't seem interested in trying it herself, but let me play with my friends whenever I had the chance.  It took me the better part of a year to get her to a game table.  Jen joined two of my regular players, my roommate Joe and a friend who we all called "Weasel," for a little AD&D 2nd Edition.  We played on the floor of my apartment bedroom, which probably hadn't been cleaned in quite some time.  Jen was pretty freaked out.  We tried again another year later, and I made her a very special character for an AD&D 2E Dark Sun campaign.  Unfortunately she was bored out of her mind and just sat there drawing pictures on index cards.  

This lovely image was her rendition of an Athasian Oasis:

Yes… I saved it.  

But things changed as we got older and our relationship matured.  Having kids probably helped.  In 2011 I got Jen to try the D&D card game "Three Dragon Ante."  By 2012, I was running a few bedtime games of D&D Basic out of the old Rules Cyclopedia for my kids, and Jen would occasionally join as Eric the Cleric.  But at the end of 2013 something big happened:  Jen was introduced to Numenera.  The Cypher System's mechanics broke down some of Jen's "anti-RPG shield" and she began sitting in more and more often.  

Now in 2015 my wife is coming to Gen Con with me in July!  I'm absolutely thrilled, and since it's almost time to pre-register for badges, I thought I'd do an interview with my wife and get some of her perspectives on our incredible hobby.

I hope you enjoy our conversation!  

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

Q&A

Jim:  Thank you so much for sitting down on the couch with me!

Jen:  Uh… thanks for having me.  

Jim:  Are you ready for some pretty tough questions?

Jen:  Shoot.  

Jim:  I know that I consider you a gamer convert now, but would you consider yourself a "gamer?"  

Jen:  I consider myself "one who likes to play games" but I don't know if I feel defined by it.  

Jim:  So do you care that I just keep referring to you as a gamer?  

Jen:  Do I care?  No you can call me anything you want to.  

Jim:  Good enough.  What do you enjoy about tabletop gaming? 

Jen:  I enjoy the social aspect of it.  You can invite people over to play games and it gives you a jumping off point for your evening.  You don't just have to stare at each other and think "what do I do?"  

Jim:  Do you remember way back in 1998 when we tried playing AD&D 2nd Ed.?  

Jen:  Yep

Jim:  How would you describe your first encounter with an RPG?  

Jen:  Awful and forgettable at the same time.  

Jim:  Why?

Jen:  Well, the environmental aspect of the gaming event was probably not conducive to a first time introduction to gaming for a girl.  It was in a really gross apartment, with really gross boys.  They were probably gaming veterans and I still didn't understand the point of it all.  For me games always had a purpose, a conclusion… like a winner.  I didn't get that there wasn't a problem to be solved.  It wasn't like "Clue", it was just this open ended conversation that I didn't get.  And it smelled bad, in case I forgot to mention that it was gross in your apartment… 

Jim:  Okay

Jen:  … the air in that apartment was just thick.  Thick with dirt and filth.  

Jim:  Okay

Jen: … like I felt physically ill with it.  I felt like I had a cold from being in there so long.

Jim:  Alright, so maybe it's safe to say that you would've enjoyed the game if it weren't in my relatively unkept apartment?  

Jen:  I still don't know if I would've had an awesome time with it, since it was still so foreign to me.  I just had no reference point for that kind of game.  I didn't know what "D&D" was when I met you, or what it meant to "do roleplaying."

Jim:  So between 1998 and 2012 when you finally sat down again for an RPG session with the kids, what changed about your perspective?  

Jen:  I guess after living with you for "X number" of years I had a better grasp of what it was.  I always enjoyed listening to you run your games.  It also gave me a way to interject my thoughts and comments without getting dirty looks from your players.  Before I was just a weird voiceover, like the heckler whenever you were playing.  I would listen in, and always think of something funny, but I didn't have a way to really convey it.  Not that its any more welcome from me at the game table, but it seems a little more appropriate.  

Jim:  When I offered to bring you into my first Numenera game, a campaign that didn't include children, why did you agree?  

Jen:  Wasn't that the game with my friends?

Jim:  Uh… yes.  

Jen:  Well I didn't want to be left out.  There's a limit to my altruistic nature.  I didn't want to be like "hey, why don't you go hang out with my friends and I'll just stay home and watch the kids by myself."  

Jim:  But you seemed to enjoy the game.  

Jen:  I did, even though it devolved into sexual innuendo every five seconds.  Everything was naughty.

Jim:  Do you think that's because of the group we played with?

Jen:  Most likely, although I can't speak for all of the group members.  

Jim:  Do you think it was the alcohol as well?  

Jen:  Yeah, the alcohol fueled loose lips.  We would've sank many ships, right?

Jen in character, playing Oswin, the Intelligent Nano who Fuses Flesh with Steel

Jim:  I guess.  

Jen:  Isn't that what they say?  "Loose lips sink ships?"

Jim:  They do.  

