End of Year post

This has been a whirlwind of a year. I published a game and an adventure! I met lots of lovely people who write, make art, and create games. I blogged (a little). I did some freelance work on other folks projects. (I also released this via my email list which is available here: Email List.)

But most importantly, I played games.

Here are some cool adventures and games I played this year, in no particular order, definitely not all inclusive:

Paranoid Android by Armanda Haller

This solo game is so tight! You are undergoing an interrogation to determine if you are an android and you get to discover that for yourself throughout the game. Awesome.

Mythic Bastionland by Chris McDowall

I love questing and strange spiritual encounters with knight stuff. This is extremely up my alley and I can’t wait to see how it continues to evolve. I played this in a play by post game with a few games friends. Character: Enid the Unproven.

Empyrean Dynasty and Travail Saga by Michael Raston (Gorgzu Games)

Twenty-odd empires engaging in wildly complex multi century space negotiations and war. A dangerous quest o’er the land in a JRPG mode. These two FKR games I played-by-post as the Cavalerie Centuriate and The Fallen Seraphim Orius, Swordsaint of the Martyred Pretender respectively. I found both experiences hilarious, and inspirational. Those in the STARF cluster alliance, salute.

Dead Planet by Written by Donn Stroud, Fiona Maeve Geist, and Sean McCoy

I ran The Screaming on the Alexis three times this year. Each time was very different, extremely grim and epic.

Desert Moon of Karth by Joel Hines

I love weird space westerns. This is such a dynamic, evocative setting with a lot of grit that really opens up the kinds of modules one can write for Mothership. Great. I adapted this for my space home game. I joined Brad and Yochai to chat about it on Between Two Cairns.

Verses: The Last Duel by Tam H.

What happens when you bear a sword sprung from a dead god and have to duel other dead god sword bearers? This solo game makes being probably doomed very fun.


Yokai Hunters Society by Chema González

Rules lite monster hunting, Tunnel Goons hack. I made a shopkeeper named Ram who is attempting to leverage monster hunting to expand her grocer business.


Blades in the Dark by John Harper

My dear IRL friend Gina is running this game where we are a terrible circus troupe. My character is Elliott Plummer and is essentially a tall, awkward haunted former sailor Whisper with a crush on a former nun.


The Black Hack 2E by Gold Piece Publications

I ran The Forgotten Shrine of the Slime Toad by Nate Treme for two buds in order to learn TBH 2E. It was a very silly experience. I’m unaccustomed to not rolling as a GM.


Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games

I joined a weekly game. Garland the Halfling Chicken Butcher lives. RIP Abernathy the Caravan Guard and Gringle the Turnip Farmer, slain by Lizard Warriors.


My Home Game

My long-running not-Spelljammer in 70s scifi spaces continues. Dr. Dorothy Keturah was slain by a foul swamp alligator dragon that breathed fire and now the party is questing to resurrect her.

What am I doing in 2023?

I am writing a few projects this year, including a Mothership module that I have finished writing and will be released in 2023. I also started writing a mini setting that includes a megadungeon. My goal is to continue playing more, keep learning and not be too precious about my work. Also: read and listen to things mostly unrelated to tabletop.

Thank you

I made a fun free little worksheet of d40 dungeon room shapes for all the folks making dungeons this year. D40 Dungeon Room Shapes. Worksheets can be fun!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Grinding Wheels of Disorder: A Method for Managing Factions and Their Moves

 I have struggled, and I know I am not alone in this, to maintain the movement of factions in my home campaign. When one plays biweekly, one is focused first on what the players will or could encounter at the table. I tend to prefer building campaigns that way, rushing a bit ahead of my players to hang drywall and slap up paint, creating a strange metallurgist intrigued by hypnotic space metals, what have you. But where this method (or lack of a real method) falls down is managing the various machinations happening "off screen". In my current campaign "Postcards from the Edge" which is based vaguely on Spelljammer 2e, there are four main factions which I have developed with my players during pre-session 0 world and character creation. I also have an intentionally deeply malevolent and authoritarian mindflayer faction, the Dominator Creed, or as they self style, "The Planar Voyagers".  As we are now a year into this campaign, I have found that it's diff...
Read more

Building an Interesting World through NPCs

This old post from 2021 now is resurrected.  I love building NPCs. It gives me great joy. I think the way to build an interesting world isn’t about lore that lives in a campaign Bible(what I think of as the Elder Scrolls lore problem) but is actualized by the characters the players meet. Whether it’s the cabbage man whose business the players destroyed in a battle with a Mimic pretending to be a Market Stall or the French veteran half orc married to a Warforged tower, it’s how you make the world real. Note: this approach is for important NPCs in your campaign but could be used in pieces to give more off the cuff NPCs some additional depth and flavor. Questions that inform how I build NPCs: Ask yourself, why is this NPC here? What does this NPC want? Who are they like in popular fiction? How can they help or hinder the PCs? What do they sound like? Voice/cadence, formal/informal, confident/timid? What aspects might they have? aka sentences that reflect them and their values (this is...
Read more