Lately, I’ve been kind of jonesin’ for a good roleplaying session. Unfortunately, I haven’t really played any pen and paper games in a decade or so. I find myself, therefore, in search of a group to play with - my current group of friends isn’t really the type, I think (for regular meetings, at least, if not the content). I live in San Francisco, so there have to be people in the area, but I don’t really know where to look. So, I throw myself on your mercy, oh wise denizens of The Game Room*. Where does one go to find a gaming group?
As for my specific tastes, I played mostly 2nd edition AD&D, with brief, usually ill-fated forays into other systems. Given that anything I played is long outdated, I’m not really picky system-wise. I like fantasy and sci-fi, but I’m not big on Masquerade-type games. I did some fairly inept dungeon-mastering back in middle school, and I’ve been thinking I might like to give that another shot, but I’m really far more comfortable playing - what would be really nice would be finding a group where I could mostly play, and maybe occasionally do a bit of story telling. So, any tips?
*I figure this is probably the place to ask, even though it really is a fairly general question. If not, feel free to move it.
This is an interesting question. I got out of AD&D 2nd Edition when everyone went to 3rd and 3rd & a 1/2 edition; I moved countries around then and basically lost interest as I was now 2,000kms from my group and the no-one here was playing RPGs at all.
I did a bit of playing by E-mail but that finally wound up a year or so after I moved here and by then no-one was still playing AD&D 2nd Edition- or Shadowrun, it seems.
I’m beginning to think World of Warcraft and other computer MMORPGs have pretty much put an end to the heyday of pen-and-paper RPGs, FWIW. That and most RPGs seem to be either Fantasy, which I’m no longer interested in, or Vampire/Werewolf, which is not my cup of Ceylon’s finest either.
I don’t know about that. Most PnP slots at Origins and GenCon still sell out. And there are very good new systems out there like CORTEX by Margaret Weiss Games, their Demon Hunters implementation of CORTEX being a particularly nice flavor. (For those unfamiliar with Demon Hunters, it was a independent comedic movie made by Dead Gentleman productions, the same guys who do “The Gamers”.)
Arc Dream publishing ( http://www.arcdream.com/home.php ) also has a great system that in it’s early incarnation was used for a low-powered superhero type campaign (basically everyone had a mutant power, when I played this at a con, the setting was New Orleans during the North’s blockade in the Civil War). They adapted it into “Monsters and Other Childish Things”, a fairly dark setting where children are the only things keeping monsters from taking over the world. The children can control the monsters somewhat. “Monsters…” gave rise to “Candlewick Manor”, which debuted at Origins last year, and where instead of the monsters having the eerie powers, the children who are all orphans do.
Both these systems focus a lot more into the role-playing aspects than the mechanics aspects of PnP gaming.
Kenzer and Co. also released Aces & Eights recently, a Wild West themed system, which debuted at GenCon to much acclaim, though I haven’t played it myself.
So PnP gaming is far from dead, and with the amount of people I know who won’t even look at 4th Ed DnD, it’s quite possible that many of these indie systems will get a strong foothold in the mainstream.
As far as where one can find gaming groups, most of the online RPG communities have areas where people can look to join or advertise to host their own groups. Many also have software for doing online PnP RPGs. (RPG.net is one of the largets independent sites out there.)
Also, I don’t know if you’ve already done this, but if you have any game stores in your city, go there and ask the clerks or customers if anyone knows any games (they might even have some going on at the store). They might have a flier board you could advertise on for specific interest type games.
I’d recommend trying the Gamer Seeking Gamers forum at ENWorld. ENWorld is the biggest independent D&D website/forums, but a lot of folks there play other games too.