Special Minion's page

Forgive me if this is rantish. I do not like organized play. I also do not like high-pressure salesmen. Let me lay out my feelings so you have some idea of where I'm coming from:

Organized Play services "Tournament Style Play" mentality, and will eventually lead there regardless of intent. It is hyper-competitive and Legalistic. It must be so in order to maintain consistency across tables. To do so you need to write rules as statute, hamper GM judgment, and structure adventures within a fixed time frame, which ends up channeling down social and spatial interaction.

This leads to combat dominance, which leads to everyone wanting a piece of the limelight, which leads to more combat widgets, which then eats more time, which in turn leads to social & exploration elements further channeled due to greater time constraints upon modules, and hyper-competitiveness wanting the end goodies to complete their builds.

Ultimately the players are turned into a group of rules lawyers and turns GMs into nothing but a referee and scripted narrator who tragically lose sight of what's important about tabletop RPGs; it's not a competition, it's about telling a story (I don't care what Society says about its self, when you get to my age you can spot bullcrap a mile away).

With that in mind, imagine how I felt when the owner of a local game shop contacted me and asked me to cancel my private home game on Saturday so the Paizo rep could have players to run organized play while he (the owner) charges the players $4 each to play. Naturally, I brought the idea to my players and told them they are free to do as they please with no hard feelings. Thankfully, I have loyal players (a couple of whom were equally if not more offended) and my Saturday game lives on.

Now I am left with questions; Is this the kind of behavior Paizo expects from it's Representatives? Do they ask their retailers to do the same? How could they honestly expect a group of casual players cancel what they do in their private lives to accommodate the desires of the business?

The whole experience really makes me want to dump Pathfinder as our go-to game as soon as Pathfinder 2 starts up and just play 5th Edition (I realize WotC has organized play, too but I'm yet to be asked to cancel my private game because they need players to show up).

We are looking to get a possible group fleshed out in Lake County. Right now there are 4 of us (Zach, Rachel, Rich, and DJ) trying to get together every other weekend (Saturdays mostly) but one of us may drop out after a little while depending on availability. We are adults and recognizing the challenges of gaming in adulthood, don't expect everyone to make it all the time. However, we do like pretty regular commitments of at least 4-6 hours and some flexibility on exact weekend days (if you're only swinging around once every couple months for a couple hours, it ain't gonna work). I believe we're going to start aiming for evenings, but we've started plenty of games in afternoons or even late mornings.

We are all in our mid 20's to early 30's; Rachel and Rich are newish to RPGs in general and DJ and I (Zach) are old veterans. For now, two of us have GMing covered running some pre-mades or homebrew door-kicking but we're not opposed to let someone else sit in the padded GM's Chair (rolly office chair) eventually. We're also open to the idea of a longer campaign in the future so long as the group is pretty cohesive.

We're looking for one or two players to round out the party in a 5th Edition game, though some Pathfinder is an option later. My wife and I host at our house in our large game room. We live in the Rivera between Kelseyville and Lower Lake (about 20-30 minutes from Lakeport, Clearlake, Middletown, and Cobb).

Need to Knows:
1. Dogs. This house has two very friendly dogs (one big, one small). We can usually put them away if they're too excited about guests, but be aware they exist.
2. There WILL be Drinking (and Outside Smoking). Nothing excessive, mind you. But one or more of us will usually have an open beer or glass of wine at all times. We always buy (or make) good beer and are always sure to provide enough for everyone. Contributions are welcome but never required.
3. Blasphemous Profanity, Dirty Jokes, and Liberal Agendas. This really shouldn't have to be mentioned, but my optimism has failed me before; If you can't handle "Cards Against Humanity" then this group probably isn't for you.
4. I forgot the 4th one. It'll come to me later.
5. We Don't Like Change. We're not looking to tryout other systems just yet; we just picked up 5th Edition like a month ago and still feel like we haven't gotten our money's worth out of Pathfinder. Maybe later.

If we sound like a group of people you'd like to game with, let me know and we can set up a time to meet, chat, and play. Just send me an e-mail; I check it multiple times a day but have been known go a couple days before replying. roccia_nera@fastmail.fm

Also worth noting: we have a mildly extensive tabletop game collection and have been known to host "Board Game Nights" now and then which include food, a little more drinking than usual, and later nights.

So it's that time of year and I'm thinking about gifts for my players based on their characters. Mostly it's going well; I bought an "Affordable Cleric Act" shirt and some butterfly-themed trinkets for the cleric of Desna. The fighter and devout follower of Cayden Cailean is getting a hand-made pewter stein. The rouge is getting a set of beginner's lockpicks (he expressed an interest in learning). And the dragon-blood sorcerer is getting a dragon-themed flask.

But I am drawing a blank for the half-elf druid. She follows The Green Faith and named her a character a varient of "Yggdrasil" (roughly the world tree in Norse mythology). I'm thinking something Green Man or "holy tree" themed but I can figure out a precise item. Jewelry is out, blank journals are out, and flasks/steins/mugs are out, too. I also prefer to get her something somewhat functional as I don't think she has much use for a small tree sculpture.

So, help me internet! What gift ideas do you guys have for our druid?

Currently I'm hosting a Rise of the Runelords game in Santa Rosa, Ca. The game does not meet as often as I would like so I'm just putting out some feelers to see if anyone in the Sonoma County area might be interested in joining a Pathfinder game that I would run when the other game doesn't (with reasonable notice, of course).

I have two or three spots open and currently don't have much planned so I'm open to ideas. I am happy running premades but can also do a homebrew.

I'm a decent GM but I'm nothing special. I mostly started because no one else wanted to. So if someone reading this would rather GM a game I'd love to be a PC. My fiancé also plays and as gaming is how we like to spend our time together, we come as a package deal.

You can contact me here: roccia_nera@fastmail.fm.