Planning Ahead for 2023

Posted on October 30, 2022 by First Age

Even now I’m considering which games will feature for me in 2023. Perhaps slightly early, but may represent how my mind works and is just the right side of embarrassing, rather like now seeing the red and green stocked Christmas ailes in the supermarkets. Early, but hope you’ll let me off for now.

The possibilities will need to be tempered by my real life and the many fun things that brings. As such this is probably a slightly unattainable shopping list of bubbling excitement that will be shaped in unexpected ways after I have hit ‘Publish’ on the blog.

My Current Games

The long running Wednesday night Strahd 5e game is due to finish this year, and by coincidence, my Saturday night D&D 4e campaign in Nentir Vale is also due to come to a dramatic ending, at least for the Heroic Tier, at the end of the year. Decks clearing, naturally freeing up some time in the gaming calendar. Darran’s 10 session or so Vasen game has morphed into a somewhat unplayable Monday nights, though I hope to play some more if it doesn’t disrupt his story arc. Thursday nights are currently well set for a Pathfinder 2e mega dungeon that may switch to fortnightly, opening up another possible opportunity for some alternatives. I have a CYBORG one-off coming from Dom.

So, it looks to me that there are two gaming nights to fill with new goodness, and some others, including convention play to come. A backseat for the D&Ds after a few years?

What’s In The Mix?

Dragonbane, and lots of it. The full first draft of the game will be out to us backers by Christmas or thereabouts. I will be all over it and keen to run through the Kickstarter adventures and start to consider how to use the game more broadly. It is altogether possible that I place the game system back into my Greyhawk ‘Bandit Kingdoms’ setting and pick up some play from there. After a terrific session with my three grown up kids, we’ll be going on adventures next year when we can get together. The game will also see extensive convention play.

I’m also attracted to the Dragonbane Third Party Licence, which might galvanise a little bit more writing out of me/ I’ve been talking to a gaming buddy about some writing collaboration. I’m looking forward to seeing what we come up with.

With fillial connection, I have a Trudvang Chronicles mini campaign pretty much good to go on Foundry VTT. Trudvang is an earlier iteration of Drakar och Demoner, sporting a somewhat more involved combat capacity system, and a skill list as long as many of your arms. Depsite some of its transparent flaws, it remains a cool game and I’d like to see more of that in play. I’ve slightly foolishly run it as a pick up convention game, with enough success to persevere, but Dragonbane clearly wins out in that context.

Whilst on the content creation side of things, I’d like to develop some more of my Eventide subsector, for Cepheus Deluxe, in a currently sketchy Hinterspace setting out on the endangered frontier. By ‘develop’, I also mean actual play too. I like the game and the way it plays out SF adventures. 

Pete has promised a slot in his 13th Age playtest, to be played out at Patriot Games. I’m looking forward to the exploration of the new iteration of this game, and to becoming a playing part of our FLGS community.

If at all possible, I’d really like to play some more games on the Dungeon Musing Channel. Kevin has recently become enamoured of the Blackbirds RPG, which looks like a ton of fun. If I can muster it, I  may also like to get into a regular game if it fits the Muser’s plans and I can actually do the CST time zone.

I’m transparently angling to get into Dr Mitch’s The One Ring 2e game, if it happens. There might, understandably, be a queue.

It would be a significant highlight to my year if we can get The Chronicles of Future Earth RPG out of Kickstarter to a delivered book, at least in electronic form, but hopefully also as a physical book. It looks great, has an interesting take on the Fate engine along with all the richness that Sarah Newton brings to the setting.

On a tangent, I have the option of an upstairs room in a very nice pub for a regular game night, for 1-2 tables. That feels like more of a project, and a time investment way beyond the night itself. Maybe, for some face to face gaming in a nice place with good food and drink downstairs. 

Elbowing Contenders

It’s important to enjoy the flux. New ideas will emerge from the chaos mire, with shadowy forms suddenly taking a tangible and consuming reality. A selection of these are below, but there will be others…

I have a slightly ridiculous amount of Cypher fantasy to do something with, in and around the Diamond Throne.

The Forbidden Lands campaign ‘The Bloodmarch’ has landed in PDF and looks to be of the same consistently high quality as previous releases. It also strikes me that these adventures could be played using Dragonbane, with some thought to a light and consistent translation process. Someone may already have produced this, or will do so through the third party licence.

