Curiosity/nosiness strikes me:

How and when did you guys hook up with your current groups? Work? School? Actively searching the nooks and crannies of the gaming underworld?

My three players (two regulars, one part timer) all used to work for me. We've all performed together in theatre as well. We're also trying to recruit a buddy I made at a more recent job, as well as my brother-in-law, who's a hardcore D&D guy.

I asked about playing online on DS after having no luck at finding any real life groups, and came across Kagetenshi's and Taran's games.

A vast combination.

My Saturday group (on hiatus, sorta) I met via a Dumpshock advert, as with mmu1 and a few other locals here. The rest I knew from before, long enough ago that I've quite forgotten how gaming came up (though it frequently does naturally if we talk long enough).

~J

Originally the first two, who knew each other from highschool, and myself met through the message board on ENWorld (Eric Noah) right after D&D3e came out. I had abondoned my previous group because i found i couldn't stand playing 2e/1e AD&D after learning the 3e rules, and they weren't going to switch over for at least months if ever.

Our first session we played on neutral ground at a local gaming store table. I wore my bug shirt, a thick cotton shirt with a faux tropical print in the loudest children's toy colours you can imagine, complete with ultra-hip [for about a week in the late 80's] wooden buttons. Next session we met at my place. They said that was because my house was centrally located, and definately had nothing to do with not wanting me to know where they lived.

Then my SO started playing as well as one of the other two's sister plus another guy from the old group i played with. We had a couple of other people start with us since, but move on for various life-interference reasons. Then last year a guy taking a class with one of the originals started playing with us.

My first group is a group put together by another GM who mysteriously disappeared (it's online). I've been running their game for about a year now, waiting patiently for his return.

My second group is my brother and a bunch of his friends in Guatemala (also online).

My third group is players from my first group in a game set up and abandoned by my wife (also online).

My other online groups are random people who happened to apply to the same game as I did.

If we're willing to look outside of SR...

My RL exalted group is friends from college. Most of them knew each other since high school. Since I'm connected to the RPG network here, I regularly get offers through them to other fantasy games.

My RL Firefly group I know through a shared contact. They're almost all LARPers (crazy people, I know), but since I know one guy who knows guys, we managed to get in.

My 16/7 one-on-one RPG is with my wife. She won't let me sleep because she wants more story time. She's like a drug addict, but more violent.

I play with the same 6 people for about 12 years, now. We play every saturday, and I´m usually the GM, but when I have to work at the weekends, one of the players GMs a mean fantasy game - a truly scaring and epic thing, like Michael Morcoock being rewritten by Lovecraft.

My wife has gamed with us in the last year, and she´s absoluted addicted to it (specially SR). At first, she moaned about me not being home at saturday afternoons - now, all I hear is "do you have the game stuff ready, right? RIGHT? yeah, whatever. Where´s the new cyber? What do you mean, I can´t have a titanium-dikoted bone lacing implant? IT´S IN THE RULES, YOU MORON!!"

Sometimes I wish I never explained to her how RPG works...

I used to game with other people, but that was more than 10 years ago. All of them are coleagues from the polytechnical school, although some of us are separated by a 5-year lapse of scholarity.

I started playing in a friends SR campaign, and he had somewhere like 12 players present. So I stole about half of them and started my own campaign. (Well, will start. We're still Character Creating.)

My normal group I met through some friends at the church I used to go to.

I have a somewhat backup group that I haven't met with for a while. Some stupid internal drama or other.

Outside of that... None. I may end up picking up another group in the Pittsburgh area if I can manage to get the time to meet up with some of the players.

Met mine through a local gaming group. Still going strong for the moment. Currently I have 3-4 players, still looking for more in the Dallas area.

No group at the moment. Don't want to go into details.
Tried recently to start my own and it fell to pieces before character creation was even done thanks to multiple RL issues.

Though I did recently get invited to try out for another group, but they were playing SR4 so I had to turn down the offer.

I have a group at home whom I've been friends with for years that I'll run with when I'm there.

I got connected to my group at school through a Dumpshock Ad.

My current group meets RL every Saturday, and sometimes on other days during long weekends.

One of the guys I've known since basic training and we've always managed to get shipped to the same place, so we've gamed with each other since just after basic, so about 4 years.

The other players are people we've met over the last couple of years in the army, and have been with us for different lengths of time. The best thing about being MI is the disproportionate number of gamers.

My group is starting our first run next Thursday. they are a couple of guys I have been playing Warmachine with for about a yaer now. Hopefully we can glean another player or 2 from the local wargaming constituency.

I first got started in a local group after I was invited by a friend who's roommate played SR in her boyfriend's college buddy's game.

Had to work at that one a bit to make it sound as complex as possible.

Anyway. I had just dropped Compuserve in favor of getting a cable modem and thus lost my CS RP group, so I started my forums (link in sig) and got some people from school to join, along with a few I still knew from CS, and they brought in some people they knew. A lot of people left, but that group is still more or less together with around 6-10 active players in assorted games (we've got Shadowrun, d20, White Wolf, and a lot of freeform, and there's talk of introducing GURPS and a d20 Modern setting).

Then we had a campaign on our college campus last year, run by the friend who originally introduced me to the game, and composed mostly of people we had met in clubs. This year, I'm running a game for some people I met in Amtgard (a combat LARP like the SCA, but we're not crazy), and she's doing the same for some regulars at a books & coffee place just off-campus.

If anyone at CU is on DSF and looking for a game, I could use another player or two. It should be a pretty fast-paced and combat-heavy game, considering the characters we already have.


"...they get healing factor?!" - one of my players (a big comic geek) upon reading the shapeshifter description. He's playing a werewolf now.

And the covert ops girl carries an assault rifle.

*sniff* I dont have a group anymore...

Though it looks like I might have the chance to run something light for some HS friends of my little sister...

I've had SR3 since it was a new book, I purchased it planning to play with some friends from high school, but that fell through...

I was digging around my closet some years later (spring 04' to be exact) when I found the book and took it over to a friend's house, he thumbed through it found it interesting, we recruited another close friend, and it was on.

Most recently we have added another player also a close friend, and have updated to SR4, so we'd all be learning something new.

"Way back in 2000..." ?!?!

ouch

Our group first started abour 3 years ago as a D&D group, playing twice weekly. Friday's became harder to play because some players had too much work/school/whatever that day so instead of cancelling Friday's, the rest got interested in playing Shadowrun. And the rest of history.

A bunch of us old folks got together to play D&D last February. I've known the GM & his wife for a long time & I knew the GM enjoyed SR. (He's the only person I've known around here that does...losers.) Anyway, I started reminiscing on occasion & discovered that one of the other regulars was an SR nut, too.

End result? We are putting together our characters now, & when he gets back from Las Vegas, we'll start running! Yay!!!

we've had a gorup that can trace it's origins back more than 20 years, with members coming in, leaving, coming back. it is at last ending as we move away and have kids but:

The oldest members of my group got to know each other in HS back in the early 80's. Some were also involved in an Explorer Post and were adult (HA!) advisors when I came along. A couple of us were picked up that way. 2 were co-workers or the brother of a member's g/f. and the last we picked up in a Judo dojo, she ended up marrying one of the original members.