Time to take the my story out of mothballs... I started playing
roleplaying games 16 years ago with Dungeons and Dragons. I don't know
how I learned about this game since I knew no one at all playing that.
I learned the game and I eventually I mastered my first RPG game with
friends.
I played 2 years in D&D, then went to AD&D. During this time
span, me and my group started roleplaying, instead of just doing the
job needed. I remember the time we started a game, and I asked people
to not only do a character, but do one that they would like to see in a
novel. My players started putting flesh in their characters, and I did
the same to my NPCs.
10 years ago, I played in my first non-D&D game : Shadowrun. I had
changed school, and I was meeting new people, who also tried
roleplaying games. One of them approached me one day with the Shadowrun
book and asked me if I would be interrested in looking at that game,
since he had bought the book but had no one to game master it. I
borrowed it's book, and a week later I mastered my first Shadowrun
game.
In the next five years, I was an hardcore gamemaster. During this time
span, I was game mastering at least 2 game session every week. I played
in some games from time to time, but my players kept requesting me to
master. The games we played the most were 7th Sea, Deadlands, Vampire,
Star Wars, Warhammer, Call of Chtulhu, AD&D and of course
Shadowrun. I also tried my first MUDs.
I also started to go get connex skills to help me roleplay. I started
playing in an improv league and I learned theater acting. These 2
things helped me a lot more, and I think about it, I thank myself for
doing that since it's in that time that I made the best progression in
my roleplay.
6 years from now, I moved into a bigger city. I knew no one, and I
needed to get my rpg fix since I was doing that since forever. Slowly,
I learned about the existance of a roleplaying game club. I joined it
and shook the people there with my experience. I quickly became one of
the organizers, to finally become president 1 year later. During that
time, I had chosen to use my mandate to help people open their eyes to
the potential in RPG. The club was mostly around D&D and Vampire. I
was controlling the club's budget for the book collection, and instead
of buying every Vampire book that came out like previous president's
did, I bought new games. I organized demo sessions to many of them. I
was also organizing school sessions to help other gamemasters and
players to get better in roleplay. I also dip my toe during that
period to my first LARP game. It was a Vampire game, and I played a
crazy Vampire that had a multiple personnality trouble. At every game
session, I was playing him with a totally different personnality,
dressed with a full costume according to the personnality of the week.
...During 2 years... This is the most memorable character I did in my
life. When I meet the other players, that's the thing they remember
about me, not who I was really.
Now 3 years from now, I moved again. My professional life has taken the
life of the gamer inside. The regular game sessions are no more.
However, I started writing official scenarios for the worldwide
Shadowrun campaign named Shadowrun Missions. I game master this
campaign with a large group of players, and even play sometimes over
instant messaging since it's getting tough to arrange games with
everyone. I also started reading books about roleplaying psychology, to
help me understand the different patterns in this activity. Roleplay
gaming theory is my new subject of intellectual curiosity.
Oh and I learned about 1 year ago that there will be an online rpg
based on the Matrix, with player events and live actors from the
movies. This got my curiosity, and made the classic roleplay
gamer/gamemaster in me to take a breath, and jump into a wild world in
the roleplaying universe.
I really remember hearing that most mxo and ex-mxo players interrested
in roleplay are on Gorath. Not sure for the spelling however.
