Monday, September 30, 2013

D&D 30 Day Challenge - Day 30: Best DM I ever had

Me and Chris at the Escondido Renn Faire
(he's the one with the sexy knees)
I've had a lot of good DM's. And a few crappy ones. It's hard to decide which is the best based on game enjoyment. But I would probably have to put Chris Blanchard up there as the best over all.

I met Chris back in 1996. I was in one of my first college classes at a local community college in San Diego, sitting there reading a Forgotten Realms novel. Some guy who looked like Kramer came up and asked if I played, pointing at my book. Of course, by this time I had been out of the Army for about 10 months, and hadn't played anything for almost a year. So, I enthusiastically answered yes. He invited me along to a friend's house for a game of Vampire: the Masquerade. I had never heard of it, but game was game.

Well, on Friday we arrive at the friend's house and I am introduced to Chris, the DM...er, Storyteller, and his fiance, Angel. Well, suffice it to say, I was out of my element with Vampire. I mean, I had played just about every type of RPG out there already, but this World of Darkness was something new, and frankly, weird. I had my doubts.

But Chris managed to make the game fun for a neophyte like me. My first character was basically Frank Castle as a Vampire. It was a fun time. And I gained two big things from that experience, a new found interest in WoD games (Werewolf is still my favorite), and a new best friend.

Chris and I hit it off right away, and throughout all of our individual troubles and tribulations, we have remained friends and often still geek out on Facebook together.

For a long period we had a gaming group that started when we shared an apartment for a little over a year. We called it FUBAR (Fraternal Universal Brotherhood of All-round Role-players). FUBAR met quite regularly, and we played a LOT of different games, and Chris ran a good portion of them. I think my favorite is still the Stargate SG-1 game, where I was the commander of SG-4. That was a cool game!

So, there ya go. 30 days of blogs. And only a couple of BS posts in there. There is evidently a Halloween themed one this month, but I doubt I can do that. Still, this has been a good exercise in writing daily. Now, if I can just transfer this to my fiction...

2 comments:

  1. Tom, I'm touched! Thanks! It's was always fun gaming with you, and I wish you were here now for the D&D Next game.

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    1. I often remark to Michele that that's one of the few things I truly miss about living in San Diego. I miss my gaming buddies.

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