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| I was in heaven at Gen Con 2014 |
A
Year in Review
2014.
What a phenomenal year to be a part of the tabletop gaming hobby! Ever since starting this blog in January, my
experience as a gamer has exploded into a bright ball of awesomeness! I was involved in multiple campaigns, I got
my family gaming regularly, I was a guest on a couple podcasts with LexStarwalker, and I went to Gen Con after years of thinking the trip was never
going to happen. Most importantly, in
2014 I met so many extraordinary people - both in person and online – and I’ve
had a wonderful time sharing, learning, and laughing about our hobby. It is very easy to get caught up bickering
over system minutiae, edition wars, and controversial debates, and sometimes
this is healthy… in moderation of course.
But make sure that you take a few moments throughout the year, to reflect
on the true joy of tabletop gaming, and how it has influenced your life in a
positive way.
This is why I started this blog, as a
place to capture these moments, remember them, and share them with those
interested in tagging along. At the end
of the play-session, when the dice is settled, our hobby is all about sharing
memories and having fun…
… and wow, did I have a lot of fun this
year!
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| From our #GetOutAndGame Numenera event at Romano's Pizza |
Maybe
Too Much Fun
I love numbers. Actually that’s not entirely accurate. I love what Microsoft Excel does with
numbers! Yesterday evening I spent some
time tallying up the number of gaming sessions I experienced in 2014 and I’m not sure if I should be
ecstatic or appalled by the tally. In
total, I was in 125 RPG sessions in
2014. Of these, I was a game-master for 102 and a player for 23.
At first I was taken aback at how much time I spent behind the GM
screen, and felt a little guilty, but then I counted the number of sessions I
played with my kids: 44.
My wife Jennifer took part in an
additional 9 “grown-up” sessions
this year, which brings my family gaming total up to 53. I’m quite proud of that
number, and I think it speaks to one of the principle points I try to make with
this blog:
If you want to game more, get your
family involved!
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| Disney Con 2014! Playing in public at Disney's Art of Animation Resort |
I also did a breakdown of the games I GM’d
and played throughout the year, although I didn’t need to even look at Excel to
tell you that Numenera was by far the
big winner for me in 2014. While I love
and enjoy almost all of the books on my shelf, there really is no system that
reflects my style of game-mastering like MonteCook Games’ Cypher System. I’m not
sure if you can tell by the way I write my game summaries and play reports, but
I’m a “seat of my pants” improvisational game-master. My home-brewed adventures are a series of
bullet points, and I love any tool that can help me run the game on the fly
(like +Andreas Walters’ Non Player Cards!)
I like sharp action, fast combat, and great story. If a game can’t provide those for me, I have
no interest in playing any further.
So here’s where I spent my time at the
table in 2014:
1.
Numenera – GM:
47 sessions; Player: 8 sessions
2.
The Strange –
GM: 16 sessions; Player: 12 sessions
3.
Savage Worlds
– GM: 21 sessions; Player: 1 Session
4.
Basic Fantasy RPG – GM: 7 sessions
5.
Cypher System (Space Hack) – GM: 6
sessions
6.
Adventures in the East Mark – GM: 3
sessions
7.
Mouse Guard RPG
– Player: 2 sessions
8.
AD&D 2nd Ed. – GM: 1
session
9.
Dungeon Crawl Classics – GM: 1
session
Most of my blog is about game-mastering
however there were quite a few standout moments, as a player, that are definitely worth noting.
· After five years
of experiencing RPG’s solely as a game-master, I returned to the player’s side
of the GM screen in one of Brian Takle’s truly wonderful Mouse Guard RPG sessions. I’d
love to spend more time with my character, Avarick
the cook and apiarist, in 2015!
· +Jeremy Land ran
a 12-session playtest of The Dark Spiral,
+Bruce R Cordell's epic adventure for TheStrange. My character, Conrad Merrick (Sharp-Eyed Paradox who
Conducts Weird Science on Earth, Abides in Stone on Ardeyn, and Adapts to Any
Environment on Ruk), was a fun-to-play and impulsive combination of Will
Hunting and Cave Johnson.
· My long-time gaming buddy Craig McCullough ran a one-shot of Savage Worlds Fantasy
at a local Norwin Game Knights function
a few months ago, in which I played a Half-Orc Assassin. After years of owning and enjoying Savage
Worlds as a GM, this was the first time I got to play the game.
· +Lex Starwalker ran a 5-session Numenera
mini-campaign using Robert Schwalb's adventure Beyond All Worlds. Serbrus Ton’bur, my Doomed Glaive who
Consorts with the Dead, had a sick and twisted encounter with his wife’s cannibalistic
killer, leaving both the player and the player-character emotionally scarred…
in a good way!
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| Dunkin & Dragons with my Mom, Evie, and Carrie |
What
to Expect in 2015!
There’s a lot of great gaming coming up
in the New Year that I already have planned!
It looks like I’m going to have our regular monthly game of The Strange
continuing, and our next adventure series is going to mix three themes that go
so well together: Sherlock Holmes, Dark Sun, and Star Wars. Our weird 4-in-1 Quattro con Carnage campaign begins its
Dungeon Crawl Classics phase next Tuesday, and will progress into Savage Worlds
and the Cypher System in the following weeks.
You’ll also see a slight change in our regular Numenera campaign, as our
characters from Tales of the Broken Mask
travel to the great city of Qi for What
Lurks Above.
There are other games I’d like to try as
well. Even with nearly two-dozen
sessions, I still want to play more Savage Worlds in 2015. I played a lot of Weird Wars Rome and Accursed, but crave more of The Last Parsec after last week's #SantaGaming session. I’m itching for
a lot more Dungeon Crawl Classics goodness!
Despite reading and re-reading the rules several times, we only managed one game in 2014. I'm happy that there are at least 4 sessions planned in the next two months!
I may get a chance to play Fiasco
in the next few weeks, as well as the DragonAge RPG, both of which will be completely new experiences. My family game, featuring my wife and kids,
just wrapped up our trio of #SantaGaming
spectaculars, but we haven’t settled on our next ongoing campaign. We may return to one of our previous campaigns,
or try something completely new. I’ll
probably be giving them a chance to decide very soon.
I’m certainly open to any and all
feedback, so if there is something you’d like to see us try, please let me
know!
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| Getting all spacey for Savage Worlds The Last Parsec |
As I close out my final blog entry for
2014 I just wanted to thank you all for reading, commenting, and contributing
to this little site. Writing up
play-reports for my games is not something I just started doing in the last
twelve-months. In fact, I am sitting on
literally hundreds of pages of play reports for previous campaigns, which were
shared with the players once and then filed away on my hard drive or in
binders. But sharing the sessions with
all of you on social media, reading the feedback, and having conversations
about my games has truly made a positive impact on how I game master. I
sincerely appreciate all of you out there, and hope to continue collaborating
on more exciting playtests, reviews, and special projects to come!
Happy New Year!
.JPG)
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