First Post
So you may be wondering what this is about. It's about role-playing games, man.
It's about my Ultima Online shard, Urilia. It's about my experiences running and playing various role-playing games. It's about the desire to be part of the gaming experience in general.
I've been running and playing RPGs every Friday night (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less) for the last 16 years. I've been playing with almost the same group of 7 people that entire time (players come and go, but this group is my core). One of those people is now my wife and the mother of our 3 children. Since the rest of the gang figure prominently into my bid for world domination via our MORPG, I guess I'll introduce the group to you...
Stacey - My lovely wife. She keeps our home in shape, keeps my kids breathing (often running interference to my autocratic parenting), runs my younger daughter's Girl Scout troop, is a very active member of our PTO, and generally volunteers a great deal of her time and energy to being a pillar of our community. It's awesome, by proxy, I'm respectable.
Mike - Mike was my first and best friend when I came to St. Louis. I was 15 at the time. He made me listen to RUSH until I realized I loved it (came from a die-hard headbanger background). He showed me Highlander for the first time (no idea what I was in for, but he told me it was a wrestling movie when it first started....I thought he'd lost his mind). And we played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition) for the first time in his basement. We butchered the rules and rejoiced when the second edition came out.
Shad - Shad was "Mike's friend" for the longest time. I can't even remember how he suddenly ended up showing up to regular sessions of Vampire: The Masquerade, playing his flamboyant, but ever-cool Eldred Fleming. Shad owns, maintains, and provides the bandwidth for "our" server. He's been really patient with this whole gig, and I hope we live up to his expectations when it's done. Actually, recently I've even gotten him to start slaving over code...
Dave - Dave was Mike's next door neighbor as they grew up. Dave taught us about serious gaming. The group Dave hung out with was older and immenently more mature about their approach to games. It was in Dave's basement that I met the one and only person to ever play a Druid well. The guy (I can't remember his name) was a brilliant Neutral. To this day, Dave is probably the player in the group who actually sticks to his characters and the personas he creates for those characters.
Shawn - Shawn was my first and only friend at my new school when I moved back to St. Louis in my sophmore year of highschool. He shared a stick of gum with me in Biology. He somehow ended up playing AD&D and later Vampire (Shad and I blood bound his character in the second night of playing) with us at my house. Shawn's the youngster in the group.
Darrell - "Shawn's brother" for years until that first time I helped him and his friends make up Vampire characters that night at their parent's house. After that, Darrell was hooked. Darrell was a convert to the conservative cause, and it took me a couple years to do it, but now he and I are probably the closest, politically.
Me - I'm the guy always trying to bring fresh blood into the group. Urilia was my concept and my dream. It's going to be the pinacle of my gaming career when it's finished. It's everything I ever wanted in a game that the pen-and-paper games could never be. Of course, I'll never stop playing the pen-and-paper games, because they'll always be something on-line games can never be.
Matt - Matt doesn't play with the group anymore, and he never had time to play with us for long, but he was the most regular outsider we ever brought in. He's since moved to Wisconson but stays in regular touch and helps us write code for Urilia. Thank god for Matt, as he's the only one of us with real programming experience.
It's about my Ultima Online shard, Urilia. It's about my experiences running and playing various role-playing games. It's about the desire to be part of the gaming experience in general.
I've been running and playing RPGs every Friday night (sometimes more frequently, sometimes less) for the last 16 years. I've been playing with almost the same group of 7 people that entire time (players come and go, but this group is my core). One of those people is now my wife and the mother of our 3 children. Since the rest of the gang figure prominently into my bid for world domination via our MORPG, I guess I'll introduce the group to you...
Stacey - My lovely wife. She keeps our home in shape, keeps my kids breathing (often running interference to my autocratic parenting), runs my younger daughter's Girl Scout troop, is a very active member of our PTO, and generally volunteers a great deal of her time and energy to being a pillar of our community. It's awesome, by proxy, I'm respectable.
Mike - Mike was my first and best friend when I came to St. Louis. I was 15 at the time. He made me listen to RUSH until I realized I loved it (came from a die-hard headbanger background). He showed me Highlander for the first time (no idea what I was in for, but he told me it was a wrestling movie when it first started....I thought he'd lost his mind). And we played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st edition) for the first time in his basement. We butchered the rules and rejoiced when the second edition came out.
Shad - Shad was "Mike's friend" for the longest time. I can't even remember how he suddenly ended up showing up to regular sessions of Vampire: The Masquerade, playing his flamboyant, but ever-cool Eldred Fleming. Shad owns, maintains, and provides the bandwidth for "our" server. He's been really patient with this whole gig, and I hope we live up to his expectations when it's done. Actually, recently I've even gotten him to start slaving over code...
Dave - Dave was Mike's next door neighbor as they grew up. Dave taught us about serious gaming. The group Dave hung out with was older and immenently more mature about their approach to games. It was in Dave's basement that I met the one and only person to ever play a Druid well. The guy (I can't remember his name) was a brilliant Neutral. To this day, Dave is probably the player in the group who actually sticks to his characters and the personas he creates for those characters.
Shawn - Shawn was my first and only friend at my new school when I moved back to St. Louis in my sophmore year of highschool. He shared a stick of gum with me in Biology. He somehow ended up playing AD&D and later Vampire (Shad and I blood bound his character in the second night of playing) with us at my house. Shawn's the youngster in the group.
Darrell - "Shawn's brother" for years until that first time I helped him and his friends make up Vampire characters that night at their parent's house. After that, Darrell was hooked. Darrell was a convert to the conservative cause, and it took me a couple years to do it, but now he and I are probably the closest, politically.
Me - I'm the guy always trying to bring fresh blood into the group. Urilia was my concept and my dream. It's going to be the pinacle of my gaming career when it's finished. It's everything I ever wanted in a game that the pen-and-paper games could never be. Of course, I'll never stop playing the pen-and-paper games, because they'll always be something on-line games can never be.
Matt - Matt doesn't play with the group anymore, and he never had time to play with us for long, but he was the most regular outsider we ever brought in. He's since moved to Wisconson but stays in regular touch and helps us write code for Urilia. Thank god for Matt, as he's the only one of us with real programming experience.
posted by Jaycen Rigger at 1:26 AM
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