Herein I describe details of my ongoing campaigns, discuss the D&D game, and talk about other issues in gaming that I find relevant. I am not very fond of 4th edition, having played it once and found it too WoWish. Consequently most of my articles will reference 3.5 and previous editions.
Big Brent Starts a Forgotten Realms Campaign
Posted 19th October 2008 at 11:11 PM by airwalkrr
I moved to San Antonio a little over a year ago and I didn't know a soul. My wife and I had never lived here, nor did we know anyone in the city. We didn't even have family nearby, as most members of our family live in North Texas. So when we moved here, that also meant I was without a gaming group, a situation I have not been in since I was 15. I'll admit it; I was a little panicky.
For a few weeks, things seemed ok. I had just finished running a two-year long Age of Worms campaign in College Station before moving here so I was actually looking forward to a short break. But I had no idea how long I would be content without at least one weekly roleplaying session. Nor did I have any idea how to find gamers in San Antonio. In high school, my buddies and I had sort of accidentally discovered roleplaying games and when I went away to Texas A&M University, there was already a huge community of gamers that were connected by the student gaming club. This was a completely new challenge.
I began rather simply by keeping my eyes peeled for gaming stores as I drove around town. I discovered one fairly close to my house, but was disheartened to learn it had closed. Later I would learn they had only moved to a different location, but was only after I expanded by search to the world wide web. It was on the internet that I found a Meetup group that had some interested players. Around this time, I also tracked down the location of the new gaming store and agreed to meet there with some people I had never met in real life before to see if we could get a campaign going.
It was slow at first. I had two players, David and Tenar, a married couple who, like myself, had just moved to town and knew no one. Over the next few weeks we slowly expanded our group to add Jarrett and a couple of others who didn't hang around for long. After several months of running the War of the Burning Sky campaign, which unfortunately was not going well, I decided to switch gears. Jarrett, who had lived in San Antonio all his life, knew of some other people who were wanting to get back into gaming and would be willing to join the group. David also knew a guy from his job who would be interested in joining. Eventually we added Donna, Travis, and George to the mix which usually meant we would have enough people for a decent game each weekend even if one or two people couldn't make it. With this group, I began running Paizo's Shackled City campaign.
After running this campaign for four or five months, my life started getting busy. In addition to my job, I had gone back to school and was finding less time to keep a game going. Jarrett, who had been feeling the DM itch volunteered to take my place; many of the players, it turns out, were having a difficult time with the Shackled City campaign anyway. And so Jarrett's Mystara campaign began, though he limited us to using the core rulebooks only. I was actually quite happy with this, although other players lamented the relative lack of options.
As Jarrett took the helm as DM, he invited a couple of other friends to join the game, Little Brent and Big Brent; suffice it to say the names are descriptive. Little Brent's casual attitude towards gaming meant he was rarely there, but as it turns out Big Brent had been bitten by the DM bug as well. So it was that last night I showed up at our game to learn that we would not be pursuing the evil undead army that was amassing north of Penhaligon, but that we would instead be venturing into the City of Waterdeep with Big Brent as our stately Dungeon Master, the pages of splatbooks once again wide open for our use.
So it is that in the span of a year, I have been involved in four D&D campaigns. This is not the first time I have seen so many campaigns in one year. But I was hoping for a little more stability soon. Last Saturday we did little more than talk about characters. Next week we shall begin our adventures in the Realms in earnest. Here's to hoping it lasts longer than the last three!
For a few weeks, things seemed ok. I had just finished running a two-year long Age of Worms campaign in College Station before moving here so I was actually looking forward to a short break. But I had no idea how long I would be content without at least one weekly roleplaying session. Nor did I have any idea how to find gamers in San Antonio. In high school, my buddies and I had sort of accidentally discovered roleplaying games and when I went away to Texas A&M University, there was already a huge community of gamers that were connected by the student gaming club. This was a completely new challenge.
I began rather simply by keeping my eyes peeled for gaming stores as I drove around town. I discovered one fairly close to my house, but was disheartened to learn it had closed. Later I would learn they had only moved to a different location, but was only after I expanded by search to the world wide web. It was on the internet that I found a Meetup group that had some interested players. Around this time, I also tracked down the location of the new gaming store and agreed to meet there with some people I had never met in real life before to see if we could get a campaign going.
It was slow at first. I had two players, David and Tenar, a married couple who, like myself, had just moved to town and knew no one. Over the next few weeks we slowly expanded our group to add Jarrett and a couple of others who didn't hang around for long. After several months of running the War of the Burning Sky campaign, which unfortunately was not going well, I decided to switch gears. Jarrett, who had lived in San Antonio all his life, knew of some other people who were wanting to get back into gaming and would be willing to join the group. David also knew a guy from his job who would be interested in joining. Eventually we added Donna, Travis, and George to the mix which usually meant we would have enough people for a decent game each weekend even if one or two people couldn't make it. With this group, I began running Paizo's Shackled City campaign.
After running this campaign for four or five months, my life started getting busy. In addition to my job, I had gone back to school and was finding less time to keep a game going. Jarrett, who had been feeling the DM itch volunteered to take my place; many of the players, it turns out, were having a difficult time with the Shackled City campaign anyway. And so Jarrett's Mystara campaign began, though he limited us to using the core rulebooks only. I was actually quite happy with this, although other players lamented the relative lack of options.
As Jarrett took the helm as DM, he invited a couple of other friends to join the game, Little Brent and Big Brent; suffice it to say the names are descriptive. Little Brent's casual attitude towards gaming meant he was rarely there, but as it turns out Big Brent had been bitten by the DM bug as well. So it was that last night I showed up at our game to learn that we would not be pursuing the evil undead army that was amassing north of Penhaligon, but that we would instead be venturing into the City of Waterdeep with Big Brent as our stately Dungeon Master, the pages of splatbooks once again wide open for our use.
So it is that in the span of a year, I have been involved in four D&D campaigns. This is not the first time I have seen so many campaigns in one year. But I was hoping for a little more stability soon. Last Saturday we did little more than talk about characters. Next week we shall begin our adventures in the Realms in earnest. Here's to hoping it lasts longer than the last three!
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