Gaming in 2024

2024 has been the year in which my gaming career effectively ended, at least for the foreseeable future - with the end of "Isles of Dread" I bowed to the inevitable and accepted that that group had run its course, but with no intention of seeking a new group and starting again.

In terms of purchases, there have been no physical RPG products at all (my update for last year said that that was the case then, but then contradicated itself by noting that I purchased one book; this year there really was none). I did, however, buy a fair amount of PDF material - completing a collection of "Dark Sun" PDFs, and two Kickstarters for "Tales of the Valiant".

In terms of reading, I think the only thing I actually got through was the aforementioned "Phandelver and Beyond", which I'm afraid I cannot recommend.

Looking forward, I really don't expect much to change, though we'll see. The one thing I am mulling over is picking up some more "D&D Classics" PDFs - the "Ravenloft" setting, some of the classic BECMI and/or 1st Ed adventures, and the bundle of the Historical Reference books. On the other hand, I don't foresee any use for any of these (or, frankly, the rest of my library), so I'm fighting the urge towards completeness on this one.

About "Tales of the Valiant"

In the past year or so I've backed two Kickstarters for "Tales of the Valiant" - the first was for the development of the system itself (a 5e near-clone with some nice enhancements), and the second for the Gamemaster's Guide (which looked very nice). In backing the second I actually broke one of my cardinal rules with Kickstarter, which is to never back a second project from a team until the first has delivered - but I mitigate that by noting that Kobold Press have never let me down.

Anyway, both Kickstarters have now delivered everything I signed up for, which tragically comes just a bit too late - I'm unlikely ever to even read any of the books (PDFs) they have sent me as I just don't have use for them at this time. (Plus, I now have two 5e near-clones, the other being "Level Up", and there's a third available in the form of D&D 2024.)

But that's a "me" problem rather than any sort of a problem with the product, and the Kickstarter was pretty much impeccable in its delivery. And Kobold Press routinely do great work, so I have no hesitation in recommending them as a company. Just a shame that it's come a little too late.

My Worst Game Experience

Looking back through this blog, somehow I don't seem to have ever told this story...

A number of years ago I had a bright idea for a Shadowrun mini-campaign - six sessions (!) to tell a specific story in the vein of "Neuromancer" or some of the other cyberpunk greats. I was actually really proud of it.

So we dug out the Shadowrun 4th Edition books and started creating characters. And went on creating characters. And on. And on. And on.

Eventually, after about five hours we were finally ready to play! Huzzah!

The game rolled on, and into the very first combat, an introduction to the system and the setting, and the inciting event for the story...

Half an hour later and it was time to end the session. And I absolutely refuse to touch Shadowrun ever again.

The fundamental problem we twofold. Firstly, the combat system dragged to the point of being unbearable. Secondly, one of the characters was built so that his optimum approach was to simply ignore the ongoing firefight, walk straight across the room where it was all going on, and just punch out the bad guys - his character was literally unable to be wounded by a gunshot.

I've had some experiences with some sucky game masters, and some experiences with sucky games. I've also made a number of mistakes when gaming, some of which are pretty terrible. But of all my experiences while gaming, this was the absolute nadir.

Gaming in 2023

2023 has been a quiet year for gaming. It is the first year in more than three decades when I have bought no physical RPG product at all, it has seen me running what I expect to be my final ever campaign, and I'm reaching a point now where I suspect I'm more or less just done - looking forward I see the prospect of less gaming ahead rather than more. (Even in the quiet times in the past, there was always an expectation and a hope that they'd come to an end. This time, I'm not sure I have either.)

The "Isles of Dread" campaign continues to go well. I had expected it to come to an end this year, but for various reasons that hasn't happened. I expect it to conclude some time in the first half of 2024, but I guess we'll see.

I purchased a single physical RPG product - near the end of the year I saw "Phandelver and Beyond" at a 39% discount, which was enough to justify I buy. I haven't read it yet, so can't comment on the content.

Despite that, this year did see me reading a few things: "Tome of Beasts III" (PDF) and the matching "Lairs" book (I recommend the first; the second not so much), "Paranormal Power" (PDF), and the new D&D Starter Set (avoid - get the original if you can). I also read one of the versions of the d6 "Star Wars" game, which was interesting for a number of reasons.

I also purchased a number of classic D&D PDFs - a complete set of "Spelljammer", and the beginnings of a set of "Dark Sun". I had intended to read these, but just never found the time.

