In the beginning: Madison Games Day 2010

Back in September 2009, I moved to Madison, Wisconsin.  I had been hoping for some time to join the fabled Dungeon Masters Association at the University of Wisconsin.  Alas, that was not to be, as the DMA had folded just a few months before I arrived.

So I decided to start Madison Traditional Gaming – a group for people who wanted to play Old School RPGs.  After a somewhat shaky start (there were three people at the first meetup including myself), we’ve grown from a small number of gamers to several regular campaigns, three established referees, and about two dozen regular players and attendees.

For some time, I’ve wanted to write a series of blog posts about setting up a club and keeping it going.  I think this is important because there’s a recurrent theme on the web and in the OSR that “it’s just too hard to go out and find players for a game.”  I think that’s just not true, if you go about it creatively and with an open mind.  Hopefully, some of the things I have learned over the past three years will be useful to others who are looking for other gamers.