LateGaming was started in 2001 by Matt, who didn’t have a regular gaming group at the time and needed a fix for his desire to rant about role-playing games. Of course, blogging was in its infancy back then and he didn’t have the code-fu to hack something together himself, so it became something of a static site, serving some games that he’d written in his spare time, as well as information on Crucible Design, a gaming company of which he was a founding member.
Matt Johnston
| Matt started gaming at the age of 11 with the help of issue 55 of White Dwarf. When this was spotted by the only other gamer in his school year who also happened to be in his class (John, 1L) then it was the beginning of a long love of interactive fiction, known also as role-playing. |  |
When involved with QUB Dragonslayers as Society President, Matt was instrumental in the research of, funding of and running of Q-CON 1. He also took the role of Convention Director for two years running in two particularly successful years. He was also regularly seen on the Irish conventions scene, visiting Gaelcon and Warpcon for several years.
Matt has played (or bought) most games. In 1996, he published his first RPG, “The 23rd Letter” under the Crucible Design imprint. With Crucible Design, this was followed with “SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO” and a 2nd Edition of “The 23rd Letter” in 1998 and finally with the release of Zombi in 2000.
Outside of Crucible Design under the LateGaming imprint, he self-published two PDF games “Testament” and “Creed”, which were the first two parts of a three part apocalyptic metaplot.
With the dissolution of Crucible Design in 2001, starting of a family in 2002 and the founding of a new business in 2003, he’s simply not had time to play games.
In 2006, that all changed. There are rants and comments, content created for games and interesting links usually containing the fantastic and the macabre.
Aidan Rogers
Aidan first started role-playing at the age of 13. A hand-written sign pointed the way under the school cafeteria to the art department where he first started playing Advanced Heroquest. He then joined the school role-playing society and continued to play all through high-school (he even organised two role-playing marathons, raising almost £1000 for charity–back then a lot of money).
Upon leaving high-school, he found his way into Dragonslayers at QUB, and became something of a cheerleader for Crucible Design, and indie gaming in Northern Ireland in general. For couple of years he worked for Games Workshop, which allowed him to game for a living, albeit more war-gaming than role-playing, but he wasn’t complaining.
Eventually he got a real job in IT, and ended up leaving Northern Ireland. Since then, he’s ran or participated in several gaming groups – in London, Boston, San Francisco and Sydney. His last group dissolved at the end of 2003, mostly due to family commitments.
Many of his gaming books have remained shelved (but never sold!) since then, until recently he and Matt decided it was time for one more roll of the dice.
Other contributors
Melody Wingfield
Melody’s introduction to gaming was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. She’d just finished reading Tolkien and the Dragonlance series when a friend of a friend mentioned they were starting up a roleplaying club afterschool. While she loved it, her father wasn’t incredibly impressed with the idea of his daughter taking up Satanic activity [insert requisite eye-rolling here], so the experience was shortlived.
Once free again to pursue her own interests, Rapunzel… er, Melody let down her hair and found a group of likeminded gaming-enthusiasts at UNC-Asheville. AD&D was the venue of choice, with a one-time-only-and-that-was-enough bout of Paladium in there for flavor. Through MUSHing, she discovered online rping, one particular vein of which led her to White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade.
She’s not really sure how she ended up as a GM. There’s a fuzzy memory akin to a shotgun wedding somewhere in her mind involving a stack of WW books and the fateful phrase “Hey, you should try running a game.” And from that point on, she’s probably spent more time in the GM’s chair running NPCs than actually playing a character. She’s also done LARP and wargaming, but nothing really holds her heart like good, old-fashioned paper and dice.
Years passed between the glory days and the present. Cross-country moves. More roleplaying. Boyfriends morphed into husbands morphed into “Was-bands”, and attempts at cloning herself proved highly successful. When someone asked if she was married recently, she was overheard replying “I’m in remission”. It’s amazing how the lack of a mate suddenly leaves all sorts of time for gaming. It was a good trade.
As to how a girl from the States ended up friends with an Irish guy and writing for his blog, now there’s a story for the telling… but not if there’s a game to be played.