A Rambling Discussion about Johnny’s Gaming

I don’t know if it’s some masculine sport/competition drive focused into my inane laziness, but I’ve always loved games. When the other kids were swinging at baseballs and trying out for the junior varsity football first string, me and my friends were exploring The Tomb of Horrors and trying to figure out how to attack an OGRE with a fleet of GEV’s. It wasn’t that I couldn’t play sports, I am a large guy. I made first string defensive team on a summer football league, I just didn’t like it. I guess jocks kind of left me cold early on.

Growing up with Dungeons & Dragons was the biggie, but we also played role playing games and tried our hands at some war games, like OGRE, Squad Leader and The Awful Green Things From Outer Space. After school, Saturdays and every day during summer would find us playing something. These complex underground games were thrilling. I liked that I could study the rules and work on the game when I wasn’t with my friends. I guess I was a lonely kid.

I remember starting a gaming club in Middle School. The fools didn’t want us playing Dungeons & Dragons. I guess they feared demonic possession. I eventually wrenched permission from the Mormon establishment to play games after school in the library. Of course Bruce cracked up the second week and ran through the halls hacking everyone up with a machete screaming that goblins were after him and his armor class was only 4. No really, nothing happened. We were all the cream of the intellectual crop. College bound spelling bee masters who blew the curve for everyone else. Gaming was just a great intellectual social event which stimulated our imaginations.

I kept up a gaming group all through High School. In Denmark (I was an exchange student in Denmark my Senior Year) I turned to solitaire and tried to master that game. I did. I joined the chess club and lost every game but one for an entire year. I studied books nightly and never minded losing. Back in the US, I seldom lose, but I’m out of practice today.

I got into Warhammer 40K for a while and then turned to Magic the Gathering. Both games suck up money like a Eureka at the treasury. Monthly poker games are cheap entertainment compared to these even after figuring in booze and snacks.

RPG’s are more about the Game-master and player than actual gaming systems so D&D can be good or bad from day to day. I liked Vampire the Masquerade; we had a good time delving into total character and mood in that one. I always liked TSR’s old role playing game Top Secret because you can play much of it pretty much ad lib.

I wrote my own RPG, called Houses which I was playtesting before I moved to Oregon. It’s based on the premise of an modern conspiratorial underground feudal system. I think it had potential.

Although I’m four years in Oregon, I haven’t made a gaming group yet. Kids, family, work and unemployment have kept me distracted from my old love. I have fed my habit with computer games. Online games are great. I got into Myth and Myth 2 for quite some time. I got pretty good at. So good in fact that David Patterson, my gaming partner, wouldn’t play me anymore. The last game of Myth I played was with him. I shelved it. I hope that all games don’t go network. I really enjoy single player games. From the days of Marathon I’ve loved first person shooters. Recently, I found Rune to be very satisfying. Deus Ex was great too.

I’m slowly testing the waters of a new gaming group. It’s a precarious proposition because much of the stereotypes of gamers are frighteningly true. I’ve been lucky and my groups have generally been populated with mature intelligent people with a grip on reality. However, there are many of us gamers out there who are true social outcasts. I’ve met some at gaming conventions who can tell you the hit dice of an ancient brass dragon, quote the entire script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail - and do so, but somehow can’t seem to operate a washing machine or shampoo bottle. I’ve found that there’s also a problem with cliques. Maybe because they haven’t been easily accepted, they’re slow to accept newcomers themselves. It’s not an insurmountable task to find a new group, but it’s not like finding a Masonic Lodge. In the meantime, I'm teaching my kids how to play Circus Imperium and OGRE.