Game On!

(You can't resist reading this article. It has a picture of Felicia Day!)

Sorry I haven't been posting much as of late. I will say that I have an excuse: I've been gaming! It's true; a local con and then weekend gaming at the FLGS occupied Saturdays, and it was glorious. I've also wound up playing in a group on Sundays, as well, and it's fantastic. And all of this gaming, it brought me to a sudden, fresh perspective.

A Breath of Fresh Air
I hadn't really touched roleplaying games in a while, quite honestly. So it was a pretty fantastic grounding experience. I got to play a session of Leverage at Geek.Kon, and I was truly blown away by just how much fun it was to sit down and game with geeks, playing a fast, fluid, novel system. We had a great time. And that's when I realized: I'd really missed being at the table.

Later that night, I was sorta meandering around the con, and I got pulled into a group of geeks who were about to start playing The Resistance, which is like Mafia/Werewolf, but 100 times better. We spent a good portion of the night playing many rounds of it, and getting to know one another as geeks. I went from being the suspiciously silent one to...er...the no longer suspicious but still moderately quiet one. XD In sum-up, though, getting snagged by that group was one of the best things to happen to me at the con. I can't wait to try and find those gamers next year.

It's Not the Rules...Not Always
The second part of my lesson comes on Sundays. I'm playing a 4th level 3.5 D&D campaign. Those of you who know me know that this is a big deal, because I utterly despise 3.5 for various reasons. (I won't get into it here, but if you're really curious, you can get a decent idea of my reasons by Googling "d&d 3.5 tier system".) As of the last session, we burned down a town hall to annihilate a vampire, and previously we blasted a black dragon, who during the fight took my dragonslaying nun (she's from an order of dragonslaying nuns, by the by) down to negative HP.

That's when I realized: different rulesets are good, bad, innovative...all over the place. There are those games which make a story and session awesome, and those games which make it a slog. But they're not the only ingredient. This group of players has been fantastic. We don't try to squeeze advantage out of the rules, and the GM's not trying to lay the smack down with rules. We're not trying to break it, we're trying to take the rules and do crazy fun stuff with them.

And we're gaming. And it's awesome.

That was when I learned that with the right group of people, it doesn't have to matter what you play; it just matters what you're playing.

*Disclaimer:Unless it's FATAL, but we are not going to go there.