Hello and Welcome To Gamerstable...

I'm a nerd. A huge nerd. Anyone who has ever met me, however briefly probably knows this. It just seeps out of me. I don't do it on purpose, I just like what I like and I like everyone knowing what I like and I like trying to get everyone to like what I like. That sentence got away from me, yeah. See? I did it again, in my head that was in David Tennant's voice. I can't be stopped.

I feel like I have almost always classified myself as a nerd. I loved science fiction, I played video games at recess, I read during school, I was an insufferable know-it-all in classes, I loved superhero shows and movies, I played Harry Potter with my little brothers instead of House, I loved technology and I liked learning how things worked and the origin of things, When we got a computer I loved it. I was immersed in nerd culture, and yet, I had never played a Tabletop RPG Game.

I became obsessed with webcomics my first year of college. At one point in time I was reading over 30 on a daily basis and had gone through the entirety of each archive. I went to art school (for film) and now I'm studying Computer Science.

Uh, where was I going with this?

Oh right. I have glasses, therefore = nerd. Argument over.

The first time I had heard of Dungeons and Dragons (I am not going to type that in its entirety throughout the rest of this, it's going to be D&D, from here on), I was very young. My older cousin Tommy was in junior high and I must've been in 4th or 5th grade. He had started playing this game and one afternoon decided to try out his DM (Dungeon Master, for those who don't know) skills. He had talked me into doing it by telling me how it could sort of be like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Together we talked his sister into doing it because it was two against one, and Kate has always done what I've said (ok, maybe not entirely true, but it makes for a good story.) We created characters, I remember mine was a blonde thief hobbit with gold hair and purple eyes and started an adventure. And by started an adventure, I mean Tommy didn't even get through the set up before Kate decided we had to go play Polly Pockets or something. The only thing I remember about that was what I said before about my character and that he had been trying to describe a lighter similar to Dumbledore's in the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Several years had gone by before I had thought about D&D again. When I was in high school I got a job, and suddenly D&D started to come up again. My boss, Dewalin, had been playing D&D since he was a teenager and had talked about it once or twice (and later a million times). I was intrigued, but at the time he didn't have a group to play with, and I was busy living my high school life. Then I went off to college. I got super into webcomics. It started with PvP and Penny Arcade and just spiraled out of control from there. All of a sudden I was submersed in even more geek culture than previously. I learned about conventions, different nerdy music, that maybe you can like Star Trek even if you loved Star Wars growing up, and most importantly THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO D&D THAN PURPLE EYES AND DUMBLEDORE'S LIGHTER. I finally got really interested. I researched it... Well, I read the Wikipedia on it. I talked to Dewalin about it, and actually wanted to know everything about it, and wanted to learn how to play. He still didn't have a group, so I still didn't get to play. Finally I got an offer to play from one of my high school friends.. The only catch he now lived (and gamed) two hours away from our hometown, which would be close to three and a half hours away from where I went to college... Oh did I mention they played on weekdays? Couldn't make it work. Then a whole bunch of life happened and I moved and I moved and I moved, then finally I moved back home. Dewalin finally had a gaming group and maybe I could play sometime. Due to circumstances (they were in the middle of a campaign, he had to quit playing again, he started back up, but I had to read the player's guide first, one of us had to be at work) I never got to play with him and his group. It seemed like it just wasn't in the cards for me to ever play this game.

Then one fateful day my dear sweet friend Evan sends me a text telling me a coworker needed to find a girl who had never played D&D before and was willing to learn. She told him she might have just the person, and then asked if I was interested. I told her, yes, of course, I've wanted to learn for years, drop him my digits. Then she tells me the catch. He does a podcast called Gamerstable (please click that link and check it out) and they weren't just reaching out to n00bs willy nilly, they were doing it for the show. Everything we did would be recorded and put out on the internet for the masses to hear. This slowed me down a little bit. I'm not at all shy and actually had considered doing a podcast before, but this was a little too far out of my comfort zone. I hate feeling like I'm ignorant of something, and I hate even more being caught in the act of being ignorant. They were going to record me doing something I had never done before where there were millions of ways for me to sound like the stupidest person on Earth. I didn't tell her of my hesitation and just left it. In late June Jayson sent me some (unintentionally) intimidating texts trying to validate my nerdom. I passed with flying colors and didn't even have to tell him the glasses thing.

