How did your gaming group come about?

[Napftor]

And don't say, "We met in a tavern."

I'm asking about your players. Did you enter another group that had already been together for years? Did you start your own? And what about family members? How has your group evolved from your own humble beginnings in RPing?

After the fall of 1st edition, I took over the local DM mantle and brought what almost all new players into a 2nd edition campaign. This group lost a few folks during our HS senior year but picked up a couple to replace them. Can't remember specifics, but I do recall not allowing my brother to play until he was like 13 or so (after that first campaign was over). He wasn't happy about the wait, but I'm glad I finally gave in as he's been one of my best players. Soon I started college and embarked on a new campaign with my brother and his friends. Eventually, his age group and the players of mine (who had been on a hiatus IIRC) were integrated into one unit and life was good.

And then came Everquest. That MMORPG took 2 of my players! How someone gives up a live group for an online one is just beyond me. So our group resolved to struggle on under a handful of players (maybe 3). Not one adventure later, a husband and wife inquired after me at my place of employment. I was shocked! Two players to replace the two lost.

So, my group has managed to keep going faithfully since 1992. Before that, I gamed but was not the DM. All of my group's incarnations hold fond memories for me. What's your story?

 

[IronWolf]

Our group has been together since mid-December 2004/January 2005. We met through a mix of ways. I was looking for an every other week game that was filled with reliable players (if I only get to play every other week, I like to make sure we have a game going on). So a friend and I started looking with the idea of me starting out as DM. From there we hit the Internet (gamer classifieds here and at WotC) and met another person or two rounded out with a person from work. By the end we had 5 players and 1 DM.

Early on we had one player leave, there just wasn't a mesh between the group and him and vice versa (plus he had a rather long drive to get there). He was quickly replaced with a person one of the others knew. We still have that group, but we have one getting set to move away, so we brought in another player bringing the group size to 6 + the DM. Once the one player moves we will be back down to the 5 +DM amount.

I guess we are sort of a mutt group. But we are all having a good time and have become better friends along the way. We meet very reliably which makes it very nice to be able to depend on a game.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Current group spawned out of association. There is the wife (I met LARPing) of course, and my friend of like 10 years. Now add his wife, their best friends, and viola! 7 players.

So, It's all basically based around my and my friend meeting a decade ago and the people that've come into our lives since then.

 

[Crothian]

my last two groups, great guys and gals in all, I've meet through the net.

 

[Vascant]

Fate has been pretty friendly to me over the course of my life, 30 years of DnD (In all its forms) and I find I am gaming with 2 people that started with me, 6 others I have known since activities my early 20's and college. The rest of the groups come from friends of friends that have been collected of the last few years.

FYI: I run three groups, 1 game per a week. I have a 1 player that play is more then one group but for the most part each group is a seperate entity.

 

[KB9JMQ]

My current group I met by having a local game day at a local On Cue which sold the 3 core books only. I talked to the manager, set up a day, placed signs up a month before and waited for the fateful day. (about 1 month after 3E was released)
One single guy and a married couple showed up and we gamed there in the store.
We had two more gaming sessions in the store before they closed.
I never saw the single guy again but the couple has been the core part of my group since.
That couple had 3 high school boys whom was in there group already and they joined my wife and I to make the current group.
For the most part we game at my house now and I DM. If my wife is gone (about once a month) the girl of the couple DM's and I get to be a player (yeah !).

 

[Steel_Wind]

There are two "cores" to our gaming circle.

One core of the group formed in Moncton, New Brunswick as part of the old Moncton Wargames Club. It was a club held in some empty space in a mall for Squad Leader, SFB and D&D/AD&D1st ed. It ultimately became the foundry for every gaming group in the city from the late 70s and early to mid 1980s. We all knew one another back then as a result - about 50 gamers in the City who formed and dissolved in various gaming circles dictated by age and other interests most often. Some of them formed core groups that hung together as people moved across the country.

This touchstone back to a group of about 50 people is a very very odd thing, I've come to realize. No one else I have met seems to have had an experience growing up where - literally - everyone else who gamed in a city of 100k essentially all knew one another more or less regardless of age and have kept in contact with one another over the course of four decades now.

Anyways - that's core #1. Formed in 1979. 26 years later - the three of us from that original group are still gaming together. One was an usher at my first wedding - the other a roommate after said marriage went south 8 years later.

Core #2 formed at an RPG club at UofT in 1982. Three of them initally.

Core #1 and #2 hooked up through a chance meeting at a SCA event. One of our core and one of their core - both cores feeling too small for a decent size group. 3+3 = 6 and off we went.

And so the Canadian Association of Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses (CAMSEG) was born in '91 - which is what we call our "merged" group now.

A few more got added onto CAMSEG through someone met at work in the case of one, bumped into in a gaming store in the case of another and the most recent addition as a member of my NWN team in the case of a third.

 

[Napftor]

Interesting stuff here.

...26 years later - the three of us from that original group are still gaming together. One was an usher at my first wedding...

That's funny. The one guy from our original 1st edition group (who still plays today--BadMojo on the boards here) got married in May and I was his best man.

 

[STARP_JVP]

Ours sort of grew organically. STARP started with about six members - we're up to 12 now without really trying. It just sort of happened. We did have to change what the acronym stood for, however, to take geography into account.

 

[Hussar]

I've never actually physically met any of my players. All my gaming is done over OpenRPG now, so all my players are pretty much just voices over the ether. Most I've picked up at either the Pbp site I frequent or at OpenRPG.com. Been pretty lucky actually with the current bunch. Had them for almost two years now. At least the core 3 or 4. Had a few flakes come and go, but, other than that, my guys and girl have been great.