Societies Life - Game Soc

I've often credited pen-and-paper roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons as one of the things which got me into writing in the first place. In fact, some of my friends reckon that I only went to university so I could play it again. OK, so I don't actually play Dungeons & Dragons specifically. I'm just using the title as a shorthand for those kind of games as it's the one most people are familiar with.

For those who don't know, Dungeons & Dragons is essentially a form of interactive storytelling. One person is the Dungeon Master (or Games Master), who tells the story and assumes the role of supporting characters and villains, while the other players assume the roles of the protagonists with different skills and personalities.

The Society meets weekly to play these games, using a variety of systems. Personally, I run my games using the Savage Worlds system, a generic universal system which is easily adaptable. When I started, I found that not many people were familiar with that particular system, so I saw a chance to corner the market. I volunteered as a GM, and ran numerous "one-shots", intended to last a single night and using existing characters. These included a horror story, a gritty crime drama, and an Indiana Jones-style adventure.

This term, I'm continuing my role as a GM, but have opted to do a longer-running campaign set during a Zombie Apocalypse. This also involved my players having the choice of making their own characters or using pre-made ones.

As for linking it with writing, I have experimented with that. Not too long ago, I only had two players able to attend, and ran a one-shot using characters from a Work-in-Progress. My favourite thing I took from that involved a player assuming the role of a brawny character picking up enemies and using them as clubs. What TV Tropes refers to as "grievous harm with a body". I don't think I'm going to work that into the story.

I'm planning on doing this on a larger scale for another project.