During the adult part of my role-playing game career, I’ve had a mix of excellent and mediocre groups. Each time I get into a new group, I’m meeting new people. I don’t know who they are, as gamers or people. Do we have compatible gaming styles? Will I feel comfortable chatting with them during breaks? Could these people be my friends? Will I even enjoy sitting at the table with them?

The people who play pencil-and-paper role-playing games are often stereotyped as being social misfits with bad hygiene with no life outside of the game. I have met and played with enough of them to know that this stereotype is often right on the money. However, I believe I have found a way to weed out the groups that have the good ones; the ones that I will call ‘friend’ for the rest of my life.

I have learned to look for a good omen: a baby.

Yeah, I know that’s strange, but the presence of an infant always bodes well.

Back in 2000 I met Nick, Eileen and their baby son Ethan. Nick ran one overarching campaign that lasted a few years, with a few breaks to allow some of the other players to run their own games. This group introduced me to many that I would call life-long friends, like Joe, Mike, Bryant and Matty. As most of them were soldiers, the Army took them away from me, one by one. Only a handful were left after a few years, and the games stopped.

I visited my local game shop sometime in 2006 to pick up a D&D 3.5 book. While at the register, I asked about open games running at the store. Matthew (the employee that was ringing me up) invited me to his personal game. After getting over the surprise of being to this game even though he didn’t know me at all, I accepted. At my first session with them, I met Guillaume, Brenda and their soon-to-be-born daughter Aliénor. Shortly after joining, Matthew announced that he could no longer run the game. Guillaume and I traded DMing duties between Shadowrun and D&D 3.5, respectively. I quickly befriended Terra, Stacey and Walt. Once again, the Army stepped in and brought an end to that game, as Nadia and I had to leave Maryland.

Shortly after arriving in Colorado in 2008, Ken contacted me through Meetup.com to join a D&D 4e group. I remember being reluctant about it, because using an Internet site to find other gamers seemed sketchy. Despite those reservations, Nadia and I made our way down to Florence. There I met Donovan, April and their infant daughter Ravyn. Once again, I struck gaming gold and began to see this pattern emerging. Sadly, this group did not last very long at all. A few short months into our campaign, life happened and our new friends had to leave. At least the Army had nothing to do with this breakup.

Now in 2009, with Nadia gone and no job, I need to occupy my mind and time. D&D has always done a good job of that, so I turned to Meetup.com. It worked so well last time, so maybe lightning will strike twice.

Yesterday I went to my first session with my new group. Guess who I met? Casey, Samantha and their newborn daughter Aspen.

I’ve got a good feeling about this group.

“They’re dead! They’re all dead!”
-Ethan Hunt, Mission: Impossible

The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons was released last month, and being so far from home Nadia and I had no one to play with. After a few weeks of searching, we came across a new campaign starting up via meetup.com. The DM running the game lives 35 miles from us!

Our first session was two weeks ago. Nadia is playing a halfling rogue and I’m playing a human wizard. The party is rounded out by the DM’s wife, playing a elf ranger and another meetup.com member playing a eladrin cleric. Below is the result of our very first rolls of 4th Edition:

For the uninitiated, 1s are bad rolls. The higher, the better.

This latest edition inspires an adventuring group to keep pushing themselves. Instead of resting after every other encounter to regain health and spells, 4e is set up so that even beginning adventurers can engage multiple groups of enemies before resting for the day. After slaughtering two very large groups of kobolds (small reptilian humanoids), we decided to venture into their lair. We figured that we had enough resources to continue the fight, which was true, but we didn’t realize that we were about to run out of luck.

Another nine kobolds fell at our feet after being punctured by a hail of arrows and bolts from our strikers. There were only two more enemies left: one kobold with a shield and a goblin with a battle axe. There was no way we could lose.

A TPK is a Total Party Kill. These typically occur when the party makes very poor tatical decisions, or when the players run out of luck and their dice work against them. In our case, roll after roll after roll came up low. I rolled eight single-digit numbers in a row! In a few short rounds, my three adventuring buddies lay dead (or near dying, as it is in 4e) and my wizard stood facing the last two monsters with only 1 hit point.

While this was a TPK, our DM was merciful and allowed me to run out of turn. This means that I will return later and drag my companions away so we can heal up and try again another day.

This is the first time I’ve ever been in a game where the party was totally wiped out like that, and it reminded me of the quote that I opened this post with. At our next session in two weeks, we’ll have better strategies in mind and (hopefully) a replenished font of luck to draw from.

On Saturday, we made an unplanned trip to Wal-Mart. We were about to leave the store when we decided to go check out the electronics section. To our surprise, there was one copy of Wii Fit there! We have been looking for this game for over a month and buying it online was not an option because of the criminals charging double for it.

There are many different programs and focus areas to go through. Will is giving himself 2 weeks to see some improvement.