Oliver Moss

* My session at TPK Gaming last night was not as good as my first one, but way above almost every session I've had since moving to the west coast. Which makes sense, the main place to find home games until recently has been Gamestorm or Adventure League.

I made a list of some of the problems I've had trying to find a game, and it touches on some of the past SA problems at Gamestorm/Orycon

When I was still with the Gamestorm/Orycon community it was struggling with 'uninvited touch is bad, the person complaining is not oppressing you for your sex positivity'. Also they have deep issues when it came to LGBTQIA+ stuff. I don't want to get into that right now. Source: I was on the comcon, I was on the concoms enough to be be part of OFSCI the overarching committee for both, etc. We had long term staff we needed to replace and deal with the fall out of replacing.

* The most recent game I was in was some people I knew via fandom putting together a game for during the pandemic. They were all big Matt Mercer fans and communicated in fandom references. They'd say things like 'I do the thing that [character] did in [episode]'. I'd say I don't know what they mean, and they acted like I was joking, like I was memeing about how funny it would be if someone actually didn't know all the details of Matt Mercer's every campaign. Also, they barely listened to be because they were all vibing so much together in their like Mercer-fandom. When I left they didn't even notice.

* Previous to that, it was a new DM who'd never played D&D but loved Matt Mercer stuff. There were a lot of problems, but I'll only get into one. She'd told every player 'yes, you can do that in a D&D game!' and had a group with wildly different expectations. One couple who joined basically wanted to explore things game they wouldn't do IRL, which lead to the wife's character hitting on my character while the husband watched intently, and then they got upset when I wasn't into it.

* I tried Adventure League, which is something run by D&D to get people up and playing. I singed up, went to a session and got there early to make sure I was prepared. But, when it was time to sit down, there was this other guy. He usually plays in that timeslot/with that group and didn't think he could make it so he hadn't singed up. I was asked to give up my seat for him. So I went to the DM... and he asked me to give up my seat. Yeah, playing for hours with people who don't want you there because you're blocking this buddy from playing, not fun. I shouldn't have had to give up my seat, but realistically standing up for myself would have sucked.

I then found out that even though Adventure League is supposed to be a way to get people playing, meeting fellow gamers, helping people find groups for home games, the local scene is very cliquey and people just stay in the League long term rather than using it as the transitional space it's supposed to be. I found a lot of people complaining that they do not want new people.

Finding a group can be hard, especially if the two main ways to do it are a cliquey Adventurer's League and a convention having discussions at the concom (what they call a board) level that are like 'Yes, he's been pushing women against walls and pulling out a roll of duct tape and explaining what the wants to do to them for literally decades and feels this is a welcoming space for him, a lot of the men think he's a great guy and banning him will be major drama... but he keeps pushing primarily young and first time attendees against the fucking wall and pulling out a roll of duct tape... We did give him warnings he assumed they were jokes... no we do NOT need to keep warning him until he understands'

So yeah, when I lived on the east coast table top gaming was my main hobby but just haven't really been able to get into it... during this whole TTRPG boom that's been happening for like a decade. Even if I can only ever do one-offs at TPK, it's really just fucking nice.

* Table top gaming has a lot of accessories these days. I've been tempted now and again, but never really bought anything even though I wanted it. Having a bunch of TTRPG stuff laying around unused didn't spark joy. But, having a lot more stuff is pretty much expected now. Even the person playing D&D for the first time last night had a dice tray and a mini of her character. I apparently have some shopping to do! Rose City Comic Con would have been the ideal place for this shopping, but oh well.