Thanks

Back in the 80’s when I was energized with youth and sugar, I took part in a few marathon gaming sessions. I fondly recall having a Friday off, and the game was to begin at 6am and run until we all collapsed. It was the Warhammer RPG and I was a player, and I still recall downing coffee all day. For his part Domenic the GM held it going for at least 10 hours, but by the end everyone was so punchy you would think we were playing Toon. In 2007 I ran a 10 hour marathon game of D&D 3.5 to playtest a single new 32 page module Wizards had put out, to put it through the ringer and counter some of the things naysayers were posting on message boards. The players bashed through this game at awesome speed and we all had breakfast, lunch and dinner together. Apart from a minor error at the end fight I weathered this well! Now, I remember deciding sometime in early 2000 that I could only run two games, a main game and an off-day game. Work schedules even interfered and for a time I was only running one game a week. Don’t ask me to describe how I actually kept pushing myself to run multiple games once we discovered Pathfinder but it came about from the most wonderful of things: an abundance of interested, great players! My daughters had become interested and need a game, friends I’d game with my entire life wanted a game but could not commit to a regular schedule, and I still have die-hards who wanted a weekly game and insanely proved time and again that funerals, hurricanes and a foot of snow would not block the rolling of dice. What I get out of this is legion. In my girl’s group I get to teach and help build a gaming experience that will last many of them their whole life. They’re treasuring the social interaction and stats in a world of video games and texting. My Pathfinder Society players cannot game every week or even every session, so when they do it’s a guaranteed game of their best foot forward to make the game fun for all. My weekly crew has invested themselves into the lore and working of the campaign that I can drop all sorts of subtle hints of the politics and plotting of other character and organizations they follow it makes for a very rich game. What that bring me to was this past weekend. Saturday night I ran a Pathfinder Society game in which the crew was sent into Kyonin to bring back some experienced elf shock troops who were experts at defeating Treerazor’s minions. It ended on a fantastic note and a table worth of high-fives and cheers as a bad situation was suddenly turned around in the most dramatic way! On Sunday I ran a side-trek in their Shattered Star adventure path game I developed using notes from three different Society Scenarios. It was great because while we have the core story, everyone has also developed keen interests I’m using to extend the campaign from 15th to 20th level. They captured a live bulette, fought an ettin champion in an arena, all while visiting a vile orc city. On Monday my girl’s Reign of Winter game started book two, exploring icy Irrisen and coming across an old ruined church dripping with atmosphere that freaked out the whole table. The looks on their faces and the caution they used approaching it was so flavorful, it paid off when the undead revealed themselves and I played the Doctor Who stop…and everyone groaned and yelled at me. And you know what? Not one single ounce of burnout. Because of players like you. The effort I put forth is adored it fuels me. What more could a GM ask for of all things? So THANK YOU for making it so much fun to continue to run games!