Long time passing

So, given that I've completely neglected this thing for a whole year While Things Were Happening... hi!

Metatopia starts this evening and starting tomorrow I'm doing Alpha Tests for a game that I really should be talking about here but I haven't and booooo to me.

The Game, or the hollowed-out shell of a game in it's nascent, trembling, baby-bird form is At What Cost, and it's meant to deconstruct advancement so that all character building/creation is in play, and goes on all the time. The hope is that this bakes all of that stuff into social goals and character development, so that build speculation is a statement about the character in the character's voice, rather than meta-chat. We'll see how that goes.

And I'm really making this post to procrastinate from yet more game prep, so... urm, I should y'know... get on that.

...I should also mention though two things:

first, I was on another Tome Show episode on MEGADUNGEONS last November that I neglected to mention, go clicky link if that sounds fun. I've another one on Secrets in Games that will be up at some point, and let's see if I actually link it in a timely sort of way this time.

Also, Shieldhaven & Sam Dillon are doing a whole series with the Tome called Edition Wars, which is quality content if you're a D&D history nerd, which I am.

Also, for if you like Talisman (the board game), did I ever mention that I was a writer on an RPG version of it? Because if you're interested in the playtest/quickstart of it, that's available.


Oh boy, what else have I been up to... um, Grim War II is on hiatus, but Reign II: Realities had a successful kickstarter that I totally failed to mention here because I'm the worst, except that I am super excited about the arcane and impenetrable setting that Shieldhaven and I wrote for it. I think it's my goal to always be writing the Nobilis 2nd Edition Heartbreaker, that folks will like, stick on some shelf and admire occasionally but be completely baffled about how to actually play.

...hm, what's that? Am I have rolling anxiety attack right now?

Well yes. Yes I am. So glad you noticed.

Peace.

Metatopia highlights to come... either tomorrow or sometime next year, maybe.

Hope and other failings.

I'd hoped I'd have managed some more posts before this Tome Show episode I'm on  dropped, but oh well. It's there! Huzzah!

Let's talk Kickstarters! Right now, I'm backing Reign 2nd ed and Over The Edge 25e, and encourage you to do so also! I'm also doing a bunch of writing for some books right now, or will be doing so soon, but I can't really talk about any of them at the moment, so... well, hopefully I will remember to post here when I can do so.

Well, we can hope.

Oh hey, thing!

So yeah, I'm on The Tome Show tonight, discussing Midgard Heroes as I oh-so-smoothly insinuated in my terribly conveniently timed latest roundup post. So if you're here from that, s'up?

Otherwise, I should mention that we had session #83 of Harbinger's game on Sunday, which was really excellent for me, as my Fighter, Lanth accomplished yet another major goal, and got to do some serious and convincing weight-slinging as far as convincing other people to do the needful and not be assholes (NPCs, not the party). Also, the party actually agreed on a plan for actually actives next steps against the main (so far) campaign level threat. This highlights something the game does that I really super love, which is Birthright style Magic-is-tied-to-the-land. Lemme 'splain.

There's these gigantic (typically) stone creatures called Domain Sentinels, who were created in ancient days to protect certain magically designated areas of land, or, well, domains. My character's race, the Veytikka, seem to have some kind of connection also to the domains, or at least to providing legitimacy somehow to people who want to rule it- but that's my impression from some things that've happened in game. Not least of which involves the first time we met a Domain Sentinel, on the first floor of a dungeon which is basically a nod to Od Nua from Pillars of Eternity. This one was a 10 foot tall stone quadruped which trapped each of us in this ray of blue light and asked us creepy, enigmatic questions. And the one Lanth got was, "Is there a threat to the domain?"

I said no at the time, but as shit got ever closer to the overhead rotary device, my opinion has shifted, and now we're basically collecting Sentinels to turn against the evil angel that is busily seeking to sow chaos and destruction in all the living world. So that's fun.

But really, I love this kind of mecha-monster ally deal, and it potentially lends itself to some fun, non-horrible, more allied Shadow of the Colossus type play, in the long run. Anyway, the session was much more heavy on the social side than the combat side this time, which is often pretty awesome when it's well seeded and has a strong foundation (this did, it was a number of pay-offs from really old previous encounters), and the combat, when it came, was done in such a way that we only barely survived it, only barely defeated the horrible curfew-enforcing armored air elemental thing that was beating the snot out of us, and then only barely avoided getting the tracking curse it'd placed on us cured before the local military police found us and made our lives that much more short. All in all, a good time.

And looking back over that, I should really get into more details about the pretty awesome and terrible situation we're in, but it's late, and I need to cut like, 50 words or so from my 200 word RPG that I will maybe actually remember to send in this year.