Tabletop Gaming Feeds

Welcome back to Part 2. In the previous post, I focused on how my life as a gamer blossomed over this decade, expanding from TTRPGs being a hobby I enjoyed with my close friends at home to stepping out into the larger gaming community—locally and online—and into a wider world. For this very reason, over those 10 years, I played TTRPGs with more people than I had before, or since.

These were the years of Geeknics and convention games. I can’t recall how many people I played with at those. I also played games at Gen Con with strangers and with old friends. I particularly remember playing a Psi*Run demo (one of my favorite pick-up games to this day!), and the Savage Worlds game David A. Miller ran for my friends, where the system first truly clicked for me! You can read about Gen Con 2011 and the friends I met there in this post from back then.

From left to right: David A Miller, PJ Deyo, Gaby and Yamir playing Savage Worlds, Gen Con 2011.

That energy eventually carried over into other local projects. Desde la Fosa was a smaller group where I made new friends and played with old ones, with whom I had never rolled dice before. For a while, Desde la Fosa was my second gaming group, and I had never had two regular groups running simultaneously before. The aftermath of Hurricane María eventually broke us up. We played a few times after—no streaming, just gaming—but it fizzled away. I am still in touch with AJ, Felipe, and José, the core team that started the project, even though two of them have moved off the island. José is currently a regular player in my weekly campaign. But near or far, they are family.

From left to right: AJ, Felipe, and José Garcia. The Desde La Fosa crew playing at TheGaming Pit.

As this post focuses more on my regular gaming group, the closer, more intimate group of friends I sit with every week to play games, it is important to talk about family. Not wanting to sound too much like Dominic Toretto of Fast & Furious fame, the players at my table are, in many ways, my family. The family we choose. Close friends who are more than gaming buddies; they are an important part of my life.

So, who were these people? What did I play and who did I game with from 2007 to 2017?

The Hideout of the Mequetrefes (Again)

In 2007, I was running my weekly homebrewed campaign at Sammy’s house. Since Sammy had a dedicated game room, and I could not say no to someone who wanted to play, the number of players ballooned from six to nine at one point. I wish I had pictures of the group playing there.

The Histrionic GM! (Circa 2007)

José Fernando, Piwie, Karlo, Luis Alvardo, Luis Lao, Pierre, and Victor were the original players. Sammy and Carly eventually joined the campaign. It lasted over two years, so there was some ebb and flow in the player roster. Victor did not finish the campaign; Pierre and José, I think, were absent for some time, but at the final session, we had eight players at the table.

Sadly, as the campaign ended, Sammy and I had a falling out. We had very different personalities and senses of humor, as well as different boundaries around family outside the game. Sammy would relentlessly make fun of everyone, and I was not willing to have people in my life who were not part of the game made to feel uncomfortable. So, I packed my things and moved on.

This was very hard. Sammy was a close friend, but we could not reach an agreement, which created a schism. We remained friends, and I’d like to think we mended fences. We played on occasions two or three times more over the years, but we saw far less of each other. When he passed, he left a void that continues to be felt to this day.

I was planning a Star Wars Saga Edition game with some of the other players at Sammy’s house, including Tato and Peter, with whom I had traveled to Gen Con. Sadly, this was not to be.

Back Home

We had not played in my apartment since 1999. I cleaned up the guest room and turned it into a sort of game room. This change splintered the group. Sammy, Carly, and Piwie no longer played with us. Other players emigrated, but one rejoined: Guaro returned to playing with us. For the first time in a long time, my core group of players was only five people: Guaro, José Fernando, Luis Alvarado, Luis Lao, and Pierre.

We played Star Wars Saga Edition, which was a LOT of fun. I wrote a series of posts about the game’s setting a while ago. You can find the first one here. Regardless of the split, the group slowly but surely began to grow again.

D&D 4th Edition and More

When D&D 4th Edition came out, we were alternating gaming locations, sometimes playing at Guaro’s house. His mother had dementia, and if he could not find someone to look after her, we’d play at his place. If memory serves, we played the first session of my Points of Light campaign, the Tenedal Valley, at his house.

Clockwise, from top left to bottom left: Guaro, Luis Lao, José Fernando, Pierre, playing at Guaro’s house.

Our group might not have loved the 4th Edition, but it grew. Fernando and Raul began playing with us. Raul would come and go, but Fernando has been a mainstay in the group since 2008. Also, the first player I met through Puerto Rico Role Players, Yamir, joined the group!

From left to right: Fernando, Raul, and Yamir

This was a wonderful time. Not only did we play D&D 4e for about 7 months, but we also played a secret TORG prequel using d20 Modern (I never told them it was a prequel to that game!). I was a player in Pierre’s d20 Modern Zombie game and Luis Lao’s Mutants & Masterminds game.

By 2009, things were changing again. I met my wife, and we moved in together. I gave up playing other games and settled back into my one-gaming-night-a-week routine. We were still playing in my apartment; we gave up on 4th Edition and began playing Pathfinder 1st edition with the Playtest rules.

This was the beginning of a long-running pirate-themed campaign that ran from 2009 to 2014.

