Recent and Upcoming Writing

Okay, so first off, much sooner than I usually manage these things, I've got another chapter of my Conversion story up. It's a little shorter than the last couple, partially because I'm trying to manage the size of the updates so they don't take as long to finish. Also, partially, because I'm going to try something a little different and that'll fit better with a chapter break. But either way, here's a link to that.

Conversion Chapter Seven -- Measures

Here's links to prior chapters, just for easy of access:
Chapter One (for which I need a proper chapter title)
Chapter Two - Coming and Going
Chapter Three - In the Light of Day
Chapter Four - Couriers
Chapter Five - Familiar Spaces
Chapter Six - Allies


I also have a side-story in the same setting that I've been trying to get published with no success. So I said 'screw it' and posted it. It stands well enough on its own, though it does serve as something of a sequel to a story I had published in FANG Vol. 8 a year and a half ago (knowledge of the earlier story isn't necessary, but it does feature the same characters). And here it is:

Renegotiation


Now, in case it needs to be said, these stories are more or less safe for work. There's some swearing and some violence, but nothing you couldn't see at 8 or 9 PM on a network TV show. (Though Chapter 7 does imply some particularly unpleasant violence off-camera, though still nothing you couldn't have gotten on, say, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) Now, of course, if stories featuring anthropomorphic animal characters aren't your thing, feel free to give it a pass.

Speaking of which, something related I wanna mention here.

At any given time, I've got a few different writing projects at once. Basically so that if I'm having trouble with one story/setting, I can usually switch to something else. Some of the stuff is anthro-related, but not all of it (I've got an urban fantasy setting I've been trying to get going, but the stories I've cranked out for it so far have all been too high word count for most venues and too low for the rest).

One of the things I've been poking at is, of all things, a video game fanfic. Specifically, Night in the Woods. Without getting into excruciating detail, there's a lot about the story and the setting that grabbed me and gave me the itch to play in that sandbox as a writer, which I rarely do. I don't have any hard plans for the story regarding length or anything like that, but I've been considering posting it in chunks and seeing if I get any feedback or response. So I'm wondering if anyone would be interested if I posted installments here as well as my other usual haunts. (Knowledge of the game shouldn't be required, though it'd certainly be a benefit since parts of the story will overlap with parts of the game.)

Any thoughts, questions, whatever, would be appreciated.

No Rest for the Wicked: Up the Hill

Helloooooo, minions!

After the usual round of scheduling snafus, my gaming group finally got back together for another session of No Rest for the Wicked this past week, so I've got a write-up for you. We're still settling in, players getting used to a new system. It's also been interesting, playing a fan-made system and learning to work around the handful of rough edges. (Admittedly, this might not have been the best introduction to PbtA for some of these folks, but learning experiences and whatnot.)

If you missed it, here is the first session in this particular game and here you'll find detailed descriptions of the cast of characters.

Anyhow, here we go.

Dead Suns: The Wasteland (Starfinder)

Alright, folks, welcome to another of my Starfinder write-ups. We've had to reshuffle a few things schedule-wise, but this coming Friday should be our second game of No Rest of the Wicked.

This will be kind of a short write-up, as this session takes us through the rest of Dead Suns' third module, Splintered Worlds. There's a little bit of epilogue left, but to be frank I'd rather go ahead and get this up than let it sit, run the next session, and tack on the epilogue later. (also, it feels like it would be awkward to have a post that starts with some combat and then begins the next leg of the adventure)

So here we go!

Meet the Vault Hunters

Welcome back, minions!

So normally I do something like this as part of my post with a fresh crop of characters. But for the sake of preserving the 'intro cutscene' feel of what I was doing, I decided to keep to the 'name card'-style intros and left a more in-depth write-up for a separate post.

Conveniently, this is a separate post. So let's get to a rundown of our cast, with answers to a couple of their history questions from the playbooks.

No Rest For the Wicked: The Big Bang

Hellooooooo, travelers!

First off, just another reminder/plug that Night Horrors: The Tormented, a book I worked on, is now available!

And with that out of the way...

This post marks the first of the next game we're running for my 'homebrew' weeks: No Rest For the Wicked, Monica Speca's fan-made PbtA Borderlands RPG. For those unfamiliar, Borderlands is a first-person shooter/RPG hybrid where the characters ("Vault Hunters," in the local parlance) are seeking out hidden caches of powerful alien artifacts, with the sort of anarchic sense of humor one might find from, say, Rick and Morty. The games (of which there are four: Borderlands, Borderlands 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Tales from the Borderlands) take place on and around the planet of Pandora, a world of chaos and violence and strange alien ruins and annoying robots. This intro from the first game might give you a little better idea -- you don't necessarily need to watch the whole clip, but the 'storybook' bit at the beginning (the first minute and a half) will be informative.

This game takes place on a planet of my own design, the planet Minos. Minos is owned by Torgue, one of the various corporations that runs most of the setting, and mostly sees use for mining and weapons testing facilities. (This is basically so I won't be tempted to turn the game into me doing a one-man show of canon NPCs snarking at the players, which would only be entertaining for so long.) Timeline-wise, it takes place in between the end of Borderlands 2 and Tales from the Borderlands (spoiler alert for a 6-year old video game); Handsome Jack is dead and a buttload of new Vaults have been discovered around the universe, but Hyperion is still mostly functional.

Before we kick things off below the break, it would be very helpful to check out the intro from the second game (particularly the bit from 2:52 onwards), on account of the fact that my players and I worked together to craft a similar-style intro. Rather than break the flow of the write-up to get into detailed character stuff, I'll make that its own separate post.

But let's get to it.

Dead Suns: Planet of the Dead (Starfinder)

Hey there, folks. I've got a post for our homebrew game on the docket but just waiting to get one thing fixed before I post it. Until then, I've got the last two Starfinder sessions typed up and ready to go.

But first, a quick reminder -- a book I worked on, Night Horrors: The Tormented, is out! It's a Promethean: The Created supplement full of antagonists, story hooks, and more. It's currently in the 'advance PDF' stage, but once it's fully out you can get a PoD copy as well. Or if you buy the PDF now, you'll get a coupon when the print version is available so you get a discount as if you'd bought them as a combo.

Anyhow, with that quick plug out of the way, here we go!

Night Horrors: The Tormented

So in case you missed it, Night Horrors: The Tormented is up as an advance PDF over at DriveThruRPG. I mention this because I'm one of the writers who worked on it (I did a bunch of the Pandorans). Woo-hoo!

For those of you unfamiliar with the 'advance PDF' thing, essentially you're getting the PDF with one community-sourced editing/proofing pass left to go while they sort out print-on-demand stuff. Then, once some errata's been applied, you'll get an updated PDF and once the PoD is available you'll get a coupon for a discount on the print version as if you'd bought them as a combo from the start.

A preview of things to come...

So it's been quiet here. That's because scheduling difficulties have kept us from Starfinder. But we should have a session of that next week.

