Role-Playing Game have been my main hobby for over 40 years and it that time I have played in some great games in person, online, live action, via email, via forum and on virtual table tops. I have run published games and adventures bought in a store and I have written my own background and systems for games, though I have never had the confidence to try and get something published.
In short, I am a bit of an RPG addict.
The vast majority of my gamming life, I have been fortunate to have been involved with more than one Games Club, which is where I got my love of running games for people outside of my normal group. More recently I have found the joy of running games at conventions, which allows me to reuse things I have done before for a club and see how differently a complete set of strangers will deal with it. I love watching how they interpret my scenarios and pre-generated characters….OK, a smidgen more than a bit of an addict.
I first noticed this part of my character when I was about 18 years old. One of my buddies had noticed an advert in the local paper saying about an RPG club in the next town over and so on the night in question we all bundled into my mums bright yellow Fiat 127 and set off to the aforementioned town, the cultural center that is Brentwood.
Upon arrival we found that the average age of the members of this particular club was about 12 years old and that it was associated with the youth clubs that ran out of the Hermit Centre. The club was organized by the mother of one of the kids, a lovely lady called Elaine. She was a youth worker at the center and had set the club up as a space for her son and his friends to play.
We joined in with the kids, who were all amazed to see ‘grown ups’ playing D&D and when we told them that there were other games as well as D&D….well it was bit like looking at Ron Weasley in Harry Potter when he found out he could eat all of the sweets in the shop.
Some of us went back the next week and we ran some games, something I continued to do for the Hermit RPG club for the next 12 years or so. It was honestly a big part of my life and got me involved with doing youth work , helping out the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and working at children’s camps at Mersea Island. It did wonders for my self-confidence and self-esteem, something I had previously struggled with.
When I relocated out of Essex to the delights of Peterborough, the first thing I did was reach out to the local RPG scene to find a club. The club in question was the Regional Peterborough Gamming Society and I have been associated with them ever since.
I should point out that they are not the only club in Peterborough and mention the Stamford Adventurers Society, The Hampton D&D club, The Norman Cross Crusaders and the Hampton and Yaxley Board Gamer’s.
In the last few years or so, I have found a love for running games for complete strangers at the Continuum Convention, although in the time of doing this a number of those strangers are now friends.
Role-Playing and gaming in general have brought some wonderful friends into my life and has quite literally defined who I am today.
Enjoy!