DM moving to the U.S.


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Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Krensky wrote:

Well, in fairness, Reebo's coming from Australia, so they're used to decades long droughts.

They may be traumatised by precipitation in wetter parts of the country.

Actually I've always liked Seattle too, despite the rain. After all our hobby is the best rainy day hobby ever right?


The rain is a front to keep people from moving there, it doesn't rain nearly as much as they complain about, I lived there 5 years and still would but we had a kid with no family within 2,000 miles:-)

Seattle is great, even in the winter.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Krensky wrote:

NYC is a festering hell mouth.

I hate to be a downer, but I'd probably be focusing more on lining up a potential job or three before worrying about finding a gaming group. I mean, sure, considering the local gaming community once you have an idea where you'll be able to find work is fine, but the other way around seems sort of backwards.

Thanks for the advice Krensky, I planned to focus on work first because that's just common sense.

As for how hard it to find a great gaming group, I've had two in my 25+ years. I've sat at other gaming tables with some of the worst players and DMs you can imagine. I'm almost more concerned about finding a decent group than a job! lol (just kidding)

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
LazarX wrote:
Reebo Kesh wrote:
Next February I'm moving to the U.S.

Did they warn you about the ebola?

But you need to be more specific about your questions. Such as what kind of work you're looking for. And your preferred environment. And yes, generally the better places are going to be rather painful in rents.

I live in the Hudson County, NJ area, one walk and a Path ride to the City.

I'm not a fan of bowling anyway ;-)

What's the rent/property prices like in Hudson County if I may ask LazarX?

Will I run into Vinnie, Pauly and the Situation?

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
captain yesterday wrote:

The rain is a front to keep people from moving there, it doesn't rain nearly as much as they complain about, I lived there 5 years and still would but we had a kid with no family within 2,000 miles:-)

Seattle is great, even in the winter.

Thanks captain yesterday, Seattle is No 2 on my list.

Followed by San Fran, Chicago, DC and Philly.

Seriously you have 50 States to choose from! We have 1, ok maybe 2 if you count Melbourne.


Seattle weather

Mid April until Mid October 70-80 degrees, sunny 4-5 days a week, rains 5-6 times.

Mid October until Mid April 45-60 degrees, cloudy 4-6 days a week, rains or lightly mists 1-3 of those, nearly all of October is foggy all day below 500 feet (downtown Seattle). Snows 3-5 times a year tops, more then an inch at a time is a rarity that will paralyze the entire city.


Reebo Kesh wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:

The rain is a front to keep people from moving there, it doesn't rain nearly as much as they complain about, I lived there 5 years and still would but we had a kid with no family within 2,000 miles:-)

Seattle is great, even in the winter.

Thanks captain yesterday, Seattle is No 2 on my list.

Followed by San Fran, Chicago, DC and Philly.

Seriously you have 50 States to choose from! We have 1, ok maybe 2 if you count Melbourne.

Nobody counts Melbourne. :-D

Shadow Lodge

We live an hour from Origins and 90 minutes from Gen Con here in Dayton Ohio. Its just plain hard to beat that.


GreyWolfLord wrote:

Atlanta Georgia has a decent size gaming group, but you also seem to have many who are actually rather anti-gamer as well (an oddity, but there are those who still equate RPGs with Devil worship that I've actually run into). It IS FAR cheaper than NYC or SF.

Not a lot of anti-gamer sentiment anymore, at least inside the bubble of civilization around Atlanta (especially compared to the 1980's or 1990's).

This does bring up another point, however, wherever you go, you may want to check on the culture of the area you are moving to in order to make sure it isn't too different from what you might be comfortable around.

-TimD

Shadow Lodge

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Reebo Kesh wrote:
Seriously you have 50 States to choose from! We have 1, ok maybe 2 if you count Melbourne.

Well... A good 30 of them no one ever really considers.

But yes, if you're looking for the highly-educated-big-city vibe, then the top choices would be SF Bay Area, Seattle, DC, NYC, Boston.


InVinoVeritas wrote:
If you're looking for the highly-educated-big-city vibe, then the top choices would be SF Bay Area, Seattle, DC, NYC, Boston.

Agree with Frisco and Boston, but I'd add Atlanta and Houston. Just because they're in redneck states doesn't mean they're not vibrant cities.

But, again, the city is less important than the job waiting there. I'd much rather be employed in Fayetteville, AK, than unemployed in any of the "cool" places like Seattle, Portland, or Austin.

Dark Archive

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GreyWolfLord wrote:
New York City has it's fair share of gaming, but not quite as open or nice as San Francisco. It's also up there in price, but probably easier to find a place that's slightly cheaper than San Francisco.

