A Passel of Games

Man, it’s been a sparse year in blogging for me. Edmund and I have now received both doses of Pfizer vaccine and will be reaching the end of the final 2-weeks waiting period later this week. We’re contemplating actually seeing other vaccinated people, in person, next weekend!

In the mean time, we’ve been gaming online a lot. At least it’s been good for long-term role-playing series, better than at any time in the last 25 years for us. Here is what it has looked like:

One-Shots

• BFF! (Heart of the Deernicorn)
• Checkpoint Midnight (PbtA) (Cloven Pine Games)
• Kids on Brooms (Renegade Game Studios / Hunters Entertainment)
• Lady Blackbird (One Seven Design)
• The Quiet Year (Buried Without Ceremony)
• Urchin (Clint Krause Games)

Of these, I GM’d or hosted BFF!, The Quiet Year, and Lady Blackbird.

Mini-Series

• The League of Exceptional Felines, using Cortex Prime (Fandom Tabletop)
• Last Fleet (Black Armada)
• Legacy: Life in the Ruins (Modiphius Entertainment)
• Star Trek Adventures (Modiphius Entertainment)

Of these, our friend Brian ran the Star Trek Adventures bonanza during the holidays, and Edmund ran the others.

Campaigns

• 13th Age (Pelgrane Press)
• City of Mist (Son of Oak Studio)
• Dragon Age (Green Ronin Publishing)
• Harlem Unbound / Monster of the Week hack (Darker Hue Studios/Evil Hat/Sophie Lagacé)
• Journey Away (Purple Aether Games)
• Monster of the Week (Generic Games/Evil Hat Productions)
• Numenéra (Monte Cook Games)
• Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne (Chaosium/Nocturnal Media)
• The Expanse RPG/Fate hack (Green Ronin/Evil Hat/Sophie Lagacé)

Of these, Edmund ran 13th Age, Dragon Age, Journey Away, Numenéra (ongoing), and Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne, Bryanna runs Monster of the Week, and I ran City of Mist, Harlem Unbound using the Monster of the Week system, and The Expanse using the Fate Condensed, with the latter two ongoing. It’s been a mental health-saver to be able to meet with friends online every week to play.

I think I’m going to write mini-reviews for some of these systems, but here is the skinny:

My favourites in the lot are by far Fate, Monster of the Week, and Lady Blackbird. In addition, I love the setting in Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne even though the Pendragon system which it uses is laughable. Similarly, Harlem Unbound is a fantastic setting even though it’s created to play with two systems I find uninspiring, Call of Cthulhu or GUMSHOE; I feel it is well-served by marrying it instead to Monster of the Week. For one-shots, BFF!, The Quiet Year, and Urchin are all great fun.

All the others earn mixed reviews, although all were fun at the virtual game table thanks to the people I was playing with.

My 2020 in Gaming

Even in a year of pandemic, there was gaming. I probably played as often as I did in normal times, but fewer titles and with fewer people. I did not attend any conventions; I tried, signed up for online cons, but it didn’t pan out for me.

I played a total of 20 different titles, the lowest number in six years; this included only 3 board games, 14 role-playing games, and 3 story games. Only 6 of these (30%) were new to me, i.e., I had never played them before, including one playtest. The board games were sadly curtailed because my husband has been wrestling with vision problems that made it frustrating for him to deal with small writing and game components.

But I still played at least once weekly thanks to a variety of recurring RPG campaigns conducted online. Frankly, I had not had this much satisfying long-term role-playing in years: with few options for leisure and social activities, many more people could be counted on to meet regularly.

With six years of data, here is what the game type breakdown looks like:

For the last five years I’ve also been keeping track of who I play with. It looks like this:

Player diversity was disappointing in 2020, particularly when I was a player in other people’s games. The majority of players who were not cis men were players in games I or my husband ran, and somehow I did not play with any people of colour (that I am aware of), a sad performance. Despite this, I think it’s not too bad that I played with 41 different people.

Here is what my list of games looked like in 2020:

The Magical Repair Shop

Look what arrived with today’s mail: The Magical Repair Shop” by Ash Cheshire and Edward Turner!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

My 2019 in Gaming

I’ve been neglecting my blog for all sorts of reasons I don’t want to get into right now, but it’s a new year and time for a fresh start. It’s time to once again look at the games I played in the year that just ended, and see if I accomplished some of my goals.

I played a total of 36, up from last year’s low of 29; this included 14 tactical and strategic games (board, card, and miniatures games), and 22 narrative game (role-playing games, story games, live-action role-playing). Some 23 of these (64%) were new to me, i.e., I had never played them before, including 7 playtests (19% of the total). But there were several repeat games thanks to a few recurring campaigns, particularly 13th Age, Agon 2e (playtest), Dragon Age, Journey Away, and Paladin, as well as perennial favourite Spirit Island.

With five years of data, here is what the breakdown looks like:

For the last four years I’ve also been keeping track of who I play with. It looks like this:

I have been trying to play with more new and diverse people, and that seems to be working, although there is room for improvement.

Here is what my list of games looked like in 2019:

13th Dynasty: A 13th Age campaign

Having moved in with housemates, we’ve just started a house campaign of Pelgrane Press’s 13th Age role-playing game. Edmund is running his own re-skin, called “13th Dynasty.” It takes surprisingly little to turn the Dragon Empire, the default setting of 13th Age, into a Chinese-inspired campaign.