Side Note: this is a direct quote from one of Jayson's texts, "We're not looking for new members but... Ideally this would lead to an invitation to play anytime after the recordings are done..." You can't hide your lyin' eyes, old man, I found your Wanted: Looking for Gamer Girls add as soon as I logged on to the shared google doc. (Not to mention the seven months I've been a fairly regular part of the group).

The first Wednesday in August I threw caution to the wind and went to go sit in some strange dude's basement with five other dude strangers. I travelled thirty miles to the far off land of Gamerstableville. I only had two slightly panicky monologues (I would say conversations, but I was pretty busy being the only one talking) and only came up with about 20 completely plausible ways this could end badly. Oh, yeah, I'm completely neurotic, if you didn't know. Did I mention Shawn's basement was completely creepy? Luckily, no basement was ever as creepy as the one at my grandma's house which I lived in for three or so years, so that didn't scare me off. I met Jayson (face to face), Eric, Mike, Dan, and Shawn. Mark, the other member of the group was gone and they joked about me replacing him and I impressed them all with my Batman/Mark voice. Then we recorded my first podcast. I honestly can't even remember the topic... Why don't you guys go over to http://gamerstable.com/ and go back to sometime in August and figure that out for me? Alright, Alright, sheesh, I'll stop plugging it. I think maybe we just did a character generation/ who the heck is Shannon one.. That sounds right.

Needless to say, the seven of us hit it off (I didn't replace Mark, he was there the next week). The rest is history.

After our D&D run, which you can listen to on the site.. that I'm not going to link to again... but if you just scroll up and click the link and go to "Roleplay Dramas" you can listen to my three part adventure. Anyway... After out D&D run, the guys started talking about what was next, a superhero campaign, playing Mutants And Masterminds, set in World War 2. I'm not sure what happened to all my superhero love, when they asked me what superhero I would want to be, my mind was blank. I wasn't sure at all how character generation worked, and I didn't know what super powers would be "good" super powers to have and I wanted to be an asset to the team. They had said World War 2, which I always relate to Indiana Jones, so I said, "a female Indiana Jones, but with, like, super powers or something". Oh silly Shannon. Anyway, when it came down to it, I did not want to be female Indiana Jones, when looking over the book with Mike I kept leaning toward psychic tendencies and then I used a computer program that Eric had to create my character.

I know I hadn't intended it, but somehow I managed to throw together a pretty decent telepath. Using a hillbilly name generator we found online, and the aforementioned character building tools, Cissy Birmingham, the Liverpudlian orphan psychic came to fruition. For the past six months I have been stepping into her skin to fight some Nazis, dig for information, and blow things up. Tonight, I did that for what may have been the last time. Yes, we left it open ended and there was a lot of set up for replay, but with so many games to play, who is to say we will ever get back to Cissy Birmingham and the agents of M.U.M.? World War 2 is over, we captured or killed all (most) of the bad guys, this campaign has come to an end.

Even though we had my short little D&D stint, I consider this my first REAL game. Cissy was the first character I cared about. If Ivy Nightfall (my D&D elf) died, I would've been a little upset, but mostly because it meant I lost (I know you don't actually win or lose, stop hating). If Cissy Birmingham died or even anyone Cissy cared about (Thanks a million times for not killing Sgt. Baker, Mike) it would have been sad, extremely sad. It would be like in the movie [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS]. Sometimes you just care about a character, no matter what the medium, books, movie, gaming, even artwork, or songs. You want these characters to be happy, and that's how I feel about Cissy.

I kept pretty decent notes during our campaign, and tonight after I wanted/helped create a fully fleshed out epilogue for Cissy, her love Frank Baker, and her other friends, we discussed a possible project where I write Cissy's memoirs. I haven't fully decided, but it might be something to keep your eye out for.

Now for some sentimentality for people who actually exist:

I'm super grateful to have Gamerstable and those guys in my life. Even though I'm only 1+ campaign in, I feel like I can say, I love tabletop gaming. I love getting immersed in a world and even more so, having a say in how that world works. I wouldn't have that if it weren't for the show. Really, it's more than just a podcast, it's even more than gaming, it's friendship. Some days I feel like I've been invited to this elite club that most people just get to view through the window... I don't have their history, and I don't always get all of their references, and sometimes... dang... those gents can be crude, but regardless we have a good time, and they treat me as one of their own, and we have fun. Wednesday night, consider yourself booked, indefinitely.