Nate Skipper - founder of GOTRPG - on the beginnings of the Guild:
"At the start of the 2001 Fall semester one of my friends invited me to join a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) campaign that he had found out was starting and was looking for players. It was held at Fun & Games (F&G) in any spare room that could be found and would meet each week. Before this I had run a few one-shot campaigns in my dorm room but I knew that I did not have the ability to run an ongoing campaign so I was very interested in getting into an ongoing campaign. We were able to meet about every week and had a number of players in the group. The space we had, however, was minimal. F&G did not really have the room available for a gaming group and we were left to scavenge for space along with people playing Pokémon and Warhammer 40k. We would have D&D books on top of Warhammer scenery since that was the only table open or we would be holed up in a corner if there was no room at all. The campaign was very interesting and I really enjoyed being in a continual campaign again. At the end of that semester Brandon (our GM) said that he would not be able to continue running the campaign, at least for the time being, and we were out of a campaign to play.
Towards the end of November and into December I began looking into the possibility of starting a club that would provide support for people like myself who wanted to play RPGs but had no place to go. I read Tech's procedures and regulations and found two other people to sign the club registration form with me and we became a Registered Student Organization with Virginia Tech. This enabled us to reserve rooms on campus and access to other resources on campus such as advertising. I threw together a simple web page and registered the domain name. I then put together some table cards and distributed them in the dining halls and waited to see if there was any interest to be found. I was pleasantly surprised when I had enough people to start a campaign show up during the first two meetings that I held. During the course of the semester I had more people that were interested in playing and I had a sizable campaign. I knew that I was not able to take on any more players myself and I was hoping that more GMs would become interested and start their own campaigns. By the end of that Spring the Guild had a good starting basis and I knew that it would continue on into the next year.
When the next Fall began we had two campaigns to be run, one D&D and one Vampire: The Masquerade. The first meeting was the D&D campaign and we had a total of 21 people show up to the first meeting. Since one campaign can not be run with 21 people the GM of the Vampire campaign switched over to running a D&D campaign and the group was split into two campaigns. Because we already had people that we didn't have campaigns to accommodate I was reluctant to do any further promotion for fear of having to turn people away so we did not advertise the Guild at all that semester. Despite no direct advertising we were still gathering more members throughout the course of the semester and more campaigns were started. By the end of the semester I was getting ready to launch more resources on the web site and preparing materials for promotion at the beginning of the Spring semester. I knew that we could not hold the Guild back and that we needed to expand further.
Over the course of Winter break we launched a web based forum on the site and I began to develop the procedures for handling the way campaigns would be filled and supported. I also wanted to provide more services for members of the Guild so I began talking to the owners of F&G about getting a store discount for members. I also realized that dues would be necessary to help support the Guild itself, both to offset the cost of promotion and to build other Guild resources. By this time dues paying members would now receive a member card and a 10% discount at F&G. The Spring semester is off to a great start and our numbers have grown. Even more is planned for next Fall and I look forward to seeing more people join. Some of these improvements are at the request of those in the Guild and some are to accommodate the growing size and scope of the Guild.
I would like to thank all who have participated in the past and all who are active in the Guild now. We have enjoyed many adventures and have many fond (read funny) memories. I look forward to spending more time with all of you and meeting new people who share an interest in RPGs."