I've already mentioned too much about me. Gamer, writer, game store owner, blah blah blah. It's not about me. It's about you.

Who are you, and what do you play? Whatever else you want to share.

Greetings! I am a thirty-two year old gamer of sixteen years.

My interest in gaming began when I was a child. I loved fantasy stories and movies. Then I progressed to comics and choose your own adventure type books. I enjoyed video games and had two systems. When I met my husband, he introduced me to D&D and there I became a full fledged gamer for life.

Today, gaming is a creative outlet for my writing. I have not enjoyed a table top game in some time but that may change. My gaming lately focuses on NWN online play.

Funny you should mention NWN. That's what brought me to Bella. I searched for a walkthrough to the campaign and found Lisa's articles here.

I taught my wife how to play D&D, too. In a month or so, when I start my new campaign, she'll be in my game again for the first time in 6 years. I can't wait to get started.

May I ask why there was a lull in her playing a campaign of yours?

We stopped gaming tabletop consistently years ago in favor of creating a online text based/chat room group. Every so often we sit down and play the old fashioned.

And if tabletop IS the old fashioned way...does that make us old??

The unknown post was from me. Apparently the page timed out on me, I thought I was still logged in.

When we owned a game store, for a long part of the time, it was just us working. If I wasn't working at the counter, she was. And vice-versa. We were open 7 days a week. Thus, we couldn't both participate in a game at the same time.

Now that I've sold the store to write full time, and she works a 9-5 type job, we have time to do stuff together.

Old? You say it like it's a bad thing.

Age and time put into gaming strikes me every so often. I was chatting out of character online with someone in NWN one day only to realise that I not only had gamed longer than he had been alive but I had a daughter older than he was.

His response was "u'r old!". Then he wanted to know why old people play games. Hrmph. I don't think I am eligible for senior citizen discounts on the RPG books quite yet. And so what if we are indeed encouraging a gaming night to be added on the social events calendar in the nursing home when we get there?

Which brings up a whole slew of interesting questions ...do games offer tid bits for the adult mind, is it ok for adults to play, why do some adults "outgrow" gaming?

I don't think adults outgrow gaming. I think some adults outgrow time for gaming.

Also, some people begin to associate fantasy with kids--stories like Harry Potter do that (I don't think the Lord fo the Rings movies did, though). They want to avoid the perception of being childish. They want to game, but they worry about how it looks.

Hello All---Meker here, pres of MEK Games hoping you will give some opinions on our 3/4 completed rpg project "Aakkend�g". This very unique and extremely detailed campaign setting is in the high fantasy genre we all love but with a complete and very unique evolutionary logic backing it up. Please visit our site at www.mekgames.com , click into our "Upcoming Games" page and see some draft artwork, historical timelines and a portion of the world's history tale. We will release more and more for your review, criticism and suggestions as we try to give you what you WISH someone would finally put in an rpg but they never do. Well, it is our aim to get that information from players and make their wish come true. See what we have so far and contact us with your input. We even have a contest going for the best input we receive. Thanks from Oregon--Meker <img src="/images/graemlins/viking.gif" alt="" />

Hi, Mark. Welcome to BellaOnline.

Do you have a release date set for Aakkend�g yet? Do you need playtesters? How will it be released: print or pdf?

Hi RPG Lloyd---It will be in print format and probably another 8-9 monthes to completion for artwork and play testing. We are rounding up names of those who wish to be playtesters and welcome everybody's input at all stages. The feminine viewpoint would be much appreciated from the parts we post for viewing and reviews at our website.
To request getting on the playtest list and materials, just go to www.mekgames.com and hit the Contact button. Best regards---Meker

Hi,

I'm a complete pre-newb to "real" role playing games - I've only played EQ and WoW. So . . . I wanted to ask if you plan to write some beginner level articles?

I'm sure you don't have all the free time in the world to do so (being an editor myself with a full plate, I can relate), but if you ever feel like it, please do. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I'm really fascinated by the topic and I look forward to learning more about it.

Thanks and take care,
Chris

I'm with Chris!
I've always been fascinated by D&D, but don't have any idea of how to get started. It always seemed like something teenage guys were doin, and how am I (a mother of a 14 year old) supposed to get involved in that?

I do remember about ten years ago, when BBS was still popular, playing an online game called Tradewars that was a lot of fun! And a Board owner actually started his own little "world" called "The Bar" where you came in, made up your own character, adn basically just interracted with each other, which sometimes lead to trading, and sometimes led to duel! It was really neat. (Easpecially after I found out the owner was only 17!) LOL

So I know I would enjoy the RP games, just gotta get started!

Hi, Chris.

My intention is for most of my articles to be useful to people with little experience. Periodicals and message boards usually cater to the more experienced hobbyist--in any type of hobby, including RPGs.

