Name: Gregory A. Volz
Location: Wisconsin (lifer)
Occupation: Gamer (ok, ok, Senior Service Delivery Consultant)
Well, my story is much like a lot of other gamers. I started gaming with the old Erol Otus Basic Dungeons and Dragons set. My friend, Keith Fenske, used to DM over the phone for hours at a time. B2 Keep on the Borderlands provided immense amounts of fun. While I can no longer remember my characters name I clearly recall what he was like. He was a cleric of Thor and wielded dual warhammers. He died before reaching 3rd level in a battle with stirges. The guest DM was feeling particularly devious that afternoon and decided not to tell us that the stirges stuck to us and continued to drain our blood. Oh well, die and learn.
After my initial experience with D&D I went for a few years gaming with only one or two people. I had introduced the game to some other friends during the school year but being that we were all only 12 or 13 years old with no easy access to transportation we did not game together much during that summer. The splinter group that I had created gamed like fiends. While there were only two players and the DM they easily conquered B4 The Lost City. In later years I found out that each of the players ran 10+ characters at the same time but they still had quite a bit of fun.
During the hiatus from the group I stumbled upon my first Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS). It was a mystical place called Fantasy Isle. This store, nay, temple, was what a classic gaming store should be. The memory of it has been placed upon a pedestal and has yet to be taken down (although it may well be happening in the future) from its lofty place on my mental mantle. Not only did this store sell complete lines of RPG’s, it also sold comic books and had a second floor with a wrought iron staircase spiraling upward to a darkened second floor. The second floor contained the best selection of arcade games surrounded by faux caves and plaster stalactites and stalagmites. It was the perfect place to hang out for an entire day. The owners, two fellows named Lester, ran a tight store. One handled the business end and the other was an excellent miniature painter. Sadly the store was shut down due to some illegal splicing of the power lines coming into the building. The next-door store owner just could not figure out why his electrical bills were so high.
Through this entire time I was starting to purchase games other than TSR’s including TMNT, Villains and Vigilantes, Star Trek, Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest and many more. With the closing of Fantasy Isle the next nearest store was over 45 miles away. The road trips made in the ‘74 Pontiac LeMans, a.k.a. The Land Yacht, are still talked about around the gaming table.
Onto college and I was still with the same gaming group. Heck, we all even went to the same college and lived together in the same dorm. Quite a bit of playing was done and then I was introduced to my first RPGA gamer. He showed me the wondrous Polyhedron Magazine and the excellent ramblings of Ed Greenwood. While I have been involved with The Living Campaigns I am purely a dabbler. I loved the Classic RGPA events more than anything. Those one shots were some of my best gaming experiences I have ever had.
After college (note I did not say I finished college) gaming took somewhat of a back seat to the real world. I married my high school sweetheart and moved about 50 miles away from my gaming group. During this time I gamed at a few local gaming stores and traded files on TSR’s official site hosted on AOL. I also sold off a large portion of my RPG collection to purchase crack..errr..Magic: The Gathering that is. The best part about the move is I was now within 20 minutes of GenCon and Winter Fantasy. Ahh, the glory years. Gone so soon and making me wish I had gone to more cons
After a few years of not doing much at all I re-hooked up with my old gaming group as we branched out into miniature gaming. Battletech was our game of choice and we have been playing that for years, although Vor the Maelstrom took the forefront for a while.
This is the point that I made my first foray into creating an online store. While it was a failure in the end it showed me that I had the business sense of a gnat. Apologies to anyone whose order that got lost or sent to the wrong address. I now have infinite respect for those that run a bricks-and-mortar or an online store. You guys rock.
This brings us to the present. I still game occasionally with the same group I started with 20+ years ago but I also game with a local group. The local group gets more done but doesn’t sometimes get the in jokes that I have from my history but it is still fun nonetheless. My twelve year old son buys some games (WoW TCG, D&D, and some other stuff) and I have taught him the basics of war gaming using Digimon figures and a homebrewed system.
After my reminiscing the question that begs to be answered is “What is Natural Twenty Gaming”? The answer is pretty simple. Natural Twenty Gaming is a hobby that will produce table-top and virtual gaming material and also a site for posting campaign calendars and notes.