Pirates and Lairs

The Jade Island campaign was the 6th campaign set in the current version of my long-running homebrewed world, created in 1987. In many ways, the weekly group meeting to play every Tuesday in 2026 coalesced in this campaign. Many players had been part of the regular gaming group before, but the current core of players really came together here. Of the current regular six players, four were part of this campaign.

Guaro had made a character to play with us, but he was a no-show when the campaign began. Sadly, we lost contact with him around 2010.

From left to right: Luis Lao, Luis Alvarado, Fernan, Pierre, Yamir, José Fernando, Carlos, and Luis Lao

Fernando, José Fernando, Luis Alvarado, Luis Lao, Pierre, and Yamir were the original players. Not long after, Carlos joined the group. I have known Carlos since the 90s, but he had never sat down to play with us. He originally played as a guest character and quickly joined as a regular player.

Yamir moved to the mainland US but joined a short-lived play-by-post version of the same campaign. He played only a few years with us, but his creativity and his character became part of the lore and history of the world. The play-by-post included friends from Puerto Rico Role Players, old gaming buddies from the 90s, and Sara, who would eventually transition from the virtual game to the regular in-person group.

By this time, the game had moved from my apartment to Fernan’s house. We were not the only gaming group playing there, and we affectionately called his house The Lair!

Playing Wanderers of the Outlands

There, we played the Jade Islands campaign, a Mutants & Masterminds campaign as an interlude between the two halves of the pirate campaign, and when that ended in 2014, our first long Savage Worlds campaign: the Wanderers of the Outlands, which ran from 2014 to 2016. I wrote a series of posts about that campaign on this blog; you can read the first here.

Some friends stepped away from the group and have not played with us since. Luis Alvarado left during the Mutants & Masterminds game. Pierre also stopped playing; real-life responsibilities kept him busy. He is currently in the US, and we text every day. They are both well, but we still miss them at the table!

From left to right: Sara, Edgardo, Mariana, and Hector

Other long-term friends came to sit at the table. Hector is another longtime friend who only sat to play with us years after we met. Our youngest players, Mariana and Edgardo, who we met through Puerto Rico Role Players, also joined our game, bringing in new blood, new ideas, and new friends to the table.

New Editions and Disasters (these two things are NOT related)

After D&D 5th Edition came out, we began a campaign using the system in 2016. The usual suspects were at the table: Carlos, Edgardo, Fernando, Hector, José Fernando, Luis Lao, Mariana, Sara, and Fernando’s wife, Naida. Richard, another friend met through Puerto Rico Role Players, joined when Sara and Hector had bowed out.

From left to right: Fernando, Naida, and Richard

In 2016, Tony, another legend in the TTRPG scene in Puerto Rico, visited from the mainland, and we had a get-together dubbed Tony Con at Jaime and Carmen’s house, where dead friends met via Puerto Rico Role Players. We played D&D 5th edition, which Tony still doesn’t like, being the Pathfinder diehard, he is! Along with Tony José Fernando, Tato, Angel, Luis Alvarado, and Sammy played that day. This was not the last time I played with Sammy, that would be in 2017 at The Gaming Pit, but it felt like a reunion with long-lost friends.

From left to right: Tato, José Fernando, Ángel, Sammy, Luis Alvarado, and Tony the Magnificent!

Also in 2016, I celebrated my 30 years as a gamer (like I am doing now at the 40-year mark!) with a game at Carlos Steffens’ house, where we played the D&D Mentzer Red Box adventure using The Black Hack rules. My TTRPG community organizing and my private enjoyment of the game had met, and this was a great time of gaming in my life.

2016, celebrating 30 Years a Gamer!

Throughout all these years, we had friends who visited and played guest characters, like PJ Deyo and Luis Miranda, who played in the pirate campaign (Luis came back for the 5th edition campaign as well). Javi Vidal joined us briefly for the campaign but had to move on shortly after. Mariana and Edgardo moved to the other side of the island and would connect to the game online to play with us.

Clockwise from top left to bottom left: Luis Miranda, Carlos, PJ Deyo, and Edgardo & Mariana playing remotely.

Despite the changes and new players, we had left behind the growing pains of a new system and finally found our game’s stride. I was really enjoying the campaign and playing a bi-weekly game at The Gaming Pit with the Desde la Fosa crew. What could go wrong?

Well, Hurricane Maria arrived in 2017. But that’s a topic for the next period in my 40 years as a gamer.

Final Thoughts

Despite the grim closing of this decade of gaming, the changes that María and other disasters would cause in Puerto Rico and in my life, this was a magical decade of growth, expanding circles of friends, and a wonderful feeling of community that continues to this day.

I am lucky this way. I started gaming with friends, and then the people I met through the TTRPG hobby became close friends—my extended family. I am grateful for each one of them. Thanks for being part of my life.

The Stats (2007-2017)

• Total Campaigns: 9
• Years Active: 30 (Consecutive play from 1986 to 2006)
• MVP Systems: D&D 3.5, 4th and 5th editions, Pathfinder, Mutants & Masterminds, and Savage Worlds

What about you? How has your gaming group evolved over the years, and have the people at your table become your chosen family, too? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments!

As I’ve been looking back at my last 40 years in the tabletop hobby, especially the transition from playing at home to getting involved in the wider community, this just wouldn’t have happened without Daniel Perez, known to many in the scene as Highmoon.

