About Me

I had a childhood filled with gaming, with many a lazy Sunday afternoon filled with games of all kinds, from Swallow-Me-Boxes and Buccaneer to Kingmaker and historical wargames by Donald Featherstone — I never quite got to own one of the amazing sand-tables depicted in his books to wargame on, so a during my youth a papier-mâché one had to suffice for my Britain's knights and Airfix soldiers to fight on. Then along came into my possession an imported copy of Dungeons & Dragons Set from the US of A. Which. Changed. Everything.

40 Years of Playing Roleplaying Games

My tabletop roleplaying journey started way back in 1981 with an imported TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set by Tom Moldvay, complete with a crayon to colour in the numbers on those fabulous new shaped dice. The tales that our little group of intrepid adventurers experienced in the included module, B2 Keep on the Borderlands, have stayed with me all my life — over the years no other form of gaming has really created comparable memories.

I briefly dabbled in the Dungeons & Dragons Expert set for higher character levels, before diving head-long into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and Gygax's Greyhawk setting — resurfacing for occasional side-quests in RuneQuest (I'll always have a soft spot for the duck adventurer), a huge amount Traveller (trying desperately not to die during character generation) and Gamma World (having diligently coloured in all the black-and-white illustrations in the rulebook).

As the years rolled by, and owning a gaming store didn't help, alongside AD&D I explored a variety of genre and games including Aftermath, Space Opera, Stormbringer, Middle-Earth Roleplaying, Rolemaster, Ringworld, Toon, Twilight 2000, Paranoia and Pendragon, amongst others.

Then my roleplaying settled down from trying to explore everything; instead morphing into a Cyberpunk 2020 obsession, with the occasional side-step to the kids in Cybergeneration. Still love Cyberpunk, Cyberpunk RED is on the wish list to play, but haven't managed to get to it yet.

Many years were lost to ever changing campaigns of Cyberpunk ebbing and flowing through exploring the dark side in Vampire the Masquerade and Call of Cthulhu, and wonderfully crafted setting of Legend of the Five Rings.

Then along came Pathfinder which reignited my love of the fantasy genre after while questing in Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition — I bypassed 3rd and 4th edition, in favour of the afore mentioned RPG's. Pathfinder filled my fantasy void, and some, with epic campaigns and crunchy character generation (and a massive range of supplements). Club nights became filled with Pathfinder Society scenarios, a nice pick-up-and-play alternative to some of our lengthy campaigns.

I've embraced the move to Pathfinder 2nd Edition (and a bit of Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition), so far enjoying most of the rules changes — buying everything again, not quite so much.

The Founding of Alchemist Press

So here I am, still loving roleplaying forty years on, and having decided to start publishing campaign material for my latest project, the Prophecy of Legends (with more to follow!); I found myself setting up Alchemist Press to continue my journey, and I hope you'll join our little party and come along for the story telling adventure that awaits.

Thanks for popping by,
Keep gaming,
Barry