Looking forward, I don't foresee too many more purchases. I've more or less decided against the 2024 Core Rules Update unless something signficantly changes (or they publish in PDF). I do expect to receive the "Tales of the Valiant" PDFs at some point in the year, though in hindsight I probably shouldn't have backed that Kickstarter. And I expect to complete my set of "Dark Sun" PDFs at some time.

As I said, it has been a quiet year. I expect 2024 to be quieter still, but I guess we'll see. This won't be my final post on this blog, but it's possible it might be my final end-of-year roundup.

Another Cancellation

Our game this afternoon had to be cancelled at short notice. We're now going to attempt to meet on Wednesday afternoon instead, with a view to shifting to Wednesdays as a regular slot for a while. We'll see if that works any better.

All of which amounts to another good reason to make the current campaign our last.

Bigger <> Better

A few years ago I read through the rereleased 1st edition of the WEG Star Wars RPG, and was struck by how light and breezy it is. I'm currently running through the final edition of the same game, which pulls together the results of many years of development and expansion, and while it is the same game, and while many of the improvements are nice, as a whole the thing just falls flat.

I found exactly the same thing with Shadowrun, which had an excellent 1st edition, a 2nd edition that made several improvements but also added more 'stuff', then a 3rd edition that became massively complex, and then a 4th edition that changed the underlying ruleset and became, in my opinion, almost entirely unplayable (at least for a newcomer).

The upshot: bigger is not the same as better, and especially in the case of RPG rules it may well be the opposite.

Of course, that mostly restates one of my long-held beliefs: if you cannot present the core of your entire ruleset in a single 250ish-page hardback book, you're doing something wrong.

Gaming in 2022

This year has been very much a mixed bag for gaming, meaning that this is also going to be a very mixed update.

The two campaigns I had running twelve months ago both came to successful ends - one the long-planned ending where the PCs confronted the Dark Lord and earned their freedom; the other a somewhat earlier end due to pressures of life. But both were satisfying ends.

Having expected those to mark the end of my gaming, I was swept up in some enthusiasm for a new campaign, "Isles of Dread". Thus far, I've actually had more enjoyment from writing the adventure than running it, but that's largely because it's early days. This campaign is also notable because we've returned to in-person gaming, which is nice.

However, this will be the last campaign I run for this group - we've slipped to a point where we just barely have a quorum, and that means that if even one person is absent it doesn't really feel right. Worse, it's very likely that one of the players will drop out reasonably soon, at which point we're below critical mass. Which is a shame, but also a nicely definitive decision.

I read a whole bunch of RPG books this year: a couple of books on GMing by Sly Flourish, a couple of adentures, a miscellaneous book on monsters, and a load of Level Up books. I'd actually recommend all of them - it's been a good haul. I've bought rather fewer books: a couple of Level Up expansions (with "The Dungeon Delver's Guide" being the outstanding purchase of the year), a small number of PDFs, and the new D&D Starter Set. But very little has caught my eye.

Looking forward, I'm not planning any purchases in 2023. I've largely sworn off WotC's material, and have virtually no scope for playing anything but D&D. So that's that. I might pick up the "Phandelver Campaign"... but I fear that may ruin a classic, so I might be better off skipping it.

And I'm very much on the fence for the 2024 update. On the one hand, it may well prove to be an improvement to the game. On the other, I'm really not liking most of the changes I'm seeing, and I'm unlikely to have a group with which to play anyway. So we'll need to see.

And that's that. As I said, a mixed bag. I expect 2023 to be a year of endings - "Isles of Dread" should hopefully come to a conclusion at some point in the year, and unless something changes that will mark my final campaign for a good long time, possibly ever. Which is sad, but it's also not a bad thing to end with.

The Christmas Ghost Story

I won't be running a Christmas Game this year - that tradition is now fairly definitiely ended, and besides I don't really have a group to gather. Which is rather unfortunate, since a few years ago I realised that the obvious use for that game was to tell a ghost story, in the tradition of olden times before Dickens changed things (with "A Christmas Carol").

Of course, I don't have an immediate ghost story in mind. It's more a sort of theoretical ghost story. But it's something nice to mull over.

Level Up

About a year ago I backed a Kickstarter for "Level Up" - a take on an 'advanced 5e' by En Publishing. I finally finished reading through the PDFs this week. Some thoughts:

This may be one of the best games I'll never run. Level Up has some really nice features that probably make it an improvement over 5e, but it's also a step more complicated when 5e is pretty much at the upper limit of what I'm interested in running now. Besides, if I were to get the chance to run anything else, I'd go for something distinctly different - Firefly, or Star Trek, maybe.

I really like this method of buying into the game: back one Kickstarter to an appropriate level, receive a package of the books, and then that's essentially all there is. That sort of one-and-done is now really appealing, especially given my increasing disdain for supplements.