But, more importantly -- and the reason I'm posting this -- my whole 'homebrew' group (including John) has gotten together to build characters for the next game we'll be playing. Preview behind the cut.

Dead Suns: The Vanished Cult (Starfinder)

Alright, time for some Starfinder. This'll be a short write-up (and, universe willing, the last one without John for a while), but it leaves off on a good leavin'-off spot and it looks like the next one might be delayed a couple of weeks so I figured I'd get this one out of the way.

And here we go!

Quick update, and some long-overdue Gencon stuff

Okay, so we're still between 'stories written by me' stuff at the moment as we're in the process of sorting out what we'll be playing next. I've presented the group with a handful of options that we're going to discuss in more depth, all of them either Fate or PbtA, and I'll keep you updated on that. There may or may not be a Starfinder session this week (with a following post) depending on scheduling stuff, but I felt like posting something in the meantime. Couldn't tell ya why, just an itch.

But that said, it does give me a good opportunity to do a long-overdue post about Gencon.

Dead Suns: Splintered Worlds (Starfinder)

Alright, so no major updates or anything to add here. With this session, however, we officially start the third volume of the Dead Suns adventure path, Splintered Worlds.

But before I get into it, I posted this before, but just as a reminder: Sean got the ship's mini painted, so here we have the Void-Crowned Queen!

(More pics available here)

RPGaDay 2018, Week 4+

Alright, here's my last week-and-change writeup for this year's RPGaDay. Honestly, might be the last one I do in general, I'm torn. I explain more in the final entry. Enjoy.

Day 22: Which non-dice system appeals to you?

I'm not sure there's any one non-dice system that jumps out at me, especially since I don't have a lot of personal experience with such, though I've always been fond of systems that use cards, particularly playing cards. (I may have, on occasion, briefly kicked around the idea of designing one of my own) But then, I've always had a weird thing for playing cards and I honestly couldn't tell you why.

Though while we're on the subject, I want to give a shoutout to Howard Ingham's game Chariot. I've unfortunately not had the chance to run or play it myself, but there's a lot of cool stuff in there, and it uses Tarot cards!


Day 23: Which game do you hope to play again?

Oh jeez, which game wouldn't I hope to play again? But then, I so often run games as opposed to playing them, I mean, that's a pretty long list even if I just restrict myself to playing (as opposed to running). I mean, any number of Chronicles of Darkness games, any of the Trinity Universe/Continuum stuff, Fate, Eclipse Phase... I could go on.


Day 24: Which RPG do you think deserves more recognition?

Honestly, like yesterday, I think there's a laundry list of RPGs that could be answers to this question. In general, there are so many games out there that more than a few are just going to get missed or left behind by the community. I mean, I've mentioned Chariot before, and as I glance at my shelf I note that I always felt it was a shame that Stew Wilson's Æternal Legends never really picked up. Or, to pull something semi-random out of my backside, there's the Shard RPG (warning, that link goes to a crappy old-style Flash site that plays music) that came out about a decade ago, tried (and largely succeeded) at doing a lot of interesting setting stuff, never quite made an impact, and is literally just now getting its first supplement (because the game came out right before the recession and things fell apart at the studio almost immediately afterwards).


Day 25: Game that had an impact on you in the last 12 months

Um... admittedly, I'm having trouble thinking of a good one. I can't recall any major 'eureka' moments that I've had from gaming, either playing or running or reading in the last year. So I'm gonna fish for an alternate question.

Alt Question: How do you prepare for a one-shot?

This is kind of a simple-ish process. I come up with a plot and a general tone, and use that to broadly sketch out character concepts (if I'm doing pregens) and/or picking playbooks if it's a PbtA game. Once I've got a basic plot down and I have an idea of what sorts of characters will be participating, I start working from a series of 'tentpole' scenes I want to bring the session together. These might be encounters with specific NPCs, or an action scene, or a 'wham' moment. These become a series of scenes that I then, in my notes, rather loosely connect together because I don't want to railroad the players too badly.

While I try to give myself enough of an outline that I could sit down and just fill in gaps and write the adventure as a story or something, there are a lot of times when I'll deliberately leave investigative scenes and such open-ended. Like, there'll be clues and what have you, but about half the time I deliberately don't plan for how characters figure out how to proceed. I find ways to come up with clues on the fly and fit them to the investigative technique. Do they find a guy by asking around? By hacking computers? Through clairvoyance? I'll have enough information in my notes to work from to adapt what I have to whatever seems appropriate, but about a third of the time I'll "check my notes" to buy time to just make something up.

And then, once I've done that, I put together any pregen sheets last.


Day 26: Gaming ambition for the next 12 months

My 'gaming ambition' is a short one, and one I've kinda mentioned before. I'm planning to expand my gaming group's tastes and experiences a bit. Since we've put together the regular gaming schedule, it's pretty much all been Pathfinder/Starfinder and World/Chronicles of Darkness. Now, Pathfinder/Starfinder hasn't been as much of an issue because dropping money on the adventure paths skips me the work of doing a lot of the prep, and those games are largely meant as filler anyhow because it's a bit too much to keep up my own stuff on a weekly basis (but it's so much easier if people are in the habit of a weekly game night). But I'm pretty much burned out on seeing character concepts boiled down to 1-5 dots in Attributes and Skills and Merits and Backgrounds and what have you, so now that we finished up our Chronicles game I'm going to pitch them some Fate or PbtA ideas and see where that goes.


Day 27: Share a great stream / actual play

Unfortunately, I need to do an alt question for this one because I don't follow any of those. 80% of the reason I do my own actual play blog posts is because my players have suggested that doing so helps them keep track of the story so far when we have to skip a week or two. But I don't go out of my way to read about the games of anyone I'm not already following for other reason. So...

Alt Question: What makes you want to GM?

This one's easy. I'm a storyteller, by nature. It's why I run games and also why I enjoy RPG writing. I want to share stories with an audience, or share tools of varying sorts to help people run their own games and tell their own stories. I enjoy entertaining and making people feel entertained, and running games and writing gaming material are just how I do that.


Day 28: Share whose inspiring gaming excellence you’re grateful for

Look, my brain tries to parse this one and can't. Like, intellectually, I can get what the words mean but there's nothing about this that really jives with any of my gaming experience. So let me see if there are any alt questions I haven't done yet.

Alt Question: Most ambitious campaign idea achieved

At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, my ideas rarely get more ambitious than "Finishing one rather than have it peter out due to drama or people moving away." And I've done that, a couple of times now (including one just recently).


Day 29: Share a friendship you have because of RPGs

Those of you who've known/followed me for a while can probably guess this one. It's my roommate Sean, whom I've known for about 15 years (I wanna say we met in 2003? Maybe 2002, but I doubt it). We first met through the old 'Gamer locator' thing on the old White Wolf site in the ancient past. It turned out, funnily enough, that we'd both come into very brief contact via the furry fandom but never really 'connected' there. But we met through the gamer locator, and started hanging out, and then we started hanging out more, and... I mean, I'm not really sure where to go from there. We've been best friends for a long-ass time, and I have trouble imagining what my life, gaming and otherwise, would be like without having him here.


