Deadly Foes of Champions

So far, I've talked a lot on this blog about comic books and roleplaying games.  It only makes sense that eventually I would broach the subject of comic book roleplaying games.

For decades my superhero game of choice was Champions.  Not because of its simple, easy-to-master rules, and only partly because if was the only superhero RPG on the market. Instead, my love affair with Champs stemmed from a true love of the characters and creations that appeared across multiple editions of the game.

While I would likely never sit down again at a table with the Hero RPG rules, it's the Champions Universe I'd draw from for villains and supporting characters. Some standards, such as Viper, Grond and Dr. Destroyer, go without saying, but there are other characters I'm even more exited about including in a supers campaign.

The Top 10 Champions Character Who Will Definitely Be in Any Superhero RPG I Run

1.  Foxbat
Hopefully my Top 10 won't all be this predictable, but I'd be playing you false if I didn't kick off this list with Foxbat.  With an origin story consisting of "what's that symbol on his chest?"  " I dunno, a fox...bat...thing?", ol' FB has gone on to become a mainstay of many editions of the Champions U.  The original Deadpool, Foxbat was a wise-cracking action hero who would alternate from hero to villain depending on his mood and goals.

Must-Have Adventure: 'Foxbat Unhinged.'  Although not actually written this way, the adventure content of this book can allow for the PC heroes' participation in Foxbat's origin as they insert themselves into a love triangle involving Frederick "Foxbat" Fosgood. As the PCs try to save the future by uniting two reluctant lovers, Fosgood decides the only way to win the girl for himself is to out-hero the heroes. Or out-villain the heroes.  Whatever.

2.  Minos Taurus
The standout character in the standout publication 'Zodiac Conspiracy', Minos was the actual fabled minotaur of the Greek legend of Theseus and the Labyrinth.  In the Champs U, though, he (barely) survived the encounter and the damaged-yet immortal man-bull passed through the years until the modern day where he now appears as a heavily prostheticized cyborg minotaur.  A character that cool can work on his own even without the rest of the Zodiac team.  The presence of his mystical advisor and fellow mythical being Drynnan the Satyr can be assumed, and set the ground for the future Zodiac.

Must-Have Adventure: 'Zodiac Conspiracy.'  There are a few plots in here which mark the unique style and personality of this criminal organization, but just as valuable is the way it can be used to slowly grow the group.  Imagine if, after a few encounters with Minos, they find many of their adversaries (such as the Rainbow Archer or the super-powered hippie former coma patient, What's-his-Name), being unexpectedly rescued from the heroes (or jail) until the players piece together what they have in common and finally face the fully-assembled Zodiac.  

3.  PSI
I'll be honest, it took a while for PSI to grow on me. When they were first introduced, they were basically an evil X-Men-style group, complete with skin-tight costumes and unique, individual powers that didn't quite live up to the premise of capturing psionic kids and turning them to your will.

Since then, though, the group has evolved into a group of backstabbing connivers which made for some unique adventures and developments. When PSI was introduced in New Millennium (and provided the picture I used here), I realized the some inner-party politics and policy of kidnapping and brainwashing could be applied to the upright-looking businessmen they were re-imagined as. I don't even mind so much the idea of people trained with unique, psychic powers as it creates an agency very unique from Viper or Raven where you have pyro agents and telekinetic agents all working around a cadre of more powerful, costumed psionic individuals.

Must Have Adventure: One of the events of the long-running PSI timeline is the overthrow of group founder Sebastian Poe by his more evil proteges. The now-jailed Poe is a great source of information to the PC heroes concerning his former organization, such as how their more legitimate front is being used to identify and kidnap kids with great psychic potential.

4.  Ankylosaur

Ankylosaur is the best thug villain any superhero RPG has to offer. With a distinct appearance and very memorable powerset (a variety of attacks based mostly in his tail), Anky will definitely leave an impression on the PC heroes beyond fond memories of how quickly they beat him each time. On paper, he's part of the villain group "The Conquerors," but since the rest of that gang's pretty forgettable, Ankylosaur gets to branch out into a solo career. Well, "solo" in the sense that he's usually acting as hired muscle for somebody. 