Starforged will be with me in time for Revelation next year, so that looks to be a shoe in for there, unless Tribe8 progresses or I get distracted by some more A|state, or even the PbtA Hearth fantasy Stonetop, if it progresses to a published state.

Homeworld 2d20, with a companion plastic miniatures festooned boardgame really ought to get my attention, even if it only fast jumps into North Star.

Will the lure of more D&D 4e overcome me? There are Paragon tales to be told beyond Nentir Vale.

I’m running conventions as per usual next year. Additionally, I have taken up leadership of the RPG track at AireCon 2023. I hope you will come along and participate? More online encouragement to come on that. In the meantime, go here: https://www.airecon.co.uk/gms

Of course, much of this may change in the run up and during the year, not least because my good gaming buddies will also come up with as yet unknown escapist fun. I will be on the lookout for spaces.

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Homeworld 2d20 RPG – Something of a Revelation

Posted on October 15, 2022 by First Age

Something of a cazy notion to pre-order the Homeworld Revelations 2D20 RPG from Modiphius. I have plenty on the shelves already, from Traveller/Cepheus to Infinity 2D20, vectoring at full thrust past some excellent PbtA offerings, Scum & Villainy and lighting up some FFG/Edge Star Wars awesomeness. Ah well, I jumped in. In fact I also had a go at the originating RTS PC game to give me a flavour. I was unsurprised to find that I was wholly crap at it, but I got the idea.

This is probably my first, lighter end 2D20, based as it is on the Star Trek line, no doubt with some touches. Perhaps not the very lightest end, but much breezier than Infinity and housed in a 9.5/6.5″ digest sized book. I must say I am pleasantly surprised at the innovations that have come to the 2d20 stable since Infinity and Conan. It remains recognisably the same game but streamlined and honed to achieve some of the complexity of system with a simpler concept and word count. It is, perhaps, a little better explained than Infinity, though that isn’t saying too much.

I had wondered if the six Attributes and six Skills would make characters generically much the same, with minor variations in capability, whilst finding that ‘everyone can do everything’. This is cunningly mitigated by Focuses, Defining Aspects, and Truths and Talents. Focuses are suggested, but utimately freeform traits where, if a skill test succeeds, is within the skill value, and falls within the focuses’ influence, two successes are gained instead of one. This elegantly achieves the more complex 2d20 effect, without the need to keep track of focus values for the skills. It steps your character up to shine in particular situations. Defining Aspects are special Truths that can be used to gain Focus Points, most often to give you a dedicated critical for the skill task. Leverging these Aspects in play also provides Resource Units (RUs) for advancement. Talents provide specific rule benefits, in general and specific skill areas. For example, ‘Empathic’ gives you an additional d20 to Insight when determining the intentions or feelings of another character. Truths are freely expressed traits that can either provide an advantage or a complication, reducing or increasing the difficulty of a test by 1. These are used as part of scenes too. 

I like the way initiative works, with player side typically going first with one character and then handing over to adversaries to go and switching between throughout, moderated by Momentum or Threat spend to break that pattern. Usual options for holding, and spending Momentum to get an extra Major action. It looks like it will hang dynamically together really well. I may have to unlearn a few minor things to pick up the nuances of this tightly put together 2d20 ruleset.

The seven step lifepath will quickly create a Kushan character with some backstory and everything needed to get going. It looks simple and quick.  There’s also a ‘creation in play’ option, to record the very basics and find out more as you are playing the game. Nice. To round out the playable roster are supporting characters, quickly created and available to play if in the scene. I’m not sure if this is quite troupe play, but it is heading that way when you want to switch into the shoes of a haried flight specialist, or a troubled dealer on the lower decks.

I’ll be interested to see how Resource Units are spent in play, either upgrading characters, supporting characters or ships. Nice to use the RUs coined from the RTS PC game.

Starships are given a fairly comprehensve treatment in the game. Ships are rated on a scale of 1 to 6, ascending in size and power. Ships have 6 attributes, just like characters, but these are tailored to their role: Communications, Computers, Engines, Sensors, Structure, and Weapons. These are used directly in the game, replacing character attributes when using a skill that harnesses the ship capabilities. I have only skimmed, so need to get some play in to see how it all works out at the table. My surface scan has picked up lots of character actions (hoorah for action and things to do), simple starship combat rules, building on the mechanics that have come before, many starship stats with pictures, and a template set of ship creation rules. Plenty to go at.

