A 1st Chapter?

So yeah this is a blog for me to waffle on about my hobby of gaming.

Why is it called A 2nd Chapter?

Well that's because the 1st Chapter of my hobby ended in 2012 when I had to close the doors of the games and comic book shop I owned and at the same time I largely closed the door on my hobby.

The 1st Chapter didn't start with the shop though, it just ended there.

I got into tabletop gaming through RPGs.  I think it was 1984 or 1985 when my brother got the D&D Red Box set and not long after during a family holiday to York I picked up Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP).  These 2 games and MANY more that followed them kept me gaming until the mid-90s when my gaming group largely dissolved due to people moving away for uni or in some cases jobs.

During those first 10 years or so I tried out more than just RPGs but nothing really gave me the same kick as they did. I tried to get into the Games Workshop hobby when they focussed on all things Warhammer but I had no interest in painting miniatures (and still don't) so that felt like a wasted effort.

From the mid-90s to the mid-00s I tried a few other games but didn't really pursue them in any real way so my hobby largely drifted with no gaming group to speak of.

In July 2004 I moved home and before doing so I had a massive cull of all my gaming (and comic book) collection knowing that even if I was to rediscover a gaming group I would likely want to start from scratch.

In November 2004 or thereabouts I learned of a gaming group / club that's not a club of RPGers in Edinburgh and decided to bite the bullet and try them out if only as some sort of last chance saloon for my hobby to continue.  What followed was a complete re-introduction to the hobby for me.

In 2006 I decided that I was going to open my own tabletop game shop and the doors opened in June 2009.    This was something I'd considered on and off for many years, even during the drifting years of the 90s but I had no baseline to work from at that time due to not doing anything with my hobby.

Naturally a game shop (and comic books but that's not for this blog) can't survive on just RPGs so I expanded my gaming knowledge in the run up to the shop opening and in particular got more and more into board games and to a lesser extent Magic: The Gathering.  I did give wargames another go but nothing clicked with me setting wise and I still didn't have any desire to paint.

Unfortunately the shop closed in Feb 2012 and in the months running up to that point my hobby largely died as I struggled to maintain the business during some difficult times.

So that is Chapter 1.  This blog is called A 2nd Chapter simply because there is one and I hope that it goes on for a long time.

Cheers,

Dave