Mandatory Slavery

So I've had the crazy idea of starting a gaming club. Yay me...

But then it's not like I have something else to do with my time when I'm not hauling around old peoples. (Besides wanking and surfing the net.) And who knows, maybe i'd actually work and I find some socially capable, interesting, olfactory acceptable gamers interested in trying out Indie games.

As a reminder for myself, my plans and ideas so far:

-Look at the gaming clubs already in place.
There are already a few gaming clubs and similar organisation around, though none that really focus on anything but the main mainstream. So far, I haven't really been all that active there (Different tastes and all that. ) but checking them out seems like a good idea. Maybe there's no need to reinvent the wheel after all, and who knows, maybe there are some real gems there.

-Create some sort of web presence
With many people being connected, setting up a website I can redirect people to and that acts as a meeting space, information center and whatever else proves usefull seems like a good idea. I've had good experiences with pbwiki and I can see myself using it to set up the site, maybe with something like a forum if people are actually interested. I'd try to have as much stuff online as possible before I actually start recruiting people, so potential members can instantly see what this is about and so on.

-Get the word out
The best website is worth shit if nobody knows about it, so I have to make the website known somehow. So far, I've been thinking of the basic no-budget advertising tricks: Posts in forums, flyers (or something like that) in gaming shops and good old-fashioned word-to-mouth. Should I suddenly decide that I have too much money, I could imagine that small poster/sticker-thingies might be a nifty way to advertise, but probably not as (cost-)effective as the basics.

-Find some comrades
Starting a club as a single person is kinda ... awkward, IMO. Not only is it probably a metric shitload of work (Even more so with me being a Zivildiener.) it also looks kinda strange and I'd imagine people are more likely to check something out if they get the impression that there are already a few interesting members. So I'll probably tour my circle of friends with the newest in a long line of wacky ideas, trying to find people interested in setting it up.

Mood: Doom and gloom...
Currently Listening to: Schandmaul
Most hated THING right now: My Headset. (Why does it have to break down when I'm trying to skype with my girlfriend?!? Piece of Junk...)

Some wierd links:

The Worlds Largest Bunny is a German! - I can't say I'm suprised...

Patric Steward likes Naked Women! - Well, that doesn't really suprise me either. ^_^

I haven't had a really successfull game in... In a very long time. Most of the time, it's a combination of a bunch of reasons, some trivial, others not so much, but I think it boils down to two things:

I suck, and so do my players.

I realize, a large part of the current situation is my fault. I am, bluntly put, a lazy fuck. I don't prepare for my games, my attention span is really bad as far as games are concerned and I spend too much time on the internet. (Yeah, the irony...) Now, some of those are taste things (I don't prepare much because I prefer to riff of the players input, for example.) and I also don't have as much time as I'd like. (It feels as if Zivildienst is sucking me dry.)
But that doesn't change the fact that I think I'm a lazy GM. At the very least, I could try to get this gaming ADS under control.

Of course, I haven't exactly been gifted with players either. I love them dearly and they are all my friends or more, but I'll be damned if they aren't just as lazy as I am. Sometimes it feels as if I'm the only one who actually wants to play. Oh, who am I kidding, it feels like that most of the time. To their defense, it's hard to be enthusiastic if you don't have anything to work with. (With me being too lazy to preapare much.) But maybe actually reading the damn books would help with getting enthusiastic about the game!!! (Yeah, they're that lazy. No, I can't kill them and take their stuff, they're friends.)

So where does that leave me? I have a group of players who aren't enthusiastic about the games I'd like to run because I'm not willing to their work for them and they are too lazy to read up the settings and rules for themselves. And because they're not enthusiastic about the games, I don't get the player input I need to be creative and thus can't really produce anything to them to really hook them.
Great, we have an Impasse. -_-;;

Obviously I could try and shape up, getting my ass in gear and start to work on my "GM who does all the work for the passive group" act, but that's easier said than done. Not only am I lazy (And thsu reluctant to stop being lazy. ^_^), I also HATE this style of gaming with the passion of a thousand suns. I hate, HATE, HATE it!!! I don't want to do all the players work and I don't see it as my job to fucking entertain them! We're all in this to have fun and that also means we should share some of the work and responsability. I want a group of equals not a passive audience. I want players willing to work with me, players that realize that we're all responsible for each others fun just as much as our own.
I want active players.

Which leads me to the next option: I could try to find new players. Again, easier said then done. Looking for new players would probably be like wading in a pool of Shit to find the diamonds somebody threw in it. I'd have to find players, I'd have to contact them, I'd have to meet them to see if it looks like we might be compatible and then I'd have to play with them to see if we actually are. And, judging from my experience with the gaming community and past efforts to find a group through online means, the chances of finding agroup of players that are (1) willing to be active, (2) willing to play the games I like and (3) people I'd like to socialise with outside of a game (I don't game with people I don't like. I may be desperate but I'm not that desperate.) are pretty slim.

So, what am I going to do? Well, I'll try my best with the players I have, I'll try to shape up myself and maybe, just maybe, things wll even work out.



Mood: Foul. Sad. Whatever.
Currently Listening to: Some mixed playlist...

Well, here I am, posting in a blog. Well, not even any old blog, nope, it's actually my own. Clearly it's the end of the world. Again.

I'm not a blog-person, never been. A couple of friends tried to convert me to MySpace a few months ago, but I was turned off by the people there. And the fact that I never really had anything to write about. And that it was really SLOOOOOOOOOOW on my shitty computer.
All in all, MySpace really sucked for me, I guess. (But it's not like I wanted to like it, so...)

So, why did I start this blog now? Aside from me being bored silly and generally feeling a bit strange today, I read a blog I really liked. In it, a really cool artist presents "teh intarweb" with a heavily censored but nonetheless interesting view of herself and her life. After reading it for the first time, today, I took two things away with me: First, touring seems to suck so much I'm actually feeling kinda guilty about having fun at their concert and, second, being able to post shit that bothers whenever you feel like it seems like an interesting thing to do. (And who doesn't like the illusion that he's writing something that's worth reading?)

So, here I am, writing in my blog. In English. Which is also kinda strange, given that I'm not a native speaker, but I think I'll leave that mystery for some other post. Maybe.