Why is it so hard to be a gaming parent.

Recently I have been getting the itch, the itch that says I have been away from tabletop gaming for too long. Having two young children however does not make this easy. Now I'm sure there are those who are saying what's the problem here, set a day aside and go out to a local club or group and hang out and chill for a few hours. Now here is how it is for me, I work a job where I am working sometimes very long shifts that do not have set days. I also do not like leaving my wife for several hours in the evening to try and get both tykes to sleep on her own, especially when I have been at work all day.You could say at the end of the day I do feel guilty about going out as my wife has recently decided to leave work to be the primary carer for the children and as such doesn't get a lot of  free time to herself, I'm sure this is a common problem with a lot of spouses as well.

So some of you out there are going ok so why not do it from the comfort of your own home. The internet is great for rpg's nowadays what with all the online tabletop programs why not  just do a game online. Well here is the next problem, my kids ... don't really have a set bed time. Now before someone rants at me, at the moment my eldest is not even 3 and is not in preschool and gets plenty of sleep and so you know no bigge, So long as my eldest is in bed and trying to go to sleep by 10 I'm happy, Also we are a co sleeping family so its not a case of me dumping them in bed and letting them scream it out. The other one my lil daughter is not even a year so she's a temperamental sleeper at best. Getting back on topic this obviously means there will be little ones trying to get my attention whilst gaming which can be a distracting for other players. SO yeah lots of problems to overcome but where to start.

Here was my great plan I would assemble a group of friends to game with at a non fixed time every 2 weeks or so and I would be the GM. Why am I the GM? Simple, I am the person with the kids its me who is struggling to commit to a group so I will run the game so I can set the time and day we play etc so this sounds great. Turns out not so much. It seems that putting a group together to game has been somewhat difficult, so far I have encountered players who don't want to play the games I want to run  (who doesn't want to do Iron Kingdoms I mean seriously). I have players unwilling to commit because of not wanting to put some time aside every 2 weeks to a random date we'd all set. Setting a day hasn't helped with that either as the only other day I have off consistently is Sunday and that's when it seems to be everyone else's games night (fair enough). My favourite one of all is that the ones who are interested and never get back to me at all when I'm setting up dates for games.

So now at my wits end unable to even get a random one shot game going by placing a call out amongst my peers has now driven me to despair, What is one supposed to do to get a game going, are there any other gamer parents out there having the same problems and trying to come up with solutions? Or maybe do we need a place for hard working parents with little free time to get together somewhere online and sought out gaming groups. A place where we can set up our groups and say This is what free time I have what can you guys do lets get together like every two weeks and adventure.

Hi I'm Fen Tiger and I would love to run a iron kingdoms game every 2 weeks for some folks if they don't mind gaming between half 6 and half 8pm GMT.. Also please be warned there will be screaming munchkins from time to time.

T T T TRIPLE KILL!

So I have finally begun a monthly Iron kingdoms campaign you can watch us play live on twitch at www.twitch.tv/fen_tiger. So far weve had 2 games split over 3 sessions. And hoo boy never taken that long to do a average sized dungeon. Ill set the scene we had 4 players:
• Dwarven mechanik/seaforge commission and merc treasurer played by rob
• Ordic aristocrat/miltary officer and captain of merc company played by my wife Kylie
• Iosian gunmage/duelist played by Dave
• Caspian Sorcerer/Alchemist played by Jenny

This merc company low on funds and loaded with ammunition land at ternon crag after a disastrous mossion in Llael. Immediately the taverfrn is found drinks are drunk Rob goes off buying needed materials with there dwindling money.

They find out that the Sheriff is looking for a geoup of well armed people to look into citizens gone missing from there own homes in the dead of night. They track the missing persons to a abandoned mine shaft.
Inside the shaft they find monstrous grotesc creatures carving up the citizens of ternon crag and immediately death ensues. Straight into combat the party find out how terrifying combat in the iron kingdoms can be as one of the beasts takes a pistol and shoots Dave for mass damage. Immediately the team comes up with a new plan everyone behind Robs labor jack which proceeds to tear onto them. Feeling confident that a 2 wide corridor and a jack what takes up all the room will contain hold back the butchers of doom.

Next session comes along Jenny was not avalible and we were down a team mate. Continuing into tje mine they find the coridkrs widen tears stream from robs eyes. As new combat rages on. Perception rolls are taken each turn for all the beasties nearby. They soo  find that the creatures have managed to circle around the party and attack them from the rear. After a quite epic combat round is resolved the party search the roo.s to fi d loot vlasting powder and jerkyed remaoms of humans dwarves and trollkin.

Due to outside reasons we had to due the second half of the session the followong week. This time my wife was unavailable but Jenny was and the boss dight ensued. 1 boss monster, 2 lieutenants and 3 minions. The team adopted rhe plan of plugging the hole with a jack and Rob  plugging the end gap. And this is where the party learned the next part of ik rpgs combat viciousness.

