RPGaDay 02 "My First Game Mastering Experience."

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Times had been tough after leaving Florida (The worst state ever). The new marriage didn't work out too well for either party involved so I packed up all my things and watched the moving company guys drive away with all my possessions. Among those items were my white box D&D set (with dice and elf inside) and the guitar my step dad gave me when he started teaching me how to play.  I hadn't made many friends in my time in hells taint, not a lot of kids around and those that were didn’t seem interested in much more than catching bugs and squishing them. Not my cup of tea.

So at the ripe old age of 10 I said my last goodbyes to my step dad and rolled out. Michigan was our destination. After a long and unpleasant drive we'd arrived in the district of crappy breakfast cereals and dilapidated sanitariums, our things however were laying on the bottom of some nameless river between point A and point B, gone forever. This place we'd found ourselves in had a much more suitable climate but it was a gamer purgatory. There were no comic shops, no game stores, nothing but fucking corn flakes and rural pharmacies. Thankfully we didn't stay too long.

A few moves and many moons later I would end up in Norman Oklahoma. Up to this point I hadn't stayed in one place long enough to finish out a school year, much less make any friends. I spent the majority of 8^th grade (first pass) either keeping to myself or hanging out with the few proto-stoner metal heads there were. I always ate my lunch alone though and one day I noticed some (fellow) geeks off in the corner rolling dice. I kept my eye on those guys for a while, but, they ended up becoming my first gaming group. I had a ton of good times with those guys, played a lot of games with them. We had our fair share of drama as well, but overall, it was more good times than bad.

I had discovered a great comic shop and game store, where I started reading comics again. I’d been to war with Easy Company, witnessed the death of Barry Allen and I'd met a British Con man with a bad cigarette habit. I even saved up some cash and bought my first game book. (That’s a story for tomorrow). 

I'd end up buying a lot of games but it wasn't until I came across Cyberpunk The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future sitting on the “Just In” shelf at my local game shop that I felt comfortable running anything. I'd always liked sci fi stuff more than fantasy but I disliked Traveller (Heresy!) My friend Scott and I found one other guy  to play and we started a plotline that would last all through High School and eventually outlast those friendships to be resurrected under the guise of my current Eclipse Phase game. 

A post publish note about this.

Cyberpunk wasn't really my first attempt at running a game, there were a few half assed attempts at Traveller, Role Master and M.E.R.P.. I even had a try at just running a quick modern game without books, made up extemporaneously, they all failed, badly. It wasn't until Cyberpunk came along that I really understood and truly mastered a game.