Jen:  I need to read this before you actually publish it.  I'm tired and have had a lot of Ibuprofen   

Jim:  Okay.  But to come back to the system, what about Numenera, and the Cypher System in general, do you enjoy.  You've played over twenty sessions of Numenera and almost a dozen of The Strange.  What excites you about those particular games?

Jen:  I like the fact that it's not so one-sided.  It's less a dictatorship because I get the chance to re-roll things and I get more of a say of what happens to my character.  I play a part and events just don't happen to me arbitrarily.  Some of those other games you've had me play its like "...hey guess what.  You just got attacked by a pack of wolves and they ripped off your legs."  You can't do anything about it.  You're just Limbless Joe on the side of the road.  

Jim:  So the Cypher System gives you …

Jen:  … it gives you opportunity as a player to not have bad stuff happen to you. 

Jim:  Fair enough.  What are your favorite games right now?  Don't feel like you have to limit yourself to tabletop games.

Jen:  Well… my favorite tabletop game right now is probably King of Tokyo.  It's a nice quick game to play with the kids and I can play with any of them.  It's also something you can teach to new people with relative ease.

Jim:  Any other board games?  

Jen:  Hmm… I mean, I always enjoy games like Rummy-O and Ticket to Ride.  But those games can be lengthy sometimes.  Even dominoes can last forever if you have a bad set of tiles.

Jim:  Going back to the RPG's, which campaign has been your favorite?

Jen:  Well, I prefer anything that I can more easily relate to.  So it's probably The Strange.  Numenera to me is a very abstract world, and with The Last Parsec I don't really "do space stuff" because I can't really relate to space.  I have trouble relating to anything fantastical because I can't visualize it or see myself as part of that world.

Jim:  But in The Strange, your character, Jackie Dingo, takes part in some fantastic adventures, how is it different?

Jen:  You can do outrageous stuff if you still have something familiar to wrap your head around.  I know what it's like to be in a department store, so I can visualize a department store and if a big chasm opens up in the middle of Target I can visualize that in my head.  I can get it.   

Jim:  What about when your character in The Strange went to the fantasy world of Ardeyn?  Did you find that session to be less interesting?  

Jen:  Do you mean when we went down those steps into that place?

Jim:  Yeah, in Eschatology Code

Jen:  I visualized Phantom of the Opera, when they went down into the opera house and it was a whole other world.  I used that as a point of reference in my head.

Jim:  Cool.  So let's shift over to Gen Con 2015.  Why did you want to go?  

Jen:  Well I don't like staying home while you go on a trip.  It's a chance to have a grown-up getaway while still doing the stuff we like to do.  Its just a silly-fun trip but without the responsibilities of being a parent.  It'll just be us.  

Jim:  What do you expect at Gen Con?  What do you think it'll be like, having just seen pictures and video?

Jen:  Very crowded.  I imagine its going to be very crowded.  I don't think that it's going to have exponentially more men than women, but I think there will be more men. 

Jim:  Is that a concern for you?

Jen:  No.  Bathroom lines will be shorter.  

Jim:  What specific events, or types of events, are you most looking forward to?

Jen:  I'm probably most looking forward to going to the after-parties and social gatherings.  I don't really care that much about what I play.  I just want to take it all in and see what you got to see last year.  

Jim:  You mentioned that you wouldn't role-play without me.  Why?

Jen:  Because I still feel very new to it all, and I don't know the systems well enough, and I don't know if anyone else would be as patient to lead me through as you would be.  And I'm not going to play in one of your games, because that would take a seat away form someone who doesn't live with you and have access to your games.

Jim:  But if there was one game at Gen Con that you absolutely wanted to try, what would it be?  

Jen:  Really, any board games that look like they are quick and easy to pick up I'd like to try.  I'll have to go and look through all of the merchandise in the exhibit hall.  I'm not like you.  I don't know what's really out there.  You're a hunter, I'm a gatherer.  You are going to go looking for something in particular, while I'll just be "looking."  

Jim:  Thank you so much for taking the time to meet me here on our couch.  Do you have any closing comments for our readers?  

Jen:  I feel like I should say something witty.  Don't put that in there.

Jim:  Say whatever you want.

Jen:  Don't hate the player, hate the game?

Jim:  Really?  You are gonna leave it with that?

Jen:  Roses are red, violets are blue.  If I can be a gamer, so can you.  

The Last Parsec

She said it!

There you have it folks.  After first saying that she wasn't going to call herself a gamer, she outed herself at the very end.  Very cool.  I'm both thrilled and honored that my wife Jen was open to trying tabletop gaming again, especially the RPG-side of the hobby.  It has certainly given us something to chat about, and another way to bond as a couple.  I'm very glad that I didn't give up trying to showcase new games in our house!

So a few questions for those of you who have read to the end!  

Does your significant other, partner, or spouse take part in your gaming sessions?  

Have you given up on trying to get them to the table?  

Have you exposed your significant other, partner, or spouse to any "Limbless Joe" scenarios?

Let us know your experiences!  

She even cosplays on occasion!