Ok first a little about myself
I'll give you a standard gaming life story now ... sorry if its to long and rambling but that tends to be my internet communication style. Its a bit shotgun ... gonzo ... in your face ... rather excessive one might say.
My history in gaming lies mostly in Las Vegas. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest (born in Spokane, WA) my father worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and my mother was a stay at home mom who’d occasionally work a part-time job. I had a normal middle class childhood. Living in mostly rural communities throughout Oregon and Washington. We moved every 2 to 3 years due to my father moving up in the ranks of the company. By High School we lived in The Dalles, Oregon and that is where I graduated from High School. I attended University of Western Oregon and eventually transferred to UNLV when my parents moved to Las Vegas. While at UNLV I earned a BA in History and a Masters Degree in Public Administration.
My earliest exposure to gaming was classic red box D&D in the 5th grade. My childhood was filled with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien so when I experienced D&D I was instantly in love and addicted. However I only had about a 2 to 3 year run of Basic D&D (classic red box) and then sports, eventually girls and booze would pull me away from RPGs and gaming through most of high school and early college. So sadly I missed a lot … oh .. ya sure I have a lot of drinking stories and old war stories about football. Honestly, I’d rather have been gaming and I envy those people out there who experienced Magic when it was released, who played all the way through 2nd edition D&D and got to play the classic modules with a good DM.
My life didn’t turn back to games until right around the year 2000. I had recently finished my masters in public administration at UNLV and landed a job working for the city of Las Vegas. So for the first time in years I had time and money and not a lot of friends. I had no desire to re-ignite the old sports fan in me … no more Bluto Blutarsky animal house party guy … so I started searching for hobbies. About that time I heard talk of The Lord of the Rings the movie. So I started searching the internet for info on that and just happened to stumble upon the Games Workshop site. Well one thing lead to another and before I knew it I was a bonafide mini gamer with a fully painted Necron army. I tracked down the local mini game club and really the rest is history. I joined and eventually was the president of the Las Vegas Gamers Club and did many turns at gamesday organizer, tourney organizer, etc. etc. My true passion though was hosting game nights. We had epic game nights over at Casa De Excess. 20 to 30 people. I hosted a 24 person Warmachine tourney in my house (actually we had various tourneys at the house over the years .. 40K ... the CCG Versus, etc.). We had an epic 12 player D&D game that ran for a year solid (weekly 12 hour games). We had massive 40k battles, board game pallozas, and endless epic BS sessions where we solved humanities problems. Friends came and went over the years, civilizations rose and fell and eventually the unthinkable occurred. Larry moved away … oh the tale is much longer. In essence I as we all do had life happen along the way, career, kids, and many good friends come and go which all contributed to the golden days of gaming for me in Las Vegas. By the end we were down to a few stalwarts but really the Vegas game scene had changed tremendously in that period of time and as I left it really was a much different place. I was basically in a situation in Las Vegas where I would have been rebuilding a gaming group anyway so either way I'd be facing what I am today as far as gaming goes.
I'm actually in a place more akin to that which I was at when I decided to jump back into gaming way back in 2000. But more than that I know what good gaming is and what it takes to get there. I've learned alot as well about gaming community politics, game shop politics, etc. so hopefully that will help me avoid some potential landmines this time around. Today where I'm at is ... I’m in a new area looking for a big game group, looking to start up a game club, etc. and I see the greater Ogden/SLC area being fertile ground for such an endeavor.
My present gaming interests areas really are as they always have been all over the map. I'll attempt to hit some highlights though: RPGs (Any well run non-3 or 3.5 version of D&D) any Indie RPG, but especially Fate/Spirit or Savage Worlds. I love any good board game or non-collectible card game and am always up for that. I am so excited to get back into Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy!! I’ve been building mini gaming terrain as of late via some Hirst Arts molds (one of these days I’ll post some projects). Really though my main and most important goal is to find the gaming community in Utah and get to know as many people as I can. I believe I’ve stumbled into a great D&D group and think I’m just down the street from a store with a solid GW community so it should hopefully be only a matter of time before the golden age can be rediscovered.