Daniel gave me this card at Gen Con 2011. I don’t think the contact information is current, but I keep the card!

I first crossed paths with Daniel back in the early 90s at Metro Comics. We had a lot of friends in common, though surprisingly, I don’t think we actually rolled dice at the same table back then.

Daniel eventually moved to the US, and we lost touch for a bit. But right around 2006, the internet did its thing. We reconnected while he was writing TTRPG supplements, posting about his games, and co-hosting a podcast about the origins of the Puerto Rico role-playing scene. He was always a key figure in supporting the island’s gaming scene in those days. Seeing him again at Gen Con in 2007, even just briefly, was fantastic.

Shortly after that, he invited me to join a group he had just created on Facebook in the early days: Puerto Rico Role Players.

That invitation completely changed the trajectory of my gaming life. Daniel brought me on as an administrator and relentlessly encouraged me to get online, connect with other gamers, and start blogging. He was the catalyst that pushed me out of my immediate circle and into the role of a community organizer. Without his initial push, my involvement with PR Role Players, my writing, and the connections I’ve made over the last couple of decades wouldn’t exist in the same way.

Daniel could not be with us at the first Geeknic in 2010, but we printed this.

Daniel is still pouring his creativity into his projects today. He has a fantastic collection of his own TTRPG games, zines, and supplements available online. If you appreciate indie creators who have been championing this hobby for decades, you absolutely need to check out his work.

You can find his games and zines over on his Gumroad page here: https://danielmperez.gumroad.com/

Take a look, grab a few PDFs, and support one of the foundational voices of the Boricua Gamers community!

By 2007, I had been playing at Sammy’s house for about two years. We were deep into my second D&D 3.5 run, having just wrapped a Tri-Stat dX sci-fi game—set in the same universe as an Alternity campaign we’d played years prior. But I wasn’t just there for my own sessions; I was constantly dropping in on other games at Sammy’s, too.

The Hideout of the Mequetrefes

To the best of my knowledge, Sammy’s house was the original location of the first FLGS in Puerto Rico: The Role-Playing Emporium. I’ve erroneously identified it as the Gaming Emporium in the past, but more on that later! Although the store had closed years before, Sammy kept the old shelves and some inventory in an apartment at the back of the house. It was anchored by a gaming table with a large, gridded, erasable board affixed right to the top.

Sammy and Tato at the Lair of the Mequetrefes

It was a mix of game room, man cave, and den of iniquity, with a rotating crew of gamers, young and old, sitting at that table. He called his crew the Mequetrefes (good-for-nothings or busybodies).

Peter, a longtime friend and former regular in our group, had moved on to other campaigns at Sammy’s. I believe he was the one who started organizing the trip to Gen Con 2007, though I heard about it from one of my players, Luis Alvarado.

I had always wanted to go to Gen Con, so I was immediately on board. In 2007, along with Sammy, Peter, Luis, Tato, and Piwie, we made the pilgrimage to the holy land of gaming in Indiana. It was a magical time, and honestly, it deserves its own separate post. Strangely enough, I didn’t meet many new gamers there; I mostly stuck to my pack and didn’t branch out much while in Indianapolis.

From left to right: Peter, Luis, Roberto (me), Piwie, Sammy, Tato, Roberto (me again!), Sammy, Piwie, Daniel, and Tato

I did, however, run into a long-time friend: Daniel Perez, better known as Highmoon.

The Highmoon!

Let’s rewind. I met Daniel at Metro Comics in the early 90s. He came to my house a few times, and we had friends in common, though I don’t think we ever actually played together back then. He also spent a lot of time at the Role-Playing Emporium, so Sammy was another link between us.

He eventually moved to the US, and we lost touch for a while, but social media helped us reconnect. Daniel was a key figure in supporting the Puerto Rico gaming community in the early 2000s. By around 2006, he was writing TTRPG supplements, posting about his games, and hosting a podcast with our mutual friend, Braulio.

I listened to at least two episodes where they discussed the origins of the PR TTRPG scene. Braulio actually owned a store called Gaming Emporium—a tribute to Sammy’s Role-Playing Emporium. (And there lies the source of my confusion between the two names!) I remember talking to Daniel back then about wanting to do more for the island’s gaming community.

Seeing him at Gen Con in 2007, however briefly, was amazing. We stayed in contact, and in the early days of Facebook, he invited me to a group he had created: Puerto Rico Role Players.

Boricuas Roleros

That group was transformative for me. It connected me to a broader gaming community, some I knew, many I didn’t. Daniel made me an administrator and encouraged me to get online, connect with other gamers, and start blogging.

I wasn’t quite ready for the blogging part yet, so I poured my passion into growing Puerto Rico Role Players. Slowly but surely, the group expanded. Around 2008 or 2009, we tried to organize a Thanksgiving meet-up. I know Vincent (a fellow admin), Gilberto, and others made it, though I couldn’t attend. By 2009, members were meeting informally at small-genre cons on the island, and we decided it was time to organize an official event to promote the group and teach new players how to play.

While this was going on, I began reading blogs and leaving comments, which led me to another pivotal figure in my life.

