I'd say that if one thing has been established during the few years of blogging, it is that I have a number of varied interests. Of course, I love house music. Film consumes me. Books and writing is the essence of my being. Heck, there are even entries here regarding boxing and professional wrestling.
Well, a few months ago I was bitten by an entirely different type of bug: that of tabletop roleplaying games.
I'm not entirely sure what sparked the interest. One of the contributing factors was definitely the Nerd Poker podcast, which I happened upon somewhat haphazardly while searching through iTunes one day.
During my daily commute one day, an episode was on deck. Brian Posehn and friends were hilarious, and immediately gained my interest. This wasn't exactly what I expected of a role playing game. The story was hilarious and not quite what these types of games had been talked up as. Also, other people I respect have quite the love of these games.
A friend, who has experience as a game master and D&D veteran, mentioned Pathfinder as a good starting point for my entry into the world of tabletops due to it being a "perfected" version of 3.5. His advice, coupled with my research our various local Pathfinder Society meetings, was a perfect fit.
Sourcebook and dice were ordered and I went about "learning" to the play the game. No amount of preparation readied me enough for my first gaming experience at Ultimate Pathfinder Day at Dragon's Lair. Thankfully, these gamers are a much friendlier lot than their console-based gaming counterparts, and no problems were encountered.
While there, I noticed an advertisement for an upcoming gaming convention here in Austin, carrying the name ChupacabraCon. Now, I've always wanted to go to a ComicCon, but never got the chance. I know comics. They're safe. It's familiar ground. This was something entirely different.
Despite my mind's best effort at keeping me away from the convention, I went. It would have been a huge mistake if I hadn't.
Again, these gamers were quite inviting and willing to share knowledge regarding the gaming system and any other bit of information you're interested in.
At the end of the weekend, I played two Pathfinder Society sessions, and even took part in the "big event" they had planned for Saturday night, which was a special session of the aforementioned game that took place with multiple tables that encompassed battles across an entire city that fit together into one story. Sure, that was amazing, but only concerns one game.
There was so much variety. Deadlands tugs at the part of me that loves both the western and horror movie genres. Shadowrun is the tabletop equivalent to one of my favorite Super Nintendo games. Numenera is...well I'm not sure but it looked awesome. Some other guys were playing this feudal Japan looking game that looked great as well. I believe it was Legend of the Five Rings.
There were also panels. I sat in on one particularly interesting session featuring Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One. The panel spoke about a number of subjects about writing about or producing game based items, and I was enthralled.
In just a few months, this whole other world has opened up, and I am so glad that it did.
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