Welcome to Cup of Head

About two years ago, I came back to role playing. It had been, well, since I left the Marine Corps back in 2001 since I spent a large amount of time doing this wonderful hobby. I had played games sporadically when I could, but the gaming time just wasn’t there. Things got even worse when I moved from Anchorage to the small Alaskan town of Kenai. With a large family and not knowing anyone in this rural area, I was pretty sure my days of role playing were done.

Then I discovered roll20.

Now, I can’t say that running into the website was an end to my problems. It wasn’t. The number one issue with trying anything online is finding people in your time zone. At that time, there weren’t really a lot of options as a player. So, I took a risk, and decided that if I wanted a game that I could play in my time zone, I better run one. And I did.

It was Fantasy Flight’s Warhammer 40k Imperial Guard themed Only War. I knew nothing of the system, and I was completely lost on how to operate roll20. My thoughts were that this was going to last…oh…at the most a couple of months. At the very least, it would be a learning experience. I just hoped word didn’t go out on the street that there was a washed up GM in roll20 who didn’t know how to run games anymore.

Lucky for me, I struck gold.

No, it wasn’t the game. Not at first anyway. The first couple of games were pretty raw. The reason I struck gold, was because of the people I recruited in my group. The original group was fantastically patient with me. One guy was a little annoying, but it wasn’t all that bad. It was far better than I expected.

We did loose people. At the same time, however, we gained some really great RPers as well. The game got better, maybe even close to epic level. The group rotated game masters, giving us all a taste of different game styles favored by the different people running. In time, we shook off the idea of just playing Only War, and started a regular rotating game schedule.

Along the way, there has been a little drama. There always is when you’re dealing with, well, anything involving more than one person. Still, the professionalism, friendship, and trust we’ve built in the group has made the experience probably one of the best if not the best I’ve ever had in role playing.

So, here we are. Two years later. There were times I felt the gig was almost up. I don’t get that feeling that much anymore. What started out as playing with a group of semi-anonymous people from all over the United States, Canada, and Australia, has turned into a weekly event with friends, who I both respect and enjoy the company of.

I created this blog to collect some of our random game notes and thoughts on the hobby we’re so passionate about. Will people read this blog? Do I really give a shit? Yes, and sorta. Anyway, enjoy. Feel free to comment. This is a pretty open group of folks, just don’t be a douche, and we’ll be cool with you.