by Keith "Saegan" Cronyn
Why do you play the game? What lured you in?
Did your parents bring you in? Were you a theater kid that liked Lord of the Rings, and the idea of improv got you? Were you a D&D kid that just wanted to take it a step further? Maybe you had some friends that said they loved it, and you just went along for the ride?
I don't know. But I'll tell you how it happened for me. When I was a young 4th grader, my dad brought me along one night to play Shadowrun with his coworkers. He promised me characters and adventure, and roles. Elves and machine guns. Ninjas and dragons. You know, the good stuff. My wild imagination lead me to believe we’d be playing in some warehouse, that was set up in a way that was not unlike a paintball course.
Imagine my surprise when we sat around a table, rolling dice. And yet, there was love. I fell in love with role playing. Absolutely, unabashedly, unrelentingly in love. It was formative. And I've never turned back.
Later, perhaps sixth grade, I discovered LARPing because my best friend’s uncle was dating someone that played the Realms. He showed us the swords, and we spent hours in the backyard hitting each other, with little concept of the rules.
Later yet, high school, my friends played Realms in their backyard, running mini quests almost every weekend, until eventually those mini quests lead to real events.
I took some time off for college, but then after that I felt a longing to adventure, and I found my way back to the Realms.
All stemming from that one seed of imagination that was some weird paintball warehouse in a child's mind. A seed that has grown into a savage hunger for combat and adventure.
What's more, I look for the challenge. I look for the moments where I feel like I could win, but there is a strong likelihood that I'll get beaten. The best fights for me are the fights I have no business winning. The rough part being the more fights like that I win, the harder it is to find them.
Enter Order of the List. Now while this has been a wild tangent, the truth of it is, it's all lead up to why I want to go to Order of the List. The answer; it's the best place for me as a fighter to go if I want to challenge myself. It's the best place to go if I want to spend my day getting roughed up, beat down, and challenge myself to stand back up again.
It's the best place to go to see the pinnacle of fighting in our game. It's the best place to go to learn how marshaling should be done. For the competitors of order of the list it's the culmination of a seasons worth of hard work, fighting in tournaments, going to practices, making weapons, and doing whatever it takes to hone their skill.
Why should you go if you're not one of those competitors? Well you can watch. You can gamble on them. There are newbie tournaments to participate in if you're new enough to the game. This year the order is doing a donation bucket for Wreaths Across America, which they intend to match donations too.
I hope to see you there, cheering on your favorite fighting, filling the stands. It should be a good day.
See you on the field
Keith “Saegan” Cronyn