To be fair, there are places in New York city as nice and open as San Francisco.

In Central Park alone, thousands can watch free concerts ranging from Opera to Beyoncé.

There are very few places in the world that have as many models walking around the street like New York, case in point, the Victoria Secrets show was last night.

And we have the best public transport in North America, and you can game with gamers of every stripe, and visit a million restaurants and bars, and meet every possible ethnicity in the world, which can be found within the five boroughs.

We have NY Comic Con, now the largest Comic con.

And you can get a great one bedroom luxury apartment with doormen for under $36K a year, which is cheaper than a $90K studio in San Francisco.

:)

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I live in Pittsburgh, and it's very very nice here. Very educated city with a large number of universities, good employment opportunities, a burgeoning startup culture, and the cost of living is fantastic. The cultural amenities are great! Excellent zoo, orchestra, theater, etc. We've got a pretty good PFS crowd as well, although it's certainly no Seattle. Also: no natural disasters, and we aren't running out of water.

Other cities I have visited and liked, or heard very good things about: Madison, Wisconsin (very nice, but a bit chilly at times). Austin, Texas. (Also a growing tech hub, and generally a nice city to be in.) Portland, of course.

Bigger cities are nice but have their own problems. Rents get absurd and I cannot imagine paying rent in a Seattle or a San Francisco.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

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baron arem heshvaun wrote:

And you can get a great one bedroom luxury apartment with doormen for under $36K a year, which is cheaper than a $90K studio.

:)

$36k? Where I live, I could buy a small house with a yard for that much. It might even come with some chickens.


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RainyDayNinja wrote:
baron arem heshvaun wrote:

And you can get a great one bedroom luxury apartment with doormen for under $36K a year, which is cheaper than a $90K studio.

:)

$36k? Where I live, I could buy a small house with a yard for that much. It might even come with some chickens.

$36k is more than I make in a year, even with overtime. Good bloody grief.

Dark Archive

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RainyDayNinja wrote:
$36k? Where I live, I could buy a small house with a yard for that much. It might even come with some chickens.

Rebuttal #1 We were discussing NY and SF prices, not some, I am sure, very lovey and pleasantly happy chicken ranch.

Rebuttal #2 A photo I took, that could only happen in New York, we may not have chickens but we abide.


baron arem heshvaun wrote:
RainyDayNinja wrote:
$36k? Where I live, I could buy a small house with a yard for that much. It might even come with some chickens.

Rebuttal #1 We were discussing NY and SF prices, not some, I am sure, very lovey and pleasantly happy chicken ranch.

Rebuttal #2 A photo I took, that could only happen in New York, we may not have chickens but we abide.

How often do you get invited to those parties?

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Usual Suspect wrote:
We live an hour from Origins and 90 minutes from Gen Con here in Dayton Ohio. Its just plain hard to beat that.

Well except that it's Dayton... :P

Besides we need more GMs in Columbus. Unfortunately all the stores seem to be on the west side, and I just don't have the time/resources to organize at stores like Packrat or Guardtower. Heck I'm trying to find people to start PFS in Newark. :-)

Dark Archive

Irontruth wrote:
How often do you get invited to those parties?

In this case it was work, they did their party at Tao, and their after party at Avenue, both places owned and operated by my work.

Dark Archive

Matthew Morris wrote:
Heck I'm trying to find people to start PFS in Newark.

Come to Manhattan to game Matthew!

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

baron arem heshvaun wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
Heck I'm trying to find people to start PFS in Newark.
Come to Manhattan to game Matthew!

Newark, Ohio... I know of at least two game stores, and Newark would allow us to recruit Zanesville players too. (both towns have small colleges)

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Fake Healer wrote:

I live in Central Florida in Celebration (30 mins from Orlando, 15 mins from Disney) and when I first got here there was no real gaming community and it was hard to find games. I found one 45 mins away and decided to start looking more locally and started a RPG/Boardgame club for our town with 2 other guys I found in town. We now have 3 different groups running games and roughly 22 regulars in town who attend those groups.

That reminds me, I need to see what Orlando has going on next week. Going to be in town 18th-20th...


baron arem heshvaun wrote:
Irontruth wrote:
How often do you get invited to those parties?
In this case it was work, they did their party at Tao, and their after party at Avenue, both places owned and operated by my work.

Tell you what, why don't you step into my 10'x10' "office" and you can tell me all about any future job openings at your brai... position.

Liberty's Edge

InVinoVeritas wrote:
Reebo Kesh wrote:
Seriously you have 50 States to choose from! We have 1, ok maybe 2 if you count Melbourne.

Well... A good 30 of them no one ever really considers.

