When I was a kid I looked for the crunch in games like AD&D,  Palladium, and  Rune Quest; these games were compelling challenges. I loved trying to figure out the system and creating an adventure in those worlds.  Now 45, at the age of Balloon Mortgages, Recurring Charges, and IRAs, I don’t like to work in my free time and I haven’t played an RPG in years.

Fun times die hard! Even as an adult roleplaying always held a soft spot in my heart.  A year ago with some like-minded friends with a mutual affinity toward geekery, a goal was set and a challenge was made to play a full campaign once and for all.  Strange as it seems, none of us had ever played a long RPG adventure from beginning to end. Each of us had played adventures in multiple worlds and settings but had never completed a campaign from beginning to end.

The questions arose: Where do we start? How did I get roped into GMing? What would setting would we play?  Most of the answers can when my gaming pals voted to let me run the system. They figured since I’m an attorney I’m a natural storyteller. They also figured I’d be a rules lawyer in anyone else’s game.

Storytelling and rules have never gone together and the days of banging my head over game charts faded away like most of my hairline.  With that in mind, I picked Kenneth Hite’s Trail of Cthulhu published by Pelgrane Press. I was always a CoC nut… I know my 7^th edition is still somewhere over the Pacific.  Again, my problem is an overabundance of rules and ToC seemed to be the best solution.  I’ve also always felt Lovecraftian horror was best set in the 1930s.  Cosmic horror and the Great Depression, two great tastes that taste great together.

Thanks to the space afforded to me I’m going to document my expectations, frustrations, and challenges of playing in one of my favorite roleplaying universes. I’m going to cover everything from character creation to the meat of running a game with an assorted cast of players.

I hope I can give you some insight on how to run an RPG smoothly and have fun doing it!

Stick around…it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

~ Jim Prye

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Jim Pyre lives and works Chicago.  He is a retired attorney who was bitten by the writing bug years ago; it’s a creepy bug with many eyes and legs. He is currently working various spooky true and fictional tales and his first book, a supernatural legal thriller. Additionally, he is a lover Lovecraftian horror. We welcome him back to the fold of roleplaying games!