Enter the Stargazer

Michael and I were talking the other day, and we think we started writing back and forth around 2008. It is strange to have such a dear friend whom I write to almost every day but have never met in person. Over the past 18 years, Michael has become someone I respect and care about deeply.

He invited me to collaborate on his blog. I was reluctant at first, but his and Daniel’s encouragement, combined with the work I was doing with Puerto Rico Role Players, finally pushed me to write my first post.

2010 Was a Great Year

Puerto Rico Role Players at Central Fan Fest 3, March 2nd, 2010

• February 19th: I wrote my first post for Stargazer’s World!
• March 2nd: We held the first official Puerto Rico Role Players event at Central Fan Fest 3 in Cidra, sharing our love for TTRPGs and running demos.
• April 11th: We hosted our first Geeknic—a picnic for geeks where we ate, played games, and bonded as a community.

The first Geeknic, April 11th, 2010

A year later, in 2011, after two more Geeknics, we held a “Geek Caucus” for volunteers and organized a group of admins to keep the momentum going.

Geek Caucus at Sizzler

I continued posting regularly here at Stargazer’s World. In February of that same year, a local newspaper even interviewed me for a special section on hobbies (I’ve been interviewed twice since then for other articles and videos). I also returned to Gen Con in 2011, this time with press credentials, writing coverage for the blog.

Gen Con 2011

In the years since, Puerto Rico Role Players has organized 29 Geeknics, Painting Days, demos at local conventions, Halloween Spooktaculars, and holiday events. I jumped into #RPGChat and joined RPG a Day the year after it began, posting on the blog, social media, and eventually my YouTube channel.

From the Pit

By 2017, I was fully immersed. I was blogging intermittently, the admin for PR Role Players, running demos, and engaging with the online world. Then I had another crazy idea: Why not stream a game?

That year, my friend Carlos Steffens opened a new FLGS, The Gaming Pit. I wanted to playtest the new edition of Alternity, and I thought: what better way to support him and the new game than to stream the adventure live?

The Alternity playtesters

It was a very amateurish Facebook endeavor, full of silly mistakes—like starting the stream with the camera sideways. I only intended to do two sessions and be done, but the group got hooked. Through that game, I connected with two PR Role Players members, José García and Felipe, and reconnected with AJ, whom I knew from the old Metro Comics days.

We decided to keep the cameras rolling, and Desde La Fosa (literally From the Pit) was born.

We played Star Frontiers, FrontierSpace, Silent Legions, the Free RPG Day Torg adventure, World Wide Wrestling, Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 2e, and I’m sure I’m forgetting others. You can see some of those games on the Desde la Fosa YouTube channel. It was never a professional studio production, but we had so much fun.

And then Hurricane María happened.

It changed everything. That is a subject for a future post, covering the next period in my gaming history.

“But wait!” you say. “This was all about community in the larger TTRPG context. What about your actual weekly game? The people you play with?”

Well, that’s the subject for the NEXT post. You did notice the title said, “Part 1,” right?

After publishing my last post, I spent some time thinking about my statement that I was “gaming in a bubble.” After some reflection—and a few conversations with friends—I realized some nuance is in order.

I was writing about the period from 1993 to 2006. At the start of that era, I was still working at Metro Comics and meeting other gamers there. But after I graduated from college in 1995, my focus shifted heavily toward my career, my family, and my relationships. I never stopped gaming, but it happened entirely within a closed circle of close friends. I heard about other local groups and knew people who played TTRPGs, yet I didn’t actively interact with them for a long time.

As I got married and started my master’s degree, my general interests evolved. I felt burnt out on fantasy and sci-fi literature. Aside from being a huge fan of Babylon 5, my consumption of genre media shrank. Instead, I spent a few years diving deep into classic literature, history, biographies, and true crime.

During that time, role-playing games (and, to a lesser degree, comic books) became my sole outlet for fiction.

The Dial-Up Days

I got online relatively early in the 90s. My mother worked in the technology field, so we had a home computer when I was in middle school, and I was online before graduating high school. I can still hear the distinct chirp of the dial-up modem.

I had CompuServe, visited the forums, discovered the World Wide Web, and absolutely hunted for gaming content. I vividly remember discovering the legendary tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo and reading through the Evil Overlord List. I scoured the web for conversions and rules for Palladium games, incessantly trying to hammer them into a cohesive, usable system (spoiler: I never did!).

But when I found useful information, I usually just printed it out and took it to the table. I even played a play-by-email game for over a year, and a play-by-post game on Yahoo Groups for over two!

Yet my internet use was highly targeted. I wasn’t active in online gaming forums and didn’t follow TTRPG message boards closely. I got most of my gaming news the old-fashioned way: from print sources like Dragon Magazine and Knights of the Dinner Table.

Bursting the Bubble

This bubble wasn’t a monolith, mind you. Things started to change gradually.

Sometime around 1999, I read A Game of Thrones, which reignited my interest in a different sort of fantasy literature. After Wizards of the Coast acquired TSR in 1987, and as rumors and information of a brand-new edition of D&D began to swirl, I found myself online constantly searching for information. In 1999, Eric Noah’s Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News became mandatory daily reading.

