The first meeting of the Tuesday Knights (our gaming group) took place on August 19, 2008, when I ran the debut session of a new Castles & Crusades campaign for Nick, Pete, and Clare.
This was the first role-playing game I'd actually run for over a decade. I'd bottled out of running games several times since I'd come out of hospital in 2005 and was still very anxious about whether my health (both physically and mentally) would be up to the challenge.
In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes I made in those early days was getting distracted by the "new shiny", switching systems to Labyrinth Lord and then grinding the game into the ground, so someone else had to run something instead.
If I could travel back to 2008, I'd tell my younger self to have faith and stick with Castles & Crusades. Who knows, if that had been the case, we could still be playing that campaign now? How incredible would that be?
In the 17 years since that fateful day in the dining room of our old house, our pool of potential players has blossomed, while Pete, Clare and I remain the consistent core. We were joined by Kevin, who has become another constant around the table, Steve, Simon, Meredith, Erica, Mark and, most recently, Mark's daughter, Rebecca.
While other demands on their time have seen Nick, Steve, Simon, Meredith, and Erica step away from the group, we still manage to corral a solid four or five people for our monthly sessions.
Despite the collapse of that original campaign, I did manage to run a three year fantasy campaign using Heroes and Other Worlds (a modern reworking of the classic GURPS-adjacent Fantasy Trip system), which ended with the destruction of the world.
Pete ran a number of Top Secret espionage games, Meredith presented us with a wholly homemade World of Warcraft adventure, Simon saw us right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft in his 5e D&D Curse of Strahd campaign (which went 'online' during the COVID pandemic), Clare's run some memorable indie one-shots, and the other year Mark scared the bejeebers out of us with his self-penned Call of Cthulhu rural horror adventure.
In between these I've tried to run some other games, but they've invariably crashed-and-burned because of my insecurities, self-doubt, and limited attention span.
I'm hoping that, after my two recent debacles (with Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) I've finally learned enough that when I'm next allowed to sit behind the gamesmaster's screen I'll be able to keep the train on the tracks.
However, our most enduring game has been Pete's "weird science" pulp adventure campaign that started as a 1950's "Atomic Horror" campaign using GURPS, then time-slipped to the 1930s for an epic Hollow Earth Expedition run, before, at the end of last year, switching systems again to Outgunned Adventures for more Indiana Jones-style shenanigans.
While other demands on their time have seen Nick, Steve, Simon, Meredith, and Erica step away from the group, we still manage to corral a solid four or five people for our monthly sessions.
Despite the collapse of that original campaign, I did manage to run a three year fantasy campaign using Heroes and Other Worlds (a modern reworking of the classic GURPS-adjacent Fantasy Trip system), which ended with the destruction of the world.
Pete ran a number of Top Secret espionage games, Meredith presented us with a wholly homemade World of Warcraft adventure, Simon saw us right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft in his 5e D&D Curse of Strahd campaign (which went 'online' during the COVID pandemic), Clare's run some memorable indie one-shots, and the other year Mark scared the bejeebers out of us with his self-penned Call of Cthulhu rural horror adventure.
In between these I've tried to run some other games, but they've invariably crashed-and-burned because of my insecurities, self-doubt, and limited attention span.
I'm hoping that, after my two recent debacles (with Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) I've finally learned enough that when I'm next allowed to sit behind the gamesmaster's screen I'll be able to keep the train on the tracks.
However, our most enduring game has been Pete's "weird science" pulp adventure campaign that started as a 1950's "Atomic Horror" campaign using GURPS, then time-slipped to the 1930s for an epic Hollow Earth Expedition run, before, at the end of last year, switching systems again to Outgunned Adventures for more Indiana Jones-style shenanigans.
And through all this, my rock and number one cheerleader has been my wonderful non-geeky wife, Rachel, who may not get the delights of roleplaying games, but understands how important they are to me.
Every month she cooks our group pizza, serves up drinks, and joins in the pre-game banter as we all catch-up on whatever is going on in our lives.
Last year's gaming plans were largely scuppered by my back problems (osteoarthritis), but hopefully that's behind me now (see what I did there?) and 2026 will be a return to regular gaming for the foreseeable future.