I'm really focused on maintaining the gamer friendships that I have and on rebuilding my own gamer family. I have a two pronged attack planned to acomplish those goals ... one ... work towards hosting a game night or two on a weekly basis and two form a gamers club in my area. The current 4E group that I've joined is a good group of people who just want to have fun ... no tool players ... everyone is out to have a good time. Very fun and refreshing. Our game nights are Wednesday evenings, we usually run from around 7:00 to 8:00 PM to around midnight to 1:00 AM. The game has been a blast so far. In addition to that I'm as we speak working on a new Warhammer 40K army (Orks) that I hope to get painted up so I can start getting out and meeting some new mini gamers. We've fired up a gaming message board ambitiously titled http://southwesterngamers.com/ ... and as I have friends scattered throughout the Southwest (really all of the country ... but I actually see the folks out in the Southwest occasionally) I want to create a board that has gamers in Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona. I'm reaching out to old friends trying to get them on the board and once we have our first club meeting (October 24th, Clearfield Pizza Hut ... up the Road from the Endzone game store) I think traffic will increase. About 25 members on the board or so now ... lots of my ranting and rambling ... but also some other people are posting interesting and intelligent things. So check it out if you can ... its free (well except for the horrible side effects reading my posts cause).
I'll give you a standard gaming life story now ... sorry if its to long and rambling but that tends to be my internet communication style. Its a bit shotgun ... gonzo ... in your face ... rather excessive one might say.
My history in gaming lies mostly in Las Vegas. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest (born in Spokane, WA) my father worked for the Union Pacific Railroad and my mother was a stay at home mom who’d occasionally work a part-time job. I had a normal middle class childhood. Living in mostly rural communities throughout Oregon and Washington. We moved every 2 to 3 years due to my father moving up in the ranks of the company. By High School we lived in The Dalles, Oregon and that is where I graduated from High School. I attended University of Western Oregon and eventually transferred to UNLV when my parents moved to Las Vegas. While at UNLV I earned a BA in History and a Masters Degree in Public Administration.
My earliest exposure to gaming was classic red box D&D in the 5th grade. My childhood was filled with C.S. Lewis and Tolkien so when I experienced D&D I was instantly in love and addicted. However I only had about a 2 to 3 year run of Basic D&D (classic red box) and then sports, eventually girls and booze would pull me away from RPGs and gaming through most of high school and early college. So sadly I missed a lot … oh .. ya sure I have a lot of drinking stories and old war stories about football. Honestly, I’d rather have been gaming and I envy those people out there who experienced Magic when it was released, who played all the way through 2nd edition D&D and got to play the classic modules with a good DM.
My present gaming interests areas really are as they always have been all over the map. I'll attempt to hit some highlights though: RPGs (Any well run non-3 or 3.5 version of D&D) any Indie RPG, but especially Fate/Spirit or Savage Worlds. I love any good board game or non-collectible card game and am always up for that. I am so excited to get back into Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy!! I’ve been building mini gaming terrain as of late via some Hirst Arts molds (one of these days I’ll post some projects). Really though my main and most important goal is to find the gaming community in Utah and get to know as many people as I can. I believe I’ve stumbled into a great D&D group and think I’m just down the street from a store with a solid GW community so it should hopefully be only a matter of time before the golden age can be rediscovered.
I'm really focused on maintaining the gamer friendships that I have and on rebuilding my own gamer family. I have a two pronged attack planned to acomplish those goals ... one ... work towards hosting a game night or two on a weekly basis and two form a gamers club in my area. The current 4E group that I've joined is a good group of people who just want to have fun ... no tool players ... everyone is out to have a good time. Very fun and refreshing. Our game nights are Wednesday evenings, we usually run from around 7:00 to 8:00 PM to around midnight to 1:00 AM. The game has been a blast so far. In addition to that I'm as we speak working on a new Warhammer 40K army (Orks) that I hope to get painted up so I can start getting out and meeting some new mini gamers. We've fired up a gaming message board ambitiously titled http://southwesterngamers.com/ ... and as I have friends scattered throughout the Southwest (really all of the country ... but I actually see the folks out in the Southwest occasionally) I want to create a board that has gamers in Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona. I'm reaching out to old friends trying to get them on the board and once we have our first club meeting (October 24th, Clearfield Pizza Hut ... up the Road from the Endzone game store) I think traffic will increase. About 25 members on the board or so now ... lots of my ranting and rambling ... but also some other people are posting interesting and intelligent things. So check it out if you can ... its free (well except for the horrible side effects reading my posts cause).
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