Khouri's page

Specifically his standalone "Pushing Ice" was awesome.

I've been a Reynolds fan since the first book came out. His characters could be better sometimes, but he has awesome stories. Pushing Ice was very good, but I also really liked Century Rain and the short story Diamond Dogs. That last one.. crazy good, just don't read it before going to sleep.

The debut novel of Andy Weir - The Martian - is supposed to be very good hard sci-fi as well. It's the next book on my reading pile, looking forward to reading it. It's about an astronaut who gets left behind on Mars and his attempts to survive and get home. The research and depth of the novel are reportedly very good, with a strong basis in science.

Just spotted on wiki that it will have a big budget movie adaptation released later this year :o .

I'm digging the combined idea of a noncommital open table approach with short introduction adventures to gauge interest. I think Emerald Spire might be a bit too hard on new players; from what I've gathered it can be quite tough in parts.

Thanks, I'll take a look at the First Steps PFS scenarios and see how things go from there.

Using pre-gens is a good idea, and since all players are new to Pathfinder, starting light is very much needed. I've had good experience with tables of (almost) all new players before and feel confident I could teach them the ropes. I usually keep campaigns light-hearted and would definitely not do heavy, dark themes here.

For my sessions I've been using APs of late to save time; I've never used the short PFS modules before, but they look interesting - definitely taking a close look at them.

As for using a convenient audience: that is partly true. However, quite a few colleagues already have fair amounts of out-of-work interaction with one another (including myself), and years back there was a regular video gaming evening, so there is precedent for something similar. It is part of the reason I'm ruminating on this first, and I'd start with carefully probing interest before formally setting something up.

Since I don't have much opportunity to play RPGs in the weekend currently because my usual group is busy with various real-life things for at least the next few months, I'm toying with the idea of polling my colleagues about their interest in an after work game.

Geeks abound at my workplace (electronics company) - ours is a fairly small company with a flat hierarchy, no strict boss-employee relations and contact with my colleagues is very social and familiar. I know of at least one colleague with past RPG experience; others have passing familiarity through me. So, before I turn my toy idea into gauging the interest of my peers, I'd like to know what to expect, thus I turn to you:

What I'm looking for is some general experience / tips of others. What has been your experiences in hosting after-work games? What are specific do's, don'ts, or just things to keep in mind?

I myself have a fair amount of GM experience, lots of player experience, and expect to have space in my agenda for the required preptime.

So many good options for APs! Iron Gods or Reign of Winter would be an instant-order for me..
Ah well, anticipation is part of the fun (he says, gritting his teeth with impatience).

I remember saving up and buying a GameBoy with Tetris back in the day.. still have it, still works - I fire it up now and again to check :).

Also - turn based / play-by-email games.. played a lot of 'Stars!' back in the 90s. But alas, what with all those MMOs out there, turn-based multi-player games seem to have mostly gone the way of the dodo..