RPG a Day, Week 2

Here's my second collection of RPG a Day 2015 posts, in a single spot for easy linking. Again, remember, for the most part I'm not updating these from the original postings, so anything really time specific like 'most recent blah' might be out of date already.

And remember, if you want to follow these and other posts on a more real-time basis, you can do so at my Google+ page.

A brief visit from Chris from the future for the sake of transparency: Since its initial posting, I've removed an endorsement of an individual I no longer have nor wish to have any ties with because it's easy enough to do so without affecting the surrounding content.

What I Did On My Gencon Vacation

Okay, so now that I've had some time to decompress, here's a run-down of what went on at Gencon. I'm obviously not going to get into all of the shopping and food trucks and stuff I spent money on while I was there. I also met lots of great folks, and couldn't possible rattle off a detailed inventory of all of them. This is mostly going to focus on games I ran and played, which was kind of a small number.

I'm actually still trying to get the hang of how many events I can handle at Gencon -- for many years, whenever I attended, I spent a lot of time orienting the convention around playing Legend of the Five Rings (and to a much lesser extent, Netrunner) with the occasional tabletop game. But over time, the return on investment of time and energy and money dropped. If I wanted to play the game to win, I'd have to schedule myself for at least one qualifier (either Thursday or Friday), probably two just to hedge my bets (both Thursday and Friday), and then leave most of Saturday free for the main event (and possibly Sunday). And of course, I'd get my ass kicked at both qualifiers and have very little to do on Saturday. And while I'm all for playing a card game for fun, if I'm going to go to the trouble at a convention I'm either going to try to go all the way or sign up for a smaller event that has some participation promos or something that I really want.

So, long story short -- too late -- I got tired of that bullshit. Last year, I ran a Mage: The Awakening game that I really enjoyed the hell out of so I put a bit more effort into setting up to run something this year. This year I ran two Monster of the Week games, one on Thursday and one on Friday, and played in a game of curse the darkness on Saturday. (I wanted to run something in the WoD, but nothing story-wise came to me so I'll just see what comes to me before next spring.)

A brief visit from Chris from the future: This post describes a write-up of an adventure of curse the darkness, developed and published by the now-closed Growling Door Games. As you may or not know by now, the head developer of the game and head of the company, whose name I won't repeat here so as not to potentially trip a Google alert or something, has been accused of sexual assault by multiple romantic partners (among other things) while his wife helped cover for him within the industry. Despite the taint this has left on my feelings regarding the game, I'm leaving the write-up here as-is because they still describe an event that was a positive memorable experience for me even if I 'disown' certain people directly or indirectly involved in it, one of whom I once thought of as a friend and a role model. Please do not consider this post an endorsement of the game or the people that made it.

Seven RPGs a Week, or something like that

Okay, so, as some of you know, there's an 'RPG a Day' project every year that goes on during August (hashtag for this year: #RPGaDay2015). A list of topics is presented and each day you're supposed to blog about one in some way. Here's this year's:

I've been trying to keep up with it this year, to varying levels of success. The first couple of days were during Gencon, which made it tricky, but for the most part I haven't been too late with any of the entries thus far. I've been writing them up on Google+, but wanted to also collect them here where I can post easy links. So I decided to do a weekly roundup post for these. I'm just copying and pasting for the most part, so if you've already seen my G+ entries you can move on.

(Also, in case it needs to be said, anything listed as 'most recent whatever' will be referring to recent as of the original post.)

Cave of Secrets: A Long Hike (WtA)

Okay, so, while I'm mostly packed for Gencon (I leave later tonight) -- there's just a couple more things left to throw in the luggage, but I haven't yet because it's stuff I'm still using -- I'm taking a bit of time to type up this blog post regarding this past Friday's Werewolf: The Apocalypse session.

Next Week (plus general update)

Okay, so, Werewolf posts have been a little thinner on the ground than intended. But that just comes down to player schedules, game location issues (for which a longer-term fix should be coming in the next few months), and other various little emergencies and such. Hopefully we should be able to play this coming Friday, if my saying so publicly doesn't jinx it.

(By the way, from here on out, assume most of these links are to Gen Con event pages that you can't see unless you sign up for the website.)

But this post is mostly a reminder that next week, I'll be attending Gen Con in Indianapolis. I won't be in any one fixed location, though I plan to at least make an effort to swing by the Onyx Path booth regularly. Unless something obnoxious happens I should also be at the What's Up With CWoD/NWoD panels on Friday, and I absolutely will be at the What's Up With Trinity/Scion/Scarred Lands panel on Saturday in case you want to track me down.

I am, as a reminder, running a couple of games. Like most things at Gen Con, they filled up very shortly after event registration opened but if you swing by with some generic tickets you might get lucky. Both are Monster of the Week Revised games.

First, on Thursday, from 4-8pm is The Department of Homeworld Security. (Note you will not be able to see this link unless you're registered with the Gen Con site.) The game's setup will focus on a government-based monster-hunter squad made up of intelligence agents and assets no longer suitable for 'traditional' work (and, if the right playbook is chosen, that one conspiracy nut that someone inexplicably decided to recruit rather than kill because that's the genre, folks). For thematic purposes I'm actually writing up some character background material for the playbooks I'll be using. I might do a preview of that on my blog here, and maybe post the backgrounds after the convention.

Then, on Friday, from 4-8pm is The Studio Crew. The premise is "What if all of the madness, drugs, and/or cult behavior from professional actors is a side-effect of exposure to monsters and magic drawn to or caused by the atmosphere of Hollywood?" I mean, it'd explain so much, wouldn't it? In any case, the studios quietly support a group of industry professionals (technicians, stuntmen, etc.) stuck with the thankless task of stopping monsters and other weirdness from eating and/or mutating the linchpins of the film and TV world.

I'll be doing other stuff over the course of the weekend, but that'll be the meat of it. I should be available via Twitter and Google+ if anyone wants to get in touch with me and/or meet up and you don't have my phone number or email address.

Hopefully I'll see some of you there!

Cave of Secrets: The Sons of the Saga (WtA)

I hope everyone's been enjoying their summer so far. Mine's had alternating periods of boring nothingness where time flew by and some life-changing insanity. Much of the latter (combined with preparations for the summer convention season) has happened within the last couple of weeks, which is why I haven't found a good time to bang out this Werewolf write-up before now.

Cave of Secrets: Session 'Zero' (WtA)

So this is a little overdue, but my gaming schedule's still coming back from a bit of a forced hiatus so I'm not too far behind. But Friday before last, my tabletop group got together and finished up characters for the Werewolf: The Apocalypse chronicle we're starting. We also got a bit of playing in, as my group wanted to start off as established as knowing each other beforehand, but are still formally forming a pack. So we decided to play through them undergoing a challenge from a prospective totem. But I'm getting ahead of myself.