All the roleplaying games I've played.
Storm King's Thunder is a game of Dungeons & Dragons that I started playing on 2020-04-02 as a DM. It is a Roll20/Discord Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
My original long running D&D campaign with my original gaming group. Calling it ‘on hiatus’ is generous. It’s dead in the water. We haven’t played in a year. But I just can’t let it go.
Dome Riders (Homebrew) is a game of Troika! that I started playing on 2020-10-08 as a DM. It is a Play By Post Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
One of the most tragic stories of 2021 both in-game and without. Epic setting dreamed up by GreyWarden, and then when they abondened the game, me and fraidy_cat and jade decided to keep playing by ourselves using a GM emulator. It was a great experiment in collaboration and self-government, and it was really going places. We have 22 pages of original setting content in a google doc. But then a huge in-game encounter killed our NPC leader and things never really recovered from that. Currently on infinite hiatus.
So You've Been Thrown Down A Well is a game of Troika! that I started playing on 2020-12-21 as a DM. It is a Play By Post Adventure and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
So we started playing this one game and the the GM vanished, so I stepped in and turned it into So You’ve Been Thrown Down A Well, which was super fun. Highlight: the insectoid race who rules as written couldn’t speak, so in play-by-post, the communicated exclusively via emoji. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/313219/So-Youve-Been-Thrown-Down-A-Well https://www.troikarpg.com/
Agents of Edgewatch is a game of Pathfinder that I started playing on 2021-02-26 as a Player. It is a Roll20/Discord Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Pathfinder is everything I hate about ttrpgs. I only keep playing this because it’s the only way this particular friend group continues to get together, so I’ll probably keep playing it forever, hating the game and enjoying the company of my friends.
We killed this campaign as a group to try out something new. New system, new characters, new game. Inject some life and some fun into this struggling beast.
13 Story Bizarre is a game of Troika! that I started playing on 2021-04-29 as a DM. It is a Play By Post Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Originally supposed to be a really quick adventure with my core Troika pbp group, but has been slogging along for months now. I’m about to just end it so we can move on to something else. https://brick-road.itch.io/13-story-bazaar
The game is complete! Blessed Lytton, Dear Labolas, Precious Frondella
Wicked Friends is a game of Wicked Ones (Forged in the Dark) that I started playing on 2021-04-29 as a Player. It is a Play By Post Campaign? and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
on hiatus https://banditcamp.io/wickedones/
Cocaine and Alligators: Florida Man Sphere is a game of Troika that I started playing on 2021-05-23 as a Player. It is a zoom Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Fun pick-up game from Melsonia discord. The game hilariously involves googling random Florida Man stories to create NPCs and encounters throughout the game. Could have honestly done without the whole police violence part in the middle. Good times overall though! I think this was my first time playing Troika in real time. https://gordinaak.itch.io/cocaine-alligators
Picket Line Tango is a game of Mothership that I started playing on 2021-06-01 as a Player. It is a Play By Post Adventure and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Just started. Not much to report yet.
Game stalled out really quickly, probably not going to pick back up https://ian-yusem.itch.io/picket-line-tango https://www.mothershiprpg.com/home
Anvil (Homebrew) is a game of Smithy of Sacrilege that I started playing on 2021-06-01 as a Player. It is a Play by Post Campaign/Open Sandbox and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
A hack of Tunnel Goons by Nate Smith. Very fun original world, hex crawly open sandbox. You can get a lot done even with hyper minimal rules https://seanfsmith.itch.io/puffin
Still going strong! Sean just recruited some new players to breathe some new life into the game. We abandoned the spooky haunted house which we learned is actually just a front for an arms smuggler. Then we decided to go climb an anti-crater!
Moving this to dead. Haven’t had any movement on it in quite some time.
Honey Rafters is a game of Mausritter that I started playing on 2021-06-07 as a Player. It is a Foundry/Discord Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Fun game! Surprisingly spooky. Quite lethal. Cursed sunflower = corrupted bees and candy cultists. Played with FKR discord folk. https://losing-games.itch.io/mausritter-honey-in-the-rafters https://mausritter.com/
Rockaway Beach is a game of Marvelous Mutations and Merry Musicians that I started playing on 2021-06-12 as a Player. It is a Discord PBP Adventure and is currently Hiatus.
Here is how it went!
wendi’s game of mmnmm. almost immediately fizzled out. might resume at some point? https://wendiy.itch.io/marvelous-mutations-merry-musicians
To Kill A God is a game of Risus that I started playing on 2021-08-24 as a Player. It is a Play by Post Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
pbp on rpg.net with tibbius. Playing former child actor Sender, who is a blade for hire who just wants to retire and be a mushroom farmer, who is also haunted by the ghost of his dead twin brother who he absorbed in the womb, and who is also followed around by small woodland animals like a disney princess. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170294/Risus-The-Anything-RPG
Moving this to dead. Never could remember to go check rpg.net for updates. One of our players dropped, and it became not enough to keep the story going. sad! First time playing Risus, a game I’ve long wanted to try. Don’t feel like I ever got to really get a handle on it.