Day 30: Share something you learned about playing your character

I'll be honest, I'm skipping this one. I'm only making this post for consistency's sake so it doesn't look like I just forgot. (Ironically, my reason for not giving an answer is going to be as long as some of my answers.)

Thing is, I don't have a good answer. The question itself borders on nonsensical -- I really wish these had more detailed descriptions this year, as they have in the past. I mean, I looked at the couple of other responses on the net so far, and they describe the sort of gameplay experiences that, if I've ever had, have been so long ago I couldn't relate them.

I'd go for an alternate question, but there are three left and the best answer I have for any of them is "Fuck if I know." Woo.


Day 31: Share why you take part in RPGaDAY

I mostly do it out of a sense of participation in the larger gaming community, there's a certain degree of camaraderie in it, and it gives me an excuse to think back on my gaming stories and share them.

That said, I'm sort of torn on whether I'm going to do it next year, partially because I'm the only person I really know who did it this year. Now, yes, I know that comes down to whom I follow/associate with online, and I can be really picky about my followers list (so that's not a knock on anyone reading this who may be doing RPGaDay themselves but I don't follow them). And I understand that everyone's got stuff they're dealing with, not everyone has the time and energy for gaming or even just escaping into a bit of analysis about their gaming. That's fine. But I can't deny that it's got a bit of an impact on my enjoyment of the exercise.

There's also the fact that I oftentimes find myself frustrated by the selection of questions. I mean, there's alternate questions every year, and not every question can work for everyone, but it feels a lot like there's a lot I just can't do because I don't play enough as opposed to running. And that's frustrating. I'm that guy in my gaming circles that runs most of the games because few folks want to and I've got the stories to tell to make it work. But I'd love to play more, and I can't, and a lot of these questions just remind me of that. (Also, I really do wish there was some expansion of what some of these questions mean, like the "best character hook" alternate question or yesterday's. These questions are less fun when I have to guess at what an answer looks like.)

As much as I hate to end this year's RPGaDay on a down note, I mean, that's it. I do it out of a sense of camaraderie with fellow gamers, and I'm getting less of that these days. I also do it because it lets me stop and think back on my gaming stories, and more and more those stories are a decade old because my more recent experiences just aren't applicable, so that's frustrating. So, I mean, that's why I take part in RPGaDay, but the end result might be why I might not take part next year.

So there we go. Month over.

Digestif: Shadows Fade (CofD)

Greetings, programs, with this post we wrap up Digestif and my Chronicles of Darkness game for now. We may or may not return to one or more of these characters in the future, who knows, but for now we've come to a good stopping point, which is great because I need a brief break.

Unfortunately, we had to wrap this up without John, because his work schedule has been a massive problem and he's basically said he's going to be effectively out for a while. As this plot's been one solid session away from completion for a while (and I've been holding off to try and get the whole group together), with his permission we've moved on to get it over with rather than just tread water story-wise when we don't know exactly when he'll be back.

And on that cheery note, let's get to it.

RPGaDay 2018, Week 3

Wow, week 3 already? Huh.

Anyhow, I've done a lot better at the post-a-day schedule this past week, with only one alternate question. So here we go!

Day 15: Describe a tricky RPG experience you enjoyed

Honestly, I'm really having to rack my brain for this one, because I've had so many experiences I'd consider 'tricky,' and nailing down one that I enjoyed enough to want to talk about is actually kind of rough. Especially if we're talking experiences I look back fondly on, and not just ones where I was happy to get past it at the time.

That said, one does come to mind.

So many years ago, I ran a 'season' of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. That one had some particular challenges, some of which I think I've mentioned before, but there was a session I'm particularly proud of to this day.

So in the time between the Buffy Season 8 comics becoming a thing and the Angel comics becoming a thing, there was a lot of stuff up in the air regarding certain characters. I'd already established I was incorporating the Season 8 material (I had a character who was one of the newly-activated Slayers from the TV series finale who hadn't been snatched up for Buffy's army yet), but we didn't know the disposition of any of the characters from the Angel series.

I mention this, because I improvised and had Lorne show up in a session. In my canon, he'd managed to escape LA right before the Senior Partners dragged it to Hell in the series finale, and was wandering the country, parleying his brief Vegas fame into hosting karaoke parties as a cover to track down and help small bands of heroes scattered around. And I'd like to think that I played him as close to perfect as I could have, given the circumstances. But he provided guidance to my heroes, some of which was useful and heeded -- our group's robot, who was tricky for Lorne as the robot didn't have an aura -- and some of it... less so... Y'see, our group's Slayer, whose player wanted a vampire boyfriend and promised she wouldn't do 'the Buffy and Angel thing,' was trying to do 'the Buffy and Angel thing,' and Lorne tried to warn her away from it. He pointed out that Angel did more emotional damage to the people around him with a soul than without one, it wasn't worth the hassle, but the advice just didn't register. That got awkward down the line.

But for that session, playing the character accurately, trying to take it beyond a fun little cameo of vocal tics, was tricky as hell but I pulled it off and I'm pretty proud of how it came out. Even if our Slayer didn't take the hint.


Day 16: Describe your plans for your next game

This is gonna be a little slim, but I don't feel like reaching for an alt question because I do have an answer.

So once my Chronicles game wraps up, I'm planning to take a break from doing any <Whatever> of Darkness stuff for a little bit. I'm gonna pitch a couple of different game options -- primarily Fate and Apocalypse Engine stuff -- and work out with the players what we're going to do next.

When Starfinder wraps up, that'll likely get followed up with another Starfinder adventure path, but we'll see what happens there depending on what options are available.


Day 17: Describe the best compliment you’ve had gaming

Honestly, I just get (and content myself with) the occasional "tonight's game was really good" or some such. Nothing really particular comes to mind other than that. (As someone who writes and posts fiction to the internet, I've developed a really low bar for feedback to my creative endeavors.)


Day 18: Art that inspires your game

This is kind of an easy one: All of it. I keep an eye/ear out for pretty much anything interesting that floats around in my sphere of influence. Art, writing, TV shows -- anything can inspire, regardless of genre. I almost never go out of my way to specifically look at or look for any one thing for ideas. I take in any possible sources of inspiration I can, whether they seem immediately fruitful or not. Some of it winds up in my writing, some of it winds up in my gaming. But all of it's inspirational, and all of it's useful at some point.


Day 19: Music that enhances your game

Admittedly, I don't normally incorporate music into my game. I keep thinking I'm going to try using Syrinscape for my Pathfinder and Starfinder games. However, as I already use both my iPad and phone for managing PDFs and taking notes and what have you and Syrinscape can't be run in the background, anything I could do to incorporate it would just be one more gadget to keep track of. Since I play in a house where I could easily have music playing in the background, I've thought of just having a playlist or something for my Whatever of Darkness stuff but I worry it's going to be a distraction so I talk myself out of it.