Must Have Adventure: Anky's origin story, where he swaps some mailing labels during an UNTIL raid and accidentally gets the armor suit mailed to him, would make a memorable game session, I think. It'd almost be a subplot where an embarrassed UNTIL asks for help tracking down a shipment that went missing during the raid the PC heroes helped foil. Not until they knock on his apartment door do they realize what was in that crate when it comes smashing through the door at them.

5.  DEMON

Although they made every effort to bland-erize DEMON by making them just an occult evil group, their original presentation as a combination occult/high tech group was far (far) more engaging than anything that came later.  From their origins as a group bilking old ladies of their retirement money with minor magics, they've grown into an international terror organization that rivals Viper (and isn't a straight rip-off of Hydra or Cobra either).  They're really the only group that heroes can face off against and be threatened simultaneously by demon hounds and mecha battlesuits.  They're like the evil agency equivalent of Dr. Doom.

Must Have Adventure:  The original Primus vs. DEMON adventure book included an object called the Earth Crown of Krim.  Since then, a small number of other crowns of Krim (Iron, etc.) have made canonical appearances, hinting at a larger epic just waiting in the wings. There's even a chance this could tie into a player hero's origin.

6.  C.L.O.W.N.
The Chaotic Legion of Whacky Non-conformers is a great idea that basically went too far in order to fill a book.  At its base, it's a small group of cartoonish troublemakers whose hijinks are all about practical jokes and embarrassment rather than just power or money.  That makes them unique to play in both capers and combat.  Where the group got a little unwieldy, though, is a bunch of characters in the group that don't exactly fit the theme (like the ventriloquist-themed April Foolmaker or the dancing Toe Tapper). They're mostly good characters who I can see using individually, just not as an agent of CLOWN.  The original crew of Merry Andrew, Popgun and Slapstick all have a place here, and I can see a lot of fun with additional characters like Tag.

Must Have Adventure: The best part of the CLOWN organization book is the timeline it lays out for the group. Not only does it lay out some great examples of pranks they can play (like the "cut here" line they painted across Florida (and the ensuing alien attack to claim it)), but it shows the evolution of the team from its earliest days with Viper and then going solo. All elements to be incorporated into an ongoing campaign to show the evolution of the team. Later versions of the team updated the timeline with comical entries about what they were doing during a number of official Champions events which must be used as well.

7. Dr. Quall 

I don't know if I could successfully pull off running a straight-up Golden Age supers campaign, but by God, the Golden Age of Champions is solely responsible for making me want to.  On the one hand, I feel kind of dirty for treating WWII as a joke, but MAN does it capture the light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek feel I'd want in any campaign set in that era.  I honestly could've picked any villain from this book: Origami Girl, Secondhand  Rose, The Doberman... but as head of the Nazi super-science research wing, Dr. Quall (and his lead henchman, Shocktrooper) is symbolic of any campaign or series of  time-travel adventures I'd want to set there.

Must Have Adventure:  Golden Age of Champions has an entire timeline of the War and some great adventures tied into it.  My current conceit is that I'd have my players visit WWII as a time travel adventure, and the adventure 'Menace Out of Time' from 'Champions Presents" includes a nice visit to WWII.  In fact, that adventure introduces a Nazi villain named Baron Skull who is so easily swapped out for Shocktrooper that I wonder if it wasn't done on purpose. If this visit tempts my hypothetical players into wanting to create Golden Age characters, so much the better.

8.  Black Paladin

Black Paladin is an ancient foe, both in terms of in-game history (dating back to King Arthur) and publishing history (first appearing in Enemies II back in 1982).  While an evil black knight smashing things with a mystic mace is a villain worth having, the story he brings with him make him a must have. Romance, failure, penance...all great story elements which will elevate him above just a basic thug and make his plots very memorable to the players. New Millennium takes his story even further, describing a sad and betrayed old man desperate to regain the power of the Black Paladin at any cost. 