After we transitioned to D&D 3rd Edition around 2003 or 2004, we moved our weekly game to Sammy’s house. Sammy was a true personality in Puerto Rico’s gaming community—I’ve written about him before. To the best of my knowledge, he operated the island’s first dedicated TTRPG store out of his house in the late 80s. He had a dedicated game room with a massive table where multiple groups played. Suddenly, I was regularly interacting with old acquaintances and people I had previously only known in passing.

Other stores opened (and often closed) during those years, and we’d visit them. A friend of a friend opened a small FLGS, where I ordered a whole brick of all the early D&D miniatures released from WotC. Slowly but surely, I met and got to know other gamers on the island, many of them from the younger generation.

Plugging In

In 2005, I got divorced. With my life shifting again, I began spending much more time at Sammy’s house. I started dropping in on the other groups playing there and hanging out with fellow gamers away from the table. For the first time in a long time, I broke my strict “one-game-a-week” rule and joined a second weekly campaign as a player.

Online, I became an avid reader of The Order of the Stick. I loved their forums, as well as EN World, and started dipping my toes into the discussions, even if I felt a bit unsure about how to engage in those spaces at first.

By 2006, I was fully plugged into the TTRPG internet. I started reading blogs—Stargazer’s World caught my attention very early on. I also reconnected with Daniel Pérez (aka Highmoon), a friend who had moved to the mainland US and was actively creating TTRPGs and promoting the Puerto Rican gaming scene.

All this networking, reconnecting, and hanging out at Sammy’s house eventually led to a plan: a group trip to Gen Con in 2007.

That trip kicked off a markedly different era in my gaming life. But that is a story for the next post. See you then!

Welcome back to my 40-year retrospective as a gamer.

If the early years were defined by beautiful chaos, 1993 was the pivot. At that time, my gaming schedule was highly irregular. We’d get together whenever we could, play whatever game was popular at the time (with mainstays like Rifts and AD&D 2nd Edition), and rarely play longer than a few sessions before moving on and rolling up new characters.

I quickly realized I wasn’t enjoying this scattered approach.

I sat down and seriously considered what I loved most about tabletop role-playing games. I knew I preferred being the Game Master. I loved long-form campaign play where characters grow and weave a massive story together. I wanted a regular schedule—weekly, if possible—and to stick to one system to facilitate long-term play, rather than constantly chasing the hot new game.

Playing in a world of my own creation was key to this. Running a homebrew campaign was a form of creative expression that kept me deeply invested. I figured that if I set a firm date and time and stuck with it, people would show up. I also hoped it would naturally pare down the increasingly large, rotating crew of players I was managing.

The Metro Comics Crew

By 1993, I had been working at Metro Comics for two years. It was my part-time job while I went to college. Metro Comics in San Patricio Plaza is a comic and game store (and yes, it is still there!). Back then, they had a great game selection, carrying the big-name releases of the day: lots of TSR, White Wolf, Palladium, and a few smaller indie games.

Through Metro Comics, I made many new friends, and my close-knit table grew. Gamers I met through my work at the store—like Luis Alvarado, José Fernando, and Pierre Anthony—pulled up chairs alongside my high school classmates. (Fun fact: José is still a regular in my current weekly gaming group, 32 years later!)

Circa 1996 or 1997 (from L to R): Roberto (me), Gilberto, Luis Alvarado, José Fernando,
Luis Miranda, Pierre Anthony, and Misael

We also connected with friends of friends who played at the University of Puerto Rico. Because I’ve always had trouble saying “no” to people who want to play, I typically ran TTRPGs for groups of eight or more. To this day, I consider six players a “regular-sized” group; anything smaller feels too small.

Circa 2000 (from L to R): Karlo, Luis Alvarado, Roberto (me), Pierre Anthony, José Fernando, Piwie

When I decided to put my new long-term campaign plan into practice, I invited the players I thought would best mesh with the style: a mix of high school friends, longtime players, and the Metro crew. It took a bit of shifting, but we found our rhythm. In no time, we established a core of six or seven long-term players, with a few others who came and went as real life demanded.

The Games We Played

The changes were a massive success. Over the next 13 years, I ran 12 distinct campaigns. Three of those were multi-year epics (averaging 2 years), with 8 shorter campaigns interspersed, ranging from 6 months to 1 year. We played all of these from beginning to end. (The only exception was a 9-month play-by-email campaign that fizzled out when work ate up my free time).

What did we play? Mostly D&D. While the rest of the world went all-in on the World of Darkness in the 90s, I stuck hard to D&D and fantasy. We played a lot of AD&D 2nd Edition, and when D&D 3rd Edition came out, we eventually made the change.

We also dabbled in variations of Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the Silver Age Sentinels system, and its Tri-Stat dX versions. Alternity was a short but incredibly important game for me during this era. I also kept going back to Palladium to try and make the system work for us; aside from Heroes Unlimited, I was growing weary of Rifts and their other titles.

Gaming in a Bubble

Because my group was so large—mostly friends and friends of friends—my gaming circle became incredibly insular. I left college, started working, got married, and essentially played in my own little bubble.

I was completely disconnected from the larger Puerto Rican gaming community. When Dragon magazine stopped publishing, and no new AD&D 2nd Edition books were coming out, I noticed, but it didn’t affect my table. We just kept playing with the books we had.