The Historical and Society Briefings look to give a gamable set of information to underpin the setting. It’s good to see that these briefings are laced with Story Seeds to prompt adventure. I’m new to the Homeworld setting, so it looks pretty good to me, not least because it appears quickly digestible.

The book rounds out with sections on Gamemastering and Non-Player Characters, backed by a pretty comprehensive looking Index. At 332 pages they pack a lot into this book.  The GM pre-order bundle comes with a themed dice set, some cheat sheet handouts, counters, and my first digest sized landscape GM screen. Dinky, sweet, and maybe useful. 

I had wondered about expanding the game with some cool starship miniatures. It looks as though Modiphius have got that well covered with Homeworld Fleet command, a fast play boardgame of spaceship combat in the Homeworld universe. It comes with 101 starships with an expansion providing 100 more. You’d want to get them painted…

Crowdfunding will launch in November 2022, so not very long from time of writing. I’ll see what the damage to my Budget Attribute would be, expecting some immediate ‘Breaches’. What a combo that would be though!

Role VTT

The game has potential for broader re-use beyond the Homeworld setting, should you be interested. I might want to tighten some aspects of the game, such as what starship ‘short jumps’ actually meant. It might be there in the text. As it is, there is plenty of play potential at a rage of levels with this core game. I tend to gravitate to Foundry VTT these days for online play, but worth noting that the free Role VTT has a ready to play gaming room themed to Homeworld. The VTT is free to use and excellent for webcams, audio, and some sheets and dice tools around the edges. t would be the obvious place to start. It won’t calculate any of the Stress dice or successes, but you can eyeball that fairly quickly.

A fun romp of a space opera, starship based on an epic journey to the people’s homeworld against considerable odds.

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Furnace XVII – a fine weekend of gaming

Posted on October 12, 2022 by First Age

So, we get to our seventeenth outing! Furnace and The Garrison Hotel have become a part of my life, and perhaps yours? Everything from the long standing staff, familar layout of the rooms, to the TV welcome tune when you put in the key made me feel at home away from home. The Garricons form frequent islands of relaxed and convivial roleplay game actual play with the gaming family, and very welcome too. Not to be complacent though. The format is well established and delivers a good weekend, but we are always on the lookout for small incremental changes that might make it all pass just that bit more smoothly. This time around we had a few things:

Fully pre-booked. This extended the system we usually use, but stretched to more people and brought increased complexity. The timetable, a glistening marvel, moulded by the furrowed effort of our Tsarina was very tricky to get into a shape that optimised to as many of the player choices as possible. It was great to have such a rich array of top quality games from our GMs, once again. The games are the absolute core of the weekend. We will look at some possible tweaks to the system to enable fully pre-booked again next year.

Room dividers. Dom and I were constructing them on the Friday night, benefiting both from Dom’s Engineering and my Biblical Studies; hard nosed process expertise and arcane rites from a lost age. They stayed up, though embraced their price point, with a flimsy aether sail lightness. I’d welcome thoughts from you as to whether they made any difference to the play experience in the Cell and Armoury? Might be hard to tell, and we know how echoey the Armoury can be.

Saturday Dinner Sign Up by Location. The sign up sheets now have the location that you want to eat in at the top. Hopefully that’s helped getting food to people with less disruption and uncertainty? I’ll be checking in with the Hiotel to see how it was for the staff.

In the words of Timetable Sheet12, “We Survived, Furnace 2022 – The Revenge of PlagueCon!”. I have now lost track of the number that fell away before, during and after, with either COVID or shivvery nastiness. It made for a lot of fevered last minute juggling, squeezing and perhaps a bit of swearing. We really welcomed the offers of additional games from our flexible and capable GMs. The show went on, and most people got games in most slots. The attendee write-ups I have seen have been positive. I take particular delight in first timers attesting to the friendly and welcoming atmosphere, whilst bringing the gaming fun. If we have that, then we have everything.