That said, I used to build soundtracks for my Aberrant games that I played back in the day. I'd not only just have ambient music in the background but I'd have specific tracks for specific scenes and planned events. This was the early 00's, before MP3 players were casually a thing, so I actually had a minidisc player with a remote that I could set up and plug into speakers, set across the room. I'd have custom discs for different sessions and stories, each track intended for something specific. I got a lot of mileage out of video game soundtracks and movie scores, stuff meant to sit well in the background and/or loop over and over.

Also, when I ran my Doctor Who game, I'd begin each session playing the Doctor Who theme. If the characters were meddling in a specific Doctor's chunk of the setting or guest-starring a Doctor -- a UNIT story that overlaps with the Fourth Doctor's era, or going on an adventure with the Seventh Doctor -- I would play that specific Doctor's version of the theme. For the group's own independent adventures, I'd play the arrangement from "The Light at the End," a Big Finish audio drama featuring the first eight Doctors (with 4-8 played by the original actors with recast cameos for 1-3). I thought that would help set the mood and tone of the episode, and I kept a private playlist on Youtube so I could dial a specific one up as needed. Also, if the game had gone on, it would have been a fun little 'prepare for a surprise' thing when I would start playing a different theme than they're used to.


Day 20: Which game mechanic inspires your play the most?

I'll be honest, I'm not sure there's any one mechanic that consistently 'inspires' me gaming-wise. To me, game mechanics are tools to be applied to various situations. As I don't even have an interesting non-answer for this, I'm gonna hit up the alt questions list.

Alt Question: Share playing a “temporary” character

So I've never quite done this myself, unless you count one-shot player characters at convention games. And as I don't normally get to play, myself, any story I've got about this actually involves someone playing such a character at my games. And two instances come to mind.

The first was in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG I mentioned a few days ago. One of my players, Sean, was playing a robot. The characters, at one point, passed through a portal into history, stuff happened, and they found out about a True Demon that died in the spot where the city was now. Sean insisted that his character stay behind to keep an eye on the place and catch up with the group back in the present, like that episode of Star Trek TNG with Mark Twain or the Area 51 episode of Futurama.

Now, while he'd planned to be waiting for the group on the other side of the portal when they returned, things didn't go according to plan. So his now-ancient robot body was in the hands of the Bid Bad of the season, a vampire mobster, and the group had to get him back. But as for Sean, so he'd have someone to play, I dug him up an NPC. And, if I recall correctly (and I'm not conflating two separate incidents in that game in my mind), I had the Groosalugg in the area, and I think I let Sean play him until they reacquired and reactivated his robot.

Also, a couple of years ago, I was running the Carrion Crown adventure path for Pathfinder, and late in the second module a combat went badly and one of my players -- Sean again, coincidentally -- lost his character. Rather than make him sit out or handwave a way for a new character to catch up with them as deep as they were into the castle they were exploring, I let him take over an NPC who  was supposed to get involved with the final encounter anyways -- the Beast of Lepidstadt, a Frankenstein's monster-like flesh golem (we were tracking down his creator and another monster of said creator's who'd gotten loose) and semi-major NPC in the setting. And so that served as a decent way to wrap up that module, until the group could meet Sean's new character at the beginning of the next.


Day 21: Which dice mechanic appeals to you?

Okay, so this is an... interesting one. Namely because I'm a big fan of the notion of different games having different needs and dice mechanics that serve those needs.

That said, in general, I'm enjoying the growing trend of mechanics that allow for success at a cost on a failure, or are even focused on making things more interesting when a roll goes badly rather than just 'you fail and the thing doesn't work.' If you're going to include dice as a randomizing factor, then a failure needs to be a bump in the road, not something that stops the vehicle. Even something as mild as Storypath's 'gain momentum on a failure' still means you get something if a roll doesn't go the players' way.


And that's it for week 3! As I usually do, I'm going to post the rest all at once at the end of the month, rather than do a week 4 and then a 'last few days' post. See you then!

Behold! (Starfinder)

So as I do my Starfinder posts based more on how far the group goes than strict session-by-session, I'm not going to have the next Dead Suns post up this week.

That said, at the same time, I don't want you guys to have to go without anything. So I've got something to share: Sean has finished painting the mini for the group's starship, the Void-Crowned Queen!

Behold!

There's a couple more below the break, if you're so inclined.

New Writing! (And more boring thoughts on writing)

So let's not bury the lede here. I've got another chapter of Conversion, the cyberpunk story I've been working on too gawdamn slowly these last few years.

It can be found here.

Links to previous chapters:

Chapter One

Chapter Two - Coming and Going

Chapter Three - In the Light of Day

Chapter Four - Couriers

Chapter Five - Familiar Spaces

The story as a whole is more or less safe for work -- aside from some swearing, it's nothing that couldn't air in prime-time on network television. (There's some violence, but it's mostly bloodless.) That said, if you have some moral objection to fiction featuring anthropomorphic animal people, you might wanna pass.

Incidentally, I've been considering going back through the stories and picking out a scene or maybe two from each chapter to get drawn by an artist, just for the heck of it. If anyone's got any suggestions, I'm all ears.

And now, for those of you interested, here's a bit more of what I've been dealing with writing-wise as of late. (Some of you may have already seen a version of this next bit or aren't particular interested in this sort of thing, so feel free to check out now, I won't judge.)

I've had a real creative struggle these last few months. A real crisis of confidence in my abilities, and it's been taxing:

I busted my ass on a writing sample to try and impress another RPG publisher, because I've been meaning to expand outwards from Onyx Path for a while. Didn't pan out, and I was really proud of what I sent in so that hit hard.

Another RPG project I thought I was on the short list for, one I thought I had in the bag and really wanted to be working on, passed me over. Fact of the matter is, there's a difference between 'being good enough that people are willing to pay you to write,' and 'being good enough that people want to pay you to write,' and more often than not I wind up in the former category (a fact that I only really came to accept in the last couple of months). So when that project had far too many writers wanting to work on it, they picked the ones they thought would be best and I wasn't on that list.

And this is a big one: In the last year and a half, I've submitted four stories to anthologies. Three of those were accepted for publication (Roar 8 and Fang 8 last year, and whenever it comes out Fang 9 of this year). The stories that got accepted were ones where I only figured out what I wanted to do at the last minute, and/or otherwise had the absolute bare minimum time to work on, and I had to absolutely bust my ass to get them finished -- I didn't even have time to get beta readers for one of them. The story that got turned down is one where I knew what I wanted to do pretty far ahead of time, did some research, was working with characters I knew and liked, and had time to do it at a pace I was pretty comfortable with. I probably put as much effort and thought into that story as the other three combined. And that's the one that got turned down (it was good, according to the editor, just not as good as the others, which is also something I hear a lot). Considering the implications of that has been a real blow to my confidence.

