O Hai, it’s Lisa M! I am a bit of a Jill of All Games, master of none. I got my start at geekdom with cartoons. Specifically, X-Men, Gargoyles, and Batman the Animated Series. For video games, I remember trying to play the old Ravenloft game, which I believe was back when we were running Windows 3.1. I say trying because I was a little too young to make much sense of it, but creating characters and killing the one enemy in the beginning was fun. By the time Menzoberranzen came around, I was able to play a bit more, and I loved it. When Baldur’s Gate came out, that was spectacular. By that point I had an idea what D&D was, and a desire to play it, but it would still be many years before I sat down for some tabletop gaming.

And that was at Running GAGG, SUNY Geneseo’s annual gaming convention. I met Margaret and Caitlin as students there (Caitlin – we had Rocks for Jocks lab together! Where I promptly hermited myself and didn’t work with anyone else ever. So.), and met Ang at my first convention. It was a blast. A friend who had been actively involved with the con for years set up my schedule so I would get to play a number of different types of games. Shadowrun, X-Men, Paranoia, and other systems I didn’t even know existed. I was hooked. Later that year, I went to other conventions, including Arcon, where I met Alana.

Since then, I have played in a few campaigns, as well as played in and helped run some LARPs, and branched out further. These days, I am a bit more of a casual gamer. Having recently moved, I am not currently in any campaigns, but hoping to change that. I am on a quest to replay Final Fantasy games 6-12, which should be interesting and, at the rate I play video games, will likely take several years. I still try to get to either Origins or Gencon each year. I mostly succeed.

Overall, I expect my articles to run the gamut. Ideas in the pipeline include: my quest for a gaming group; a guide to grappling (I was a wrestler in high school); researching characters before play; and probably a lot of things involving parentheses since I really like them.