Dry spell ending (and time-sensitive writing-related bit)

So it's been quiet here, as I'm well aware. I haven't had much to share, but let me get caught up on where we've been before I get to new info:

Doctor Who is still on indefinite hiatus. And because it's on hiatus because of half of that group moving away, it hasn't been properly replaced and likely won't be.

Between people being out of town for one reason or another and a Halloween get-together, my Sunday group hasn't gotten much playing time in and we've spent it trying to power through a Pathfinder module that's been enough of a slog we've decided to put the kibosh on finishing the adventure path we were running and switch to Starfinder instead.

This also means that I haven't had a chance to start my Woodburn Chronicles game yet. However, that leads into...

New stuff!

Okay, so first off, this Sunday we should be beginning my Woodburn Chronicles game. At the very least, we make sure characters are finished and take care of some baggage from the downtime between the last session and this one. Barring any sort of last-minute shenanigans, we should have Zac returning as Derrick, Sean and Bryan bringing in new characters (a werewolf and mage, respectively), and John joining this particular setting with a werewolf character of his own. I'll provide more info when I begin updates for that one.

Generally I don't do updates on my Pathfinder sessions, largely because a number of them would mostly be descriptions of combat that took more of the night than I'd like to admit. That said, a couple of people have still been mildly curious, so for my Starfinder sessions I might do summaries based on legs of the story and not session-by-session breakdowns. (If there really is interest in seeing those here, please speak up in the comments! Don't take this the wrong way, but there's other things I could be doing rather than yet another game's worth of blog posts.)

And now the time-sensitive writing-related bit. Long story short, Furplanet and its digital counterpart Bad Dog Books are doing a Black Friday sale. So if you haven't yet picked up Roar 8 (ebook version), in which my writing appears, now is a good time. (or, y'know, anything else on the site, I guess) The promo code 'turkey2017' gets you 15% off at Furplanet for today (November 24th), only, or 25% off at Bad Dog Books for the whole weekend.

War Orphans: I, Sontaran (Doctor Who)

Okay, before I get into the Doctor Who write-up, just a couple of notes. Because of player scheduling issues (largely related to this weekend being the fall move-in for WVU), this will be the last session (and thus, the last write-up) until I get back from Gencon. I'm not sure what else to mention here; I think I had something in mind when I opened up the file to write this blog post but now that I get to it I'm blanking. So yeah.

War Orphans: Mouth of the Void (Doctor Who)

I know I've mentioned this once or twice recently, but just in case you only follow these DWAITAS posts, I'm going to be at Gencon next month with my roommate. We should be getting in Wednesday the 16th and heading home Monday the 21st. If anyone wants to meet up and hang out or grab a bite to eat, feel free to get in touch either here or on Twitter (@mythicfox), but try to give me more than an hour or two's warning because we know how crazy and busy conventions can get.

And with that, because I can't think of any more preamble...

War Orphans: Planet of the Cybermen (Doctor Who)

So I've been writing this in fits and spurts during quiet moments at Anthrocon to try and get it out there before I forget too many details. (You'll see how well that's worked out, which can probably be chalked up to all manner of distractions at said convention.) In addition, I'm posting this from a computer not my own just to get it out of the way. So if anything seems a little off, that's why. (And please let me know if anything looks really off)

Before I started the session, I did a couple of things with my group. First off, I passed out some index cards and had everyone write down three historical figures or creatures they'd like to see turn up. See, while I do have an overall plot, I also like the idea of doing a series of episodic short stories with a larger metaplot with some room for bouncing around the universe getting into trouble. So I decided to solicit suggestions from the group. And some interesting stuff came up (and only a couple of things I would have done something with anyways).