I wasn’t a recluse; I was online, but my internet use was focused elsewhere. I started my Master’s degree and wasn’t heavily involved in wider fandoms, TTRPG forums, or gaming news. I was perfectly content just creating maps, writing lore, and running my homebrew world.

Mind you, gaming was still a massive pillar of my life. The night before my first wedding in 1998, what did I do? I played a TTRPG session all about friendship with my regular players.

But life inevitably brings changes. This era saw me finish college, start a professional career, get married, and eventually go through separation and divorce.

After my divorce, things shifted again. I found myself with more free time, so I started playing with a more varied group of people, expanded my circle of regular gamers, and slowly began to reconnect with the wider gaming community around me.

Circa 2002 or 2003 (from L to R): José Fernando, Piwie, Luis Alvarado, Luis Lao, Roberto (me), Karlo, Pierre Anthony, Victor, Luis Lao, José Fernando, Karlo, Piwie

Then, in 2006, some friends mentioned they were heading to Gen Con the following year and invited me to tag along. I said yes.

But that is the beginning of a whole new era, and the subject of my next post.

The Stats (1993–2006)

• Total Campaigns: 12
• Years Active: 20 (Consecutive play from 186 to 2006)
• MVP Systems: AD&D 2nd Edition & D&D 3rd Edition / 3.5

How were these years for you? Did you ever go through a phase where you played in a “gaming bubble,” completely disconnected from the wider community or what was happening online? And during the 90s, were you a D&D loyalist like me, or did you get swept up in the World of Darkness craze?

A new Stars Without Number (SWN) supplement dropped five days ago, and I missed it!

How could I? It’s not like any important event happened this past weekend around February 14th, or that I’ve been sick since last week… okay, maybe I have excuses. But honestly? I feel like I should turn in my fan card.

If you’ve followed me here on the blog, on social media, or if you read Part 1 of my recent posts about my current favorite TTRPGs, you know that (quoting myself from somewhere online), “I worship at the altar of Kevin Crawford.”

I am a huge fan of his corpus. There are a few TTRPG authors whose works I support in crowdfunding or buy sight unseen as soon as they are out. Kevin Crawford of Sine Nomine Publishing is one of them.

(Bruce Heard is another such creator, by the way, and he recently announced his next project for the World of Calidar. I’ll be sure to share more information on that as it becomes available. But I digress.)

The new supplement for SWN is titled Proteus Sector: A Gazetteer for Stars Without Number.

This gazetteer and rule expansion was created as part of Mr. Crawford’s latest Kickstarter campaign for a reprint of the offset edition of Stars Without Number: Revised. His Kickstarters are a masterclass in running an effective campaign: he never overpromises, communicates clearly, and is always on time—if not early.

I’ve backed 12 of his 14 Kickstarter projects. I only missed Spears of Dawn (his first, which I eventually got!) and this latest one.

Here is why I missed it: When I read that the rewards would include the Proteus Sector, I was tempted. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I already own two offset copies of SWN, plus a POD copy I got for table use. Not to mention a POD copy of the original edition. I think I own every supplement Crawford has published in print or PDF.

I couldn’t justify buying a new core book just to get the PDF of the supplement. I contacted Mr. Crawford to see if there was a reward level for the Proteus Sector alone, and he told me the book would be available as a PDF and POD on DriveThruRPG later.

True to his word, the book is available now by clicking this link. It’s an 83-page PDF for $14.99 and a softcover POD for $24.99 (which includes the PDF).

Is it worth it? Oh yeah.

A Short, Spoiler-Free Review

The book is part gazetteer, part rule expansion, and another winning entry in the Stars Without Number line.

The layout follows the classic Sine Nomine style we know and love. This book feels denser with illustrations than the core book, and the interior art is excellent and fits the tone perfectly. It includes a detailed description of a very interesting sector of space, including government structures, and every planet described gets its own image.

Kevin Crawford is all about making books usable. He provides tools to make a GM’s life easier, and this is no exception. Besides an excellent setting that continues to flesh out the default SWN universe, it includes a one-page player’s guide to the sector, plus tools and ideas on how to connect this sector to your existing campaigns. Planets include all sorts of details, adventure hooks, and NPCs. It empowers the GM rather than constraining them.

The Mechanics (The Good Stuff)

While I love the content as a source of ideas, I am a homebrewer at heart. What I really want are the rules.

Crawford’s work is renowned as a toolbox that can technically be used for any system, but I really love his version of the classic D&D B/X engine. Proteus Sector adds some great new levers to pull:

• Smuggling & Trade: It includes a simple smuggling and trade system—much simpler than the one presented in Suns of Gold. This is likely the one I would use at the table going forward.
• Augmentations: There are very interesting rules for augmenting characters and abilities that feel a lot like proto-ideas for a superhero game. (We can hope for Capes Without Number someday, can’t we?)
• Genetics: There are rules for genetically modified beings. This might finally be the tool I need to make that Buck Rogers XXVc conversion I’ve been thinking about for almost 10 years now. (Gennies Without Number, anyone?)
• Cybernetics: There are new, more powerful, almost mythical cybernetic rules. The book discusses how these differ from the main rules and how to adapt the cybernetics from Ashes Without Number for use in SWN.
• Combat: New opponents appropriate for the sector, as well as new starship systems, weapons, and rules to accommodate them within the existing starship combat framework.

