Whew \u2013 be careful what you wish for! After last year\u2019s multiple traumas for many facets of my life, I vowed to lean into more gaming, both running and playing. Well, as of June 2024 my dance card is full, and I thought I\u2019d take a brief moment to write about the four games I\u2019m playing and what I\u2019m hoping to get from each of them.<\/p>\n
See, my time is my rarest resource, and it would be very easy for me to wander off into a crappy or even mediocre game. So I really need to be diligent about why I\u2019m playing a game \u2013 what do I hope to get out of it?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like to sound so sticky about this \u2013 they are games, and isn\u2019t it enough to just have fun? Mmmm\u2026 Maybe. But again I hold my time very tightly and if I\u2019m going to get the most out of my gaming time, I would like to move past just having fun and be thoughtful about the people and games that I\u2019m gaming with.<\/p>\n
So yeah \u2013 I\u2019m playing and running four games now. Crazy! But for the moment they have seem to moved into equilibrium, and I seem to be sustaining all of them. So here\u2019s to having a full dance card of amazing games!<\/p>\n
I talk about this a lot on my podcast. I am running one of the greatest ttrpg campaigns of all time for MUP Professor backers. We have a full table of six, which is really one too many than ideal, but the greater table does allow for the game to go on even with absences. More importantly, the table is STRONG. Everyone in the table is fully engaged in telling the best possible story and leans into both the investigation and the world building with great fervor.<\/p>\n
I would like to keep a journal and share it here, but that seems like a heavy load at this point to go back and write all of that up. 18 years ago I wrote a journal tracking my first playthrough of Masks (which you can find here<\/a> if you are a member of YSDC), and I definitely would like to at least capture some thoughts for each of the chapters. Hm. (We have also been recording our sessions with an eye toward sharing with MUP Patreon backers \u2013 I will let you know if that happens.)<\/p>\n My goal for running Masks is twofold: one was to run the entire game, with all seven chapters, as I\u2019ve never run Australia or China before, and Peru was new in the updated book. And, as I mentioned on MUP Ep 299, the sooner I started it, the sooner it would be done. But am also running it for MUP top tier backers, and all of my players are wonderful supporters and community members. It\u2019s also a massive challenge to GMing skills to manage a game at this level \u2013 I learn something new every session.<\/p>\n Masks is amazing but so, so large. It\u2019s June now, and so we\u2019ve been playing for almost 1.5 years. There\u2019s no way we\u2019ll be done in 2024 \u2013 so now looking at EOY 2025 to complete. Wow.<\/p>\n This week I ran our third session of Call of Cthulhu with my new in-person group, comprised of strangers I met entirely at cons and discord. It was way easier to create a group from scratch than I thought \u2013 pretty much I said I wanted to make it happen and suddenly we were gaming together.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a good group of friendly and engaged players, though we are still working out how best to navigate everyone\u2019s personalities. Everyone engaged with the safety tools quickly, and that made table safety for a group of strangers feel easy and welcoming.<\/p>\n We just completed playing The Haunting \u2013 I\u2019ve run this a few times in the last 30 years and it\u2019s always fun to start a group new to CoC with it. (I think it was the second scenario I ran for CoC, after trying my hand unsuccessfully to run a Dreamlands game in college.) I\u2019ll be tying some of the findings around the Chapel of Contemplation into the overall campaign, and there is enough mystery and questions to easily seed future scenarios.<\/p>\n I really dig the new Arkham book \u2013 I\u2019ve read it cover to cover and it really paints a full picture of a living, breathing town. I learned a lot from running Bookhounds in San Francisco \u2013 a city I love and am familiar with. It\u2019s so easy to breathe life into a place you know well, so there\u2019s a challenge with bringing a fictional town to life.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s one of the reasons I want to run a long-term campaign in Arkham \u2013 I want to lean into the town and create a version of my own. I want to run a number of scenarios set there, some of which I\u2019ve run before, others I haven\u2019t. And I want to create NPCs, factions, and events with my table that give life to this very Lovecraftian town.<\/p>\n Most importantly \u2013 I started this game to start playing with people in person. I have a set of friends and we play boardgames together every month or so. But I need consistent in-person gaming to fill my soul. I\u2019ve been really struggling this year with feeling connected to people, and this game is doing a great job so far of meeting that need. Here\u2019s to more of that.<\/p>\n Running two bi-weekly games is enough. Really, I just needed to stop craving games so much that I would stack new games to run back-to-back. It\u2019s just not sustainable. But playing games is!<\/p>\nGame 2 \u2013 Arkham Antiquities and Appraisals<\/h3>\n
Game Three \u2013 Blessed and Blasphemous<\/h3>\n