And then, there has been some personal stuff that's made it hard to write or enjoy writing (romantic trouble of my own making and gaming industry drama, mostly), and then the constant onslaught of bullshit news and the effect that has on writing.

This has all combined to hit me with some pretty wicked burnout. And unfortunately, when writing is your usual release and becomes the thing from which you need release, that's not a great situation.

So I've started just relaxing, cutting back on anthology submissions (which is hard, because practically as soon as I decided to take a break, an anthology seemingly tailor-made to me popped up on the radar), and just trying to write more 'for myself' without any plan to publish. (That said, if things line up that said material is something that falls into someone's submission guidelines, what the hell I'll give it a shot.) So that's led to a couple of stories that aren't really furry at all, but that's helped me decompress enough that I'm making progress again. I mean, I got that new chapter of Conversion up and I'm feeling better about the other stuff I'm working on.

I mean, I'm coming out of this, but it's been a struggle and I know some people feel better getting these sorts of updates from me.

Aaaaand, I can't think of a clever or witty way to wrap this up. So I'll see you folks around. Enjoy the story.

RPGaDay 2018, Week 2

Alright, doing my best to get this out promptly. Here's days 8-14 of this year's RPGaDay, reposted in a convenient spot.

Day 8: How can we get more people playing?

I think, first and foremost, more needs to be done to emphasize games that aren't D&D (or something built out of its DNA, like Pathfinder). It's to the point where, when trying to explain roleplaying games to someone, you really can't do so without invoking it. There are lots of people streaming their home sessions of lots of games, but the only ones anyone not already part of a gaming circle might notice are the ones where you get a bunch of actors with familiar faces/voices doing stuff like Critical Role. Whenever a TV show does an episode about roleplaying games (more on this in a moment), it's basically always D&D or some clone/parody of it. I'd love to hear about a TV show that does an episode like that where they're playing literally anything else -- Vampire, Call of Cthulhu, Apocalypse World, whatever. But I think we can get more people interested and playing by making sure they know there's more to all this than randomly generated Tolkien fanfic.

Also, we need fewer TV shows doing a 'D&D episode' where the joke is 'these people are dorks for liking this game' or 'this game is actually really ridiculous and the appropriate response is either to take it too seriously and look like a jackass or point and laugh.' Even The Librarians, a show written by openly geeky people and full of references intended to appeal to other geeky people, did an episode like that. (even Gravity Falls' own D&D episode leans this way a bit at first) I mean, yes, often times RPG sessions can get ridiculous, but that's because the players are usually having a fun time with each other and goofing around, not because we're struggling with some secret shame about our hobby. Fewer episodes like that and more like the episode "Monsters & Mana" from the sixth season of Voltron: Legendary Defender.


Day 9: How has a game surprised you?

I'll be honest, I don't really have a good answer for this one. Nothing's really coming to mind, either in those rare circumstances as a player or as an ST/GM. It's not that I'm never surprised, but usually if something does surprise me it's something that a player did and for some reason that's just not feeling... appropriate for this one. So, let's start digging through the alternate questions list.


Alt Question: Most memorable character retirement

Okay, so this is one from a long-ass time ago, and there's a bit of a twist in it.

So, many years ago, I was part of a LARP called 'Night Lair.' It was a Classic WoD LARP (started back when there was only the one Whatever of Darkness), multiple-game line crossover game. To be frank, it was an often-times incoherent mess of twinkery and bullshit above and beyond most stories of such games. So I played a Glass Walker Galliard named Cousin's-Boyfriend's-Roommate, an urban legends expert. One session, in what was meant to be foreshadowing for an upcoming arc, the shapeshifters all got a vision of a recurring villain -- this monstrous cybernetic werewolf killing machine -- guarding a valuable klaive in a cave somewhere. Now, as the vision didn't come with an in-character disclaimer of 'this is a thing to deal with later but this is the Storyteller's best way of setting up this plot point ahead of time,' we all took off to try and get this thing.

It was a harsh fight, and my character died of his wounds after sacrificing himself to save another character and make sure they got the klaive out okay. The villain in question was overpowered and, to be honest, there were a bunch of rules treated as vague guidelines and my character was struck down when his odds of survival probably should have been much better. But I was fine with it, as we were shaking up the lineup of Fera available and I was going to be creating a character of a different breed as part of becoming a Narrator for that corner of the game. So I wrote an in-character post for the game's forum, heavily inspired by (some would say shamelessly ripped off of from) John Wick's "No Regrets" story from Legend of the Five Rings, depicting the character returning to the Glass Walkers' ancestral realm to meet the father who died before he was born and prepare for the soon-to-happen final battles of the apocalypse.

But part of what makes that 'retirement' so memorable is that the Storyteller, racked with guilt over the fact that my character died in such a lopsided fight (again, I was fine with it, as he went out like a hero), retconned a scene establishing that his Mage PC had met with my character in the past and knew him -- so that he could ask another Mage PC, a Marauder played by his brother, to use over-the-top magick to resurrect my werewolf from the dead. Again, he was fine where he was, he didn't want to come back, and I was going to be busy playing a different character anyways, but the Storyteller just had to fix his 'mistake' and thus my character's heroic death was cheapened so I could just put him on the shelf to play something else.

I'll be honest, I don't miss that game.


Day 10: How has gaming changed you?

Honestly, I'd say it's less 'changed' me and more 'revealed who I am.' It's let me explore my creativity and storytelling tendencies. If I've changed at all as a result of gaming, it's likely been through the influence of people I met while gaming.

That said, it's really difficult to self-diagnose this sort of thing, so who knows.


Day 11: Wildest character name?

Well, maybe it's because I was just talking about him the other day, but that would probably be the Glass Walker Galliard I played in that LARP. I'm actually blanking on his 'civilian' name, which was extremely mundane, but his deed name was "Cousin's-Boyfriend's-Roommate," reflecting his interest in urban legends. Also, it let me slip in a Spaceballs reference, which is always appreciated.

(Yes, I know, this isn't that 'wild,' but I generally don't do 'wild' names.)


Day 12: Wildest character concept?

As much as I hate to do so on such a potentially interesting question, I need to go to an alt question for this one. By my nature I generally don't do 'wild' character concepts, and I almost never get to play games (as opposed to run them) anyways. Any characters I'd consider wild enough to talk about are ones that I've thought of but never played, and that just feels like cheating.


Alt Question: How do you prepare for an extended campaign?

I start by sitting down and brainstorming, literally writing stream of consciousness stuff out. I lay out the story elements I want to focus on, and basically have a conversation with myself in which I flesh out and decide what else I need to start -- lists of NPCs, individual smaller story hooks, etc. Once I've identified my needs, then I start doing research, or setting aside time to write up NPCs, or whatever.


Day 13: Describe how your play has evolved

Okay, even if I knew how to analyze that, I couldn't even begin to articulate it. Alt question time.

Alt Question: Narrowest escape?

