When last I left I had described three of the regulars in my gaming group. Here are the rest...

Dave S tends to play the least group-oriented characters. They're ok characters, fine people, but they tend to have a different philosophy that clashes with the group. So his characters are frustrating to reason with and sometimes they "accidentally" get themselves killed. Dave has run a Pendragon scenario and a couple of abortive campaigns, which has shaken his GMing confidence.

Dave W plays the enigmatic characters. In RuneQuest he played a Dragon Newt, in Ars Magica a Criamon. The other character archetype he plays is the young hero. So he's a Skywalker wannabe in Star Wars and the young knight errant in Pendragon. Dave has run a couple of Ars Magica scenarios.

We play Ars Magica troupe style, so the GMing role changes from week to week. Most everyone has run a handful of times, although Shannon and Eric still run the most. We've also tried troupe style RuneQuest and Pendragon. Personally, I don't like troupe style. I'd rather have one GM and one vision for a campaign.

Donald plays the unicorn girls, whatever that means. He's played the most female characters than any of us (although most of us have played the occassional female character to break the monotony. Anyway, Donald plays the tough princess types. He does get easily bored with his characters and creates new ones that will interest him. He has run a game once, I think.

Chris plays the most powerful character he can create. He's a classic min-maxer, but after all these years we can usually contain his character. He gets to be the one that fights the big monster while we cheer him on in the sidelines. Chris also plays very moral, Christian characters. Sometimes we go a bit too far trying to corrupt him.

I play dwarf-type characters. Mostly tough guys who take a lot of punishment, but can't necessarily dish it out. I usually don't want to go the extra mile to learn the magic rules (or other special power rules) in a game, so I rarely play magicians, jedi, whatever. I've led the party a few times, none of them very pleasant for I make a lot of bad decisions, although I do stick to them. My leadership philosophy is "make a decision, no matter if it's good or bad, and stick with it". I've run a couple of Pendragon sessions, a few Ars Magica sessions, a couple of RuneQuest, and my 2-year-long BattleTech campaign that's due to end this December.

Those are the regulars who are left. A few others are Billy, who played characters that easily got mad and would hold a grudge forever. Matt (who's playing with us this summer before he goes back to Colorado to get his PhD), who plays normal characters. Eric F who plays the skillful fighter in AD&D and the crippled Tremere in Ars Magica. John, who's wedding I attended this past June. We've had a whole bunch of other players who I don't really remember right now, but us eight are the core group, such as it is.

For me, the role-playing is not really important. I go to games to interact with my friends and hang out. I'm one of the most reliable gamers in the group (probably because I have no life outside my little group of friends). We do play board games, go out to movies, played paint ball, gone on road trips, and other things. They're a great bunch of guys and I feel priviledged to know them and lucky to count them as friends.