On Friday night I managed to grab some drinks and some chat at the bar. With room/table setup complete, I could get on and enjoy the convention and the games to come…

Saturday Daytime – Bladerunner – Remi

A double session of Bladerunner, run by Rem, very abely guiding our disparate LAPD officers on a deep investigation that could have intense ramifications to the current tenuous social contract. Many a time, me as a player, imagined the opportunity to live again, in some over-hyped off-world colony idyll. The neon washed streets beckoned however, and my character had to work with supposedly ‘prefect’ Nexus 9 models, with a handful of years of life experience between them. Tension mounted throughout the sessions and flared into violence between the team and then for a dramatic denoument. Great group, atmospheric soundtrack, great map, tablet and image use by Remi as he took us through the investigation with just the right input. This take on the YZ0 Free League system was really effective. It may run with the same probabilities, but it fe lt a lot less whiffy. My main takeaway from the game was that this adventure proved to me that there was plenty going on in the Bladerunner universe, and that there are long form possibilities. Free League’s supporting material, particularly the room pictures for you to find clues were top notch. I’m pretty sure that if I ever run some of this game I will use the pre-generated scenarios.

Saturday Evening – Trudvang Chronicles – Me

I was looking forward to running this one, though the combat system is sufficiently complex looking, that it is difficult to explain. Characters are setup with prepared combat combos that can be used wholesale or adapted quickly. The scenario has a nice mix of culture, social interactions and action. A good session overall and nice to get Trudvang to the table. Tom in particular was grokking the system and enjoying the resonances  with various BRP iterations and infusion of Trudvang culture. Commercially, the game itself is over. Riotminds have divested themselves of the Drakkar och Demoner engine to Free League and Trudvang setting to CMON. I am glad I have the game and even more glad to get some actual play out of it. Maybe some more play online next year?

    

Sunday Morning – Dragonbane – Me

Speaking of Drakkar och Demoner, Free League have taken the venerable Swedish RPG and produced Dragonbane, the English speaking translated title. It’s a light, bouncy version of the game with lots of flourishes, including card initiative with swaps dynamic during a round, advantage and disadvantage, conditions, and profession/kin abilities. The light and intuitive ruleset was probably well placed for a Sunday morning game. My crew of players jumped in and rolled with it very well, picking up the game and the deadly situation with experienced aplomb. After some explosive larceny, they sensibly decided to ‘do a runner’ and legged it. I like the system and look forward to the fuller game that will come in electronic form to backers in time for Christmas.

Sunday Afternoon – Timeout

A pacey raffle and some game slot wrangling concluded my official duties and left no more than a gentle wind down to the convention. Some checks of the rooms, and an email to the hotel about sttoring the room divider screens and that was about a wrap for me. Had a few moments to appreciate the gamer chat burble and catch up with Jim.

There will be a few aspects that we will look at in time for next year. Overall, it was another really nice weekend of gaming, that we navigated together as gaming friends fell around us. I feel OK, but may take a COVID test tomorrow!

Rock on for 2023!

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Con4eR 3 – More D&D 4th Edition play and on Foundry too!

Posted on September 26, 2022 by First Age

 My enjoyment of D&D 4th Edition continues undimmed. I was glad to setup another Con4eR online space this weekend, so that people could get together and get some more actual play of this terrific version of the game.

Warhorn continues to evolve and is proving to be a super resource for managing an online event, that empowers self serve sign up for games. It really makes things simple. Yes, there are some features that I would like to see in this now open source web application, particularly in archiving old sessions, but it really has just about everything you need, with developments continuing behind the scenes.

With some Discord support, now including Forum style threads, it is a great time to be running events with powerful and free tools to keep everyone togetehr and organised.

It would be great if I could get the Con4eR community more involved in the games. We had three games planned over the weekend, though unavoidably that became two as we got to the event itself. I remain thoughtful about how I can encourage  the 70+ members of the community to actively get involved in the gaming weekends; to pitch up and play and run games. 

I actually felt a bit rusty when I came to run my game, and was using Foundry for the first time with 4th Edition. I had both Paul and, new to me, Mitchell, who are both fonts of 4e knowledge, and hugely supportive as players. It was a really nice group all round!

A screenshot after the players had left

 I must say that I think Foundry is amazing and really needs to be my VTT of choice for this type of game. I’d put some time and effort into the preparation of the game on the platform. Some nice ambience to set mood. My ‘Harpys’ Nest’ went down particularly well! The maps and tokens were all ready to go, so that players could quickly tuck into the encounters. I had missed a couple of things on the sheets, though given how much was on them, really wasn’t too bad, and everyone was very understanding. The Masterplan monster import was wonderful, quickly populating my adversaries. This would all be too much otherwise.