I dunno about 'narrowest,' but I am reminded of the time I ran an Aberrant game and had the player characters escaping from a facility that was about to explode. Taking a page from something else (I can't remember what off-hand), I decided to distribute dice for the characters' rolls as they tried to flee, set up a song on a music player ("Smash," by Offspring), and explained that basically the music was playing in the background as they ran. They had until the end of the song (just under three minutes) to roll, I wanna say, 20 successes. This was entirely an OOC construct: they could roll literally as fast as they could toss dice, count successes, and pick them up to do it again. (As a test, I did it myself, just rolled an average dice pool over and over again to see how many successes I'd accumulate in the allotted time, and then rounded that up to the next multiple of five to give them some wiggle room)

It was a pretty narrow escape for one of the characters, but all in all it was a very fun encounter.


Day 14: Describe a failure that became amazing

Okay, this is easy, because this one is a story we still tell locally.

As I've mentioned in the past, I ran a Hunter: The Vigil LARP many years ago. At one point, I was starting to run low on plot ideas and was considering a bit of a reboot (namely, people retire characters and start fresh with a more streamlined game faction-wise). But one of my players, Zac (who's still in my games) was playing a Lucifuge and using his powers to try to close up a weak spot leading to the Inferno. He decided to risk a Willpower, which gave greater rewards for success at a much greater punishment for failure (either we'd forgotten that you couldn't do this on an Endowment roll or we didn't care, I can't recall which).

He failed, which became a dramatic failure, which I described as the weak spot being ripped open into a Hellmouth for just long enough for a handful of full-blown demons to escape before they could close it. Those demons escaping and wreaking havoc probably gave us an extra six months of plot before I did the reboot.

RPGaDay 2018, Week 1

So between Gencon and post-convention activities, this got a little away from me. But here's the first roundup post for this year's RPGaDay stuff.


Day 1: What do you love about RPGs?

Short answer? The collaborative storytelling, creating a shared experience for a group of people.


Day 2: What is the first thing you look for in an RPG?

Genre, mostly, as well as what sorts of characters are expected. Is it a loose action-adventure where the characters treat the laws of physics as guidelines? Is it a tense thriller where the characters are rugged survivors? That sort of thing. I need an idea of what the game feels like to play.


Day 3: What gives a game "staying power"?

The ability to always have 'one more story' you can tell with it. This could be a setting with lots of possibilities to run different stories and ideas, or a setup that allows for a single group of characters to continuously go on having new experiences for who knows how long. I mean, setting's always going to be a major factor, though sometimes the mechanical realities of how characters advance (does the system stop or become unwieldy at '20th level' or some equivalent) and such apply as well.


Day 4: Most memorable NPC?

This is gonna be a weird one, but the first character that comes to mind when I think of my NPCs is Kranosh, from a game of Buffy the Vampire Slayer I ran so many years ago. He was a demon who could pass for human, with an accent and cultural quirks that could pass for a Greek immigrant if you didn't look too closely. He ran a pizza parlor that became a regular meeting spot for my player characters (despite the presence of a blatant analog to the Bronze). Part of what stands out about him is that I'd initially set up his high school-age son to be an ally and friend to the PCs, but they latched onto the father instead so I ran with it.


Day 5: Favorite recurring NPC?

That's a tricky one. Like, there are characters I've created that would have been great recurring NPCs but didn't quite make it to that point because of reasons like a game ending unexpectedly, or because (and I know this is a really specific example) first-edition Promethean was kind of a road show and thus it became difficult to keep ties with specific characters.

I'm actually kind of having to stop and think about characters I loved to play who were recurring, and -- oh, wait, I got one. Oh yes.

(Also, it occurs to me that I could be answering these questions from the viewpoint of a player, about other peoples' NPCs or what have you, but because of my gaming patterns I tend to think of these questions from a GM/ST perspective first.)

So in my Werewolf: The Apocalypse game, while seeking out the Cave of Secrets that gave the chronicle its name, the group came across a Bone Gnawer Ragabash out in the woods by the name of Roy McMahon, deed name "Don't Dig There." Roy was friendly. He was helpful. He even offered to get rid of the gun and silver bullets they took off a fomor!

He was actually a Nuwisha!

He turned up again on a semi-regular basis over the course of the chronicle, more than willing to help the Garou but also interested in testing them at times. But he was, as a proper Nuwisha, interested in teaching my player character pack important lessons. Lessons like "Don't give a gun full of silver bullets to somebody you don't know well, because even if he isn't a BSD or something like that, he might be planning on letting you find the Macguffin first and then shooting you in the back of the head so he can take credit for the discovery." No, nobody got shot over the course of that lesson, but it did make the group stop and think for a minute. Which is all he ever really wanted.

But yeah. He was aggravating and amusing in equal measure, and deep down isn't that true of most of our favorite characters, PC and NPC alike?


Day 6: How can players make a world seem real?

By really inhabiting it. By giving their characters day jobs, making up friendships with their neighbors, deciding when/how/if their character gives back to the community. Even in a murderhobo game of D&D, it is -- or at least it should be -- possible for a character to adopt a little corner of the setting and make it their own, maybe occasionally sending a few gold pieces back to the down-on-their-luck farmers who let them camp in a barn or something like that. I once played in an Eberron game where my character (a rat shifter) lived in a shifter neighborhood in Sharn (it helped that the Sharn book went into an absurd amount of detail about the city and its inhabitants) and I really enjoyed fleshing out the fact that he was an active part of the community there.


Day 7: How can a GM make the stakes important?

By making it personal. This can mean involving an NPC they've had time to bond with, or even just someone that the group latched onto out of character even if they haven't had the time to interact in-character. In a Requiem game I ran a while back, for a 'shit just got real' moment I had the villain (a strix) kill and possess the corpse of Billy Bricks, a hunter with a long history with some of these players. He'd previously appeared in a Hunter: The Vigil LARP I ran several years ago as a useful and informative ally with his own particular set of skills, quirks, and mysteries. He was literally the first NPC the characters of that LARP met, if I recall. And he'd been a useful contact to the characters in the Requiem game as well -- or so they thought, until a tip turned bad and they confronted him to discover his yellow eyes and the rotting hole in his chest that had been carved out with a shotgun. (I think this was also their first face-to-face meeting with the strix, but I'd have to check my notes as well.)

In case it needs to be said, it got the desired effect.


And there we go for the first week! See you for the next one of these in a few days!

Digestif: The Blood is Life (CofD)

Hello there, folks. Been a while since we've been able to get our Chronicles game together due to some scheduling wonkiness. As it is, we played this past week and had to do so without John. But here's hoping we can ease back into a proper rhythm and wrap this story up so we can play other things.

What Lies Buried (Gencon special!) [Æon]

Hey there, folks. So there will be a more complete and comprehensive write-up of my experiences at this year's Gen Con in a separate post, but I wanted to go ahead and put together a write-up for the Æon game I ran this year, using the new system.

