#RPGaDay2024 - Day 23 - Peerless Player

Day 23 of #RPGaDay2024 is a version of a prompt/question that comes up every other year: "Peerless Player."  If you peruse the last ten years of the my #RPGaDay posts, you'll see a number of accolades from some of the great players I've had the pleasure of running games for. 

This year, I'm shifting gears a bit, to talk about one of my least experienced players.  

Let me tell a story about a man named Jim....

Jim is an educator in Connecticut, and a historical and sci-fi wargamer for many years before I met met him circa 2009.  

Oh yeah, he also wrote a fun set of miniatures rules called Gnome Wars.  You know the main reason my blog is called Gaming with the Gnomies.  

The dude has his own game, his own line of miniatures, and his own mini:

The Gnome King, from Gnome Wars,

So for ten years, I was (and still am) a stalwart member of the Stout Gnomes, part of team that helps Jim plan, set-up, and run Gnome games, primarily at HMGS conventions like Historicon.  Then fate hit a fair wind...

Saturdays might be for the boys and Sundays might be Girls' brunch, but since 2015, Monday nights have been ViscountEric's gaming night.  I originally bullied myself onto an online 5e game with my college buddies, Steve and Nate.  I acclimated well to the crew and over little more than two years, we got over 60 sessions it.  

Our GM, unfortunately, married with twins, and saddled with job woes, cancelled a number of times until he admitted he couldn't go on.   The put the game on hiatus, and a few of the players, who were actually relatives of his, disappeared as well.  

Enter ViscountEric.  

I took over GMing duties, set up the Star Wars games I keep mentioning this month, and invited Jim and fellow Stout Gnome (and friend of the blog) "Award Winning GM" Mike to the game.  Jim  grabbed bonus points by recruiting his nephew to the chaos later. 

One thing I didn't realize when I recruited him: for a man with so many years of gaming experience, and witty and seat-of-your pants decision making running a 30-player wargame, he had never played a role-playing game.  

I'm used to teaching D&D to a younger 20-something and younger demographic and watching their reactions and development through multiple sessions.  Having a guy a decade of so older than me, with a full-time job, other hobbies, and... a wife, has made me appreciate the disposable time and money we have in our youth, and and love his somewhat conniving nature that he had as a mega-game wargame GM translate to roleplaying on Roll20.  

The fun thing is that, 100 sessions of Star Wars, and the over 70 sessions of Gamma World in, he still doesn't want to step on any toes with a group he's a now a rock holding them together.  It might be that he's always going to be the most junior player in our group, he also may recognize where I got my narrative GMing style for wargames.  

He is a consensus builder, even in situation where speed needs to be the order of the day.  In the Star Wars game, he was the pilot, Tarrie Prolek.  He would make some rash character decisions, but many times his excuse for action/inaction was that he was "Under Contract" with another PC to justify things.  

Gamma World's been a bit tougher.  He's let the phrase, "Under Contract" come out as a joke, but some of his calls for consensus have resulted in other players and the game in general passing him by in time-sensitive situations.  

A young, spry Jim, running games at Historicon, circa 2012.

That being said, he's a great, loyal player who properly communicates absences, tries to do research, and helps add to the storyline, in multiple directions.   Peacocks?  Check.  Selling Mead produced by mutant plants?  Check?  Doing his best James T Kirk Original Series with the ladies?  Allll-riiiiight!!!! 

I'll gladly have him in any game I run, God help me.