Introduce Yourself

Guvnor

The Guvnor
Staff member
Hi, I'm Tom. I was born in the middle of the 60s, which makes me one of the first of Generation X.
To that I end I spent my teenage years listening to punk, New Wave, reggae and ska.. whilst playing games from Ken St. Andre, Mark Miller and that notorious subversive E Gary Gygax. My first rpg was Traveller, followed by T&T, then Basic/Expert D&D and then RuneQuest. I have played a metric f**k tonne of games since, and yet oddly the only core game I'd now add to that list is Savage Worlds!!
I have lived in East Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Worcestershire and Tyneside. I travel a lot as a transport researcher and part time spy.
Oh, and I am the Guvnor here.. and a troll...
 
Hi I’m Darran, and I’m a role player. (Hi Darran).

I am a great grandfather, grandfather to nine (soon to be ten) grandkids. I work in Theatre and Entertainment Venues rubbing shoulders with the famous and equally obscure of Britain’s popular culture.

Been playing since 1981, mostly Chaosium games but predominantly RuneQuest with my brother, Russell. My brother passed a couple of years ago to cancer so I don’t do RQ anymore.

I currently run with Firefly Cortex+ and Tales from the Loop, mostly at RPG cons. I draw and create my own maps, artwork, handouts, NPC cards, etc.
I attend about a dozen conventions a year up and down the UK.

I helped organise and got started three UK RPG conventions, Continuum, Furnace, and Con-Quest.
 
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Hi, I'm Dom.

Teenage years kicked off with Ultravox, Jean Michel Jarré, Simple Minds, Queen, U2 and most importantly Marillion. Later Sisters of Mercy, NIN and Pink Floyd. Got interested in gaming through two books - 'Battle: Practical Wargaming' and 'What is "Dungeons & Dragons"?' which I picked up at the local library (see, books change lives).

Started playing RPGs around 1983 with Call of Cthulhu 2nd edition (mainly as the copy of Holmes Basic I wanted from the local shop had already been bought by my mum as a present for me from my Aunt for Christmas and then I couldn't find Starter Traveller in the shop in Chester). Moved on the Holmes D&D, Traveller and much more. Loved Pendragon and Stormbringer.

Started a club in secondary school and played ever since. Hung out with the SASRA crowd up in Cumbria while I worked, doing RPGs and LARPs. Kind of backed off at Uni, but played again once I started working in a club in Chester and with a RuneQuest group in St Helens. Relocated to Wetherby, and now tend to play online with people I mostly met at the various conventions, at the conventions themselves and at irregular meet ups with the Sheffield and Newcastle gang.

Favourite game is Traveller, but love PbtA engine, Wordplay, The One Ring, The Esoterrorists, Stormbringer, Pendragon and Delta Green. Currently enjoying Heroic Fantasy and a bit of an OSR kick. Fond of Savage Worlds but find Fate a tiny bit meh. BRP and I are still friends, but our passions cooled some years ago.

Written several books for BITS for Traveller, and I'm the committee member everyone forgets from the team that brings you Furnace, Revelation and (very soon) North Star.

Chartered Engineer by training, Safety Professional by Day, Gamer and Dad of two Lads at Night.
 
I suppose I ought to weigh in: I'm Maddy, and I've been in the hobby since my 20s. I got introduced to D&D by an old flame in my uni days, and when I moved to London back in 1980 I joined the GLC Wargames Society and used to hang out at weekends in Games Workshop in Ravenscourt Park... I did the early Dragonmeets, but not really any other conventions until I moved to Cambridge in 1990. Since then I've done most indie games conventions (waves at Darran - yes, we will sign up!)
 
Hi all

I'm Rich, born in London, now based in coastal Essex.

Started in '78 with blue box D&D and played pretty much ever since, apart from a couple of breaks. I'm currently playing mostly online and having the time of my life with a cool bunch of guys playing a wide range of stuff. Off and on con-goer.

Music is my other main hobby and there's just too many artists that I'm into to list here, though they'll appear in the turntable thread at some point. Always trying to pull a music project together and always failing. Gracefully.

QPR supporter, though too far away to attend these days.

Broadly speaking, I work in the training industry.
 