I got better at the targeting and automatic application of damage as the game went on. My continual dumping of damage onto poor old Andrey, the halfling rogue, became slightly amusing, even to her player, Debbie!

It was slightly rash of me to upgrade to the new stable V10 version of Foundry, though the 4e module is fully supported. I was particularly impatient to see how the new Dock functioned. Although theoretically able to place the Dock in ‘Left, Right, Top, Bottom’ positions of your choice, by placing on the Bottom it prevented the chat column from properly scrolling with most recent entries disappearing off the bottom of the screen. The ‘Left’ position seemed to be the least complicated, though players really wanted to pop the Dock out of Foundry completely to get it out of the way. I chose to dispense with the Dock and popped out all the AV windows ont the main canvas, enabling me to size and place them wherever I wanted. I’ll stick with that approach for now. The Livekit AV held up strongly throughout the session with no appreciable dropout of sound or video.

I’m feeling very at home on Foundry and will use it a lot more later this year and next.

 

 

Posted in Conventions, D&D4e, VTT | Leave a comment

Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff Convention

Posted on September 3, 2022 by First Age

I’m on the Saturday night, at my AirBnB at Leamington Spa, reflecting on a great day of gaming with the finest of company. AFriday night of socialising and curry, followed by a day of Tribes in the Dark by Ian Cooper and a return to Eventide, with a play through of some of ‘Always be Prepared’. I do love the Cepheus Deluxe version of Traveller, it brings so much to the table in a sleek set of rules. I really can’t wait for the new SRD to come out, with lots of tweaks and clarifications.

Photos taken by Mathew Broome

As an extra big bonus, Paul Tome, the cover artist of the scenario book, was there to play!

All round a super day. I stayed for just the one at the pub tonight, and I have Liminal to play tomorrow morning before heading away back to Sheffield.

Good times.

Posted in Cepheus, Conventions, Hinterspace | Leave a comment

Managing Our Water Consumption

Posted on August 22, 2022 by First Age

With the ongoing drought in mind, and part of a long term trend that will deteriorate further over future years, we have been considering how to further manage our water consumption. Yorksire Water, our geographic water supplier, have sent round small information booklets highlighting some of the more obvious measures: https://www.yorkshirewater.com/bill-account/water-usage/

The only thing we haven’t yet done is implement a water butt for the garden, so that is next up for us. We don’t have a lawn, and our main bed is only just getting established, but we have a plan for the watering of it. We have a combi boiler. Although the heating is off, and will stay off for as long as we can manage, it fires up for our hot water. It takes a minute or so for the upstairs showers to warm up. So, we now have buckets in the showers to catch the water as it warms. This is then re-used to wash in our sinks, wash things in the kitchen, wipe the car windows, and possibly a watering can or two in the garden from time to time. We also have timers in the shower to keep our shower time down to a minimum.

How far will this help? We weren’t minded to change from a billing point of view, but more to accept that although we are yet to achieve peak Arrakis, we are on that journey. Perhaps these efforts will not help that much, but if we were all super conscious of our consumption, then I can’t help think that it would make an appreciable difference.

As part of my considerations I went onto my Yorkshire Water customer portal, to check what our consumption was and  consider how I could track it over time. To my surprise there was very little information on my water consumption. The portal seemed to be there to support billing only. My energy provider has reasonable information on consumption for me to track. 

So, I reached out to Yorkshire Water via the only written avenue possible (unless you wanted to send them a letter…), via Twitter. See the dialogue to the right. Yes, we do have a water meter, just as I have electricity and gas meters. The water meter is accessible, but awkwardly so. It seems to me that making this information easily available for customers, by exposing the data that they already collect, should be an easy thing to do and warrants their immediate attention. I have nothing to compare them with. It might be that this information simply isn’t made available by the water suppliers, but I would be surprised if that was so.

We’ll continue to be cautious with our water usage. I will give it six months and see if water consumption is added to the Yorkshire Water customer portal. I think this is the sort of thing retired middle class people are supposed to do?

 

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Nentir Vale – How Long?!

Posted on August 21, 2022 by First Age

Ever in the cooling shade of Dominus Moonus, the vampiric Strahdmeister, I was taking a look at the number of sessions of my 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign and noted that it had come to a count of 44 in over a year and a half of play. As I have noted before, this has emerged from play rather than any plan on my part. We all seem to be enjoying it, so why not just keep playing? It’s probably the best of reasons. The Saturday night slots works for people, though inevitably theer will be gaps of play as people have lives and other things to do. I try to keep the gaps to a minimum, to preserve some momentum, made easier by the longevity of the game and the quiet benefits of long term gel.