Must Have Adventure:  Hero Games already published a definitive Black Paladin adventure in the form of 'Shades of Black,' a multi-part adventure where Sir Guiles attempts to resurrect his witch lover. What I'd  really like to see, though, is what was only hinted at in New Millennium, and have the PC heroes try to track down the Black Paladin only to find that his host body has been abandoned and they have to uncover his NEW host, a technological genius who has added advanced weaponry to BP's magical arsenal.

9.  Matthew Armbruster

Normals Unbound is one of the greatest books released for Champions as it introduced a number of supporting characters with a number of game-enriching subplots. Matthew Armbruster was introduced there as a rich industrialist/thrill-seeker who is set up as a potential sponsor for a hero team. He's retroactively attributed with a few Champions Universe elements such as the Stronghold prison and the creation of Mechanon, AND he's interwoven into enough other Normals Unbound characters/subplots that including him automatically includes his wife, Congresswoman Shannon Armbruster, the anti-superhero Senator Relm, and young computer genius Danny Elfberger (and his self-made artificial intelligence). He's got stories for days.

Must Have Adventure: I mentioned the star-crossed lovers adventure from Foxbat Unhinged, right? I should mention my intent was to have the PCs be called on to bring together Shanna and Matthew, so not only does that adventure give us the origin of Foxbat, but also introduces the PCs to TWO supporting cast members. But since that adventure's already been claimed by Foxbat above, I'll briefly mention a plan to have Armbruster gift the PC heroes with a robot servant, Mechano. Concerns that future iterations of Mechano-A thru -M might become corrupted through invasive software are your own paranoid musings. Mechano-N will be just fine.

10.  Richfield Frank

Another slow-build character like Minos Taurus. Frank was introduced in New Millennium and came with a storyarc that would play very well to some unsuspecting heroes during a long campaign. He begins as a scientific advisor to the SHIELD-like organization UNTIL. The heroes would probably interact with him a bit as he studied the villains they captured and developed ways to incarcerate super-powered villains. This just sets up the betrayal when he jumps ship and takes everything he knows to Viper to help make superpowered thugs for them. And if the campaign is still running past THAT, there's another betrayal in the wings for when he steals from Viper to establish his own band of superpowered thieves and cutthroats.

Must Have Adventure: I pretty much just spelled out his entire arc, but if I had to pick just one must-have, it'd be the adventure where the heroes have to rescue the high-level UNTIL scientist from Viper, only to learn that he went with them willingly just before they get trounced by all the villains they had thought were incarcerated but were instead waiting for his signal all Shadowrun-style.

More fantasy options

My last discussion on tabletop gaming focused on many of the D&D campaigns I've been fiddling around with over the years.

It wasn't entirely exhaustive, though, as there are still a few fantasy-themed campaigns I didn't go into there from some of the more popular D&D knock-offs.

I might have hinted at it before, but I suspect I'm pretty terrible at writing adventures from scratch. Although like any reasonable DM, I'm pretty able to adapt to the actions of my players, the actual foundations, maths, and design of an entertaining adventure are beyond what I trust myself to do. When it comes to gaming, I really rely on pre-published adventures, and the volume of those adventures is what can sell me on or off a game system.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG
The library of published adventures is probably the only reason I still entertain the idea of playing DCCRPG. As much as I appreciate its gonzo tone and declaration that randomness is key, it doesn't appear to hold up to any kind of long term campaign options. The built-in degrading of spellcasters, fer instance, or the way it caps out at 10th level just gives the feel that it's intended to be enjoyed in brief spurts without much investment.  There are some 3rd party efforts to create a cohesive gaming world, but I haven't seen much from that end yet, and a DCCRPG campaign doesn't go much farther than stringing together the growing number of really bizarre adventures.