I'll admit that I know the story title isn't too original or creative, but at the time it was the best I could come up with.

Also, it's worth noting that this adventure is a modified version of a one-off I came up with for a playtest session last year, updated and tweaked for the new rules (with one or two slip-ups in that regard on my part).

Now, as I know this is a new setting and system for a lot of people, if you read this and have any questions, feel free to ask me here or anyplace else where you can find me.

Dead Suns: Temple of the Twelve (Starfinder)

Okay, so scheduling and stuff left us without games for a little while. And soon enough, we're going to have another slight break because of Gencon. Ah well.

But in the meantime, we've had a couple of Starfinder sessions to write up here, closing out the second volume of the Dead Suns adventure path.

As Gencon is less than a week away, the next time you hear from me will likely be from or after the convention! (I plan on participating in RPGaDay again, but I'll be driving up to Indy on the 1st so I won't have a reply posted until after I arrive) If anyone will be there, reach out either here or on Twitter. Hopefully, I'll see some of you there, or just be back here after!

Digestif: Incoming! Two: The Sequel (CofD)

Hey there, folks. Another Chronicles write-up coming your way.

Not really much to add to this other than a reminder that the weekend of the 4th I'll be in Pittsburgh for Anthrocon. This week we should have a Starfinder session and I should be able to get a write-up of that up before we leave, but I can't make any promises. (Update: Scheduling became an issue, we did not have another session before AC.)

Also, this past session we didn't have Sean, so Otis is just unavailable. And on with it!

Dead Suns: The Stargazer (Starfinder)

Hey there, folks. Gaming sessions have, for the most part, been going on a steady clip -- partially because we've gotten to a point where we can function if we're down a single person (or two people if it's Starfinder). This is my way of segueing into pointing out that we don't have Zac, N1-C0's player, with us for this one.

Also, semi-related, I'm trying out a new thing where I'm tagging these posts with volume number, just in case that's helpful for breaking stuff down into discrete arcs. Lemme know if that's helpful at all.

In other news, before I get into it, in case it matters to anyone I'll be out of town for the weekend of July 4th for Anthrocon -- and, naturally, the first weekend of August for Gencon (where, in case you missed it, I'll be running an Aeon one-shot). I'll be as accessible as always for those, and maintaining the pretense (as always) I'll be able to get any writing work done during that time.

Anyhow, on with the latest Starfinder write-up!

Digestif: Incoming! (CofD)

Greetings, folks. So after a couple of weeks of Starfinder, we've got a Chronicles session for you this week. John wasn't able to make it, but we pushed on and did the best we could and -- as you'll see -- left a fun situation for his Demon character to come back to.

Dead Suns: The Ukulam Expedition (Starfinder)

So between scheduling issues and other events, we've finally managed to get the group together for some Starfinder. This covers the next two sessions of the game.

Digestif: Location, Location, Location (CofD)

So we had this session a little while back (because of some last-minute scheduling issues we switched a Starfinder session to a Chronicles one), and I would have had this up sooner but I had some other work I wanted to finish up first, and we had a week where we didn't play so that gave me some breathing room in that regard.

Before I get into the post, just a quick note that the group gets up to some unsavory stuff towards the end of this session, so consider this a content warning for violence.

Digestif: The Other Shoe (CofD)

Forgive me if this part of the post is brief -- I can't think of anything big to announce, nothing huge coming up, anything like that. I will point out that we have John back this session, so that's something. Other than that, let's just get to it!

Dead Suns: Office Hours (Starfinder)

Greetings, programs. Welcome back to my blog for more of my game write-ups. Before I get into it, just a reminder that this Sunday, event registration for Gencon opens up and my roommate Sean and I are running a couple of games this year. If anyone's going to be there, just let me know and we'll see if I can free up my schedule for a bite to eat or just a hangout.

Also, my last couple of write-ups were written, edited, and posted late at night while I was tired. I've gone through and corrected some typos and fixed some links, just so you all know.

And here we go!

Gencon this year!

Okay, so in case it needs to be said, I'll be attending Gencon this year with my roommate Sean (I was on the fence due to the hotel gouging, but managed to get lucky in the Housing Hunger Games). If anyone wants to hang out or whatever, I should be getting in Wednesday and leaving Monday. Just contact me here, or on Twitter, or however else you know how to reach me, and we'll see what happens once I have a better idea of what my con schedule will be like.

Speaking of which, this year I'll be running a Trinity Continuum: Aeon game on Saturday evening from 6pm-10pm, called "What Lies Buried." (It's still to early to purchase tickets, but it is possible to peruse the event catalog) For simplicity's sake, I'll be running out of the preview rules packet made available during the Kickstarter.

I may submit another event at the last minute like I did last year, or I might not. Not really feeling up to doing another 'Supernatural Studios' story this year, nothing's coming to mind regarding continuing the saga of the Inquisitor, and I don't know what else I would run. We'll see if I get a particular itch, and if I do I'll make sure you hear about it.

Also, Sean's trying his hand at running a game this year. For those who may be there and interested, it's a Monsterhearts 2nd Edition game called "The Gargoyle's Curse," and it's Friday evening from 6pm-10pm.


Also, before I go, I'll be attending Anthrocon again this year in July. This shouldn't actually affect my online availability, but on the off-chance it's relevant, this is my letting people know because I'm terrible about mentioning this stuff ahead of time. (I may or may not also be attending Furpocalypse again this year, that'll be based on a couple of factors I'm not expanding upon here.)

Ramblings, thoughts, and rambling thoughts

So I've been doing some thinking about my writing process lately. I've been pushing more into getting my  fiction out there, partially through furry fandom sources. But I've spent enough time and focus on that setting such that I've been feeling a little burned out on it. And it's occurred to me that aside from a little bit of gaming writing (some freelance work, and attempts to get on the roster for other publishers), I've gone a while without having any side-projects to poke at.

So while I've got more ideas in mind for stories in the cyberpunk setting, I'm taking a half-step back and poking at some other settings, stuff I could possibly submit to more mainstream publications. One of them is a setting I've worked in before[0], and the other is something I've mostly made up on the fly. And examining my approach to these stories has been mildly eye-opening.

See, I used to do a lot of my worldbuilding and story planning on the fly. And I greatly enjoy worldbuilding, coming up with settings, coming up with characters, and all that. And I have a lot of fun just getting a story going and seeing how it all shakes out. Enthusiasm is often high... at least, in the beginning. Problem is, these stories, if it feels like they have legs, almost inevitably collapse in on themselves because my on-the-fly planning has created a pacing nightmare and a labyrinth of half-assed continuity errors. I'll write a fantasy story with a cool scene where a beastie operates under one set of rules, then later write another cool scene that introduces new rules that contradict the first set. But I can't bring myself to get rid of either of the two contradictory scenes, so I throw together some hastily-written patch to make them both fit, and next thing I know, I get so disgusted reading back over what I've written that I just stuff it in a folder in case there's anything worth cannibalizing.