With player characters now hitting 7th level, they are really starting to hit their Heroic stride with 4e’s cool powers much in evidence, creating high fantasy mayhem on the unashamed grid. For now they seem to eclipse anything that I throw at them, accepting that I am seeking to balance encounters so that they are fun, challenging, dangerous, but not unescessarily overwhelming. That, it seems to me, is the job of a good ‘level and hit point’ GM. Provide real danger, but such that the players (and their characters) can shine and win. There have been occasions when it has been close, and there will be again. 4th Edition encounter design and the Masterplan software that enables quick ad-hoc combat building really help to keep that balance. 

Applying some structure, perhaps a little retrospectively, has me planning a Heroic Tier campaign, running through levels 1-10 and ending on a consideration of the Paragon paths, and perhaps heralding a future series. Who knows, we might just plough on, but that will be after a deep breath and a consideration on each of our time and commitments. I am delighted by the announcements and creative activity swirling around the #OneDnD announcement, but also recognise that I am enjoying it from outside the room. I don’t especially want to be locked in to the full WotC digital experience, but will enjoy it through others over the years. Instead I have 4e, which might not be OneDnD, but as with other laggards, I have so much enjoyment to have in a previous expression of the dream-maker. Whether this campaign will continue the dream or, perhaps, another?

What else is on the long term roster?

  • Conan 2d20. It’s mostly in Foundry now for a mini campaign. I had a go with this, but I was struggling with player availability and it sucked the life out of the game. I’d like to give it another go.
  • Trudvang Chronicles. I have some campaigns and some one shot play under my belt. There are kinks and quirks to the system, but on the whole I like it, and the tactical options open to players. I have enabled Forge/Foundry for play, even if the main character sheet is off the VTT. I think what I have is a nice compromise, workable and will allow us to get on and play, enjoy the tactical side of the game even though there isn’t an official module for it.

    I wonder what impact Dragonbane will have on this and if I will get distracted by the most recent Free League take on the system? Maybe, but Trudvang itself as a setting is a big draw.

  • Cepheus Deluxe. With the new SRD in preparation that tidies up the rules I will be producing my own laid out book and it looks as though I may do some more with Hinterspace beyond one shot adventures.
Others will clamour for attention, not least TRIPOD, ToR2e, and the forthcoming Dragonbane, but we’ll just have to see. I was close to having a game for five nights out of seven, and retired or no, that’s just too much, even for me. 
The gaming adventure continues and there is a lot going on.

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A Great Time at Continuum 2022

Posted on August 8, 2022 by First Age

With some judicious planning of food and drink, along with running three games, playing two, and a seminar to attend, I knew I was in for a packed Continuum. I had a great weekend, much fun, completely made by the meeting of friends that I hadn’t seen in many a year.

The journey down from Sheffield with my convention buddy Andy was great. We had a good old catch up about politics and the environment. I always like to test Andy as a sounding board for politics as he has been steeped in it for his entire life. As expected we broadly agreed on the main issues, but got a bit depressed as we discussed the situations. In fact I was so interested in the discussion, we missed our turning and had to come back up the M1 from the next junction! We switched topics to all things games to cheer us up as we approached the venue.

The convention got off to the most perfect start imaginable. I met Mark Galeotti at reception, who handed me one of only two printed copies in existence of Gran Meccanismo, Clockpunk roleplaying in Da Vinci’s Florence, using the TRIPOD gaming engine. Hoorah! I could have left then and still regarded it as a win! Mark’s game comes out later in August and it looks terrific.

Now on a significant high, I went to collect my room key so that I could get my chilled food into the flat kitchen, only to discover that I wasn’t on the list! A short while later all was resolved, so it was time to unpack and get myself off to the first game at 14.00. This was a frantic rush, but I got to Nigel Clarke’s Bethorm game set in Tekumel only a little late. This was a gentle game of social conventions and random encounters on the Sakbe road to Sarku. A nice start to the convention, and Nigel did really well as he had a fall on the way up, had taken a bash to his head and lower back, So was slightly recovering from that trauma. Additionally, he is currently having to use a magnifying glass, post cataract operation, to see dice and text. Undeterred, he was to be running more games over the weekend. Hero!

