Society for Aesthetic Deletions

Back when I was playing with Ken Winland and Chris Kracik using Cyberpunk (and later Cyberpunk 2020), I used to get player handouts. News articles, top songs list, culture information (including a basic language primer when Chris was running a game set in the When Gravity Fails universe), and other bits were handed out each session, to give us something to enjoy (and maybe there would be hints or clues in there).

For Chris' first session, he even made us authentic Middle-Eastern food, including homemade hummus and pita bread.

I know it's hard work, and I'm not playing in any game world that would provide such things (I'm not playing in any modern-day or futuristic games right now), but it is still missed.

I also miss the one-on-one gaming. Lou and I, before we were involved, did a lot of gaming out of the regular sessions with our characters, in different games (all ones that he ran, though). Ingrid and Moirin for an Amber game, and then there was the Agraynel/Oquon/Torm (yes, the god) relationship, and lastly, the first game where he made me cry, the Grace/Grace's Guardian (whose name is escaping me now, darn it!)/Justin stuff.

We did some one-on-one stuff later, with Tabitha and Dalben for Lou's Facets Amber game (now on long-term hiatus as we both go through our Amber-burnout), and then we tried to create one for our D&D 3e world, but that sort of got interrupted by the Rilla and Gevrok stuff we're doing with Jack Gulick.

I tried to run Lou through a solo game in my own world, and that went for a while, but it's just really not my thing as GM. I don't do plot well (though I'm trying to get better), and I much prefer to play than to GM.

I got so into these characters and had such fun with them, getting under their skins and really living their decisions. I must admit, I miss that too.

I also miss gaming on Compuserve. Such an elegant system for message threading. ::sighs:: And the conference setup. No other threading system nor any other chat program has matched what Compuserve once had, and now has lost. Private threads, public threads, CON games (my first RPG was in CON on the CIS Gamers Forum). Ah, the memories.

Something I don't miss. This is tougher.

Oh, I know! I don't miss being behind the curve of games. I started gaming late in life, not really getting into it until I came home from the two years I went to college (didn't finish). I started with Cyberpunk, and never really moved into (A)D&D. So when we played, I never knew what was what. I never got THAC0, I never knew if I wanted to roll high or low. I hated being the only player in the game who didn't recognize what we were fighting from the description given by the GM. With 3e, the system is easier (so much so that I'm running a *D&D GAME*, something I never would have considered over three years ago. I'm the one who knows now from descriptions...those pictures in the Monster Manual are very pretty, and just about every creature has a pic.

I don't miss having to rely on dice. Though I'm not in any diceless games currently, I know when the dice are needed and when they're not, as a GM and as a player. This wasn't a big thing for me, because Amber was early in my gaming life, so I didn't have any GMs who made me roll to wake up in the morning and other horror stories I've heard about.

I don't miss being the only female gamer! Frell, why didn't I think of that earlier?

Starting gaming in an online environment, I saw a lot more women than most gamers. But still, the local gaming groups in which I were involved were exclusively male. It wasn't until I started in Lou's original Amber game did I start gaming ftf with other women regularly. There were two in that first group, and in my first Amber game, I managed to get a female friend of mine to join.

Nowadays, there's only one regular woman with whom I game. A few come in here and there for other games, but most of them have moved on to other things or busy lives.

Thank you, White Wolf. I may not like your system, but I like what you did for the ratio of male:female gamers.