I’m rather tired of having a year’s worth of crazy happen over the course of a week, the trees don’t appear to be trying to kill be right now (which has me worried), and I’ve been enjoying a lot of yummy coffee. The world may be spiraling, but there’s good things to spark hope. These are some random TTRPG thoughts.
- Congratulations to Monte Cook Games for breaking the million dollar mark with their recent Cypher Backerkit campaign. And now, it looks like Numenera is going to be revisited as well. Fun times! Question, should I start complaining that Numenera is being ruined now or should I wait until the campaign actually begins?
- I was so excited to run the first session of my Howlmark actual play campaign. It’s an EZD6 campaign and we’ll be running through my Hobgoblin Falls trilogy. The fun happens every other Monday, beginning at 8:30 Eastern US. Check it out!
- I visited the PA Renaissance Faire for the first time and it was a lot of fun. I was so close to dropping a lot of coin on some actual gemstone dice but wound up holding off because I’m heading to GameHole Con this month and need the cash. One fun moment was when a random Eagles chant echoed along one of the streets and most of the patrons joined in. I love being a Philly sports fan, even when the Eagles blow a huge lead in the 4th quarter.
- My sci-fi horror adventure, The Orshin Incident, is going to be hitting Backerkit next year! This is all thanks to my friend, Dave Ward from Grimwood Games and I’m having a hard time believing it’s actually happening. The adventure was written for Indexcard RPG but we’re going to try to offer conversions of EZD6, Ironbound, and Mothership. Dave, thank you so much.
- In a year where a year’s worth of absurdity happens every week, the last few weeks have been a doozy. The President gave a rambling fit of a speech at the UN. We had another church shooting and the only thing the talking heads are concerned about is the ideology of the shooter (because if he was on “their side” it’s…ok then? I don’t get it). Then we had the Secretary of Defense call every general officer in our armed forces so he could vomit his bloviating ideology to everyone, during which he used the phase “any war we choose.” Which is not getting enough attention because that’s a radical shift in how the armed forces are going to be used. Then the president got up to speak and was shaken by the fact that the disciplined general officers didn’t become a campaign rally crowd, during which he talked about using US cities to train combat troops. Oh, prior to that he bleated out in his fake twitter account about “war-ravaged Portland.” Now the government’s shut down and the vice-president just lied out his butthole about the Democrats demanding free health care for illegal immigrants as a condition for funding the government. the HUD website as a message blaming the shutdown on the “Radical Left in Congress,” which is a violation of the Hatch Act but laws don’t matter any more because we don’t have a functioning administration—we have an endless election campaign running the government. Oh, and the president shared an AI video about some fake medical technology to his fake twitter in which he appeared. And I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface. Also stop shooting people.
- My friend, Dave Ward (he keeps popping up, doesn’t he?), was able to interview the creator of the Questline VTT. Questline is a lightweight VTT that can be accessed on any device and be usable, which is huge. Last week Dave and I kicked the tires on the setup and came away impressed, while also pining for some features to be implemented to make the VTT feel more functional, and during Dave’s interview with Aelfric, the platform’s creator, addressed our reflections—which was a cool outcome from that rambling stream. I encourage everyone to watch the interview, and maybe go check out Questline for yourself!
- I love helping folks connect to each other and finding community in the process. I love how—through this channel, my campaigns, and events I’ve run—real friendships have formed that have make folks lives just a little bit better. Two things about this. First, I recognize this may just be an extension of my pastoral vocation—but it could also be part of why I’m a pastor, I love to see folks connected to each other. Second a strange psychological quirk about folks who enjoy connecting others is that, quite frequently, we either don’t feel like we ourselves belong or we think we haven’t done enough to connect folks in community. I don’t bring this up as a pity party for me. I point it out so if you’ve got someone who helps connect you to others in your lives—a GM, a community organizer, a friend who plans all friend group get-togethers, or religious figure of some kind—give them a thank you. Most of them will not know what to do with it and will probably try to deflect the thanks to someone else but, deep down, you’ll warm their hearts.
- I finally remembered to order my “I liked these dice before they were cool” shirt, featuring the mighty d12. I want to have it for GameHole Con and I hope it gets here. The squirrel brain can be a problem. That moment of focus also prompted me to get both my covid and flu shots so, hopefully, I can keep some of the con crud away. Oh, if you want to pick up that shirt for yourself the link is right here.
- One of the most enjoyable TTRPG YouTube channels, in my opinion, is “A Squirrel Plays.” Skrat’s reviews are beyond entertaining, and his humor and kindness are things I so appreciate. His game system, NUTS, is also a ton of fun and I’ve been privileged to play it in a couple of actual plays. Go check out his channel, you will not be disappointed. And, Skrat, sorry I keep running out of time to get your interview done, I’ll get you out of the green room soon.
