By Jordan S. Carroll

Several men hunch around a game at Oxmoor Center, just outside of the shop Something to Do. The game is Dungeons and Dragons: Skirmish, the miniature war game version of the well-known tabletop role-playing game. It consists largely of plastic figurines on a map. The figurines range from a bulbous, many-eyed monster to a man in full armor to something out of “Hellraiser.” As I spoke to Steve Johnson the group discussed “attacks of opportunities” and “area effect spells.”

Johnson is the co-moderator of http://www.ghoulgamers.com, the Web forum for the Louisville Gaming Society. There, users can meet up and discuss all varieties of games, including collectible card games, tabletop role-playing games, miniatures and even amateur sports. Popular games on the site include “Rifts,” “Dungeons and Dragons” 3.5 edition, “Mech Warrior,” and “Tri-Stat” (the system used in “Big Eyes Small Mouth”).

“Before the site it was very isolated. The guys you knew were the only guys who played the game but now there’s a big difference. If I want a couple extra hands in a game I can go online and find them now,” Johnson said.

Brad Buskey founded the site in the summer of 2003. It’s grown and now has over 250 members with an estimated 50 regulars. While based in Louisville, the site is open to any and all gamers in the area, including gamers in southern Indiana and Ohio.

“It’s one of those things where you don’t have to be a gamer for 20 years to be accepted into a group,” long-time gamer Chad Newman said.

“People there [on the site] were so warm and inviting. … It definitely helps boost your self-esteem. You’re like, ‘All right, I can do this. I can really enjoy myself. I’ve found my calling,’” said Celia Triplett, who has been playing for two years.

Members range from Newman, with over 20 years of gaming experience, to Celia Triplett’s brother, Josh, a senior in high school. The site accepts people of all backgrounds and levels of experience.

Part of the site’s success comes from the many other gaming groups who have joined it in the past. One of the major groups that merged with the Louisville Gaming Society is the Fuchikoma Mainframe, founded by Brandon Aten.

“In ‘Ghost of the Shell,’ the robots are all connected to this network and they’re called ‘Fuchikoma,’ which is where [Aten] got the name from. He sort of wanted to create this network for gamers … a database where people communicated their ideas all in one place,” said Triplett, a member of the Fuchikoma group.

When Aten found that the Louisville Gaming Society had a similar idea for connecting gamers, he agreed to join them. Since then, the site has been an inspiration.

“Because of the Gaming Society and the interest that it sparked, I actually decided to go to the Origins Gaming Convention last year where I met Kevin Sembieda, the owner and president of Palladium Books and now I’m actually writing for them. If it hadn’t been for the Louisville Gaming Society I wouldn’t have had that spark,” Aten said.

Aten was unable to give the name of the book he’s working on due to a nondisclosure agreement. He was, however, able to say that it is a world book supplement for “Rifts.”

For more information on the Louisville Gaming Society, visit http://www.louisvillegaming.org or http://www.ghoulgamers.com.