After a time the Chicago game faded and the Lombard group moved on from Warhammer 40k. We experimented with a number of different games, trying D&D 3.5 one time, then Lord of the Rings the next, and so on. The one that finally caught hold was, of all things, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game (Revised Edition). Wizards of the Coast had the Star Wars license at the time, and they put out a new edition every time one of the new Star Wars prequels was released. So the original edition came out concurrent with Phantom Menace, revised with Attack of the Clones, and the saga edition with Revenge of the Sith.
It was a pretty sweet deal for them, since they were able to basically release the base game and all the supplements three times in span of ten years. The version that had the most support and was, for my money, the best overall, was the revised version. Appearing only two years after the original version, revised was to that game what D&D 3.5 was to 3.0, an enhancement and clarification of an already decent game. 2007's saga edition, on the other hand, was a test bed for D&D 4E, and therefore included some of the things that would become standard in 4E like Encounter Powers and fixed bonuses for skills without going all the way to include At-Wills, Dailies, or Healing Surges. Thus saga ended up being half fish and half fowl, neither one system or the other, and somehow worse than both.
Anyway, Luke ran a revised game in his customary style, with a large supporting cast that never overshadowed the PCs, and we went from level 1 to level 12 before the game came to a halt. Part of that was because Clay moved north to Wisconsin, though we carried on without him for at least a year. But the other reason was because of saga edition and, ultimately, D&D 4E.
Having not run a long term game since the Chicago game folded, by 2007 I was ready to get behind the screen again. And since saga edition had a free adventure path set right after Revenge of the Sith, I picked that up and started a game. Initially, it was a small table, with Luke, Morgan, my then-roommate Victor, and Matt. We played for the latter half of 2007 and the first half of 2008. It was okay, but I was rusty at GMing, and the game wasn't what I'd hoped for. Some of that was the fact that saga edition really doesn't work as well as I'd like, but some of it was me.
Then most of us went to Origins.
The funny thing was, I wasn't even at the game that turned out to be so important to my current gaming habits. You see, while I'm happy to hit the big RPGs with the rest of the team (Morgan and Luke that year) I also like to delve into miniatures and board gaming at cons too. So it's a pretty frequent state of affairs that at any given con event, I'm as likely to be off on my own rather than with the team. And that's what happened that year. I was off playing Babylon 5 Wars (and winning thank you very much) while Luke and Morgan ended up at an RPG (I'm not even sure what game) with Kevin and Jason. It was one of those odd coincidences, since there were four players at the table all from the suburbs of Chicago who had on their own driven five hours to game together in Columbus, Ohio.
The game must have gone well, because by the time it was over names and emails had been exchanged. And then we had a new group. A group that, starting in June 2008, was playing D&D 4E regularly. A week after 4E hit the stores, I was running it, and I've kept on running it for three and a half years now. That's the game that I'm bringing to an end just as D&D 5E is being playtested, which seems appropriate enough.
That wasn't the only game being played since then, of course. Luke started his own Star Wars Saga Edition game that's done alright despite the flaws in the system. Kevin ran a reasonably successful Thursday night game for a couple of years. When he moved to Maine, I replaced that game with a biweekly 4E game where I tweaked the rules and set it in a low magic setting to see how that changed things. (Answer: Not much.)
We played D&D Encounters, D&D Lair Assault, Gamma World, Mutants & Masterminds, Mage, Dark Heresy, Star Frontiers, Warhammer Fantasy, Pathfinder, and Black Crusade. Some were more successful than others, but I have fond memories of quite a few of those games. Throughout, we had new players and GMs, including Wisconsin Jon, Doug, Mike, Dave, Stuart, Linda, Yaro, Eric, Bal, and Phil. Indeed, despite some crossover, I've now got three separate gaming groups, Jason's Group, which meets in the city or to the far north, Games Plus, which meets at Games Plus, of course, and the Home Game, which usually meets at Matt's place. Trying to keep up with who's playing what with whom where can be a trial, but I persevere.
Looking ahead, I'm hoping to try some new things. I've signed up for the D&D 5E playtest, but so has the entire gaming world, so who knows when or even if I'll get my hands on the thing before it gets published in 2013. Once my big 4E game wraps up, I'm looking forward to trying out A Song of Ice and Fire, the second Game of Thrones RPG. This one focuses on building up a noble house, much the way that Ars Magica was about building a covenant. The rules are interesting, and I've always been pretty good at noble intrigue, so that should be right in my wheelhouse. I've also dug up my long owned but seldom used copy of the Amber Diceless Roleplay system which remains one of my dearest goals to run a long term game that doesn't devolve into mass player on player murder sprees. Here's hoping.
So that's where I am in my gaming life. It's been a long, strange trip, no less so in real life than in the game, when it comes right down to it.
Thanks for reading.
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