One Caveat

I will admit that the cover and title design for Proteus Sector seemed off at first. I wasn’t a fan at first glance, but after reading the book, I understood the choice. It is a very evocative, certainly OSR-looking cover, but it’s my least favorite of the SWN books’ covers.

Final Verdict

I said it before, but I’ll say it again: this book is worth your time and your money.

If you are a fan of Stars Without Number, you’ll find something to use. If you want a sector to drop into your game—even if it’s not SWN—you’ll find something you can use here. I know I certainly will get a lot of mileage out of it.

I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Welcome back to my 40 Years a Gamer retrospective.

In the last post, I looked at the first game I played. But today, I want to talk about the early years of playing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPG) and Game Mastering, from 1986 to 1992.

If I had to describe this period in one word, it would be: Chaos. Beautiful, creative chaos. It all started in the summer of 1986 with the D&D Mentzer Red Box, and suddenly, the gaming table became a revolving door of neighbors, school friends, and random kids from the building I lived in. And we played everywhere! My house. On the floor in a small nook in the building’s lobby. We even commandeered the ping pong table in the recreation room to play D&D.

The Neighborhood Crew

My first “party” wasn’t a carefully curated group of role-players. It was whoever happened to be around. We had Ricky (Mano Fast, the thief), Jorge (Conan the Elf), Emilio Ruiz (Dragon Knight), Jose Luis, Hector, and, for a moment, Gretchen and Mari Vanessa.

We didn’t worry about campaign balance or narrative arcs. We just played.

I remember running one-shot adventures for up to 13 neighbors at once. Can you imagine running AD&D 1st Edition for 13 teenagers? It was madness. I remember one specific homebrew adventure where the world was flooded by non-stop rain. It was basically a prequel to Waterworld before Kevin Costner had the idea, but with more dice.

Eventually, the group stabilized. My “regular” crew became Emilio Ruiz, Gary Burden, and Luis Miranda, with Emilio Rodríguez joining us for the long haul.

From left to right: Me (Sunglar), Emilio Ruiz, and Luis Miranda, playing Dark Suns in 1991.

We Played Everything

While D&D (specifically the Known World/Mystara early) was our main game, we played many other games, as soon as I could get them and read the rules, at least most of the rules.

• Robotech: Because in 1987, who didn’t want to pilot a Veritech?
• Marvel Superheroes (FASERIP): We spent hours fighting villains in New York.
• DC Heroes & Champions: We dabbled in crunchy stuff, too.
• Star Frontiers: This was a huge one for us. We ran a campaign that ran from 1987 to 1990. I don’t think we had a proper name for it; we just called it Star Frontiers. Because of recurring antagonists, I often refer to it as “Ninjas in Space!” Yes, really. I regret nothing.

I also must mention the countless “One-Player Adventures” I ran for Emilio Ruiz. Whether it was Star Frontiers, Robotech, or Forgotten Realms, if the other people couldn’t make it, we were still rolling dice.

The Birth of a World

Looking back, what surprises me most is that the seeds of my current campaigns were planted right there in the chaos of the 80s.

In 1987, I ran a campaign called Ruma (proto-Lagamur). In 1988, I launched the second version of Lagamur.

I didn’t know it then, but those messy, teenage sessions were the rough drafts for Lagamur—the world I am still running campaigns in today, nearly 40 years later.

What Happened?

Early on, we played a lot, whatever game, whenever or wherever we could, every day if you let us! My grades slipped in 9th grade, and my mom limited game time to Fridays and weekends. Now and then, we slipped in a game on a weeknight.

While we ran long D&D and AD&D 1e games, mostly set in the Known World, aka Mystara, based on the information in the Expert set, including one with an all-thief party, I am reluctant to call these campaigns. There was continuity of characters, but most of them were one free-wheeling adventure after another, with very loose connections between them and fewer consequences.

True campaigns were the two early versions of my long-running homebrew Lagamur, which I ran with daily sessions over the summers of 1987 and 1988. That and the long-running Star Frontiers campaign, which ran on and off with a rotating cast of characters from 1988 to 1991. I also ran a one-player campaign for Emilio Ruiz around 1987 or 1988.

Other than that, from 1986 to 1992, the rest of my gaming was a series of one-shots, games that lasted a handful of sessions, and trying out the latest new-shiny game. After high school, college was a time when we played whenever we could, often making new characters and not playing long-term. This was not what I wanted out of gaming, so I took stock and made some radical decisions. But that is a tale for another time.

The Stats (1987–1992)

• Total Campaigns: 4
• Primary Systems: AD&D 1st Ed, Star Frontiers
• Vibe: Pure, unadulterated enthusiasm.

Tell me about your “Early Years.” Did you start with a massive group of neighbors, or was it just you and a friend trying to figure out what a hit die was?

I just saw that Far West Redux is live on BackerKit, and it hit me with a wave of nostalgia.

I was a backer of the original Kickstarter way back in 2011. If you know the lore of this project, you know the road wasn’t exactly smooth. It faced serious challenges, delays, and a vocal crowd of detractors who thought it would never see the light of day.

