At 13 I started at a new school and instantly met a whole group of friends that all played 1st Edition AD&D. This opened a whole new world to me with a whole new book to read, the PHB. Unfortunatly the one guy who DM'd for our group was completely unreliable and our play time completely suffered so it was time for a change. I picked up ever 1st Edition book I could get my hands on and I started DMing for our group regularily.
In 89 when 2nd Edition was released I had a small group of 3-5 players who made up my regulars and we played almost daily during the Summer and a few times a week during the school year. We ran a hybrid 1E/2E game and my book collection grew yet again. Once High School ended and we settled into different lives we slowed down to a once a week gaming group.
Sometime around 1995 or so I was out of college and working and life changed everything. Gaming sessions turned into once a month, then ended entirely. To satisfy my fantasy gaming bug I started playing the Everquest at the end of 1999 and I was pretty much hooked on MMO gaming for the next 10 years. Sitting around with 5-8 people playing a PnP was replaced by leading EQ raids of 60 people to kill some Dragon or God. I thought it was great. EQ led to Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Star Wars Galaxies, etc...eventually leading up to World of Warcraft. Somewhere along the lines the sheen wore off and it just all got boring. Leading a guild of 100 players all talking on voice chat you do get to know people, but its just kinda fake. No matter how much you "know" them you never really know them.
Over the last decade or so I have tried unsuccessfully several times to get a group going, even going as far as actually sitting down with 3 co-workers and making characters one night. Unfortunately the following week was supposed to be our first session and 1 of them didn't show. The next week he didn't show again, the other 2 players got annoyed and that was the end of the group. Fast forward to this year....
So here I am in an old group of friends in a group that has been going for 20 months now. I have been with them for 5 months now and have just taken over the reins as DM. We had discussed me DMing in the beginning but I told them I wanted to get a good year of playing in to really remember the game after 2 decades off. The guy that started the group decided he would rather play than DM. The one who took over has had a lot going on an recently became really unreliable (cancelling 2 hours before game time). So here we are 2 hours before game time, about 8lbs of Goulash cooked for the night and I throw three 2nd edition PHBs on the table and off we go to make characters. That first night I decided to run the players through the Spider Farm adventure from Dragonsfoot. I had about 2 minutes to read it before playing it and while I was rusty I got through it just fine. The players on the other hand were a bit traumatized. They almost had a TPK and they learned fast that I am not going to hold their hands like the other DMs. They are quickly learning to play better and I am sure we may see some deaths in the next week or two. In their 20 months playing with the other DMs they never had a player death so I have already warned them I am going to put some much needed fear into them.
This week will be my third week and compared to my first unprepared week, its a whole different story now. My binder is growing and this week I started making a world and regional hex map. I really want to bring back the "old school" wilderness hex crawl sense of adventure. I like to share so I will probably be sharing my maps and such as I go. I was planning to run the players through B2 Keep on the Borderlands so I had started breaking each cave into its own separate section to easier run. So anyways thats me. Glad to find another forum with some 2nd edition players to chat with and bounce ideas off.
Glad to have you as a member. I look forward to discussing gaming with you. Way to jump right in and thanks for the intro.
If you ever want to discuss modules I'm your guy!