I backed this at a PDF level. I suspect that is now very much the future - I have sorely limited space for (or interest in) physical books any more, while other electronic formats are utterly useless to me. But PDFs are ideal.

And I think, actually, that is that. I had planned a longer, more in-depth review, but don't think that really aids anything. This is recommended for people who like 5e but would like it to be a bit more crunchy, in depth, and detailed, and is very much not recommended for anyone who fundamentally doesn't like 5e.

The Other Precondition

If "The Mists of Lamordia" does indeed come to a satisfactory end by the end of June, I will consider running another campaign, after a sufficiently long break. That said, I have one other precondition for doing so: I need to come up with a campaign.

Right now, I have several half-baked ideas for a campaign, but nothing that immediately grabs me. I know I want something shorter in scope, something much more episodic, and also something low-level and easy to run. But I'm yet to hit on something that really inspires.

And that's what I need: a solid premise for a campaign that I want to run, plus a suitable "side dish" to both make the campaign stand out and also give the characters something to do beyond just killing things and taking their stuff.

Gaming in 2021

In many ways, 2021 was a disastrous year for gaming. As the year progressed, I felt increasingly disenchanted with it, to the extent that I have now fairly thoroughly fallen out of love with the whole thing. I think the two ongoing campaigns are now fairly definitively my last campaigns.

Throughout 2021 I have had two campaigns in progress, both of them online. The Work Game, "The Mists of Lamordia" has continued apace, completing the first two acts of the campaign and entering the third act at the end of the year - more on that it another post. The second game, "A Quest for Memory" started really brightly, but got bogged down in the first crucible and then bogged down again by scheduling issues. It hasn't really recovered - again, there will be another post on the topic. I expect the first of these to conclude by Easter, and am not sure about the second.

There has been no opportunity to play, nor to run anything other than D&D, in 2021. I don't expect that to change, nor am I looking for opportunities. Likewise, the tradition of the Christmas Game is now over - the last one was in 2015, and "Memoirs of a Companion" was as good a send off for that event as could be hoped.

I only read four RPG books this year, and made two other purchases. Sadly, the report card is not great: "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" persuaded me not to touch WotC's rules-based supplements for 5e, and "Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft" persuaded me not to touch their settings (and with "Storm King's Thunder" largely doing the same for adventures, that's basically it). "Tome of Beasts 2" was a solid book, but one I only really purchased because I needed a Christmas gift. I don't regret it, but I really don't need any more monsters. That leaves "Exploring Eberron", which was a solid work, but again leaves me feeling sated for Eberron material. The only other purchase was "Level Up", which I've downloaded but haven't started to read. Oh, and I bought "Monster Manual Expanded III", which was another solid work... but I still don't need any more monsters.

So, what went wrong?

Unfortunately, RPGs seem to be a key front in the ongoing Culture War that is wracking our society, and I really hate that. Because it seems that you have to buy into one side of the argument entirely or be forever branded a heretic... and there's one side that seems really quite awful, and the other that is mostly okay but with some fringe elements that I simply can't support. All of which just leaves me feeling unwelcome, dismayed and, quite frankly, unclean.

Couple that with the loss of physical gaming, huge disappointment at the recent products, and the loss of any regular touchstone (such as Dragon magazine), and I think I'm just done.

In 2022 I expect to bring one of my campaigns to its end, I expect the other to come to a halt one way or another... and then I'm probably hanging up the dice bag.

To Humbly Go...

 While I'm recommending things, I really should point out that Humble Bundle currently have a bundle for the Star Trek Adventures RPG. For £12 you can get PDFs of about two-thirds of the game line, plus a voucher for 50% off the print version of the Core Rulebook.

It's definitely worth checking out if you're at all interested in the game: find it here.

Tricky (Pathfinder)

Well, the time has come for me to cancel my Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription - we're now coming to the end of the 1st Edition materials, and I've decided I'm not going to move on to 2nd Edition (partly because I've not been terribly impressed with what I've seen, but mostly because I'm basically never going to play it). There's one final volume coming, being issue #144, which brings an end to the current Path.

However, there's a small problem: the next subscription package contains both that final volume and also issue #145, the first volume in the next Path (and therefore the first 2nd Edition Path).

This is slightly tricky: I definitely do want volume #144, but definitely don't want volume #145, but they come together, so...

(What I think will most likely happen is that I'll cancel, and then use some store credit I've somehow accumulated to purchase the final volume and its PDF. But we'll see - their customer service has generally been outstanding, so it's possible they'll have this covered.)

Unfortunate Timing?