And by bizarre I mean f-ing awesome.  No other publisher consistently provides such out there, up to 11, heavy metal, gonzo fantasy adventures. I've loved every one I've read and would run a DCCRPG campaign specifically to enjoy those moments when the players are faced with yet another thing that should not be. 

This is a level 1 adventure for DCC

Perhaps the best use of these modules is to convert them to a system with more gaming longevity built into it...

Adventurer Conqueror King System

The exact opposite side of the coin, ACKS provides a lot of well thought out and well integrated rules to take campaigns in many different directions, from wilderness exploration to dungeon delving to clashes of armies to kingdom building or even trade empires. It's built off the old Basic D&D rules, so it already starts with a heap of built in love from me, and expands those rules brilliantly in almost every way.

If there's a downside (and there is), it's that it provides a lot of play options but very few specific adventures for module-craving DMs like me.  Aside from the recently-released Dwimmermount, there aren't any modules published for these rules, leaving me to search abroad to fill that niche. To this end, I've been digging through all my old TSR Gazetteers of the Known World for truly brilliant campaign settings, with my personal favorite still being the Principalities of Glantri.

Ruled by a council of wizard princes, the lands of Glantri have been pretty much neglected outside of the areas surrounding each prince's tower.  It's a ripe location for adventure, and the political squablings of the nobility sets up some fine diplomacy when the PCs start trying to set up their own lands. It comes complete with a barbarian horde across the border, and is built right on top of an ancient artifact from a more technological civilization. I can't think of any place better to start dropping in those gonzo adventures I mentioned from DCCRPG.

While my previous post on gaming outline campaigns I would play in different editions, ACKS is intended for a more sandbox approach, and that's a trait I look forward to fulfilling. I don't have a lot of experience with sandboxing, but I think ACKS, Glantri, and adventures like Dwimmermount and DCCRPG mods will give me all the tools I need to manage one. Sure hope I get a chance to try it some day.

Warhammer FRPG
Every so often, I get the urge to play in a gritty fantasy campaign, where a single sword blow can spell the end of the bravest knight, and monsters like chimeras and hydras are meant to be feared, not hunted. In those dark moments, I look to Warhammer.

While the 2nd edition is held to be a cleaner version of the game, my first love is for the 1st edition which somehow managed to still find the fun in their crapsack world. Characters had some say in their character, but were as likely to start off as a rat catcher as they were a wizard's apprentice. From such zero-to-hero basics was this game founded. (There's also a 3rd edition, but it looks like it fell very far from the tree and never felt like dropping the insane amount of cash it costs to even try it.)

No attempt at a WHFRPG campaign would even be attempted in my house, though, unless it were the epic Enemy Within campaign. From humble beginnings as wannabe-adventurers, the PCs soon find themselves travelling across the length of the Reikland, encountering things that were probably best left alone, and possibly never really understanding everything that was going on around them. Unlike most campaigns I'm talking about here, I have some play experience with Enemy Within, and can vouch for its awesomeness.

Pathfinder RPG

Last I heard, the single most popular RPG in America (thanks to WotC shutting down a bit in preparation of the release of 5th edition, I suspect), Pathfinder is one of those games which I continue to follow more out of appreciation for the publishers than for the game itself. Even as their 3rd Edition spinoff rules have grown into an unwieldy, rules-bloated juggernaut, the Paizo crew remains some of the most engaging and professional customer service beasts in the industry.

Pathfinder is one of those systems, like DCC, which benefits from a huge library of published adventures, both stand-alone and "adventure path" campaigns, as well as being based on a rules system I'm very familiar with. Can't say I'm a super fan of their default campaign setting, but looked at in narrow view I appreciate a lot of their smaller locations. 

