See, when I moved to Madison last August, I discovered that the fabled UW Dungeon Masters Association had disappeared as a student group, leaving me without a venue for finding other old school-minded gamers. I was a bit disconcerted; I had spent a lot of my youth in university gaming clubs, so the fact that the legendary DMA had up and vanished was a blow to my plans for
So what's a community organizer to do? Set up a Meetup group, that's what.
I started things off with a get-together "just to talk" back in September. This was only partly successful, but it was a decent jog to my memory about how to do this sort of thing. So I printed up posters, and put them up around town at different game stores, libraries, and coffeehouses. I also chatted up the staff at the game stores, and asked for some help in steering gamers towards the group. By the end of September, there were about ten members.
I had a stroke of luck with Madison Games Day 2, which turned out to be a real success in building more awareness for Old School Goodness. In November and December, the group met twice at a local branch library - Madison Public Library meeting rooms were (and are) free, and this fitted in with my plans to take advantage of the growing connection between libraries and gaming.
- In November, I ran an Empire of the Petal Throne adventure - going into the Jakallan Underworld, while another referee then ran a Chill game.
- In December, there was a Harnmaster game, followed by "Losing Air" - an introductory adventure I designed for Classic Traveller.
I'm trying to lure Chad out for some HOTT in Rockford the next month... maybe you could make it as well? :)
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