My Gaming Memoirs Part 18 - 2000

A new millenium signalled a change to my gaming. Now that I had access to the internet and a gaming console, mainly a PSone, I was spending a lot of time on the net conversing with other like-minded individuals and blasting through games. I had also purchased a DVD player for the first time and was beginning what would be a huge collection of movies, shows and documentaries that I would watch whilst designing my games. My collection of 500+ video cassettes were slowly being replaced by shiny new DVDs. In a similar fashion, my RPGs were being replaced by immersive, enjoyable console and PC games. It was also clear that the movies were having an influence on the games I was designing. More than once, much to my disappointment, the fact that my adventure was similar to this movie or that show was mentioned in the few games I did run.

This was mainly due to the fact that my gaming circle had dwindled. Family responsibilites, especially Andy who had small children of his own, and general changes in life had taken players away from me so I had time to kill. During this long hiatus I designed more for my League of Seven setting, created more material for the Lightsabre website and spent my weekends socialising and partying with my non-gamer circle of friends. I didn't mind the break in games as I had plenty of other things to keep me occupied.

There were no new gamers during this period. I didn't meet, introduce or even converse on the internet with anyone who wanted to game with me. I started posting on internet forums and spent a lot of time conversing with other roleplayers. In fact, I spent more time taking about games than actually playing them but it was good to hear other people's views and opinions on tabletop gaming, from all over the world.

By the end of the year I hadn't really accomplished much as far as gaming was concerned, so I decided to put myself out there and actively searched for another group. I found one local to me who were starting a new Call of Cthulhu campaign the following year and they invited me to it. The GM, John, seemed like a nice bloke.

I say seemed. Oh, and just so you know that my next memoir entry is going to be a horror story about joining an existing group in which most of the players have apparently been gaming longer than anyone in the entire world, John isn't his real name.