19th Level

“The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them. They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen.” - HP Lovecraft Ghostbusters continues to be a fun campaign for us - it works especially well given we've had a number of sessions where just 2 players plus me have been able to make it of late, with real world issues often causing us to be missing 3 players (our group is currently 5 plus me). Icons was a reasonably fun game, working better than most superhero games I've done but I don't think I've found my "one true superhero game" as yet. Earlier I reflected on BRP being a system that works rather well for me so I might at some point repurpose the campaign material I developed for Superworld from Chaosium (which apparently was the game that George RR Martin was playing that led to the creation of the Wild Cards series). I've been thinking about a setting that I can call my o...

Money is no obstacle... I've been primarily a virtual gamer over the past few years so my tastes will largely skew in that direction. We've got a nice desk with three monitors on it - want to make life easy for me on the virtual tabletop setup. We've also got on the walls a lot of shelf space for books, boxes, etc. I'd also like to be able to support a physical group as well, so we've got a nice large table, with room for books, papers, munchies, recreational beverages, etc. Lots of power outlets to charge up laptops, tablets, etc. And since I'm not big on miniatures, I'm thinking in the center of the table a nice, large, touchscreen monitor with active stylus support - even if we're all together a virtual tabletop can make for a nice tool. And a refrigerator for those all-important recreational beverages.

Just because the  Ghostbusters  RPG is a bit on the humorous side doesn't mean I don't do some homework. Our game is set in the 1980's and based in Brooklyn, NY. Though I lived in Connecticut throughout the 1980's, I still had family in Brooklyn and spent many summers there. With that in mind, a few decisions have been reached. The team is based in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center, the mall that was closest to my grandparents old house. I've many memories of my grandfather looking for a parking space as there was no way he was going to pay money to park at the mall... Through a little eBay scouring I managed to snag a copy of a map of Kings Plaza, circa 1990, a few years after the game is set, but good enough for gaming our purposes. Below is a so-so scan of the map - the document is a bit too long for my scanner to accept it so I'm resorting to a phone-camera-scan... I've not been to the mall since around 1998 or so but I imagine many of these store...

That's a bit of an odd question. Generally speaking, if I'm thinking of travel, there's other things I'd want to do besides gaming. However, let's suppose I'm thinking of a place to live for the gaming community there. Obviously, since gaming is not my profession and I have a family here in the Boston area, I'm not going to be doing such a relocation. But there are a few "gaming scenes" I'm curious as to what it would be like to be a part of... New York City - I'm a Brooklyn boy originally, so it would be nice to go home. Being a huge city there's a lot of gaming taking place there as well as part of the Autarch team being based there. Atlanta - Original home of White Wolf, I'm told it's a good place for some World of Darkness Gaming. Seattle - A lot of gaming companies in the area plus culturally I'd probably fit right in there with my latte-drinking, liberal secular lifestyle...

Actually I've had this happen to me recently... Given my group has some folks younger than me, I've gamed with people who have never seen Star Trek  in any incarnation. That's not too shocking once I gave it some thought. Star Trek: Enterprise  debuted in fall of 2001, some fifteen years ago. And it was not a particularly popular Star Trek. Someone who is thirty now would have been around fifteen then. And Voyager debuted in January of 1995, so you're talking being under the age of ten for that! There's certainly a things I've not read or seen that are on other people's "I can't believe you've not read/seen that" so I've no judgment. With that caveat, there's a few other things I'd be surprised a gaming friend hadn't seen - Butcher's Dresden Files , the classic Star Wars trilogy (I know a number of people who swore off the prequels), Lord of the Rings (whether in film or novel form), and A Song of Ice and Fire (...

Probably when I first started gaming there were some unusual circumstances and places. My first gaming group met at the Howard Whittemore Memorial Library in my hometown of Naugatuck, Connecticut. I was in middle school at the time and they hooked us up with a meeting room located near the children's section of the library. Of course we always got yelled at for being too noisy to the point we were pretty sure the sound of dice rolling would earn a "shhhh". Admittedly, it was  a library... It did get a little bit awkward when part of the room was dedicated to storage and we had to maneuver our way to the table. I did make some friendships which lasted for many years. I also remember occasionally being granted permission to play in study hall back at City Hill Middle School. By then we'd mastered the technique of rolling on hardcover books to muffle the sound of the dice rolling. Back in the day we had to have book covers on our textbooks. Fun fact - a Dungeon M...

Really any when you think about it. Just looking at some of my own: As a software engineer/data scientist I'm awfully good at using and making digital tools As a history geek, I've got a wealth of information that gets a good outlet As an amateur cartographer, I can make a reasonably good map Though I've not hiked much since having kids, once upon a time I spent a ton of time up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire - something which gives you an appreciation for wilderness movement rates... I've gamed with people skilled in art, always an asset in RPGs. Alas, my drawing skills are limited to purple Risus stick figure dudes...