Varisia, fer instance, was the first region presented for their campaign world, even as they were still publishing material for 3.5e, and it's done nothing but grow since then. In fact, it has the advantage of hosting enough adventure paths for multiple campaigns as well as enough material to sandbox there in between. But if I had to pick just one campaign (which I won't) I'd start with their first outing, the Rise of the Runelords. What I won't be doing, though, is finishing that AP, because as much as I really enjoy the first two volumes, it quickly peters off beyond that.

You know what doesn't peter off? The group's second AP, Curse of the Crimson Throne based just up the coast from where Runelords starts. It'd be super-easy to start off with the awesome early adventures of Runelords and then transition over to pick up the back 2/3rds of Crimson Throne. I call it "Rise of the Crimson Throne."

There's even a handy subplot tie-in between the two paths that make a very timely and convenient crossing over point. Add in some of the extra materials since added to the Varisia setting and it'll be a very rich story.


Now if only there was something to be done about the unwieldy bulk of Pathfinder rules...

Well done, Paizo.  The Pathfinder Beginner Box is a brilliant boiling down of the PFRPG rules to its basic core. From there, it's an easy matter to add in those more advanced elements missing from the Beginner Box (like attacks of opportunity or halflings) from the main rules on a case-by-case basis.




While this doesn't exhaust all the fantasy rpg options out there (I'll give honorable mention to Beyond the Wall for it's beautiful character creation aspect), this is the cap on the systems I'm interested in running as a campaign.

...I wanna be a gamer!

Let's talk D&D

In a previous post, I talked a bit about how my lack of a current roleplaying gaming group hasn't slowed down my plans for gaming.  In the years since my last regular group, I've continued to accumulate a large library of gaming material, and, volume-wise, nothing matches my collection of Dungeons & Dragons books.

While I have more complete collections of Shadowrun, Champions and Deadlands (all to be addressed in some future posts), none ever equaled the output of D&D over 30 years, four editions, and two publishing companies.  It's a sad truth that a period of poverty saw me selling a lot of my classic RPG books, but I've since been able to reacquire most of those at least in pdf form.

Despite learning to game with Basic D&D and 2nd Edition, it's 3rd Ed that I have the most experience with and am the most comfortable running.  While I never bought too much into the rules expansions, I was a sucker for adventures and campaign settings, especially through Paizo Publishing's Dungeon Magazine, Necromancer Games' module series, and Sword & Sorcery Studio's Scarred Lands setting.  

But a hobby that stretches across three decades can't be limited to just one edition, and my D&D shelf holds stuff from all versions of the game.  It's hard to say which is my first pick would be, because that feeling changes from time-to-time. So in no particular order, I'll call out some of my favorites.

Age of Worms

Published by Paizo as their second Adventure Path, Age of Worms sees the PCs coming in on the opening chapters of a prophecy which would doom the world and ultimately sees them battling a would-be god.  Although it tried to keep the illusion of setting-neutrality, it's no secret it was written with Greyhawk in mind.  A number of classic Greyhawk locations are highlighted, such as the City of Greyhawk and Great Rift, as well as Greyhawk personalities, like Tenser and Dragotha.  Despite the richness of the setting, though, I fear most of those Easter eggs would be lost on my hypothetical gaming group, because none of the groups I've gamed with have ever been that into the setting.  But what really stands out with this Adventure Path is how well it translates to the Eberron setting.

If you're at all familiar with that world, you'll know that ancient prophecies and globe-trotting adventures are assumed.  While Dungeon Magazine did release some adaptation notes to place the AP in Eberron, I don't necessarily agree with all of them.  For example, they had Kyuss translated as a fiend, whereas I feel he should be a Daelkyr, and they placed their giant fortress up north rather than on Xen'drik (home of the giants).

The only negative to Age of Worms is that it's really only the second best AP published in Dungeon.  The next AP, Savage Tide, is better in every way.  The only reason I'd rather run AoW is that it plays better before ST than after and my fantasy gaming dreams have me running both one right after the other.

