Jeremy Mac Donald's page

About Jeremy Mac Donald

D&D History
I started gaming at eight in 1981. A friend had acquired the red box and we started playing with that. My mother was extremely supportive of my D&D hobby as I hated reading and would refuse to do so this was significantly effecting my school performance until the day I got into D&D. All of a sudden I wanted to read these books and was desperate to play. For many years afterward if I wanted a D&D book it just showed up - a big deal considering how poor we were at the time (both parents putting themselves through university).

My initial games where with a group of friends, mostly girls as I tended to find it easier to make friends with them, This first group lasted for a number of years but the young ladies eventually discovered boys when we were all around 11 and abandoned gaming leaving me without a group to play with.

My second group was formed when I was 13 and this group was mostly geeky guys as I had gone from being very comfortable around girls to very awkward around them. Romance would once again destroy this game when we were all around 17 as we suddenly found themselves in serous relationships that demanded significant amounts of time. While I was always willing to work over this sort of thing most of my players were not.

I ran a couple of smaller campaigns of about a year long each in my 20's while I attended University. The games would tend to break apart becuase university life is such that things can be pretty laid back and then shift overnight into a state of near constant work. After the second of these games collapsed gaming tended to switch to none role playing systems such as car wars and Necromunda.

In my early 30s I picked up the game again and this time things seem to be different. I'm suddenly not concerned my group will collapse as there are tons of potential players out there. I'm turning a player away from my table on at least a monthly basis as I don't want to run games for more then 6 players and I already have 7. It would seem that I can run games now for as long as I am interested as there are always more players to replace those that drop out of the game. My only problem is that my players are constantly getting married so we keep having to put the game on hold while we attend weddings. I figure next I'll have problems with players 'cause their getting themselves or their significant others pregnant but I could fairly easily replace players who simply could not game due to a new baby and expect this game to continue.

Other Facts About Me
My degree is in Psychology and I'm currently a social worker in the mental health field though I'm pretty much just starting this as career as I've spent most of the lest decade as a partner in an environmental bookstore that we finally shut down in early 2011.

I was a big wargamer in my youth but these days I generally limit my wargaming to Computer wargames. D&D has put a major crimp into my wargaming activities as I'm the kind of DM that can spend 20 hours a week on my D&D game and I spend a large chunk of the rest of my free time hanging out on these boards.