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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 4953005" data-attributes="member: 40398">Take this for whatever you will. It’s not a rant, or a cry for help or anything except me writing out loud. If nothing else, maybe it’ll help you fall asleep tonight.My obsession with D&D began when I was about ten years old, back in the days of 2 edition. The friend who taught me to play is younger than I am, and is one of those people who fixate on a hobby for about a month and then get fixated on something else. So after a month, he forgot about D&D but I didn’t. I literally grew up on the top of a hill in rural New York, so not surprisingly I went through all of grade school without having a game last for more than a month. Then 3rd edition came out and I went off to a college that was almost as rural and depopulated as my homehill.Finally during my freshman year of college I was able to play a sporadic session here and there; no more than I can count on one hand though. Maybe it was my over exuberance or my introverted tendencies, but I couldn’t get a solid game together. Finally during Sophomore year, a few college gamers got it together to show up regularly for D&D night; I don’t have proof but I suspect that my best friend gamer buddy was the one to talk them into showing up. He unfortunately shares a name with a very famous [or infamous, depending on your PoV] politician, but he’s very charismatic and has a way of winning hearts and minds, which is why I think those gamers finally all showed up very suddenly on the same night, ready to play.Eureka! Finally, a D&D game that lasted for nearly an entire school year! We had a lot of fun, despite my newness as a DM and 3rd edition’s tenuous power balance. I was playing the game that I loved, despite rarely getting to play and despite the occasional real life melodrama, and I was happy. Then summer break came, we came back to school next year and that gaming spark seemed to have disappeared. Again, I couldn’t seem to string four weekly sessions together. One of my players got pregnant by another player, then had a miscarriage, then the two married each other, then he got busted for pot possession on college grounds and went to jail; after graduation I heard that she divorced him while he was stuck in there, I’m sure to her mother’s immense satisfaction.Since college, I’ve lived in Queens, and then back upstate when the economy finally got the better of me. I’ve tried email and pbp games, but I always lose focus. The best I’ve had is a solid two months of weekly games with a great face-to-face group that unfortunately split for the usual reasons; a new baby, players moving far away. But most gaming and gamer experiences have convinced me that we as a group really are prone to be socially dysfunctional. I’ve talked to gamers who swear by D&D up and down, but can’t be depended on for a single session; I’ve gamed with a couple from a 1950s citcom; I’ve had players show up stoned and/or drunk; I’ve gamed with downright annoying gamers. And then there’s me.I’ve gotten better at talking to people but I’m naturally introverted. I’m not annoying, I bathe regularly; I don’t have any other stereotypical gamer traits. The worst that can be said of me is that I’m not very emotive; I don’t project excitement or energy to fellow gamers. But as it turns out, that might be the worst trait I could have because I’m going on a hiatus from D&D. Over the summer I finally got a small group of local gamers together. We’ve been meeting weekly at my place for two or three months now, and I don’t really know what to do with them. We started out playing KotS and other one-shots, just to get to know each other. One of my players ran a session of a scifi game called Blue Planet that was fun, but most of us prefer fantasy. The youngest player tried his hand at DMing, but he’s only interested in hack ‘n’ slash. But we still only barely know each other; I know everyone’s first name and what they do, but I can’t call most of them my friends. I think we all have a social dysfunction, or think we do.We need a consistent campaign with action and story and all that, but nobody seems excited enough for the job. Another player was going to DM a campaign based on Warcraft but she’s too overwhelmed with work; another player owns a couple modules but doesn’t feel confident enough with the rules to DM. A different player might be able to DM for us later in the month, but who knows? I’ve been working on an Exalted-to-D&D conversion that I was pretty excited about, but nobody else seems to be so I don’t feel like it’s worth the effort of running. How anyone manages to have campaigns that regularly last more than five levels is miraculous to me. I guess I’m just funked out.So I’ll use this hiatus for some other new hobbies that I’ve picked up; hiking, taekwondo, talking to people for no good reason and WoW. And a second [and more practical] degree in engineering, of course. Maybe when I get back to role playing I’ll be able to focus my own energy and my group better.</blockquote>

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