Jenny and dave now only have one choice to shoot over Rob as hes in the way of there target. So there is rob and his jack plugging the gap taking a beating getting bloodied up by the lieutenants at the same time bullets and ice spells are going over there heads. Then the unthinkable happened jenny shot a boosted spell at the lt dighting rob missed she then rolled to see if she hits rob and she does dealing almost max damage as robs armour stat is reduced when hit from behind. Rob goes down bleeding out.  At this point the team begins to panic a lt and the minions ard down but the other lt and the boss are still standing and the boss has got full health.

Jenny tries to revive rob whilst dave holds the gap as the jack continues irts last order.unable to revive rob jenny stands there confused and unable to figure out what to do dave defiant that they can take the beasts or die trying.  Suddenly as if spurred on by the gods the dwarf wakes up nearly dead and orders the two to run as they do he blows the blasting powder taking the jack himself and the monsters. With the explosion and caved in the mine juat as the group escaped.

So wounded physicaly and moraly the party sets off to town to get there reward and set sail to Corvis the city of ghosts.

It was by that point I realised 3 games ive run with rob in and 3 times his characters have died. Unlucky or divine planning ... ill nevet tell.

gaming drain

Now I am sure that we have all had this problem before all you Games Masters out there. Game drain. For me I can DM/GM/Storyteller for about half a year before I just slump into a corner. Being a GM is a hard thing to do constantly havign to have the game ready to go keeping your players in check, making sure you know wtf you are talking about, etc. After a while you justn eed someone to take over. Now at times like trhis I would hand over the rains to Kaiketsu who could run a game whislt I recharged however now with his new job his work schedule is more messed up than mine. This means if I were to take a break no games would ensue, this would be a dissapointment to my players as they all seem to enjoy the game im currently running.


However if I were to continuethe quality of sessions would suffer due to my lack of intrest in the game and thus my players wouldnt want to play once more. So so far the plan is to play out the final scenario for the 1st part of the campaign and then take a week or 2 breather get my notes together and resume and prehaps see if we can find a games master to alternate with me on a week by week basis.

My advice to any GM who finds himself in the same rut: if its not fun anymore take a break for a bit and come back refreshed.

The Witchfire Trilogy the conclusion

WARNING
This audio rant contains spoilers you have been warned download the witchfire grand conclusion.

Download here

All hail privateerpress. Now the rest of you may enjoy The Iron Kingdoms

Thats Right 2 days Ago Privateer Press made this announcment.

Embark upon a journey into the realm of Full Metal Fantasy with the complete set of Iron Kingdom RPG source books, many of which have been out of print for over a year, now available in PDF for the first time. These highly sought after volumes contain detailed information on role playing in the unique setting of the Iron Kingdoms and provide a wealth of historical, cultural, and political information on the nations, peoples, and creatures that call Western Immoren home.

Perfect for WARMACHINE and HORDES players as well as RPG players with discerning tastes, the entire Iron Kingdom RPG line is available now from www.drivethroughrpg.com and www.paizo.com including:

* Witchfire Trilogy Collected Edition
* Monsternomicon Vol.1: Denizens of the Iron Kingdoms
* Monsternomicon Vol.2: The Iron Kingdoms and Beyond
* Iron Kingdoms Character Guide, Full Metal Fantasy
* Iron Kingdoms World Guide, Full Metal Fantasy
* Liber Mechanika, Full Metal Fantasy
* Five Fingers: Port of Deceit, Full Metal Fantasy

Don’t miss out on this second chance to own the books that started it all. Head on over to DriveThruRPG or Paizo and complete your Iron Kingdom library today!

(original source at Privateer Press)

I know this has made alot of the IKRPG forum community happy as we can now get copies of some REALLY hard to find books. The PDF's are apparently REALLY well bookmarked so its easy to find that hard to fnd obscure bit of information what slows down your ENTIRE game.

One thing a few people on the Privateer Press Forums have been maoning about is the price. The PDF's are going for about $30 what works out as roughly £18. Now I say this is not a problem for me. Privateer press has to still pay people for there creative works i nthis book etc. Not to mention Im sure sales of these books will contribute to there own RPG system.

Oh did I forget to mention privateer have announced that there workign on a in house RPG system. YOu can find the information in there forums (thansk again Doug ^^).

So there we have it. If you want to try the Iron Kingdoms For yourself then Please go ahead and initialy Grab the WitchFire Trilogy thats a good place to start if yo uwant a new awesome Quest, it also has some basic information on items liek Firearms and such but dosent go into the full revamping on magic and magic items and classes (ranger) that The iron Kingdoms Character guide does.
If however you want to jump i nthe deep end liek I pretty much did pick up a Iron Kingdoms Character guide and a Monsternomicon. See hoow you like it then get the rest.

Also pelase dont Forget this is a Campaign Settign for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 so you need the 3.5 D&D core books, which can still be found floating out there if one knows hwere to look.

Welcome to the Iron Kingdoms role Play Like youve got a PAIR.