Well, at present I'm participating in two campaigns at the gamestore closest to my home, ManaWerx, in Glendale/Phoenix (I think it's technically in Glendale, but I dunno). You could probably join a game there, if the trip isn't too far. ManaWerx is on Bell Road near the SafeWay and Savers; down by SubWay, across the street from 7-11; I think the closest street besides Bell is 33rd Avenue, maybe it's 34th (...I don't pay much attention to the exact address since it's a short bikeride from my house). ManaWerx is mainly a Magic: The Gathering store and tourney place, but they sell a bit else (including RPG books, but only when ordered by a customer; they don't keep RPG books in stock normally), and they have lots of tables (also, it's a clean place generally, not a smelly/dirty hole).
Unfortunately I don't know any gamers from Scottsdale, though I think one or two of the folks I play with live somewhere near it. They might know other gamers that live closer to ya. Also, it's possible (though I dunno for sure) that Justin in our group might be able to give a ride, if he does live closer to Scottsdale than me. I don't remember right now where it is he said he lives, but he does live further out from Glendale than the rest in the group.
On Thursdays we've been playing D&D and d20 Modern (first D&D, then I started up D20 Modern when the DM was getting frustrated with folks not showing up reliably; since then it's gotten more stable). That's been running at 6 or 7 pm each week (typically 7 by the time everyone shows up and we start playing), and I don't think we've had to cancel any more sessions since I started GMing a month ago. We end between 9 and 10 pm since the store has to close (10 pm) or 1-2 people have to leave by that point (9-9:30). I'd prefer to start earlier or end later, but some members of the group either can't arrive before 6 or can't stay later than 9-9:30.
At present I'm GMing a D20 Modern: Agents of Psi campaign Thursdays, 8th-level (nobody's leveled up yet, but we only started D20M about a month ago and a few sessions have been cut short). But at some point we'll likely switch back to the previous D&D campaign or start up a separate campaign of D&D or something else, depending on what folks want to do. Before this we had played D&D on Thursday nights for a few months. A goodly variety of D20 Modern materials are allowed, though no magic (just psionics).
For reference, I am much much less rambly in person than I am online, and the rest of the group doesn't seem rambly.
I generally give some info and direction, occasionally a suggestion or question or lead, and let the players run with it as they please. I have a plot and such, but I am like unto the willow, which bends in the wind rather than snapping.
I'm also more obsessive over rules/interpretation online than in person; at the table I'm more likely to debate only briefly, then make a quick decision and only fix it later if it becomes problematic or I find it violates a core rule of the game. I hardly use any houserules in a face-to-face game, at least not at first (I have none at present for the Thursday game, except for a few fixes to certain psionic powers, and adding just a few suitable powers from the 3.0 Psionics Handbook).
That group is typically myself (25 yrs. old), Adam (25 to 30 I think, DMed before I took over so he could take a break), Eric (12 to 15 I think, new to RP and more of a hack-n-slash player for lack of experience), Justin (25 or so, DMs the other current game), and usually one to three others who can only show up every few weeks or so (sometimes we have 2-3 of them present, other times only 1, and other times none of them can make it). The others are two Marks (each in their 20s, one's a newbie to roleplaying IIRC, the other's been RPing with Adam and others for years), and an older fellow (Dennis) who's more of an old-school D&Der but trying to get used to 3E (and now D20 Modern since I started that campaign) so he can run a campaign later (more roleplayer than rollplayer). So far we typically have 3-4 players at each session, rarely 5-6 present.
Overall I think we're a bit more rollplay oriented so far but it doesn't dominate (....I think more than just 1-2 sessions so far would've been pure roleplay and investigation if not for Eric being antsy to do some fighting....). Most sessions are half RP and half combat, give or take a bit (sometimes mostly RP, occasionally dominated instead by a longer combat encounter). The game is a bit laid-back, but I try to keep the rules enforced and the game moving. The players aren't very serious so far......for example, Adam's techie PC has rigged up a semi-reliable combination of brass knuckles and taser (with rubber gloves) for Justin's PC, Jesus (...pronounced hey-soos, the PC is a Mexican-American Catholic priest wearing brass knuckles and a leather jacket....). And Adam is trying to get his PC to develop a Large Mecha or suit of powered armor
eventually, though the campaign is mainly D20 Modern, not D20 Future; PL 5 technologically. It's kind of wierd but fun so far, and I don't plan to let it go out of control (the players are generally reasonable, just kinda silly too). The Thursday PCs are generally a mix of melee brutes and gun freaks (with only 2 PCs being mostly skill and psionics oriented).
Also, obviously, we are all guys. For whatever reason, we have no female group members in the Thursday game, though we had one in the beginning (until she joined the military and went out of state). The Sunday game has one female at present, and as I understand it, there's another group of guys and gals that roleplays (I think) on the weekend at ManaWerx, but I haven't spoken with any of them yet so I dunno when they play exactly or what (they congregate at another table or two, and have gamebooks with them, but seem to be just chatting and working on stuff any time I'm away from my own current group's table).