Firstly, a big thank you to Tom and Graham and the team for creating this modern incarnation of The Tavern. :)

With regards to table top role playing games, I only got the opportunity to play them in person a few years ago, but have always been an avid reader of classic science fiction and fantasy, which were the cheapest books I found at street corners and bargain shops where I grew up.

My first proper science fiction novel was a Penguin classic of H.G. Wells The Time Machine when I was still very young. And from there I continued with the science fiction of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, Robert E. Heinlein, and many others including the fantasy of J. R. R. Tolkein.

I also enjoy collecting comicbooks, especially the classic heroes like the "Superhero Trinity" of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and the works of great comic artists like Mike Grell's The Warlord, the master Alex Ross, and modern artists like Jim Lee, George Perez and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.

I enjoy classic fantasy art too, having grown up with the covers of Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Michael Whelan, Chris Foss, the brothers Hildebrandt, Todd Lockwood, Larry Elmore, and many more. And so some of my best games revolve around the themes of my childhood, thus, Star Wars is a given, and Star Trek too, but also Warhammer, Conan and Dungeons and Dragons, because, DnD3.5 with Keith Baker's Eberron was my first ever table top role playing game.

Outside my table top hobby, I write software for APIs and integrate corporate applications at work. Hopefully, I may write a computer game one day.
 
Hi i’m Simon I’m a 46 year old gamer into any games that are fun. I’ve written, illustrated, mapped and published RPGs / Boardgames, computer games and freeforms for over 25 years. I used this be a guest at cons, I even ran them. Now I’m just happy to be able to get my arse to one. I’m part of a great gaming club in Congleton, Cheshire called Ruby’s Fund, where all manner of fun occurs every Tuesday and Thursday. So come along say hello, I do bite, but you might like it.
 
Hello my lovelies! Neil here, from the Frozen North (aka Newcastle). Some people call me Gowbear. I used to go by the rather uninspiring OBWMNG but that's another tale. I'm 47, Aquarius and looking for fun with games that doesn't involve being at the centre of an international spy ring. Seriously, they're all spies I tell you. Spies.

My story started in a coal shed, went to a games club, took a few years off for beer and ladies at Uni, got rehooked by Young Master Birch in Rugby, started messing around with groups back in Newcastle, settled on one when 3e came out and we're still going strong. In between the coal shed and the current games room I've had all sorts of adventures with roleplaying games, LARPS, CCGs and all manner of other things. I've published a couple of games which you might have seen and might well be doing that again in the future.

Outside of gaming I'm a lecturer in business stuff, the chair of a local charity, and the father to two now-adult (yes, feel old all of you . OLD!) geeks. I have a cat who views gamers as superb cushion humans. I'm also into comics (ish) and wrestling (ish) and sport (ish) especially American Football (Go Steelers). I love cooking and making cocktails and taking the piss out of the Tories and listening to blues and 80s indie music and loads of other stuff.

Stay sexy!
 
Hi all

I'm Newt.

A born again Lancastrian, currently living in the Pennines in rainy Royton. If you think where you live is wet, think again!. Look there goes a rain dragon overhead! Some people say they are just planes from nearby Manchester Airport, but they are dead wrong ;).

I'm currently crafting a carefully constructed narrative where I'm running my own games-publishing business, D101 Games, which is occasionally disrupted by the demands of my little family who think I'm sort of house husband/stay at home dad/puppy sitter/minion to three cats. Good job they are so loveable :)

Games wise I'm into funky-narrative games and old school dice rollers with a love that shifts between the two, depending on how rules-lite young or old and crunchy I feel. I probably like D100 games too much, which is why I joined the Tavern many moons ago (when it was Elric's Tavern). The regulars understand this affliction :) But my current obsession is Chinese Folk Religion Roleplaying, in the form of the card driven Monkey The Roleplaying Game which at time of writing this is just about to hit its 2nd Incarnation and over the coming months spew out all manner of supplements and short spin-off games :)

I'm a regular at Furnace and 7 Hills, even though they are the wrong side of the hills I like to go raiding for the sacred Hendersons Relish. This year sees me return to Continuum after missing the last two or three due to family holidays - which is not happening this year!. I'm planning and plotting more, but I've got to have a quick chat with my lovely wife and ignore the dog's big puppy eyes (bless it doesn't understand yet that dad is globe-trotting rpg publisher with lofty ambitions :) ).