But yes, if you're looking for the highly-educated-big-city vibe, then the top choices would be SF Bay Area, Seattle, DC, NYC, Boston.

Philadelphia.


Terminalmancer wrote:
I live in Pittsburgh, and it's very very nice here. Very educated city with a large number of universities, good employment opportunities, a burgeoning startup culture, and the cost of living is fantastic. The cultural amenities are great! Excellent zoo, orchestra, theater, etc.

I can attest that Pittsburgh is a great place to live, if and only if you live inside the tunnels and don't ever need to leave the city proper, for any reason. (And if you don't ever want to buy liquor or groceries.) But given the near-total lack of usable roads or other viable transportation modes, and (as one of my co-workers there put it) the "steep cultural gradient" as one heads away from the city center, I can attest firsthand that living just outside of Pittsburgh can overall be a hellish experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Liberty's Edge

Which is why you want to live in Philly, not Pittsburgh.

While better then Pennsytucky, I still wouldn't wish it on even a New Yorker.


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Matthew Morris wrote:
baron arem heshvaun wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
Heck I'm trying to find people to start PFS in Newark.
Come to Manhattan to game Matthew!
Newark, Ohio... I know of at least two game stores, and Newark would allow us to recruit Zanesville players too. (both towns have small colleges)

the offer still stands.


Krensky wrote:
Which is why you want to live in Philly, not Pittsburgh.

That, and the fact that Yards Brewing is in Philly.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice guys.

I will post again when I finally settled down in whichever city and hope to find a new group who needs a full time DM.

See you soon!
Reebo

Shadow Lodge

Matthew Morris wrote:
Usual Suspect wrote:
We live an hour from Origins and 90 minutes from Gen Con here in Dayton Ohio. Its just plain hard to beat that.

Well except that it's Dayton... :P

Besides we need more GMs in Columbus. Unfortunately all the stores seem to be on the west side, and I just don't have the time/resources to organize at stores like Packrat or Guardtower. Heck I'm trying to find people to start PFS in Newark. :-)

Shush you!


baron arem heshvaun wrote:
GreyWolfLord wrote:
New York City has it's fair share of gaming, but not quite as open or nice as San Francisco. It's also up there in price, but probably easier to find a place that's slightly cheaper than San Francisco.

To be fair, there are places in New York city as nice and open as San Francisco.

In Central Park alone, thousands can watch free concerts ranging from Opera to Beyoncé.

There are very few places in the world that have as many models walking around the street like New York, case in point, the Victoria Secrets show was last night.

And we have the best public transport in North America, and you can game with gamers of every stripe, and visit a million restaurants and bars, and meet every possible ethnicity in the world, which can be found within the five boroughs.

We have NY Comic Con, now the largest Comic con.

And you can get a great one bedroom luxury apartment with doormen for under $36K a year, which is cheaper than a $90K studio in San Francisco.

:)

Don't get me wrong, I do love NYC. It's a great place. And as you aptly pointed out, it is FAR cheaper in NYC than San Fran.

I love the weather and culture in San Fran just a wee bit more though. I'll be there over the Winter Holidays, and I expect I can even go to the beach and swim without having fear of freezing to death! For example.

Shadow Lodge

GreyWolfLord wrote:


I love the weather and culture in San Fran just a wee bit more though. I'll be there over the Winter Holidays, and I expect I can even go to the beach and swim without having fear of freezing to death! For example.

Eh, the California Current is a cold water current--that water comes from Alaska, unlike the Caribbean waters of the Gulf Stream off the east coast. It's why wet suits are a thing for Californian surfers. It's also why rain in California is cold and never warm.

But yeah, the set point of temperature is much higher in general.


Boston, Massachusetts.

My favorite city in the USA.

I'd move back there in a heartbeat if I could!


I LOVE Boston... from May through October or so.


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The Twin Cities are great, and, if you live and work downtown Minneapolis, you can avoid going outside in the winter if you don't like the cold!


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I cannot suggest moving to the Cleveland area. It's only useful if you're looking for a sadistic combination of motivation to leave combined with lack of opportunity to do so.

Liberty's Edge

Really, I always heard Cleveland referred to as being a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit.

The Exchange

1 person marked this as a favorite.
InVinoVeritas wrote:
GreyWolfLord wrote:


I love the weather and culture in San Fran just a wee bit more though. I'll be there over the Winter Holidays, and I expect I can even go to the beach and swim without having fear of freezing to death! For example.

Eh, the California Current is a cold water current--that water comes from Alaska, unlike the Caribbean waters of the Gulf Stream off the east coast. It's why wet suits are a thing for Californian surfers. It's also why rain in California is cold and never warm.

