Once upon a time in Los Angeles

The “street” I was born on in Venice.

The world seemed like a very different place when I started a humble little underachieving gaming blog around 10 years ago. At least my world. I was working in entertainment industry finance and management (occasionally going to parties and events of household-name celebrity clients), involved in world music and Renaissance Faires, and GMing games for the longest running group I had ever had. I was doing so many things writing a blog was not a priority by any means. But I loved to talk and write about things I loved, and there was this OSR thing going on, and I had a group to run for after years off from the hobby, bringing back great memories for me of early days gaming. Decades of great groups running my favorite games. D&D, Cthulhu, Champions, even some Runequest. It was unfortunate that often times the memories of games of yore were much better than that games of now, but I'm sure that's a common condition of long timers in the hobby. When in doubt, recapture. Bask in nostalgia. 

My attempts back then at getting out of my private groups comfort zone and into the gaming community certainly had its ups and downs, with some especially bad downs. For my own blog writing I decided to go with a sort of Howard Stern "tell it like it is" mentality which didn't serve it all that well (even Stern has stopped being Stern and looks critically now at his own public persona behavior in the past). It was a reactionary style to be sure. But it seemed a way to go since I saw so much negativity in the old school online scene already. I mean, one of the first statements I read about the so called OSR when I looked at it online was "old schoolers are too busy bayoneting their own wounded..." 

That was certainly true.

RPG scene in-infighting. "Shit Wars." It didn't take long for it to make sense (or maybe it never really did). 

 It soon started to feel like I was doing more of some kind of Andy Kaufman-based gaming performance art than just talking about things game related, and I was getting negative attention when in reality I didn't really want much in the way of any kind of attention. Fuck. Just wanted to talk games with other old schoolers. But it was way beyond the simple pleasures more often than not. It often seemed like war. 

 I eventually quit the blog and the seeking of games outside my group, and for RPG's I just settled into running for my occasionally evolving group at our hosts house in the beach community of Santa Monica. You know, the play is the thing. Blogging in the OSR may start out nobly just an urge to share ideas and tell tales, but it easily just turns into a vanity project. And I was just a long time gamer. I had nothing else to be vane about. No big following, no products to shill for beer money.

 Just play the damn games.

Life went on, but I slowly realized I no longer wanted to live in the city I was born in and once loved. It dawned on me that I needed change in my life. Frank Herbert said "the sleeper must awaken."

 I had grown complacent despite being dissatisfied where I lived (a city seemingly on the verge of apocalypse; already in a state of dystopia).   I was a weekend hedonist; a lover of parties, world music, top shelf potables, and intoxicants of a mild variety. A confirmed bachelor and off and on wanna be playboy. A big city lights and beach life party boy, a Ren Faire/Burning Man world citizen semi-hippy.  But I started to crave a slightly less candle-at-both-ends life. A change.

The city I lived in, the neighborhood I was born in and lived in (now a jungle of tent cities on every street corner), the job I had for years, the people I was gaming with. A slowly growing dissatisfaction. So since I was a bachelor with no kids, and had great savings and some property investments, I had the ability to leave that job and spend time casually trying to improve myself and decide what I wanted to do next. 

My old neighborhood where I grew up currently. In the 90's most of the show Baywatch was filmed in a 6 block radius right here. Go watch the old David Lee Roth video California Girls (also filmed here) for what people have in their mind when they are on their way here. 

What I did was move out of Southern California. I decided to change everything. I moved away from the beaches and into a mountain/river community in the Northwest. Now I live in a small city. I now live across the street from a rustic park and a part of the river that is a protected bio-sphere. During fall and winter flocks of geese and ducks come to the area for months and are hanging out everywhere. Sitting in my garden looking at me like "what you gonna do about it?" I love the little bastards. I love living where you get a bit of snow. I love being away from a big crowded city  where it never rains to wash away the hubris and pee smell. 

N

The area is great for biking and hiking, and thanks in large part to that, and finally living somewhere fairly quiet and peaceful where I could get restful sleep (when I left LA I was living on the busiest street in the city), I'd lost around 40 lbs. (weight gained years before after an auto related back injury) over a year without taking any extreme measures . My time in a local gym continued the process of getting much more healthy. Discovering new things like wall climbing and battle ropes has been life changing.  A few months into my gym habit the owners named me member of the month and gave me a plaque, putting me on the wall of fame.  I feel 10 years young. 

 I have to be honest, it took me months to get used to sleeping without traffic and emergency vehicle sirens surrounding my senses. The loudest thing at night is the passenger train on the other side of the river, coming down from the mountain pass, and that is more lulling than loud. In winter as you doze off you can imagine it coming down from the mountains covered in snow. I love it. I don't know that I'll live here the rest of my life, but for now its great. 

a favored fishing or just sitting spot right across the street from my house. Yeah, about a 200 yard stroll away. 
#brandywineriveriscallingme

I got a great job, again, different. Instead of working for private firms enriching a select few Individuals, I was now working for a large not for profit health organization. Another needed change. Doing some good. 

I made some friends in town who helped me get a D&D group together. Yep, 5th edition, another change. Easier to get players for. I'll write soon about my transition to that, though I will always hold on to an old school perspective.

My local besties who helped me get a group going for D&D, and also got me boardgaming like crazy. Talisman, Dead of Winter, etc.  Every D&D game I ran they would bring a sixer of expensive beer for me even when I told them they are way too generous. Man, all players should be more like these fine folks. Players who act like I'm something valuable rather than working for them and catering to their needs as a DM. Talk about change!

Well, then all this virus/helter skelter stuff. Again, big changes. But this seemingly negative change begat new things. I've started playing friends for the first time online with my XBOX Live. But even bigger than that I finally got into Roll D20 and have a great online group to do D&D with during these end of times. A whole new world. Loving it.

In hobbit cottages awaiting a spider attack

But talk about changes In the old school gaming scene. As mentioned my style of blogging lead to some negativity, but there was a ton of negativity online in relation to gaming at the time. But really nothing compared to that of the OSR the last few years. Negativity and argy bargy online? You can have your "OSR shitwars." 

With being settled into a happier and more satisfying life-space I've decided to come back to my old blog to talk about some of these gaming changes in my life. Not that I or anyone else needs it so much, but I was recently inspired to start blogging about my old comic collection just for shits and giggles and I thought what the heck, why not drop in here from time to time to document my changes and ideas in gaming. And if you (or anybody) actually reads this, maybe you'll have some comments about your changes or whatever. I have no desire to sell anything. I have a career and investments to make money in. Though it is nice to share some gaming ideas, my scenarios are for my players and that is all the attention I need from my game prep. But it can be fun to put your gaming ideas out there, if only for yourself. A blog can be a way to get in touch with your own personal gaming id. Moments of reflection.  Do it for yourself. That's my main motivation. So here I am again for however long it is fun to do.

And gaming goes on. 

Cheers,

Mac