# Tampa/St. Pete



## BluWolf (Jan 25, 2002)

My wife and i are moving to Flroida this summer and I wanted to start pinging the gaming populace to see if there are any gaming groups? Any good gaming stores? Anyone looking for an additional player or GM??


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## BluWolf (Jan 28, 2002)

No one lives in the Tampa area???


This is starting to get depressing.


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## BluWolf (Feb 16, 2002)

monthly maintenance bump.


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## TheTaxMan (Feb 18, 2002)

*Enjoy..*

I actually, moved to Tampa fairly recently as well (and have no game).  Maybe there -are- more people than the three of us tho...


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## andrew (Mar 7, 2002)

There's not much of a D&D scene to speak of in Tampa. I have plenty of trouble myself finding people interested in playing. My best luck has been finding people who have never played before.

It's been my experience that D&D is fairly unwelcome in Tampa. Most local gamers consider it too munchkin or too simple to rate as a "real game". Traditionally, there has been a fairly hostile social atmosphere towards gaming as well. The few gaming stores we have are pretty poor quality. They're more dabblers than anything else, making their money from whatever hobby fad is popular. Miniature games seems to have some popularity locally, but the most active group of gamers are the LARPers. 

There's a huge White Wolf/World of Darkness following in Tampa. This is one of the larger factions that contributes to the D&D is for middleschool camp. It's nowhere near as popular as it was in the mid-nineties, but it's still probably one of the largest gaming interests in town. (Remember the Saturday Night Live sketches with the goth kids? They were supposed to be from Tampa. My favorite line? "Orlando is way more goth than Tampa." It's funny cause it's true.) I'm told there's also a pretty good Fantasy LARP crowd, but I don't know much about it.

USF has an Adventurer's Guild that meets semi-regularly on Wednesdays at the campus. The club seems to ebb and flow with the tide of students. From what I've seen, they're more into strategic board gaming than RPGs, but I'm sure some interested folks could be found there.

There's also a Tampa Bay Gaming Association that sometimes has a newsletter and has fairly regularly (mini)conventions. They also meet on Wednesdays at a local gaming shop, Arena Games. Arena Games is new so I've never visited. I hear they're more of a Warhammer Fantasy oriented group.

Supposedly, there are two RPGA groups in Tampa (according to Poly), but no one from either group has ever returned my messages. 

Tampa tends to catch onto trends pretty late in the game, so I suspect that in a few years there will be more interest in D&D. For now, your best bets are probably trying to pick up individuals out of the USF group or the TBGA or just find new gamers.

Of course, this has just been my experience. You may have better luck.


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## TheTaxMan (Mar 13, 2002)

Well -that- is encouraging...


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## andrew (Mar 14, 2002)

*Tampa D&D Gamer's Network*

I've also recently found out about Mskina's Tampa Bay D&D Gamers Network Mailing list. It's not terribly active, but in the short time I've been on the list, I've seen several games/gamers wanted ads, so it's worth a shot.

Thanks to BluWolf for pointing me to Mskina's list.


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## GunnTharr (Mar 29, 2002)

*Geeks, Nerds, & Losers*

Don't you yankees get it!?!?!
(And yes, you DC puds are yankees!)
There are only a couple of good gamers that can actually role play in the sunshine state, and one of those is moving to sunny California!

You may as well give in and pull out your Pokemon and Magic cards again.  That's the only type of game you will see in central Florida.

Be honest, you'd much rather run around Ybor City with a bunch of gothic LARPers.  Tell the world the truth; you prefer playing Vampire over D&D everyday of the week.


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## BluWolf (Apr 25, 2002)

Bump.

Officially moving June 28th. Looking for a new house starting July 1st. Will be looking to start a new group towards the end of July.


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