Now, in a setting where I've put a little more thought and effort, coming up with all of the rules and properly planning things out becomes its own problem. Sometimes I get so bogged down in the brainstorming and worldbuilding that it feels like the behind the scenes stuff becomes more interesting than the actual story I'm trying to tell[1]. Or it feels like I can't get those rules right, or -- sometimes -- I find it harder to write in a setting once I've completely 'figured it out.'

And perhaps I'm just misreading the writing on the wall, no pun intended, but I'm wondering if this speaks to an issue I need to resolve with my writing -- that part of writing, for me, is exploration and I get more out of a setting if there are still things to find. But I can't just keep leaving mysteries for myself, can I? I mean, I'm not going to write an urban fantasy setting where I'm introducing a new type of creature literally every story. Sure, there's writing to find out what the characters do without a larger plan, but I've learned from trial and effort that that line of thinking is where I get a story that meanders until I realize it's just not going anywhere. 

But the more I think about this, the more that I get the impression that this is something I'm going to have to learn to balance somehow. Maybe I just need to stick to short fiction and not bother with longer projects like novels. I'm honestly not sure.

Also, I'm not sure where this is going, if it's going anywhere. This post, I mean. I think I was hoping that by the end of it I'd have a better idea of where I'm going as a writer -- if I'm going anywhere -- and what I need to do. Which is weirdly fitting, given the subject -- how I keep wanting to go into things without a plan because it seems more fun that way, and it just collapses in on itself after.

So I'm just going to end it here, and see if new insights come to me. If anyone has any thoughts, questions, suggestions, etc., just comment here on the post or send me a message wherever you saw the link pointing to this post (I've shared it a few different places).

Mahalo.





[0]-- Though the only completed story in that setting, I discovered far too late, is too long to sell as a short story and too short to work as a novella, which is a shame because I'm pretty proud of it. There are places where I could submit it, but they don't print anything that length from new authors so I'll see if I can get printed otherwise and then dust it off and pitch it to someone who knows me by then.
[1]-- I recognize that means I should probably just stop and try to write something else with the material I've already established, but that still means I have a graveyard folder full of stories that petered out in just a couple thousand words.

Digestif: Nobody Panic! Too Late! (CofD)

Unless something's gone horribly wrong on my end, you may be noticing that you're getting kind of a two-fer for this week on posts. This is because I had some delays on getting the Starfinder post ready (partially because I wasn't sure if there was enough there to post), and got a much earlier start on the Chronicles of Darkness post. There'll be a little delay after this, because I'll be out of town this weekend at a convention, so we won't be playing this week.

But with that, let's get on with it!

Dead Suns: Higher Learning (Starfinder)

Greetings, folks. Because of various scheduling difficulties, things have been a little off the rails gaming-wise. But hopefully it should even out soon, various events (like late spring and summer conventions) permitting. This is the first of two posts I have set up, because I had some delays on this one and then a Chronicles session happened. The second will follow shortly.

But now, we begin Temple of the Twelve, the second volume of the Dead Suns Adventure Path!

Dead Suns: The Drift Rock (Starfinder)

So here we are, back to my Starfinder writeups. This covers the next two sessions of the Dead Suns Adventure Path, and finishes the first volume in the adventure.

Digestif: Gods and Angels (CofD)

Hello again. I'm afraid I don't have any clever commentary to add to this one -- no particular reason, just nothing special going on one way or another. So let's get to the most recent session of my Chronicles of Darkness game.

Digestif: Circling the Wagons (CofD)

Hello again, folks, for more of my Chronicles of Darkness story, 'Digestif.' Just as a quick note before begin, Zac's character Derrick has basically been made an NPC (and he's got a new character coming in). There are moves he's making behind the scenes that I've documented in my notes, but will not be presented here until and unless they directly intersect with on-screen action. Just clearing that up before we get into it.

Dead Suns: The Acreon (Starfinder)

Welcome back to my Starfinder posts! Sorry it's been a while, but as I've mentioned before, I'm doing these writeups more on progression than session-by-session, to cut down on write-ups where I'm trying to flesh it out by going over every room the group investigates. This covers the last two sessions of the game.

Digestif: Well, That Happened (CofD)

First off, unless something has gone horribly wrong between me writing this up and posting it, there's a few days left on the Trinity Continuum Kickstarter! Pledging will give you access to enough book previews that you'll be able to see the nearly-finished manuscript for the Trinity core, and most of the Aeon book (as of Friday, they've just posted the Psi powers mechanics, and the feedback has been very positive). So if you've been holding off but still wanting to support the rebirth of one of my favorite game lines (and one I'm working on, no less), now's the time to drop a few bucks and see what there is!

(Also, if money's tight, there's nothing stopping you from pledging just a little bit now to get the previews and actually buying books through BackerKit later. It won't contribute to the stretch goals as much, but it's an option.)

And now, on to a game writeup that will hopefully put that post subject in context.

Digestif: The Man from the City (CofD)

Greetings again to my Chronicles of Darkness crossover write-ups! You'll have to wait a little longer for a Starfinder post, as the last session was one of those where there's a lot of moving from room to room and fighting some monsters, and written-up it's a not particularly compelling entry on its own. Also, it left off in the middle of exploring a spaceship, and I think finishing that exploration would make for a more interesting blog entry. Now, that said, as the next session may go beyond finishing up that ship, I'm torn as to whether to do the next write-up just focused on the ship, or to do the whole session even if it leaves off in the middle of some exploration. If you've got an opinion, let me know either by the comment feature here or by other means.

One more bit of business before I move on to the Chronicles of Darkness content: A reminder that the Trinity Continuum Kickstarter is still running. It's funded, bonus material is being unlocked, and there's a preview manuscript up for the Trinity Core book. And this week they'll start doing previews for the Aeon book, which includes stuff I've written! Huzzah!

And now, to a different 'fistfuls of d10s' system...

Digestif: Reading is FUNdamental (CofD)

So before we get started, I want to remind anyone who's reading this that the Kickstarter for the first pair of Trinity Continuum books is up and running! I actually worked on the Trinity Continuum: Aeon book and also even ran a few playtest sessions some months back so I know what I'm talking about when I say this game's going to be amazing. (That said, the odds are good that if you're reading this, you've already heard me go on at length about the game and the KS, or even attended one of my playtest sessions, but I'm covering my bases here.)

And as I don't think I have anything more to add, here we go!

Dead Suns: The Ambassador (Starfinder)

Alright, welcome back to my Starfinder coverage since my group's been able to start meeting again. As this is still part of the first adventure path module of a new setting, expect a lot of asides and parentheticals pointing out little setting bits. If you need a refresher as to who these people are and what's gone on (since it's been a while), the first post can be found here.

Digestif: Regression (CofD)

This is a little behind because I went out of town to visit friends shortly after the last session and (obviously) didn't get this post up before leaving. (Still out of town, but managed to get this written up and posted nonetheless) Not much else to add, so...