The Clan of the Cave Nerds FAQ

Where the heck did you come up with the club name?

A couple of us, who shall remain nameless, were bouncing around names. Someone suggested a take-off on "Clan of the Cave-Bear" and someone else suggested cave nerds. It sounded good, and when presented to the members at large, went over pretty well. So we went with it.

What's with the weird purple background color on some of the web pages?

My wife's name is Ada. You get six hexadecimal digits to describe the color on a web page and her name consists of letters that are all hexadecimal digits. So I repeated it twice (ADAADA) to get the color.

Isn't that a rather strange thing to do?

Hey, I belong to a role-playing club, grew up in Mississippi, and work in the computer industry. Considering the source, no, it isn't strange.

What about the tan background color on the other pages?

My husband's name is Herald. I took, in order, the three letters that are legal hexadecimal digits and repeated them (EADEAD) to get the color. ( - Ada)

Fine, fine. So why did you guys set up a role-playing club?

Basically, there were a lot of us living in the general area who knew each other but because of people's schedules and locations it was difficult to get everyone together for regular gaming sessions. The club was formed to help coordinate efforts to give everybody more opportunities to play, even if the entire group couldn't manage it at any one time. Everybody wanted to play more, but no one really seemed to be able to get it together. The club gives us some structure and also lets us take advantage of a relationship with the RPGA and (to a more formal degree) local stores.

So what kinds of things does the club do?

Mostly, we get together whenever we can and play role-playing games. We also plan to participate in some RPGA events, distribute inforamation about game days and conventions to our members, and possibly do some playtesting in the future.

You keep mentioning RPGA. What's that?

RPGA is the Role-Playing Gamers Association. It was started by TSR, one of the first companies to produce role-playing games (RPGs) and continues today under Wizards of the Coast, which bought out TSR a couple of years ago. Its goals are similar to those of our club, though on a much wider scale. You can find out more about the RPGA from their website, which is on our links page.

Do I have to join RPGA to join the club?

Technically, no. We provide a membership level that for people who, for whatever reason, don't want to join the RPGA. However, most of our members also belong to the RPGA and since one of the benefits of being an RPGA club is that we can hold events that RPGA members can gain points at. Non-RPGA members cannot participate in these events, which are a main focus of the club.

What does it cost me to join the club?

Currently, nothing. The club is young and we are still working out what sorts of events and activities we want to do. While we may introduce a dues structure in the future, currently all you need to join is to apply. This can be done either by attending an event or by using our online registration page.

What games does the club support?

As a policy, we support any and all role-playing games. In actual practice, we currently mostly play D&D. Some of our members have also been sporadically playing GURPS, Paranoia, and Toon. There is some interest in Call of Cthulhu. In general, if you're interested enough in a game to put together a session, we support it.