The RPG FAQ answers some general questions [url=BellaOnline ALERT: For anti-spam reasons, we restrict the number of URLs allowed in a given post. You have exceeded our maximum number of URLs.

Hi, Michelle. Thanks for popping in.

It's not all teenage boys. In fact, over half of roleplayers are 19+. About 20% of role players are female, so you're not quite alone out there. Usually, that means about one woman per group, though, so you're definitely outnumbered at the table.

Checking your local game stores is a great way to start. Most of them have virtual or real bulletin boards to help players get together. Many of them also have game rooms, so you can meet in a public place before you head over to someone's house, or you could play there at the store if you want.

Ask your friends. About 15 million people either play now or used to play RPGs. A lot of people do abandon the hobby as they get older and develop responsibilities, but once they level out those things (the kids can feed themselves, the job becomes part of your life instead of your life, etc.) they want to go do fun stuff again. You might already know people who play D&D.

Also, D&D's the most popular, but it's not the only game out there. Depending on your taste, there are games with Asian flavor, gothic flavor, true horror, science fiction flavor, historical flavor--all kinds of stuff.

Go to the Wizards of the Coast store locator http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=findastore and enter your address to find a game store near you. I might even know who it is, since I owned a store and was active in the community of store owners.

You can also try meetup.com. They have D&D groups on their list.

If all else fails, you could start your own group if you really wanted. That takes a bit of work, but players are always hunger for somebody to run a game. I played a game one time, and then didn't play again for about 14 years, since I ran the game from my second session on. Obviously, I love it.

Lloyd,

Would it be possible for you to choose a few of the more popular game systems that you are familiar with to write some game specific articles.

This would allow for some how to start articles while not focusing just on one game system.

Just a thought. It would be an interesting read.

I have, in fact. The plan was to cover simple character creation for each game system, or perhaps some element of character creation.

Hey there! I've been playing RPGs since I'm 4. Now I'm 17 and I started playing D&D with my friends not too long ago. I really like it...except that my friend is a horrible DM so I'm taking his place :P

Lloyd -> Your arcticles...they're FANTASTIC! Seriously they're helping <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> I'm only a starting DM and your idea of making a campaign guide is so good. I'll probably ask you questions from time to time if you don't mind...

Rogue -> I assure you you're not old. In fact I find it really cool that some adults still plays at games. There's no age for playing a game in my opinion.


Anyway I think I'll like hanging here in this forum ^^

Have a good day everyone!

I love quoting praise for me!

Okay, enough of that. I'm glad they're helping. I plan to do more DM-oriented stuff soon, after all this player-stuff I'm doing with the adding character series.

Hey...that gives me an article idea.

How about desinging a city/town with minimal work? It should be up by Friday.

From concept to execution in less than 18 hours. The article on creating cities and towns on the fly is up. A nice little DM-oriented piece for you.

Hey Lloyd,

Been playing RPG's on and off for 25 years, not done much over the last few years as most of our RPG group split up and moved away. However with the kids starting to show an interest and an old friend moving back into the area we have decided to get back into the RPG scene.
I was given a copy of the WWE RPG has anyone used this system??

I don't know that one.

How old are the kids? Toon is a good one for the youngest, because of the simplicity of the system and the appropriateness of the subject matter. You play cartoon characters. You don't get killed; you get "knocked down" and you get back up in a couple of minutes.

Kids are 8 and 11 but we have believe it or not found some of our old D & D stuff so will go with that. Wrestling I've read through it but just seems a little complicated for them, mind you some of it had me scartching my head..lol

Learning any RPG by reading the rules is difficult--but nothing compared to learning a CCG that way.

You might want to try to hook up with a group through your local game store or book store, at least long enough to learn the rules.

Kids that age can handle enough of the rules to grasp some advanced games. Another one to look into is True20, the rules system behind the Blue Rose RPG. Blue Rose is a romance type RPG, but True20 is very simple and very versatile. It'll easily handle your average fantasy monster-bashing.

I started gaming in 1980. I have all the old D&D stuff--back to before it was D&D, with Outdoor Survival and Chainmail. If you have technical questions on that old stuff, let me know.

For kids, keep the adventures short; you know their attention spans better than I do. You might want to look at the old 1E Dungeonland and Beyond the Magic Mirror, both based on Alice in Wonderland and written by Gary Gygax.

Oh I don't think we will have any problem with the D&D systems and getting the kids to understand them with about 40-50years experience between myself and my mate.

We have enough of the books to get by and normally generate our own adventures and campaigns anyway. We will start with the monster bashing and work on the WWE system as we go to try and suss it, or adapt it to how we think it should be run. How many people actually use every rule? Most games normally generate a set of house rules to my knowledge anyway..

hi im jack and iwas wondering if i could play in your campaign?

Hello thar.

I'm Annie and, as you can prolly tell from my un, I'm kind of a nerd. "Kind of" being the understatement of the year.

Nice to internet-meet y'all :>