The late offer of food at Continuum was underwhelming, so I continued with my plan to take meals, drinks and snacks with me, and use the flat’s kitchen. By doing so, I also got to meet Alan and Charlie as we shared the kitchen and got to talk about our background and families and what we were up to. A few cheery greetings to Marcus Rowland too. I find that my room and our kitchen were nice places of interlude and chat between the more focused game playing and convention ad-hoc socialising. So, the self-catering was a real plus, also helping me to manage the cost of the event.

I like the way game RPG sign-up happens slowly over the convention. Sign up sheets are provided with two slots worth up at any time, with a gradual reveal of more slots as the weekend goes. With me running three games I got to pre-select a couple to play in. A slight mix up on the schedule meant that I was running my Saturday morning game on Friday evening. Not too much of a problem, except perhaps for the pre-sign up player. A feature of the generic sign-up sheet was that, despite clearly stating the number of players at the top, the number of sign-up slots on the sheet were generic and greater than the game capacity. I had prepared my own sheets, but that required me to actually coincide with Kiery with them actually in my hand. As a result, unexpectedly, my first TRIPOD game, Suffer the Children, had eight players! A differentiation between play and reserve, by a simple line, was implemented during the convention.

I completely failed to get any photos of my games! 

I suffer from a fair bit of GMing anxiety, despite a good track record and many years of experience. ‘Suffer the Children’, a Dickensian TRIPOD game was the most riotous fun. It was one of those sessions that remind you why you are deep into this hobby. I had a great crew of rufflers, which is the key ingredient, with Mark Galleoti, Simon Bray and Colin Driver from the old guard, Dr Moose and Mooseling, a very engaged Dad and Son combo and David Gallico. Somehow, the eight players added to the game, made possible by great roleplaying and group spirit, the light game system, and some spotlight switching from me. Young and old and full of fun, it stands as one of my most successful games ever. What a start, and it was only Friday!

It was great to get Trudvang Chronicles to the table on Saturday morning. I was a touch lucky, in that another game group had to fold and so the refugees filled up my game. We launched into ‘Taken by Trolls’ and started to get to know the game through play. This was definitely a four hour game but unfortunately, due to some scheduling shenanigans, the game got moved to the three hour Saturday morning slot. Instead of a quick hacking of the material, I decided to run it along as written and wind up at the three hour mark. As  anticipated, the combat system was the most compex area by a long margin. I need to tighten up my description of the combat points system to convey it better, which will be quite tricky with short time and new players. Players were thankful and I think had a good time with it, with the complexities starting to be understood as the game progressed.

(I am running Trudvang Chronicles twice at Furnace and I’m looking to get a short series of it going on Foundry too).

The packed schedule only allowed me the briefest sniff at the Bring n’ Buy, the nicely curated Leisure Game selection, and the small Pelgrane stall. I picked up a copy of Band of Blades at Leisure Games.  I’m developing some thoughts on a #hopepunk FitD fanatsy game called Lodestar, and got this to see another fully developed iteration of the engine. I’ve also heard great things about it! Near misses included the Burning Wheel reissue, Root, along with After the War. The Bring and Buy had a few nice temptations, but my lack of time meant that I missed those that dangled the most provocatively.

On Saturday afternoon I took my traditional walk around Stamford Hall and up to Launde Primary School, my childhood place of play, discovery and learning. I was there from 1967 (4 years old) to 1970. It was a reasonably short tenure, but the memories there are some of my most vivid, with few cares that I recal, and much fun out in the extensive grounds of the Hall.

My old family home bottom right with some pictures of my playground 

The rest of the day was taken up by Mark Galeotti. First, an interesting seminar on the realities of intelligence analysis and the role of actual spies. The process of asset recruitment was particularly interesting, contrasting with the way spies are depicted in our games (and in films). This was followed in the evening session with a game of Mythic Russia, where we only had to ‘Blow the Bloody Doors Off’, except they happened to be the doors of the cathedral in the fortified city of Riga, held by the enemy Teutonic order. We were badass heroes with many ‘masteries’ to play with, and soon became complacent to our powerful status. And yet we faced many a varied challenge, made easier by the side game of handing out and declaring Russion proverbs on cards. Each appropriate call out of a proverb gave a Hero Point, represented by current Russian coins. This was masterfully applied by Mark and proved something of a highlight, as cards flew about the table to much laughter.