Second, this past week's episode of the series got me thinking about the evolution of the Cybermen over the years on the show and it made me realize that while I'd explained to my players that the newer 'armored' Cybermen would be new to them (as they entered the universe from another dimension after the Time War), it might be better to show rather than tell. So I dug up a clip from the old show giving the players a glimpse of just what they are used to with regards to the Cybermen. (Of course, I wish I'd known that was on Youtube first before doing a search during this write-up, because I actually dug out my DVD of The Five Doctors and spent 20 minutes the night before finding the clip in question.)

Ah well.

War Orphans: Out of the Wreckage (Doctor Who)

Okay, so, I really need to get caught up on blog posts. Also, I should have mentioned this in its own post sooner, but I'm running a Monster of the Week game at Gencon this year. This is last-minute, I know, and by the time you see this it might be too late. But if you want to get in on it, just go to the Event database and search for RPG17110659. I may or may not add another game as a late entry before the convention, I dunno.

Anyhow, we've got another adventure for my Doctor Who group! Geronimo!

War Orphans: After the War (Doctor Who)

So this should get me caught up on my gaming blog posts for a couple of weeks, since it'll be that long before I'll have something else to post. I really can't think of any sort of clever intro for this one, so let's just get to it.

(Warning, there will be discussion of the Time War that mildly spoils bits of the Big Finish War Doctor audio plays.)

War Orphans: Descent (Doctor Who)

Okay, so a little behind schedule but here we are with another Doctor Who session. Not sure what really needs to be added, commentary-wise.

War Orphans: Fallen (Doctor Who)

This may seem odd, that there's two Doctor Who posts in a row, but between various players' jobs, bouts of illness, and one of them prioritizing the Super Bowl over gaming, we've had a few delays. So we're a little behind on Werewolf (a condition that won't correct itself until next week, I'm afraid). But in the meantime, things are still chugging along with Doctor Who!

(Again, this is a pretty heavy canon-intersecting plot, so expect lots of linking to the fan-wiki and spoilers for certain 'classic series' story arcs)

War Orphans: The Last Request (Doctor Who)

So it looks like the Doctor Who RPG sessions are going to come a little closer together for the time being. The original plan is that four of the five players of the Wednesday group would take turns running a game, but one of them's had to withdraw said game for a while due to various concerns (he'll still be playing, however). But this means that I'll be running War Orphans every three weeks or so instead of once and month. At least for now.

Just a warning, this session is likely to intersect pretty heavily with canon so there may or may not be an excess of linkage.

War Orphans: Mind vs Matter (Doctor Who)

And for this post, we come to the second of the gaming write-ups that I owe you, the second session of my DWAITAS 'War Orphans' game.

War Orphans: Shakedown Cruise (Doctor Who)

Alright, folks, so now we get to the first post of the new game I'm going to be running. This is, more or less, going to be a monthly game. A few friends and I are taking turns running a game on Wednesdays, and it's a way to sort of get this one off my 'games I want to run someday' notepad. Just for the record, I'm not planning on blogging any of the games I'm playing in, just the ones I'm running -- among other reasons, I just don't want to be too distracted taking notes and I definitely wouldn't be able to casually do this without taking notes, so there we are.

This is a game of Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space from Cubicle7, using the default system in the books. Rather than the more traditional group models, this one is actually featuring an entire group of young Time Lords from pre-LGTW[0] Gallifrey who've taken it upon themselves to steal a TARDIS, go rogue, and have sweet adventures like the Doctor.

This game is going to start off in sort of a canon-friendly zone (so expect a lot of linking to fan-wikis and the like for context), and eventually kick canon square in the bollocks and do its own thing. You'll see. This is a game I've been planning on and off since David Tennant was the Doctor, and various episodes since I began have given me material to work with to graft things on and find anchoring points within the canon.[1]

Warning: There will be a little bit of fan-wankery here and there, name-dropping, canon characters guest-starring and stuff like that, either because it just makes sense for the scenario or to explicitly tie it to certain canon events. After all, how much fun would it be to participate in a Doctor Who-universe story and never meet The Doctor?

Anyhow, here we go with the first adventure in my Doctor Who: War Orphans story...