Friday's game featured a moment where the PCs discovered "two magical items rolled on table B". Which was nice - always good to dig out those tables and see what you get. (No, seriously, I do quite like that approach to treasure in 5e.)

One of the two items was yet another potion, which is fine, but the other was a bag of holding.

Which is a pain on two counts: Firstly, I had been about to bring in an encumbrance rule for the rest of the campaign, notably including tracking of rations. But the BoH makes that utterly pointless - the party can now just carry whatever they need anyway, so tracking rations becomes just some pointless book-keeping.

Secondly, in the absence of an encumbrance system, the BoH is itself completely pointless - it solves a problem that the party doesn't actually face. Huzzah!

The upshot of this is that I'm now not going to bother introducing the encumbrance system, and therefore not bother with the tracking of rations. Which is slightly unfortunate, but so be it. It's probably better used in the next campaign anyway.

Ah, but the timing, though...

My Favourite Unloved Game

This morning I was reminded once again of my favourite unloved game. I should note that this is not my favourite game, nor even one of my top five. However, this is a game that I enjoyed playing a great deal but that pretty much bombed, almost nobody ever played, and rather fewer people particularly enjoyed. Oh, but I like it.

The game is "Werewolf: the Wild West".

"Werewolf: the Apocalypse" was a White Wolf game that cast the PCs as werewolves (obviously) - servants of a cosmic force called the Wyld - who were engaged in a hopeless battle against the forces of the Wyrm (the cosmic force of decay) and the Weaver (the cosmic force of order - a being that had been corrupted by the Wyrm in the modern age). I never really took to that game, though I'm not sure quite why.

"Werewolf: the Wild West" took much the same concept but transplanted the game back in time 150 years. Here, the Weaver had not yet been corrupted but was very much in the ascendance as the frontier was tamed, the railroad was built, and so on.

And, of course, the game fused the concepts of that hopeless battle with the tropes of the wild west. (This was, of course, before I realised that D&D itself was much closer to being a pseudo-WW game than anything pseudo-medieval.)

So I spent quite a lot of time watching lots of westerns and soaking in the appropriate material, quite a lot of time drawing up ideas for games, and quite a lot of time planning one-shots. And I think I played the game all of twice. It was fun, and I think the one-shots were well received... but the game never really got traction with any group I played with. It was always placed behind D&D and Vampire amongst the games that people wanted to play, and it was never quite one that I really pushed for. And so it has sat on a shelf for twenty years, unplayed but not quite unloved.

Oh, but I did so enjoy it!

Gaming in 2019

It looks like it's going to be another quiet year for gaming. I fully expect my game at work to continue, with us probably reaching the end of "Storm King's Thunder" towards the end of the year (and then...?). Other than that, I don't foresee running or even playing in any other games, largely due to the lack of a group.

Which is a shame. But then, it's something that I could probably change if I really wanted to, and was willing to put the effort in, and the truth is that I'm not bothered enough to actually do anything about it.

This year also looks to be one where I reduce my RPG purchases even further. With the move of Pathfinder to 2nd edition, the time will finally come for me to end my subscription to their Adventure Path product. By my count there are seven issues still to come, including the one that has just been shipped.

I don't expect any other purchases for any RPG other than D&D. That might, just possibly, change - I might be tempted to buy the core rules for the Star Trek RPG while it remains available - but I think that's unlikely. For D&D, I'm currently reading through the "Creature Codex" from Kobold Press (I had intended to skip this, as I don't need more monsters, but got a really good Black Friday deal), and I think it's possible I'll buy one (or even two) of WotC's offerings this year - I'll take a look at any rules supplement they issue, and as before I'll buy an Eberron, Dark Sun, or Spelljammer book if they produce one. But I'm no longer interested in their other adventures, in more monsters, or in getting supplements just for the sake of it. They have to offer me something I want, and that's looking doubtful.

So that's 2019: little gaming, the end of one set of purchases, and a likely absence of others.

My Top Games of All Time

Firstly, I should note that these are the games that I, personally, have had the most fun playing. I don't claim this as a definitive list of the best games ever! Still, with that caveat in place, here are my top five RPGs of all time:

1. D&D (in its various forms): Of course this had to be number 1. Ranging from the heady days of the BECMI Red Box back in high school, through the dark times of the cancellation in the late 90s, the resurgence with 3e, the dark times of 4e, and then the resurgence with 5e, this is the game I've always come back to. It's the game I've logged the most hours of play with, and the game that has given me most of my best campaigns. So, #1 it is.
   