My energy levels were a touch low through that game, so missed some obvious things on my character sheet, before being helpfully prompted. I was very glad for my bed and slept like the proverbial log (I
think I therefore gained a Hero Point). This was a sign that I was relaxed and having the most splendid time!

Dura

My third game was TRIPOD again and ‘Into the Haunted Ruins of Dura’, another opportunity to tell a story in and about Palmyra in the mid 3rd Century CE. A nice group and a good  game. Sometime, maybe, I should write-up the two scenarios I have in this setting. I would point everyone at Zozer Games’ Zenobia, an inspiration of a game and to Harry Sidebottom’s Fire in the East novel which details the siege of Dura, five years before my adventure takes place.

The afternoon game of Runequest I had signed up for was unavoidably cancelled, so I decided to spend a little time writing up these memories of a wonderful time at Continuum. Now home there is just the closing ceremony to mention, which had the longest raffle in the world. This became increasingly hilarious as people just willed each other to take everything that was left. There was then a follow-up raffle(!) which was an inside track for those playing Runequest Glorantha over the weekend. The prizes looked to be special editions of the RQ Glorantha range. I was graciously granted a ticket for signing up for a game that didn’t happen. I only went and won a book, so I grabbed the core rules. I’ll have to give it a read!

Some goodbye’s and an adventurous journey, taking Mr Gow into Leicester city centre, rounded off the weekend. Closed roads, police cars, chases and escapes, irrate satnav, but we managed to deposit Neil outside the station and then fought our way out of the city through several barricades, random revellers, and sunshine so bright it peeled off your retinas.

I am unable to make Continuum next year, but look forward to attending again the year after.

Marvellous time all round.

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Publishing a Book

Posted on August 2, 2022 by First Age

 This year I wanted to push through and get myself to a point where I knew how to format text and images such tha I could publish a Print on Demand book, in my case specifically on DrivethruRPG. Although printing fulfillment businesses will have different expectations on the format of print files, I think my simple journey will resonate for other printers than OneBookShelf Publisher Service, as used by DrivethruRPG. 

Another well documented place to go is Lulu.com. They have some great guidance there to step you through creating your own book, including the tools that you will need:

https://www.lulu.com/create/print-books

https://blog.lulu.com/how-to-create-and-print-a-book-for-beginners/

I generate my text in Google Docs. As a Chromebook user it means that I always have access to it i the cloud, don’t worry too much about backing up precious hours of work, can acess across any device I use, and have the potential for simple collaboration with others if I wish.

My own journey in formatting a book started with a big bounce off Affinity Publisher. I just couldn’t seem to get going with it, particularly flowing text across pages. With some perseverence I got there, and can now skip lightly around the software features I have found, with enough capability to generate a formatted book. The Affinity suite is a really powerful and affordable set of tools to get the layout to a point that you will be happy with it. I used Affinity Photo for the cover format, but thatis largely through preference, as I am familiar with some of the artistic text style functions in that member of the suite family. I reckon you could stay in Publisher and do everything.

Both OneBookShelf and Lulu provide layout templates for lots of sizes of books. This gives you the confidence to start with a secure base and tweak slightly for your own prefereed layout. Text styles are key, giving you the means to simply make one quick change that updates all instances of that style across the whole book.

My first book proof failed, but only because OneBookShelf have a very specific PDF format required for the cover. If you provide a different format then it may print but the colours and text frames don’t come out as you might expect.

It looks as though my next print book will be a not for sale personal project. I’m taking the  SRD text of Stellagama Publishing’s ‘Cepheus Deluxe’, formatting into a digest sized book design of my choosing, with free to use art from Kevin Crawford’s ‘Stars without Numbers’. I hope to buy some cover art too. This book will be printed as gifts to friends. I don’t want to sell the book because I want people to support Stellagama Publishing and buy their title. Safe to say I will prefer my simpler layout to what is being planned for their book.

Give me a shout if you’re stuck, and I’ll give some pointers if I can.

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Experimenting with AI Art

Posted on July 20, 2022 by First Age

 Here’s my Norse sorcerer, ablaze with the weave of magic.

Subscription is $10 a month, so probably not something I will pursue, but the effects are remarkable, and a month of image creation for a particular project, could reap some useful outputs.
There are so many amazing things out there, we are surrounded by ingenuity!
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