At this point, the madness of many, many sessions last year is becoming a memory, and I'm returning to a more measured gaming lifestyle. By my standards. Oh wait, it's still a lot of sessions. See here:
The short version of my RPGing at present is...
1/fortnight: Ulek campaign
1/fortnight: Savage Tide campaign
1/week: Shackled City campaign
1/fortnight: random RPG one-shot.
The last requires some explanation: Friday evenings are split between the Savage Tide campaign (previously Age of Worms), and another game - last year Martin ran Mutants & Masterminds 1/month, and Adam ran D20 Modern 1/month. However, 1/month was crippling those games, especially when a session or two (or three) needed to be cancelled due to Real Life(tm) intruding.
So, I agitated to scrap both campaigns, and replace them with a series of one-shots (either single session, or mini-campaigns) that could have different players and DMs. That's been adopted.
The suggestions so far for games have been - Amber (throne war), James Bond 007 (2 sessions), Iron Heroes (3-4 sessions), Star Wars Saga edition (2 sessions), and Wheel of Time (1 session). Looking forward to seeing what happens there. I'm unlikely to play in all of them, but they'll also suit those people who disappear for part of the year.
Apart from that, I also play boardgames. Quite a few. The schedule tends to be more erratic than RPGing; 1/month we try to have a Board Game Day (normally Saturday or Sunday), where we spend up to 12 hours just playing boardgames. At the last one (two weeks ago), I managed to get in... 2 games of Memoir '44, 1 game of Ticket to Ride: Europe, 1 game of Settlers of Catan, 1 game of A Game of Thrones, 1 game of Ra, and 1 game of Attika. And on this Saturday I just went to Sarah's for a lone game of War of the Ring.
Board games are really becoming part of my gaming life. I'm writing quite a few session reports for www.boardgamegeek.com - user name is the same there as here, and yes, you'll find a few "Cheers!" here and there.
Dungeon magazine being cancelled is a bit of a shock. More than a bit. (Dragon, whilst occasionally nice, doesn't impinge as much on me). As you can see in the RPG section above, I'm heading down the Adventure Path route this year. The thought of no more Adventure Paths is scary! Yes, I know there's Pathfinder, but at this moment, I don't have a credit card, so subscribing is an impossibility. I need a 6-month subscription plan - month by month doesn't work for me.
I may be able to pick up Pathfinder at my FNSLGS (Favourite Not-So-Local Gaming Store), but price will be an issue.
Thus, the Digital Initiative - for which Wizards have mentioned the possibility of not paying by credit card - becomes far more attractive. If it basically includes an online form of Dungeon - and perhaps even moves towards the adventure path model - then I'm so sold on it.
I'm drifting out of DDM a bit. This is partly a money issue, partly because I can't play the skirmish game with anyone, partly because I've gotten out of the habit of buying them, and mostly because my FLGS is no longer a FLGS; just a LGS with prices 50% above what I can get in Melbourne. Having my home computer blow up and need to be replaced isn't helping. (That's 6 or more cases of DDM).
I remain interested with what's coming out of Wizards. Complete Champion is at the head of my list for what I want - primarily because I hope there'll be some good prestige classes that clerics can take. Not that I really expect any. I think that's a big hole in the system - good prestige classes for pure clerics.
Enough rambling for now.
Cheers!
The short version of my RPGing at present is...
1/fortnight: Ulek campaign
1/fortnight: Savage Tide campaign
1/week: Shackled City campaign
1/fortnight: random RPG one-shot.
The last requires some explanation: Friday evenings are split between the Savage Tide campaign (previously Age of Worms), and another game - last year Martin ran Mutants & Masterminds 1/month, and Adam ran D20 Modern 1/month. However, 1/month was crippling those games, especially when a session or two (or three) needed to be cancelled due to Real Life(tm) intruding.
So, I agitated to scrap both campaigns, and replace them with a series of one-shots (either single session, or mini-campaigns) that could have different players and DMs. That's been adopted.
The suggestions so far for games have been - Amber (throne war), James Bond 007 (2 sessions), Iron Heroes (3-4 sessions), Star Wars Saga edition (2 sessions), and Wheel of Time (1 session). Looking forward to seeing what happens there. I'm unlikely to play in all of them, but they'll also suit those people who disappear for part of the year.
Apart from that, I also play boardgames. Quite a few. The schedule tends to be more erratic than RPGing; 1/month we try to have a Board Game Day (normally Saturday or Sunday), where we spend up to 12 hours just playing boardgames. At the last one (two weeks ago), I managed to get in... 2 games of Memoir '44, 1 game of Ticket to Ride: Europe, 1 game of Settlers of Catan, 1 game of A Game of Thrones, 1 game of Ra, and 1 game of Attika. And on this Saturday I just went to Sarah's for a lone game of War of the Ring.
Board games are really becoming part of my gaming life. I'm writing quite a few session reports for www.boardgamegeek.com - user name is the same there as here, and yes, you'll find a few "Cheers!" here and there.
Dungeon magazine being cancelled is a bit of a shock. More than a bit. (Dragon, whilst occasionally nice, doesn't impinge as much on me). As you can see in the RPG section above, I'm heading down the Adventure Path route this year. The thought of no more Adventure Paths is scary! Yes, I know there's Pathfinder, but at this moment, I don't have a credit card, so subscribing is an impossibility. I need a 6-month subscription plan - month by month doesn't work for me.
I may be able to pick up Pathfinder at my FNSLGS (Favourite Not-So-Local Gaming Store), but price will be an issue.
Thus, the Digital Initiative - for which Wizards have mentioned the possibility of not paying by credit card - becomes far more attractive. If it basically includes an online form of Dungeon - and perhaps even moves towards the adventure path model - then I'm so sold on it.
I'm drifting out of DDM a bit. This is partly a money issue, partly because I can't play the skirmish game with anyone, partly because I've gotten out of the habit of buying them, and mostly because my FLGS is no longer a FLGS; just a LGS with prices 50% above what I can get in Melbourne. Having my home computer blow up and need to be replaced isn't helping. (That's 6 or more cases of DDM).
I remain interested with what's coming out of Wizards. Complete Champion is at the head of my list for what I want - primarily because I hope there'll be some good prestige classes that clerics can take. Not that I really expect any. I think that's a big hole in the system - good prestige classes for pure clerics.
Enough rambling for now.
Cheers!