But here is the thing: Gareth Skarka never gave up.

I’ve always maintained that crowdfunding isn’t a pre-order store; it’s an investment in a vision and a creator. Through the long journey of Far West, I got to know Gareth. I only met him once in the wild at Gen Con (I have no idea if he remembers!), but I consider him a friend and a genuinely terrific human being.

He is a passionate, creative force who pushed through every obstacle life threw at him to get this book into our hands.

And he delivered. The final product was great, and this Redux version looks even sharper.

If you have any love for Wuxia and Westerns—and specifically, the magic that happens when you mash them together—I highly recommend checking this out. It’s a cool setting, but more than that, it’s a testament to resilience.

Check out the campaign here: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/adamant-entertainment/far-west-redux

Question: Have you ever backed a project that took the “scenic route” to completion but turned out awesome in the end?

Legendary RPG author and designer Rob Kuntz is adding TWO very sought-after PDF products to his Three Line Studio Store, after those products recently sold out as popular print releases elsewhere on the web (DATG at TLB Games, and DD at Chaotic Henchmen Productions)...

Rob's seminal treatise Dave Arneson's True Genius, and iconic RPG adventure module Dark Druids, have now joined our range of downloadable digital (PDF) products!

 

And here's the double-whammy to all our fans and friends: if you purchase DATG and DD together as a bundle — The DATG Dark Druids Bundle — you will get 20% off your order (*valid until 5th July 2023). Now that's regal!

Good Day to You All!

There is no better way to start off a New Year than with -- not just one but TWO -- brand-new, never-before-published creative, exciting products!  Even better, when such creative, exciting products are about a CELEBRATION...

Throughout 2023, Rob Kuntz and Three Line Studio will be celebrating 50 years since the inception and playtesting of the world's first commercial RPG in 1973!

And there is no better way to celebrate than to reward YOU, Rob's loyal fanbase, with our launch of Gargax's Glorious Gewgaws and Pryce's Price, both available to purchase exclusively from our newly-launched Three Line Studio Store!  Please note that for the very first time, we are 'going' digital as those two products are published in professional high-quality full-colour PDF format, printable and viewable on all electronic devices, PC/MAC/Android.  Cartography, interior art and Gewgaws cover art by are by a promising young Italian graphic artist, Davide Gambarara, who did a stirling job!  Davide brought a crisp line work to both Gewgaws and Pryce.  We cannot praise him enough and can already hint at the fact that Davide will be involved in forthcoming TLS projects!  https://www.facebook.com/dagamarts/
More information about Davide from our TLS Facebook post.

Rob's two celebratory releases are part of Three Line Studio's Red Book™ collection, and are send-ups to Gary Gygax:

Gargax's Glorious Gewgaws is divided into two sections.  The first part references in detail some special magic items, while the second part features the films, literature and authors that historically inspired the beginning of the RPG form.  Pryce's Price is a very exciting and captivating action-packed adventure module with gothic undertones, described as "one of the most fantastic adventures written by Rob Kuntz to date!"  Gewgaws and Pryce are sure to brighten up your day... and your game!  Head off to our store -- only one click away -- and while there please also make sure to download Rob's latest FREE (26-page long) Newsletter: https://threelinestudiostore.company.site/ If you wish to purchase Gewgaws and Pryce together, why not take advantage of our SPECIAL OFFER on the Gewgaws Pryce Bundle and save 25%! Happy Celebrations!
 

Download the first issue of Cepheus Journal. There is an article about CE skills, part one of a scifi adventure on salvage and recovery, a Sword of Cepheus NPC, a description of a free trader with deckplans, a small pseudolizard species to encounter, a piece on modern war, tech level comparisons and more. We want … Continue reading Cepheus Journal Issue #001

Rosalis Cluster is Sector generated using the Cepheus Engine rules. It can now be downloaded from the downloads page. The download includes a huge PNG-image (4227 x 5305 pixels), and two text-files with the UWPs and the XML-data. In the map of the sector we can see two multi subsector empires. The Raniera Worlds and … Continue reading Rosalis Cluster

You are rolling up a new Traveller character and you aren't sure which Background Skills to choose. In this article, I will show you the best background skills for your Traveller character.

You need scout ship deck plans for your virtual tabletop game. Check out my new Pioneer-Class Scout Ship Deck Plans For Roll20 AnD VTT.

The Cepheus Journal is a free and ad-free Fanzine. We are looking for submissions. While we wait for the first issue, these mock-up covers might provide some inspiration.

Looking for sci-fi RPG adventure seeds for your next game of Cepheus Engine or Traveller? Check out The Missing Survey Vessel.

Need a new hairdo?  Need that crooked nose straightened out?  Need to go incognito for a while?  Try the new Cosmedoc Cosmetics Autodoc!

My players needed something larger than the standard air/raft, so I created this civilian g-carrier for them.

The eighth and final live Traveller player panel for Mayday Traveller RPG Day 2020.  The Crew discusses more Traveller character backstories.

The eighth Interview for Mayday Traveller RPG Day 2020 is Marc MIller of Far Future Enterprises.  We discuss the origins of Traveller with the creator himself!