Oh and I'm also a Wizard of Awesome and Win (but shush don't tell anyone its a secret :) )

May The Win follow you around like the Awesomenaut you are!

;O) Newt
 
Hi I'm Andy, 37 and from the West Midlands. My stepping stone to roleplaying was MB's HeroQuest which led to buying a Dungeons & Dragons starter set, which largely just gathered dust as I didn't understand the rules and my attention moved onto the early 90s Games Workshop line of games.

Nonetheless my interest in RPGs simmered under the surface, thanks to a shortlived RPG lunctime club at school where I played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and my own attempts to run completely improvisational games Call of Cthulhu and CyberPunk 2020 for my friends. But in an ill-fated attempt to appear more attractive to the opposite sex I left all this behind in my mid/late teens.

Fast forward 12 years, my then gf (now wife) suggested we play a boardgame one afternoon. She soon game to regret this as I fell down the rabbithole that is boardgamegeek. 5 years into this I came across Descent and like HeroQuest before it reignited my interest in RPGs which have dominated my interests for the past 5 years.

I now enjoy a variety of RPGs from trad to indie to OSR and everything in between. After struggling to find a regular group, I now have found a good one in Kenilworth. Would love to go to more cons, but struggle to find the time with 2 young children, but always look forward to my local con in Solihull (UK Games Expo) :) .

Outside of RPGs, my life is largely dominated by family life and work, which as a Chartered Accountant largely involves lots of spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations.
 
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How do, all.

I'm Michael, and I've been gaming since my teens (which occurred way back at the start of the '80s). I grew up in north-western Europe and am now a UK roleplayer stranded in Hong Kong. Most of my gaming life was spent running and playing a BRP hybrid in adapted settings including but not limited to Middle Earth, Greyhawk, The Known World (later a.k.a. Mystara), Mythago Wood, Biggles, WWII, Time Tunnel, Vietnam, Conan's Hyperboria, Lankhmar, Glorantha (not a lot, mind), A Plague of Demons, Aliens, Blade Runner, Karl May, the Thirty Years War, Domitian Rome, the Belgariad, and a few other which escape me.

These days I play less and spend most of my almost non-existent spare time working on my published and one-day-to-be-published games. The lack of spare time is down to running a couple of landscape architecture degree programmes in The Real World.
 
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Hi, I'm Nigel, originally from Finchley , then Buckinghamshire in my teens and subsequently all over the world and now reside in a little seaside town on the south coast between Southampton and Bournemouth.

Started roleplaying with a photocopy of OD&D in the mid 70's and progressed on to C&S and a wide variety of the early games before dropping out of the RP scene while working overseas until a return in the late 90's with pbm games before moving to the US and restarting proper gaming. Moved back to teh UK in 2009 and found that Conception was just down the road so I enjoyed a few years of that before it ended. Now I manage a few cons every year of which the highlights are Expo and The Kraken.
 
Hi, I'm Ben. I'm a 45 year old gamer currently in Hertfordshire. Grew up playing red-box Basic D&D with flirtations with CoC, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Stormbringer (I won a copy through White Dwarf when Games Workshop published their fabulous edition with the infamous falling out pages). Took a break from gaming during university years, coming back to it in my 30s after reading an article on the BBC website about D&D's anniversary. Commented on it how I used to love the game and was contacted by a local gaming group and haven't looked back since!

These days I play in two groups, one of which I am the sole GM, running a ridiculously long Pendragon game through the Great Pendragon Campaign. We're currently on a break, playing Mutant Year Zero, which is a real blast. My other group switches around GMing duties, tending to play short 3-4 session campaigns with a variety of systems. Here I have run Blue Planet, Doctor Who, The One Ring, Fate etc. etc. we're game to give anything a try.

