Lenny

From WickeDT

Owner of Darktheatre (this site), hard core gamer, sometime GM for the WGG and often maker of props.

A long long time ago. Before the rain. Before the snow. There lived a gentleman named sir Psycho. Which has absolutely nothing to do with Lenny accept that he often says that phrase for reasons nobody's figured out. Lenny is the owner of Darktheatre.net and a big fan of games. Mostly role playing games, but board and card games as well and sometimes, although more and more rarely these days, video games. Like most gamers Lenny cut his teeth on Dungeons and Dragons (box set). And although he doesn't remember much past yesterday he can still remember pouring over those rules books and memorizing as much as he could. If only he applied himself to school like he did to DnD. It wasn't long after buying the Basic set that he began to GM. As a kid, he and his friends would take turns being the Dungeon Master but it became pretty apparent that Lenny had a control freak streak kinda buried in him that loved DM'ing more than playing and thus he was soon drawing overly elaborate dungeons on graph paper, getting lead poisoning from painting minis and figuring out the best way to kill the entire party (back then there was no term such as TPK). From 5th grade thru high school (where he met Chris P. of the WGG) and thru out nearly all of college (that last year and half is a little fuzzy) he gamed on a pretty regular basis. Once out of college but before he journeyed west Lenny worked at a Walden Books back in his home town (aka Big Bull Falls) to earn some cash - it was there he met two other individuals who also worked there and were discussing a new game from a new company. White Wolf's Vampire.... These two, Time and the one known as Madox, had recently started playing a new "type" of role playing game. Modern horror. Wheedling his way into their good graces Lenny managed to get invited to a game (this was before you had to audit any games to get in so he got lucky). He bought the book, which as he remembers, was as cool and enthralling as when he first cracked open the Dungeons and Dragons and read about what a carrion crawler was. Only this was the next level. Dark, adult, killer art, awesome possibilities. And for once he didn't even think about GM'ing it. He just wanted to play. His first character for the WGG was now forgotten Gangrel which he walked away after the first session. Seemed cool in creation - but didn't play well in Chicago. Nonetheless Lenny was hooked. This game was him. And he had a week to figure out a new character. And so was born Mask the sock puppet of X, a Malkavian. Looking back - it's a bit (a lot) cliche but at the time their probably weren't that many insane sock puppet vampires out there, the game was just too new.

Lenny gamed religiously with the WGG in Time's World of Darkness until he left for the coast of Oregon where though he didn't game (and in fact couldn't find a game store to save his life) a whole lot of stuff happened (if you want the story, and it's long, you'll have to buy him a couple of jack and cokes and pack of 'mokes). Needless to say he made his way back to WI and then to MN and then one day (and he doesn't really remember how) he got in contact with Time again and found out that the Vampire game was still going on and that it was still at Gateway Comics and Games (although it had moved down the block and seemed to be mostly underground). Could he join again? Time hemmed and hawed but finally decided to let him back in. Those games - now once a month - were even a step above the initial games and the group had grown. Gamers like Zave, Hastur, Boyd, Chris P and Andy took Time's games and made them their own and thus turned it into an almost (un)living thing. This was the period of the Halloween games and when Lenny started GM'ing for the MN Fight Club as well. Gaming nirvana? Yes, yes, it probably was. From Boston to Dark Ages with the WGG and DnD 3.0 and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Dungeon forms and Call of Cthulhu games with the MN Fight Club (and don't ever forget clan CRACK - perhaps the greatest collection of warriors to ever exist). Can there be too much gaming? No. Well, one's significant other or non-gaming friends and relatives may say there can, but they are wrong. And it brings us almost up to today.

Lenny is back in Big Bull Falls again. Married, raising a family, loving being a "family man" and now hosting the WGG for both the "vampire" game (currently Amber) and his own game (currently Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). He misses the MN Fight Club quite a bit (and left that group right in the middle of Masks of Nyarlathotep which is a hanging offense in some parts) but at least has How Many Rocks once or twice a year to help alleviate the longing. And he just recently launched this WickeDT - and is a bit overwhelmed by all the info he has yet to put into the damn thing.

Games GM'd

BBF
Freeport Campaign
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
Masks of Nyarlathotep
Scarred Lands
Weird Wars

Characters Played

Howard of Heironeous
Faust
Vihn O'Brien
Lenny (and Frankenlenny)
Andrej
Logan
Maze
Mask who was separate from X
Bruce
Stagger Lee