But yeah, the set point of temperature is much higher in general.

Not quite true. SoCal got the remains of the hurricane Patricia that hit Mexico, and we expect to get a strong El Nino this year, which means potentially more warm rain and sharks in San Francisco bay. So we do get warm rain, it just fluctuates on the Southern Oscillation. It also isn't the greatest here in SoCal because it won't likely contribute to snow, which we need more than rain.

Stay thirsty, my friends!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Usual Suspect wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
Usual Suspect wrote:
We live an hour from Origins and 90 minutes from Gen Con here in Dayton Ohio. Its just plain hard to beat that.
Well except that it's Dayton... :P
Shush you!

Well, he's not WRONG...


Live in Los Angeles once, but leave before it makes you soft

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard

... and also my vote is for the Twin Cities in Minneapolis too.

Dark Archive

By that logic I need to move back to LA for 15 years to even myself out.

I'm not sure I can dye my hair blonde again.


baron arem heshvaun wrote:

By that logic I need to move back to LA for 15 years to even myself out.

I'm not sure I can dye my hair blonde again.

you....blonde?!

Oh man.

Shadow Lodge

baron arem heshvaun wrote:

By that logic I need to move back to LA for 15 years to even myself out.

I'm not sure I can dye my hair blonde again.

You have hair, so no sympathy.

And I like the Dayton area, but that's probably because I work on the Air Base and don't have to put up with the local job market. Hey, are you an engineer or a med tech? Cause the Air Force always has engineer and med tech jobs for civilians around here.

Dark Archive

Freehold DM wrote:

you....blonde?!

Oh man.

I failed my Will save.

I am better now.

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

UPDATE: Looks like my first port of call will be San Antonio, Texas and I may be staying there for several months. Would love to DM for a group who's DM wants to take a break. May even stay there.

Anyone from San Antonio?

Silver Crusade

Reebo Kesh wrote:

UPDATE: Looks like my first port of call will be San Antonio, Texas and I may be staying there for several months. Would love to DM for a group who's DM wants to take a break. May even stay there.

Anyone from San Antonio?

(raises hand) Do you know what part of San Antonio you're going to be in?

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Phylotus wrote:
Reebo Kesh wrote:

UPDATE: Looks like my first port of call will be San Antonio, Texas and I may be staying there for several months. Would love to DM for a group who's DM wants to take a break. May even stay there.

Anyone from San Antonio?

(raises hand) Do you know what part of San Antonio you're going to be in?

I'm not familiar with your suburbs but where I am staying isn't far from the San Antonio Airport, like 10 min drive. Near Silverhorn Golf Club, does that help?

Silver Crusade

Reebo Kesh wrote:


I'm not familiar with your suburbs but where I am staying isn't far from the San Antonio Airport, like 10 min drive. Near Silverhorn Golf Club, does that help?

Yes it does :-) You'd be about 35 minutes from where I am currently. In the time that I've lived here, I haven't found much Pathfinder (PFS or otherwise) in the area, except for at a store called Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy. They do PFS alternating Thursdays and Saturdays, but I haven't been able to make it out there as of yet. As for other games, D&D 5E seems to be more popular around the area than Pathfinder, and I haven't found much for other types of RPGs, but that doesn't mean they don't exist (I haven't looked incredibly hard for them). Miniatures games like Warhammer and Warmachine seem to be the most popular.

I'd be interested in helping you try to set up a local group, as I have been craving more face-to-face interaction (my regular group is spread across the US, so we use roll20 and Google hangouts to play).

Scarab Sages

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Phylotus wrote:
Reebo Kesh wrote:


I'm not familiar with your suburbs but where I am staying isn't far from the San Antonio Airport, like 10 min drive. Near Silverhorn Golf Club, does that help?

Yes it does :-) You'd be about 35 minutes from where I am currently. In the time that I've lived here, I haven't found much Pathfinder (PFS or otherwise) in the area, except for at a store called Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy. They do PFS alternating Thursdays and Saturdays, but I haven't been able to make it out there as of yet. As for other games, D&D 5E seems to be more popular around the area than Pathfinder, and I haven't found much for other types of RPGs, but that doesn't mean they don't exist (I haven't looked incredibly hard for them). Miniatures games like Warhammer and Warmachine seem to be the most popular.

I'd be interested in helping you try to set up a local group, as I have been craving more face-to-face interaction (my regular group is spread across the US, so we use roll20 and Google hangouts to play).

Ok that's a good start. Funny enough I'm bring my three 5th Edition D&D books with me since I've been playing that recently. I still love Pathfinder but I had too many books to bring so I sold them all.

PM me and we can exchange emails if you want.

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