In 'real life' I'm a minister of a Christian church, which I find thoroughly rewarding. The congregation are very tolerant of my frequent references to geek culture, especially Doctor Who! It does mean, however, that gaming conventions are difficult as weekends away are hard to arrange. The exception is Continuum which is how I first discovered the Tavern in 2012 I think, having been encouraged to go by Greg Stafford. Have been every time since, including playing in a Pendragon game with the man himself, long promised and anticipated, in which I played a cymric knight called Daffyd, who was knocked off his horse in the opening scene and spent the rest of the game unconscious... Along with others who may well turn up at some point, we formed the Pendragon Eschille and offer Pendragon games amongst others each time. Alongside rpgs, I have developed an expensive love of boardgaming, at which I am useless, now accompanied by collecting the fantasic Big Finish Doctor Who audiobooks and miniatures by Warlord.
 
I'm Elaine. I didn't start roleplaying until my second year at University, so whilst that's been... yikes, nearly 25 years, I've not been RPing anywhere near as long as some here. I started by LARPing, and then moved on to tabletop games.

I live in Birmingham, but also lived in Southampton for 4 years and Sheffield for 10 years before that. I've been the Games Tsar for Furnace since 2009, and for Revelation and North Star since their inception.

I work in higher education (management, not teaching), and own a temperamental cat.
 
Hi. I'm Declan. Irish, but lived in England pretty much my entire life.
I'm an IT bod - I think my current role is "IT Demand Manager" - not sure what that actually means but I manage a team of Infrastructure Designers.
My first rpg was Traveller, followed by AD&D, Gamma World and Runequest. Since then I've played just about everything. I'm currently running Blades in the Dark online and Fate Core locally face to face.

My aim for 2018 is to teach my son to game. As of this post he's six and likes a variety of board games (Roborally is a favourite) and a few simple RPGs (eg Fate Accelerated). He's also very particular about his dice - they have to be red.
 
Hey everyone!

Excited to find this place and hopefully get some f2f rpg action going. I'm jonathan , 47 from sunderland, been a gamer all my life... but mainly wargames and baordgames for many years.. wanting to change that and get the RPG going ... traveller and D n D action in sunderland area wanted! Married for many years, 2 kids reaching adulthood and I can feel 'my time' getting ever closer .... its gonna be a blast!
 
Hello,

I'm Graham, an anglicised Pict of 54 years, though mostly I'm an elf.

I started my RPG journey as a Sheffield Unii fresher in 1981, joining the Not Only Dungeons & Dragons Society. We played AD&D 1st Ed a lot and also spun away into our rooms to play RQ1 and then Traveller and then more, including a lot of FGU. Fun times with more to come.

These days I continue to splurge on fat colour books with too many things going on and not so secretly love the simplicity of PbtA games, which to my older sensibilities has everything I need to tell fab stories. I don't need the d100% granularity any more. However, you know how it is. Much as I might tell you all to go an play Ironsworn, I will still look forward to 13th Age Glorantha and waste a bit too much money on ginormous Modiphius 2d20 games. Sweden is where it is really at though.

I've published a few things, including my own Wordplay narrative bucket of d6 bacchanal, Age of Arthur Fate goodness, some Mindjammer and soon some The One Ring. I Laugh at Dragons.

I organise gaming gatherings at The Garrison (see my sig). It gives me an excuse to meet many of you, share some laughs, and play fab and intriguing games. I call that a win.

In apparently real life, I'm a cool Strategic Product Manager (I just made that up a bit) with NHS Digital in Leeds. I'm the father of three kids, 12, 20, 22 and am going to be married later this year. :)

Possibly about to embark on a Shadows of Esteren campaign with the home group on a Thursday. My garage is about to be converted into a multi-function room, one of which will be a gaming place, great for Sunday all dayers. I'll be posting more about that, including chairs and table types and which bottled beer to put in the mini fridge...

IMG_20180217_175039.jpg
 
I'm Neil and I'm a...
Sorry wrong forum.

I am Neil and I play games; boardgames, RPGs, wargames and cardgames. I currently play wargames weekly at Durham Wargames Group. At other times of my life I've played mainly RPGs and other times boardgames. Traveller and Call of Cthuhlu are still my go to games. More modern games wise I'm rather fond of indie games. Fiasco being a favourite and Prime Time Adventures has facilitated some of the best gaming sessions I've played in.

I've moved around the country a fair bit but have landed just outside of Durham.

PS I've hardly ever played D&D.
 
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