2. Vampire (in its various forms): The game I played in university, and for years afterward, Vampire caused a fundamental shift in my thinking on how an RPG should be played, how a campaign should be structured, and so forth. Great stuff - even if I find I have no real desire ever to play it again.
   
3. Star Wars: Another obvious big-hitter, for me Star Wars has two flavours of 'good' RPGs - the original d6 incarnation (mostly as expressed in the very first edition), and then in the final d20 "Saga Edition" version. These are very different, and do different things very well, but they're both great fun to play.
   
4. Firefly/Serenity: The newest game on the list, this one gave rise to several wonderful "Christmas Games" and also the "Lost Episodes" open tabletop campaign. This game has the particular distinction that the rules fit the setting almost perfectly - playing this game feels like running an episode of the show. It's just good fun.
   
5. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: I've run two good campaigns with this game - the "Path of the Damned" trilogy of published adventures, plus a homebrew "Company of the Black Hand" campaign. The latter went particularly well - it seems that for playing a game that feels like the "Black Company" series of novels WFRP cannot be beat.

And that's it; the top five. An honourable mention should go to "d20 Modern", and perhaps also to "Exalted".

I don't have, and don't intend to compose, a list of games I don't enjoy. I've only had a small number of bad experiences, each of which can be mostly explained by other factors than the choice of game - my policy still remains that if someone wants to run a game for me, I'm willing to play just about anything.

Where No-one Has Gone Before

On Saturday I watched "The Undiscovered Country" again, and once again I was stuck by just how good a seam of material there is for role-playing purposes. By the end of that film you have an uneasy peace breaking out between the Federation and the Klingons, albeit with plenty within both civilisations more than willing to bring it down; you have the Romulan Empire scheming constantly; you have whole regions of space out there to be explored; and you have the Enterprise-A and its crew being decommissioned and the Enterprise-B being brought into service.

All in all, that's a great environment for role-playing! And, as an added bonus, that era also has the best uniform design of all Star Trek. Really, what's not to like?

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I want to run that campaign. Sadly, chance would be a fine thing...

Review: Dungeon Crawl Classics

Last week I finished my read-through of "Dungeon Crawl Classics". As I've mentioned before, this was a somewhat odd experience, as I concluded part way through that I would most likely never run this game. Still, it's worthy of a review.

This is a black-and-white hardback book of some 466 pages of text (plus a detailed index and some adverts in the back matter). It presents a complete RPG in those pages - at present there are actually no supplements for this book, at least from the original publishers, although there are many adventures and a setting available for use. That's pretty cool.

The book really is a work of art, with lots of illustrations throughout, all geared to give a very particular atmosphere. In that regard, this is one of the very best RPGs I've seen - so many of them follow the standard fantasy glamour aesthetic (which is fine, but gets rather same-y).

The rules material is presented clearly and with a minimum of fuss. And, despite the obviously love of the designers for Gygax's work, the language used throughout is nicely clear and comprehensible - no High Gygaxian text on offer here! That's all to the good. The mechanics are a little table-heavy for my tastes, but that does allow a lot of information to be presented concisely.

All in all, this is a great book and well worth the money, if you're going to actually play the game. As noted, this game is very much not for all, and indeed is very much "not for me". So the reader is advised to consider carefully whether they'll actually play it - and indeed should seek out the free Quickstart rules if in doubt (these give a good taster of the game, so are well worth a look).

(One thing I would be really curious about: this game very clearly states that it derives its influences from Appendix N. Which is cool. It also starts the PCs are level 0 nobodies, raw newbies off the farm with no skills to speak of. That's also cool, although a definite instance of "not for me". However, I would very much like to know where that particular bit of inspiration comes from - it's certainly not a feature in the Appendix N works I have read, where Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and Elric are all badasses when we first meet them, while the Fellowship of the Ring is positively heaving with warriors and wizards. Is it just the hobbits, or is there some other antecendent for that design choice?)

Christmas Game: No No No

One of my better ideas in the field of gaming was to run an annual "Christmas Game". Somehow over the years this became an annual game of "Firefly" (or, before that, "Serenity"), which was invariably good fun.

Unfortunately with all the chaos surrounding the house move, we didn't manage to get around to a Christmas Game in 2016, and then last year there was just no time to fit one in. Unfortunately, this year will make three years in a row that this tradition has not been observed, which sadly means it is probably over and done with.

(That said, it's not entirely impossible that it might be reincarnated in some later year. In which case I suspect I may also adopt a slightly different tack, hearkening back to an even older, and now obsolete, tradition: ghost stories at Christmas.)

We'll see: either I'll run a Christmas Game in 2019 or it really will be time to declare that tradition ended.