The Lords of Tyr started back in October 2002. I still have the email that Brian (aka the Dark Lord of Bartlett) sent out with his address. The group really came about by Rob (aka A Hero) overheard Brian and I talking about GenCon one day at work. Brian, Chad (that's me), Rob, Bob, Kazi, and Ashby all worked in IT at a very large financial institution together. Ashby and had already been very involved in Ultima Online as well. 

Once Rob new that Brian and I both played D&D, the idea just grew from there. Rob had a group of guys that he had played with on and off since high school (and some even earlier than that). That included TJ (aka Hiregoon), Todd, and Tony. Bob also brought a friend, John. This formed the core of our group at the beginning.

We didn't quite have a set schedule right from the beginning. We also didn't have a group “name” right away either. But we had a diverse and interconnected group of players, many of whom has started playing D&D around 1979 and have a deep passion for the game.

Some of us hadn't played much since college and were really pining for a a good gaming group again. Other's had been gaming at least on and off, if not regularly, since they were youngsters. A few hadn't played much at all but were really interested in learning more.

Brian started us off by dungeon mastering a game based on the famous Keep on the Boarder Lands module. However he had added or changed much. This included a fully mapped planet (not just a kingdom or continent, but a friggin' planet!) that he has a huge map of on what we eventually called “The Giant Table of Tyr”. The planet/gaming world he had created was called Tyr. Ergo, eventually our group name the Lords of Tyr.

We pitched in for pop, beer, and pizza. We occasionally threw in gyros, chinese, or mexican food. But mostly it was pizza.

We soon discovered that in order to get a really regular group going that we had to have a regular predictable schedule. We also had to balance all of the demands of our growingly more complicated adult lives. Did we want to play every week? Heck yeah! But in reality that just wasn't going to happen. We all needed time for our “real lives”. But once a month also seemed way too little. So we settled on the 1^st and 3^rd Saturdays. Eventually that changed to the 2^nd and 4^th Saturday. I honestly can't remember why, but I'm sure it had to do some someone's weekend work schedules or mounting conflicts that we needed to work around.

The bottom line was that once we had those two times per month to count on and schedule around, our membership became solid and dependable. I think this is perhaps the most important part of having a good regular group to play RPG's with. While we did meet at a few other locations when needed. Brian's house was the regular spot.

He had the huge table, plenty of chairs, a nice large basement, wireless Internet access, and a well stocked fridge. Having a regular place that fit everyone and could handle all our gamer needs (caffine, beer, pizza, place to sit, laptop access, tons of D&D manuals) was another huge factor that made keeping a steady group going.

Eventually, Brian got married and little William was born not too long after. It became more difficult as William grew to handle all of those people over twice per month. So we decided to move the game to Chad and Stephanie's house (that would be my wife and I). This gave Brian's wife and his son a more peaceful weekend, making everyone happier.

The gaming area in our basement was smaller, but still fit everyone. But the location was actually a bit more centrally located and closer for everyone (well except for Brian who now has to drive 15-20 minutes but no longer had to clean up anything afterwards!). So this worked out well.

This is when some new food options started happening. We started with the Costco pizza's. They are really good and a little cheaper than delivery. However we were REALLY getting sick of pizza by this point. Stephanie, who had not yet started playing, and I decided that we would start changing things up. We started grilling brats, burgers, hotdogs, chicken, making pasta, chili, Chinese, Thai, corned beef, and pretty much anything else we could imagine and could buy stuff for easily at Costco (they should really be a sponsor!).

That really added a new level of enjoyment and fun (especially for Stephanie and I). Eventually, due to a 3.5 day long power outage and flooding, we completely remodeled the basement. We ripped out a non-weight bearing wall and opened up the whole basement as one large room. We Laid down a nice bamboo floor and put in dimmable CFL bucket lights. Our gamer cave finally became a gamer lair.

We added a bunch of technology to our sessions over the years. For a while we used KloogeWerks as an electronic table top. It worked nicely but some of us in the group still did not use laptops at the time, and we still enjoy using maps and minis as well. Eventually we realized that we had a need to do remote gaming for our group. So we started experimenting and eventually started using uStream and Gizmo to allow us to do that. Eventually we replaced Gizmo with Skype. Now rather than KloogeWerks we are using MapTool which is part of an open source set of utilities.

Over the years we have had lots of folks join and leave the group, but always the same core of the group has remained. We've had relatives, friends, and co-workers join us to have fun gaming and just to hang out. Over the years as we have made adjustments and improvements. We have watched as members have gotten married, had kids, lost jobs, found jobs, gone through tough times, and gone through great times. In the end we just love to game and we genuinely enjoy just hanging out, eating, and sharing our lives with one another. You can't get better than that!