Breaking

With the conclusion of my OSR module game last night, which ironically was supposed to be a break between Planescape campaigns, I'm officially done running any RPGs for at least 30 days.

So far it looks like I'll be able to play some Shadowrun 5th Edition, Dungeon World, AD&D/OSRIC and of course, some 5E D&D as well.  And I'm trying to weasel my way into convincing a certain someone to run some 13th Age while they're in the states for the Holidays.

And, without games of my own to run, I am going to try and get back into the habit of blogging here.  I'm going to get to play a few games I've never played before (though I've run a few) and it's been over a year since I played any of the D&D Next playtest rules, so I really haven't had a chance to play D&D 5E either.

Because I am terrible at breaks, I'm already planning the first game I'm going to run a Black Friday themed Horror One-Shot RPG on Black Friday, either using Unknown Armies or NEMESIS (I was leaning UA first, then NEMESIS, but then it looks like NEMESIS dropped a few of the Madness Meter/Passions I wanted to utilize from UA, so I might switch back).  But in my defense, (1) the Blackest Friday will be a different system, setting and genre entirely from what I've been running this last year and (2) once I thought of the premise I was extremely excited, which I haven't really felt about running a game in a while.

Let the Break begin!

Burn Out

It's been building all summer, but these last few weeks have made me realize just how burnt out I've become as a GM.  I've been the only GM for two-three on-going games for the last four years and a sporadic co-GM for the last year, as well as any number of one off games.  At a low estimate I've run almost 40 games this year but I've only played in 7 and I haven't gotten the chance to play a game in any system that I've been running.

Once I would finish running a session and wouldn't be able to stop thinking about why I was excited to run the next game, but since the summer, that hasn't been happening.  It's been seeming like my players have been enjoying the games, at least, all the feedback I've gotten has been positive, but they haven't been the style of games I want to run right now. The breaking point was drunk D&D last month which the players enjoyed being silly and drunken, shouting and having silly names, killing monster after monster, but it just wasn't what I wanted to run and I made the mistake of trying to set up individual goals and plotlines that were quickly drowned in a torrent of inebriation.  I don't begrudge my players their enjoyment of the kill-happy, silly and very casual D&D but right now it's not the style of game I want to run.  Trying to plan for a new Planescape campaign has shown me that I don't even know quite what kind of game I want to run, just that the games I've been running right now aren't really there.

So I'm going to take a break. I'm going to run the final session of my OSR Module break in a few weeks and then I'm going to take a break from running any kind of game until mid-November so that I have a full month off.  I'm going to put my two D&D groups on hiatus until January and put my Fading Suns group on indefinite hiatus. It was a hard decision because I know my players have been enjoying the games, but I haven't and I'm hoping that a break will refresh my delight in running games again.

I am going to try and play, Thomas, my patron saint of gaming, has been encouraging me to find more game groups to find another game I could play in and I plan on giving that a try.  The Ginger Giant is relaunching his groups in 5E and I am looking forward to getting to play 5E for the first time since August of 2013 when it was in the earlier playtest stages.

And if any of my players want to try their hand at a session or two, I have a ton of great modules that I've barely had a chance to skim and would be willing to give any assistance, hints or encouragement I can.  While I'm not running my two ongoing groups until January, after mid-November I may run a few small games to try out different systems, maybe a game of Tremulus, now that I have the rules, or 13th Age or Numenara.  

Hopefully playing will inspire me to write a blog post or two, or maybe I'll write a post here once my break is truly underway and I can try and figure out what I miss about running games.  In any case, I think that a real break from running games will be good for me and will revitalize my love of GM'ing.

Long, long overdue podcast post

So, over a month ago I ran a game of Dungeon World that we recorded and cut into three parts and then a month ago the Ginger Giant and I recorded a podcast of thoughts about it.  Then due to a myriad of factors including a vacation, a month of work weeks with 16-20 hours of overtime a week, running three ongoing games and a possibly new mini-campaign using the D&D Starter Set and good, old fashioned laziness, I never wrote a blog post for it.

So here it is!  A month late.

Here are the three parts of the Dungeon World Game:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Here is the one page dungeon I ran: Goblin Gully from Dyson's Dodecahedron 

And here is the podcast where we discuss the Dungeon World Game.

I promise that I'll try and get back into the regular blogging soon.

In The Lair of the Ginger Giant: Double, Double Podcast Trouble

Two, count 'em, TWO podcasts.

In episode Five we talk about the Ginger Giant's time at CONvergence and his time playing Pathfinder and the inspirations he got from attending various panels and how we might apply them to our games.

Episode Six is all about our first impressions of the Fifth Edition D&D Basic Rules PDF (which you can get for free at the WoTC site)

Enjoy or not as you like.

D&D Apocalypse - Moves from one night

A selection of Dungeon World/Apocalypse World etc moves that I used in D&D tonight as my players fought these three monsters in some abandoned Dwarven mines...

Show signs of an approaching threat.
Separate them.
Capture Someone.
Show a downside to their equipment.
Disgorge something.
Attack in great numbers.

Alignment Woes - Neutral, Unaligned and Mechanical Difficulty

What is this guy?  He's a Rilmani.  Why don't you know about him? Because Rilmani are dumb.

Go read Thomas' thoughts about Alignment in 5th Edition over at The Tower of Infinite Evil first before you read this post because originally this was just going to be a comment on that post before it got really long.

In the Lair of the Ginger Giant: Antagonist Relations Podcast Episode 4 - Planescape Making You Jelly

(Art of Winfred as a never-nude by the talented Heidi Blunt, former player of Kit Clovertail)

In this Podcast the Ginger Giant and I discuss our various current and future games briefly and then the last 2/3rds or 3/4s of the podcast features two of my Planescape players making Ben jealous that he cannot play in my Planescape game.  Featuring tales of Succubus towers, Halflings fighting to the death on giant platters of mutton grease, magical masterwork hoes and an elderly Bariaur's decline into senility.