In my earlier years I played fantasy roleplaying games, especially between the years 1980-1992. I got out of the hobby because of burnout, lack of time and frustration with some of the personalities I encountered in that hobby. About twenty months ago I got bitten by the bug again. I've been a lurker in the online pen-and-paper roleplaying community, especially the "old school" forums and blogs for those interested in games from back when I played actively. It's really given me the itch to get a game going.

However, the hobby has changed a lot and the style of the games are very different, and as far as I'm concerned, not for the better. I refuse to play the newer games for various reasons, but I'm having trouble finding a good group of players from the old school. Most have either dropped out of the hobby or have moved on to newer playing styles when they found a group and don't even seem to be in that "mode" anymore. The one person I know from back then who says he'd like to play seems to be buried in World of Warcraft up to his eyeballs for his gaming fix, but given that I was usually a gamemaster and not a player, WoW or Everquest don't offer me anything I liked in gaming.

Alternately, I studied physics in college and am a computer programmer. I've always had a curiosity about electronics, but never done anything with it. I have some basic knowledge, but I'd pretty much be starting as a beginner (I can't even solder!). With the current crop of easy-to-use microcontrollers based around the Arduino and the Processing computer language, though, it seems like it'd be easier to get started and do something more than make a speaker beep in time.

It seems like every day I think of a gadget that could fill a need in my home, my work, my community. I see them everywhere, but I lack the hardware knowledge to put them together. That'd sort of be my goal: building gadgets and systems and fields of sensors to make things work better, more efficiently, give better and more timely information.

Both gaming and electronics can be costly hobbies. Insofar as gaming, I have enough material and ideas that I'd not have to spend another dime (except on paper and similar supplies). I have next to nothing for electronics but the cost a deterrent, especially if I acquire components over time as I can afford them and learn to desolder and take old pieces apart for their components. Both take a lot of time, but I want something besides TV to take up my time.

I could just put a game together and I could play with just my friend and hope we find more interested parties, but it's really a group activity and one-on-one wouldn't last too long. I hate to put a bunch of work into a setting that only gets used for a few hours and then discarded. Similarly, when I think about electronics or embedded computing projects, I think big! I am afraid if I can't get good results in a year, I'll probably let electronics languish. Then again, if I was successful with it, I'd probably love it, but it's pretty solitary. I already spend my days closed up in an office staring at a computer, so I'd like a little human contact.

This conundrum has been plaguing me for a year (unfortunately, a year I could have been doing one or the other). Please help!
Thanks for the information, Sami. I glanced at the site even though I don't think play-by-post will scratch the gaming itch for me. It appears it's fourth edition D&D, and I won't play anything newer than first edition AD&D (unless it's one of the old-school simulacra like OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord).

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