Thursday 6 December 2012

Games I want to run or play

I have a massive surplus of games I want to run and or play. So recently and starting with my Iron Kingdoms campaign I am moving to run more shorter campaigns of a variety of games.

so this post is about the games I am or want to run.

First up I am running an Iron Kingdoms RPG game. The players are all part of Giovannis Black Cat Mercenary Company The Wild Cards Mercs and are investigating the destruction of the rest of their company. So far their investigations have had them face off against Cryxian forces, meet an Ordic Castellan who is also an Arcanist, See a relic made by one of Morrows Ascendants, and met a crazy old man who thinks he is Giovanni and fears for his soul.

Deadlands the Flood- I started this game ages ago and still really enjoy playing and running Savage Worlds.

DnD Next and This is Thracia - The recent playtest packets have not been inspiring me in the same way that the earlier ones did but I am still following the development choices closely. I also really enjoyed running in the real world (so to speak). Another idea I would be interested in doing for Thracia is to run it again (or carry it on with a relatively stable group and see how that changes the experience.)

13th Age - I’m probably going to hold off until I have the main book in print, or the main book and the 13 True ways expansion. I also probably want to run a couple of campaigns in this one to carry on with my 13th Age of the Hungry Phoenix Campaign and one to try the system in a more traditional Fantasy World.

Dresden Files - this one is largely inspired by The FATE core rules kickstarter and the recent release of Cold Days. Having read more of the FATE core that I got for backing the kickstarter this has moved up and I am now keen about running anything with FATE and want to shoehorn aspects into my current IK game. (the results of which might make another blog post.)

I’m playing in John’s 2nd Ed AD&D Game in his homebrew setting. This game is excellent and will get a post of its own at some point.

Pathfinder - Having finished a full Adventure path [link] I am reluctant to run another pathfinder game, but it is hands down the best game for players that I own. I recently got the Thornkeep dungeon from the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo so I might run that at some point. [links]

Fiasco - This is a fantastic GM less game. Ceri wrote about the first session of it we played here.

Dungeon World - Dan has been talking about this alot and it sounds very cool

Quest Rpg - Simon Rogers from Pelgrane press talked about this game at Dragonmeet and it sounds very cool. A collaborative cartography game where you make a actual map and a relationship map as you play.

What are you playing at the moment? What do you want to run or play?

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Feng Shui and Diet Bet.

I finished the diet bet at 13st and 5 lbs. I lost my target of 8 lbs however I did it in 5 weeks not 4. I was not alone in missing my target however neither of my 2 colleagues hit their targets so all wanting to carry on with the motivation we gained in november we have carried the bet on into december. My new target is to get to 13st by Friday the 21st of December.

On Saturday I went to Dragonmeet, a games convention in Kensington. I Got my copy of Feng Shui Signed by Robin Laws, I listened to the live Ken and Robin Talk about stuff podcast and Had a feast day lunch in a whole foods shop.

Feng Shui is one of my favorite role playing games and I still use a bunch of the ideas from its GM advice section. My favorite piece of advice from it and one that Rob Donahue has blogged about here, is The Think of Three Cool places to have a fight method of adventure writing.

Essentially the advice is to think of three cool places to have a fight, think of cool things that could happen during a fight in those places then write backstory and a clue chain to help the players get from one place to the next. Another really interesting twist to it is the three fights don’t have to be fights, but they should be the important scenes for that session and the bridging scenes are opportunities for you to show how badass your Player characters are.

A couple of the coolest places I have set fights recently are:
The Circle of Doom - This dungeon is awesome.
On a Boat - bonus points if it is sinking or has rammed another ship.

What is the coolest place you have set or played a fight or other important scene in an RPG? Where is the coolest place you have been in real life that you could set a fight in or at?