Happy Holidays!

 Happy Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas! Happy late Hannukkah for those who celebrate Hannukkah. Happy Kwanza for those who celebrate Kwanza. Happy Solstice for those who celebrate Solstice. Happy Samhain for those who celebrate Samhain. 

Whatever your faith, or lack thereof, I hope you are having a wonderful - and safe holiday.

I'll be taking next week off as my own holiday. And then we'll see what happens with 2021.

Stay safe! Stay comfortable! I wish you all the best!

Happy Thanksgiving!

For all those in the U.S. have a happy Thanksgiving! We'll be back on Friday with a discussion, and then decide what is going on for the next year.

Drive safe, drink responsibly, eat voraciously, and have a great time! Grab some game stories if you can and we can swap stories on Friday!

Discussion: Holiday Haul

Did you get anything gaming related over the holidays? Either as a gift or something you got yourself? Some of those prices can be too much to pass by, and why not indulge if you've already got the gift giving out of the way?

I feel like this holidays I spent a small fortune on miniatures. Mostly because, by my standards, I did.

First and foremost, in October I went in with a friend and we gifted everyone involved in our D&D games with a voucher for a Hero Forge mini and shipping. There was no compulsion on people to get a miniature for the game we played with them, but most people did, and it's been really cool to see everyone's custom representation of their character on the table. Even better with the new table topper we built to elevate the combat game.

Secondly, I found the Temple of Elemental Evil and Castle Ravenloft board games on sale and picked them up. Not to play the board games, but both of them come chock full of miniatures that are to the same scale D&D uses for its battlemats. They make good starters for collections, and I'm a big fan of the Young Black Dragon that comes from Temple of Elemental Evil.

I still need to pop out the terrain cards to see if there is anything in there useful for my tabletop games, but the minis alone have been more than worth the cost. Especially on sale where it worked out to being less than $1 per figure. Not bad when you are factoring in Large and Huge minis.

Finally, because I love dice, I splurged on some halfsies from Gatekeeper Games. I buy at least one set of these every GenCon, and decided to get some this Christmas too, because dice. They roll well and look neat, that's all I can ask for.

How about you? Get anything fun?

Reflecting on 2018

Man, 2018 has been a hell of a year. Do you remember there was an Olympics this year? Tide Pods? Yeah, it's been a crazy year. Definitely feels like it's been one of the longest years I've ever seen, even if I know it's just the same 365.25 days every year is.

RPG wise 2018 has been a fun year. Somehow I've gone from being in every type of RPG except for D&D in 2016 to now being in four D&D games...two of which I am running. When I started running 5e I had a couple goals in mind. First, I wanted to get back into the originator of my journey and see if the magic was still there (it is!) Second, I wanted a chance to poke and work some of the GM muscles that I hadn't used in years. And boy has D&D helped with that.

The monster prep alone - just picking monsters to use for things - has been an incredibly interesting situation, and in a lot of ways I feel like I'm only now starting to hit my stride in prepping both games. I think my players have been having fun since the beginning, but I no longer feel like I'm flailing around and just doing things.

What is most interesting is that two years in I feel like I'm finally getting back to a place where I feel I'm able to bring other GM skills (character focus, more nuanced villains, etc) into the game.

In some ways D&D still feels clunky in preparation, and I'm sure I'm doing some things wrong (who isn't) but the game is going smoother and we're having fun so that's all that matters.

How about your 2018? How is it going in regards to your RPGs?

Holiday Break

Monday is Christmas. The following Monday is New Years.

I don't have big plans, but one of the plans I have is to take a break from pretty much everything. Which includes this blog. As such we'll be radio silent next week, and come back on the Wednesday after New Years.

I hope you all have a good holiday week. Stay safe. Stay warm. Have a good time gaming.

Happy Holidays!

Fun fact, Hannukah is starting on Christmas Eve and stretching into 2017 this year. That's pretty cool, isn't it?

Christmas though, well, that's a weird one. Christmas is a Christian holiday, but also falls on numerous Pagan holidays and uses a lot of pagan symbolism. It's also a Hallmark Holiday, so I feel pretty safe thinking that no matter where you are - provided you're in the western world - odds are there is some time off for you around Christmas.

So what are you doing with it? Any big plans? My plans are simple, but that's all I want t his year. Tonight I'm running a D&D game. This weekend I'll hopefully get to see Rogue One and the Assassin's Creed movie. Beyond that, I have no real strong desires for anything but rest and relaxation.

How about you? Any fun game plans? Holiday themed events?

Also, as a note, there'll be no post Monday, but I intend to have something up Wednesday and Friday. I'll let you know if that changes.

Have a good one!

Happy Labor Day!

This weekend ends with Labor Day for all of us here in the United States, and so I figured I'd take today to wish you all a good weekend. For me, it's a weekend of work. Sunday and Monday are the primary move in days at the University where I work, and so it is all hands on deck to help with the incoming load of freshmen and returning sophmores, juniors, seniors, and...oh yes, the faculty too.

Unfortunately that means this weekend is going to be so busy there likely won't be a post on Monday. I'm working like 13 hours on Sunday, and a normal day on Monday. The good side to that is my next paycheck (technically not the next, but the one after it) should have a bigger number in it.

So, I hope everyone has a good Labor Day. If you're not in the U.S. have a good weekend all the same. Either way, try to get some gaming in. I know I will.

See you all again on Wednesday!

The Holiday Game: A Job For the FATE System

Generally speaking I go to my Uncle's house for Thanksgiving. This has been a tradition my family has followed, pretty much without fail, since we moved to the United States in the very early 1990s. My cousin, the son of this Uncle, is the man who got me into role playing games. His closest friend plays RPGs as well, and so does his (my cousin's) wife. Is it really a surprise that when the four of us get together for the Holiday weekend that we try to play games? Last year my cousin and his wife each ran a Pathfinder adventure (one ended, the other began) the characters from which are still dancing around in my head waiting for a chance to come out and play somewhere. This year, I've been tapped to run a game.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To the folks in the U.S.: Happy Thanksgiving.

To everyone else: Sorry, no post for today. I'm going to enjoy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a great Thursday if nothing else!

Also, there will be no post tomorrow either. I work retail and so will be gearing up to be utterly exhausted come Friday.