The Sunday D&D 3.5 game is presently run by Justin, around 3-4 pm each Sunday up until 7 or 8 pm. The Sunday game is a different group, with only me and Justin from the Thursday game participating with the Sunday group. Other Sunday players are......errm.....I can't recall their names right now.
I'm bad with names when I haven't known people long, alright?
One guy is from the DeVry gaming club I was in (along with Justin and some other folks I haven't seen since then; I don't think the club exists anymore anyhow, but most of those guys already knew each other and still game together at their houses), in his 20s like most of us. Another guy and his girlfriend (I think; they only just joined us a few weeks ago and we haven't spoken with them much yet) are playing in the Sunday game, each around 20 or 30 years old. They've been roleplaying a while it seems, but I don't recall what exactly they mentioned about their prior RPing experience. They're reasonably familiar with 3E though, at least. Two kids around 12 or 15 are also in the Sunday group, the party's Barbarian PCs since they're not so familiar with the rules or roleplaying yet. Dennis from the Thursday group might be joining the Sunday group too, but he only has his character ready, and hasn't shown up for a session yet (we've played once, and then today's session was cancelled cuz enough folks didn't show up, and the DM had forgot to bring his phone, which has their #).
The Sunday group is more recent; before Justin started his D&D game we had played some non-serious D&D sessions with a different DM, until he moved away to another state for his own inscrutable reasons (seriously, dude.....Ohio? Why move to Ohio?? It's arguable whether that's any less terrible than Arizona!).
Justin's allowing most official 3.5 D&D materials, but I dunno what exactly he'd deny (I do know there are some things he isn't using/allowing, like Unearthed Arcana). The game started a bit higher than mine, purely random (he rolled 2d10 at the start of character creation...), 10th level (or ECL 10 rather). This is the campaign where I'm playing a half-giant swordsage 5/psychic warrior 4 who's only been on Faerun for a bit since going with an adventurer from elsewhere, who took him off Athas, before the half-giant finished his basic swordsage training and was told to go out on his own. He's been in Faerun only about a year, and learned Faerun's version of the Common tongue, as well as learning to pay respects to the deity Red Knight for her teachings of strategy and discipline (and to avoid the fate of the Faithless that he's heard of). The other PCs are a goblin rogue, a sun elf swashbuckler, a human (I think?) healer/warmage/mystic theurge, and the aforementioned two orc barbarians. Dennis' PC is a human wizard, but he hasn't joined in yet. I think my PC, and maybe possibly Dennis', is/are the only non-chaotic PC(s) in the Sunday game.
It's looking like Justin's going to be using Libris Mortis a lot for his NPCs, I dunno....and so far we've had to deal with a bunch of human mobs (DMG II) that the barbarians and warmage tried to fight, but my PC wisely grabbed the frail swashbuckler (...but she's a two-weapon-fighting
machine) and ran, leaping off the inn's roof and jumping over one mob (...good thing he has high Str and a speed-boosting maneuver, and the Hustle power). The others followed after their failed attempts to just butcher and fireball their way through the mobs, while the goblin rogue just snuck about unnoticed and set fire to the buildings while making his way from one hiding spot to another (we dunno why mobs are suddenly out to get us, we're mostly good and neutral aligned PCs, but we're too busy
surviving to find out). Now we're traversing a sewer to make our escape, and it looks like we'll have some nasty opposition to get past once we're out of that.
Either group can support another player, both me and Justin have DMed several games before (though separately, and we haven't played in one another's games before, except for a brief Shadowrun adventure Justin ran in the gaming club). At least one or two other people in each group has DMed before outside the group. Though we have as many newbies as experienced gamers, we're reasonably experienced overall and cover a range of ages from 12-50 I think (Dennis is 50 as I recall, and played since OD&D if I recall correctly). I dunno when we'll next start another campaign, but at present we just have these two new campaigns running, and they'll probably run until one DM or another can't show up anymore or a majority of players wants a change of pace/setting/ruleset. I don't know if any of us could/would run a campaign on a different day/time, or in a different location. At present I just know that a few folks in the Thursday game don't have any other open day/time, and a few folks in the Sunday game have the same lack of other open time for gaming.
If ya can't make it to ManaWerx, Fru, then I guess all I can say is good luck! Sorry I don't know any gamers out in Scottsdale that you could hook up with. I've mostly gamed on OpenRPG since moving to AZ, so I'm not as familiar with local gaming groups. Sucks that Beyond Gaming shut down, it was much closer to my house and thus much closer to Glendale proper (BG had roleplaying books and the owner played D&D with buddies on some nights, so he'd probably know more gamers in the area).