Characters

Artist: Amelie Hutt. Used without permission, no copyright challenge intended.

Zhi Yu, played by Vlad, is a human monk who was raised along with his twin sister to be necromancers under the Undying Emperor (Lich King)’s tutelage during the War. There was an ill-advise spell interrupted by a terrible accident, and Zhi Yu’s twin Zhi Hao was killed in the explosion, leaving only charred bones. Zhi Yu barely survived, badly scarred and maintained only through necromantic arts. He soon discovered that his sister’s soul was still bound to him and could, with effort, also inhabit his body. (This is his One Unique Thing.)

Having rethought his career choices, he escaped the Undying Emperor’s grasp and, carrying Zhi Hao’s bones with him, he hid in a monastery where he became a monk, learning a new path. Many years have passed (he is much older than one would think) and he has felt the pull of destiny calling him back.

Zhi Yu has a conflicted (1) relationship with the Undying Emperor, a positive (1) one with the Great Golden Dragon (Great Gold Wyrm), and through his sister, a positive (1) one with the Monkey King (Prince of Shadows).

Artist: ziseviolet. Used without permission, no copyright challenge intended.

Jumping Carp, played by me, is a Gnome rogue, a public entertainer, pickpocket, and con artist. (She is based on Kitsune, a character from the comic book Usagi Yojimbo.) She juggles, tells stories, and play tricks to entertain crowds, making spinning tops dance on the edge of her fan.

Her one unique thing is a beautiful music box ornamented with a dragon motif, which used to belong to the Great Golden Dragon… As a result, she has a complicated (1) relationship with this Icon, as well as a positive (2) one with the Monkey King, her role model.

On occasion, we’ve also been joined by Lu Bu, an Elven Chaos mage played by Jason. Lu Bu one unique thing is that he is the tallest known Elf. He is also a disguise artist, a collector of teeth stolen from dead bodies, and dedicated to creating mischief wherever he goes. He has a negative relationship with the King of the North (Dwarf King) and a positive one with, you guessed it, the Monkey King.

You are here ⬇️

We’re still unpacking boxes and putting things away, but it’s beginning to look more like a home and less like a flea market. This afternoon I posted a photo on Twitter showing the portion of the den that looks habitable, and I started thinking what great big geeks it shows us to be.

But then it also dawned on me that it shows lots of connections to the people in my life, my friends, from the mementos Edmund and I have given each other, to furniture items we got from local friends, to games and art created by people I know online and sometimes in real space, to presents we’ve received, and games we played with great people. So I marked up the picture to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

Thank you, friends, for being in my life!

Progress, sort of?

Some day, this will be a living room.

Sheesh. We/re still unpacking, cleaning the old house, and getting to new the new housemates. We each took falls and scraped joints, we’re banged up and bruised, sore and tired, but we’re making progress.

We’re deeply grateful for the help and moral support we once again received from our friends.

The new neighbourhood is less suburban and more mixed-urban, which means less privacy and more traffic, but also three bus lines right on our street that connect to CalTrain stations. The terrain is rather flat, not steep like our old neighbourhood, so it’s less daunting to take a walk. It also appears t be the world capital of ice cream vendors, with the chimes of ice cream trucks and bike-powered carts constantly ringing. I have not broken down even once yet. Yet.

Big Week!

Two big events in our lives this week, which should help a lot with mental health! First, I accepted a half-time job that I can telecommute for, thanks to a tip and recommendation from my friend Bryanna. If all the hiring paperwork can be taken care of in time, the start date is July 8. I’m very excited about this!

Second, I just signed the lease earlier today for a shared house, and our cats can stay with us. 💖 We heard of this through our friend Karen, and the people we’ll share with seem super-nice. The only sad part is that we could not find anything we could afford in San Bruno, so I will have to step down from the city planning commission. This is not very far, though, a little further south and closer to the Bay.

We’re moving – but where?

You know how we have been struggling in the past year. We had hoped to be able to sublet the main house area and live in the in-law unit; this project dragged on with one hurdle after another until we finally learned that although our friend and landlord was willing to accommodate this arrangement, it is illegal where we live (not permitted by the zoning code). Now we have to leave by the end of May.

We don’t really know where we’ll end up; it’s too expensive in the Bay Area, so we are looking at rural California (Humboldt County), Portland OR, Vancouver BC, and other less expensive places. We’re also looking at shared housing programs.

To be honest, homelessness is on the list of possibilities and pretty darn near the top. We have used up the finances raised for us by our friends on GoFundMe, all our savings, and all our retirement funds. We both have health challenges, physical and mental. My energy level is low, I have not managed to work full-time since my bout with cancer. And we have two cats, which always makes it trickier to find housing.

But since we let our local friends know a few days ago, we have also received offers of help to find a new place, get employment and move, invitations for temporary stays while we search, and so forth. We are poor in money, but rich in friends. As soon as we get back to a sustainable living situation, I will be satisfied; I don’t need more. I love you all.

Agon: Death of a Prince

On Friday we held the fifth session of our beta playtest of AGON 2nd edition and visited our third island.

The lying in state of a body, terracotta pinax by the Gela Painter, latter 6th century BC.

Our heroines landed on the island of Nimos, where they were surprised to learn of the untimely death of the crown prince, one of their companions during the War. The royal family and the whole island were in mourning.