So this is the story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down. I found myself suddenly living on the Sunshine Coast with a lot more spare time on my hands and a strong desire to return to the hobby I had forsaken for many years, so I did what any stereotypical nerd would do, I went searching on the internet.
I recalled a gaming site of old called Warseer and put up a few posts on there and was eventually directed to an Australian based gaming site called WargamerAU. It was there that I found a collection of forums dedicated to local gaming clubs and much to my satisfaction i located one not all that far from me. So I loaded my gear into my trusty steed (a run down ford falcon) and off I went.
Much to my dismay I was not greeted with warm welcome by all. Sure, there were people there and they were indeed playing the tabletop games that I wanted to play, but there was a definitive feeling of being an outsider. And to top it off, it was raining. What I found instead was basically a closed group, although they most probably did not even realise it. Nobody was rude, nobody was rejecting, but neither was anyone welcoming, and this I fear led to that club's eventual demise. The positive side of that day was that I did eventually meet a few people and had a game and had some fun.
The entire experience however, left me feeling like this was not the place for me. It was a group of people who've known each other for a long time and who most likely fit in that introvertive personality trait that many other gamers and geeks and nerds belong to. It's not to say they were bad people, far from it, many in fact are quite nice and awesome people, and since that day I've had many a game with them. It was, though, a negative environment to newcomers.
So in order to remedy my situation of a lack of gaming partners, I went and started my own club, only not with the blackjack and hookers. I put up some tentative posts and had a few responses.
What surprised me though was the turnout, whilst initially it was just a trickle, it turned into a flood. And after 3 months, the fortnightly meets turned into weekly, and after 6 months the stress of running it all led me to realise I wasn't having fun anymore so I essentially 'went public' and got a group together to decide on a leadership team to keep the club running so I could go back to having fun and playing games.
Fast forward a year and we've since moved to a larger hall to accommodate the more people we were receiving as our initial hall was quite tiny. Now we have the room to handle many more people and I hope we can continue to grow.
You can find our club forum here, BeerWaaagh!. If you're in the area, even if just temporarily, we're welcoming to all new comers and there's always someone fresh for a game.
No comments:
Post a Comment