The Wizard's Amulet

Necromancer Games came onto the scene in the first few days of 3rd Edition with a freely downloadable 1st-level adventure. It was a very successful gamble on their part as I totally fell for the old-school mentality of their adventure design, as well as the way it placed the PCs as leaders of their own destiny.

See, even in 2nd Edition, published adventures usually placed the PCs as heroes, rescuing villagers and defeating villains.  Here, the party is assembled by one of their own who has a key which will presumably let them into a vacated wizard's tower.  It's just the kind of money-grubbing dungeon delving I love, and Necromancer Games produced those kinds of adventures in spades.

The free download lead directly into the Crucible of Freya, and from there branched into such dungeon delves as Tomb of Abysthor, sandbox adventures like Vault of Larin Karr, and the deadly dungeoncrawl Rappun Athuk.  For as much as I love a campaign metaplot, I also appreciate a product that lets me indulge my players in an open world. I love the idea of placing clues, selling maps and otherwise giving the PCs all the leeway they need to choose which death they'll face.

As for campaign setting, NG's adventures don't exactly puzzle-piece together, but they can be shoved together enough to describe a general region.  On a global scale, their adventures fit almost (but not quite) perfectly in Sword & Sorcery's Scarred Lands setting.  Some adjustments have to be made to one or the other (such as NG's focus on demonic threats, which SL mostly glosses over in favor of titans), but it's worth the time.

Given the chance to run this campaign, I'd definitely place it in the Scarred Lands, somewhere south of Mithril with Larrin Karr's Quail Valley existing in northern Vesh.  From there my players could follow whatever lead they wanted, and NG's library of adventures makes me pretty confident that I'll have something to meet their needs.

Nentir Vale

I waffle a lot on how I feel about 4th Edition D&D.  At times it ranges from my all-time favorite and most playable version down to "too gamey"  But regardless of how I feel about the rules at the moment, the assumed setting of the Nentir Vale, it's implied cosmology and gods, and the adventures set there especially toward the end of the edition's publishing life make it a place I really want to adventure in.

Truth be told, though, any run with 4th Edition would feature a fair number of houserules to take it farther away from gamist homogeneity and give it some old school grit.  I'm going to imagine my pretend gaming group loves those changes.


The Essentials rules releases went a long way toward making 4th Edition something I'd want to play, and the adventures released after that, Reavers of Harkenwold and Madness at Gardmore Abbey, fer instance, are examples of excellent game design in any edition.  Along with some side-quests, these adventures are enough to take the players through the heroic tier of play and establish them as movers and shakers in Nentir Vale's politics.  

The downside is that's sort of where it peters out.  I'd be unhappy if my imaginary players didn't claim Gardmore to rule as the Vale's newest city-state, but 4e has no rules for kingdom management.  And any campaign after that would have to be drawn from other, older published adventures.  The second 2/3 of the Scales of War Adventure Path in Dungeon Magazine could be re-purposed for my newly political PCs, as they unite the Vale to fend off a Githyanki invasion and later battle god-like dragons.  That campaign plan suffers a bit from the lack of a world to place the Vale in (as the scope expands beyond what a single valley can contain), with only the ill-fitting map from a board game to give guidance to what the world looks like.

There's also the possibility of using the 4e Tomb of Horrors campaign to add some spice to the upper level adventuring, but as interesting as those adventures are, I'm not sure how they'll be received by players who have no experience with the actual Tomb.

Return to the Tomb of Horrors

See what I did there?  I just used that title to be cheeky, but the old Tomb of Horrors 2nd Edition boxed set is the end to my ideal old-school campaign which would start with Night Below and pass through Rod of Seven Parts before reaching Asherak's skull hill.

