A number of game projects are pushing forward, with a focus on developing them for actual play. There remains a joy in my concept teasing, especially through VTT preparation, but mostly I just want to realise some of this potential. Perhaps the embarrassing glut of recent indiscrete crowd funding has encouraged me to hone in on actually doing something with what I have?
I’m reasonably certain that some of the ‘yet more to come’ will turn into great play experiences. Both Nimble and Dragonbane: Trudvang will feature strongly over the next few years, with the former already slated for a first try out at Virtual Grogmeet in April. For me, a strong Foundry implementation gets a game going early. ‘Beyond the Woods’, an Irish Celtic inspired expression of Legend in the Mist may yet prove irresistible, and have a group in mind to try out that whole game family. ‘The Serpent’ SF setting and mini campaign will take either Traveller or Coriolis off the shelf, ‘Amarath’ will do the same for Dragonbane, and ‘The Veiled God’ gives me an easy sword and sorcery option playing Barbarians of Lemuria.
All good. Only my implacable need to back Monte Cook’s Cypher nags at me. Yes, all the tweaks to the latest iteration of a game system, that I keep thinking I like, are the ones that I wanted to see, but will this really manifest as a breakthrough for the game in an already crowded sphere? I’m probably at a ‘use it or lose it’ stage with Cypher, and sense that I am enjoying the lengthy silence before ‘product’ appears. That isn’t how it should be. At least I didn’t go ‘All In’. There may well have been ‘nine worlds’, but does this mean that Cypher has nine lives?
Of the recent glut, I’m currently enthused to find a long term vehicle for Nimble. This inventive ‘Occam’s Razor’ take on the huge F20 block of gaming has pushed my hopeful buttons. It’s almost as though, as I reflect on the horrors of recent real world events and the systemic failures of democratic processes to control them, I feel the need for some heroic fantasy froth and bubble to cheer me up. To get things moving I have been looking at two big 3rd party settings to provide a home for the game. Either Midnight or Fateforge are strong candidates. Midnight is my ‘Sauron has won’ dark fantasy of struggle against oppression, though one that I am invested in seeing win. Working through my wishes in play space, it is quite possible that the allegory would be raw and thin. I love everything that Studio Agate do. It’s been a while since I have embraced a welcoming Gallic hug from the creators at their UK Games Expo stand; it remains one of the most compelling reasons to attend the convention. Fateforge is an open and heroic setting, sumptuously realised through their team of artists. A recent and ongoing Humble Bundle delivers all the PDFs for a small investment, worth it for the art alone. I never explored the potential due to the embedded D&D 2014 5e, despite the clever design work to make the system their own. I’d probably have got lost in the maze of the Forge had they used their own house Story Arc System. Well, now I have Nimble, so perhaps it is time. Easy to get lost in a preparation jungle, only to return to where I started. I may yet get to inflict something on my mate Pete at Patriot Games.
The convention calendar imposes a useful sequencing to my creativity. After Virtual Grogmeet, North Star is next up in early May, and emerging from jumpspace directly after a week away in Italy. I have a pre-packaged fun-looking space opera already slotted in the schedule via ‘Genesys Twilight Imperium’. Shelf combing upended some hopeful second slot contenders, but really I knew it had to be Traveller, not least because I want to attend TravCon later in the year, and some game development now, will bear future dividend there.
Now British owned Traveller might be my forever game, yet even here I manage to face a game system conundrum. Far and away, and to another galaxy and back, the most sensible thing to do is just play and run Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition. The potential obfuscation of self imposed game breaking optional technologies is minor and controllable. Overall, it’s a solid and highly playable version of the game with a breathtakingly rich accumulation of material. There’s a reason that most people who love Traveller are playing this approachable version. Contrarian that I am, and seduced by that there Cybergoth’s delicious A5 Lulu print of Cepheus Universal, I want nothing more than to get this all in one 2D6 engine to the table. It is streamlined and solves some technology complexities with some asymmetrical game design. That it wanders off in small unit tactics places that I’m not interested to follow, doesn’t lessen my enthusiasm for it. The modular nature of the 2D6 SF group of games is a mixed blessing too. I can all too easily fuss over ‘perfect blends’, when I could be playing one of the damned games.
And here we are. The depths of my depravity. It’s time to get T5 to the table. The version that ‘everyone’ looks at with a technical reverence, and quickly dismisses as a playable possibility. You can see why. Even as I bludgeoned the wonderful huge tomes into some kind of play sense, I recognised that a number of the critical play phases, such as personal and starship combat, would be sub-optimal, at least for me. Rather than jettison the many good sequences in the three Big Black Books, I have decided to double down on the core mechanics and riotously blend in my own take of the Cepheus Universal system to deliver a mostly authentic T5 experience. The blend is seamless, largely helped by the fact that nobody understands how T5 is supposed to work anyway. I say nobody, there is, of course, an active, helpful and knowledgeable T5 community to be found on the Traveller Discord.
Bringing T5 to the table is going to take a lot of work, and I sense that time is already running out for North Star. I am committed to this folly in the oft quieter end of convention Sunday afternoon Slot 5. I’m undertaking the blend through the lens of actual play and player characters. See what is needed through experience in play and knit strands together from there. I’m continuing the story from previous TravCons, with the centrepiece being a ridiculously impractical frontier trader and a crew trying to keep it running along the Diadem Main, deep in the midst of the Vanguard Reaches. A slice of archetypal Traveller using the ultimate edition of the game.
This week, even while at Center Parcs, I have a session zero and character generation for Zweihander Reforged. I’m really looking forward to finally giving this game a try out. The Kickstarter failings can be forgotten, and we can find out how it plays. Signs are good for The Eternal Night of Lockwood.
Yet further game possibilities continue to escape to the surface, sometimes filling precious time with a stale odour. I reflect that the copious time I give my hobby brings me great delight, along with some good actual play outcomes. The ongoing Enemy Within campaign is a lot of fun, however long we decide to prop up the authoritarian regime as a bulwark against the swirling forces of chaos. This brings us back to our present reality, and a good time for a close and some breakfast!