Like most gamers my age, I've been feeling the Old School Urge lately, and pulling out the ol' 2e books again would really scratch that itch.  I have a lot of fond memories of gaming in a time before it was really important that all classes be balanced against each other, and players understood that the thief was most useful out of combat and the magic-user was likely to die. These 2nd Ed. fantasies always include revisits to the boxed sets I mentioned above. The idea is always to start the PCs in the backwoods of Furyondy in the World of Greyhawk setting to delve into the Night Below and then use the Greyhawk Wars timeline as a backdrop for the global quest for the Rod of Seven Parts.  If possible, I'd like to find a way to get the PCs in charge of a barony or something, 'cause I also have the Birthright domain rules standing by for just such an occurrence.

I wonder if there's a way to include Spelljammer or Planescape into this.  Both of those are high points of 2e, but all the published adventures for those settings are comparatively low level, especially since the PCs will be around level 10 by the time they finish Night Below.  

Dark Sun War of the Lance

While we're talking 2nd Edition, let me tell you of an absolute fantasy campaign of mine.

If I asked you to name a setting where the gods abandoned mankind and dragons are just creature's of ancient legend, what would you say?  Most might say "Dragonlance," but a few of you might point to "Dark Sun."

And that's the magic.  Imagine a Dark Sun campaign where the PCs encounter evidence of the gods in the form of metal disks (an unimaginable treasure to start with), and their quest to reclaim clerical magic reveals the return of dragons as draconian armies form to wage war on the region.  I think the War of the Lance would play amazingly with the evocative Dark Sun setting.  I'm not super-familiar enough with either setting or adventures to make an easy conversion, but I think it's something worth doing.

The MEGA-Campaign

As long as we're talking hypothetical campaigns, let me pitch an idea of an uber-campaign. Basically, the idea is to use an "all of the above" option to trace a multi-generational campaign and watch how a campaign setting (in this case, Greyhawk) changes over time.

Here, we'd start with the 2nd Edition campaign described above which will give the players some experience with the Rod of Seven Parts as well as the Tomb of Horrors.  Fifty years later, a new generation of heroes will find themselves in a world more aligned with 3rd Edition rules. Dwarves have learned arcane magic, fer instance, and magic research has uncovered new ways for mortals to craft magic items.  These characters adventure through the Age of Worms path.  After this, another 50 years go by and the world has changed even more.  Empires have fallen, and a war in the heavens has restructured the divine hierarchy of gods.  In the end, the world looks a lot like how presented in 4th Edition D&D.  Running through this campaign will give the players a chance to revisit the Tomb of Horrors among other locations.

We're talking years of gaming life here, but it sounds pretty awesome to me...

Tired of being a wannabe gamer...

Tabletop, pen & paper roleplaying games have been part of my life since I was, like, 12, and I'm still pretty into them, even if my gaming in the past several years has been a bit sparse.  I like to say I'm between gaming groups, but that brings with it the illusion that some day I'll find a new gang to join.  I've been spoiled by a couple rock-solid groups in my life, both during my high school days in Ohio as well as the gang I adventured with up in Seattle.  The closest thing I've come to a gaming group here in San Diego recently moved away before we had a chance to do more than dabble.  (Ironically, they moved to Seattle...=wanh wanh=).

I've attempted some Organized Play events, like Living Forgotten Realms for D&D4e or Pathfinder Society for Pathfinder, but those experiences top out at mediocre and occasionally dipped into uncomfortable. 

Despite not having a regular gaming group, though, I've continued to pursue the hobby and keep up on current releases as much as my budget allows.  I've found that, without the baggage of actually having to play, you can get a lot done in imagining what it'd be like to play and prepping for campaigns that might happen someday.

So if I set the Maybe Machine for a look at my roleplaying ambitions, I see a lot of campaign notes and adventures piling up for that hypothetical someday when I'll have a reliable group again.

I've never really tried at homebrewing campaign settings or adventures and assume that I'd suck at it.   What I do have are a lot of pre-published games rules, settings and adventures which I've been assembling in my mind for future play.  Frankly, I have more potential gaming campaigns in mind than I'd ever have time to run, so now it comes down to imagining which game I'd run if I got the chance.

When I pick this thread up again, I'll try pitching some of my favorite ones.