Moon's Shot is a game of Troika that I started playing on 2021-09-09 as a DM. It is a Zoom Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
ran moon’s shot for alex, sparky, and jade. a good time was had by all. they did a capitalism, but for good
Acid Death Fantasy is a game of Troika that I started playing on 2021-09-16 as a Player. It is a Play by Post Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Another more different ADF! Born of the APF server, but on another new server with Kunailby. Playing Gliftwirp, a sarong-fu master who is also basically the hamburglar
Moon's Shot is a game of Troika that I started playing on 2021-09-21 as a DM. It is a Discord Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Did moon’s shot again but for the skookums-and-dragons crew. Zigs, Alex, and Jess. They murderhoboed the whole thing. https://signalstation.itch.io/moons-shot
Acid Death Fantasy is a game of Troika! that I started playing on 2021-10-01 as a Player. It is a Play By Post Adventure and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Abandoned by gm after a valiant effort at keeping it going which is sad. Andy was one of the most creative and generous GMs ever, creating original playscii artwork for us, and providing us with groovy vintage vinal soundtracks. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/331670/Acid-Death-Fantasy
36 Corollaries of Lisergia is a game of Lisergia that I started playing on 2021-10-05 as a Player. It is a Solo Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
jotting this down to get it in the logs.
i started playing Lisergia with a mishmash of systems and oracles a while back. Don’t play it super often, but still think about it and return to it sometimes. It’s dreamy and surreal and groovy and nice.
https://capacle.itch.io/lisergia
<gemini://tilde.town/~dozens/corollaries/>
Garrets Ranch is a game of Cthulhu Dark that I started playing on 2021-10-30 as a Player. It is a Zoom Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Kyle ran us a game of Cthulhu Dark! Played with Josh and Mike and wendi. Investigate Garret’s Ranch in Fate, Texas. Everybody escaped intact and alive. A very simple but very flexible game. I liked how you can boost your roll with a cost with the insight die. And we did a good job of using the failure die once or twice. Occupation is really important and you can kind of cripple yourself if you pick something off like “uber driver” like josh did. Nobody took advantage of infinite rolls, and I think somebody suppressed insight only once. Which is all to say that for a rules light game, you kind of have to remember a lot. Anyway, it was fun! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/98137/Cthulhu-Dark
Numenera is a game of 2-bit that I started playing on 2021-10-31 as a Player. It is a Discord PBP Adventure and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
gonna start a coin-flipping game with tibbius. gonna play a witchy person.
Moving this to dead. The story was really good. The system was surprisingly good. The gimmick is that you a special that you can invoke and it just happens. And then you flip a coin. Heads = you can continue to use your special. Tails = special is burned until recharged. Made for smoe really fun gameplay. See more at https://tibbiusgames.itch.io/2-bit
crapland 2 is a game of troika that I started playing on 2021-11-05 as a Player. It is a Discord Jamboard Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
beautiful craptastic chaos at galgoricon 2021! Galgorian and Spooky Rusty ran a two table game with players constantly teleporting between the two locations before joining up at the final encounter. It was bonkers and fun. Big cast of characters, almost 12 players https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stratosfiend-2-zine/crapland-2-a-surrealist-suburban-troika-rpg-book
Zigs and Dragons is a game of D&D 5e that I started playing on 2021-12-03 as a Player. It is a Roll20 + Discord Series and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Zig’s first time DM-ing! A series of oneshots on a mysterious island. Getting to play with Alex again is fun. The characters escalate from session to session from level 3 to 6 to 9 etc. Have played two so far. Having a lot of fun playing and getting to make new characters all the time.
Been continuing to play this and enjoy it. It’s been nice watching Zigs come into his own as a DM. It’s been just man and Jaybee playing lately. Miss playing with the others, but it’s also fun with just the two of us. I’ve played a different character each time, slowly building out the sprawling family tree.
Moving this to dead. Game fizzled out after some tensions at the table escalated.
Giraffe Wants Best Leaves is a game of Giraffe Wants Best Leaves that I started playing on 2021-12-05 as a DM. It is a jitsi -> mumble (technical issuse) oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
This was a first, made a little toy rpg (a lasers and feelings clone) and some tildepals wanted to play it, so I ran a game for nico and malvarma. fun little session! http://tilde.town/~dozens/giraffe/
yule homebrew is a game of Into the Odd that I started playing on 2021-12-21 as a Player. It is a Owlbear Rodeo + Zoom oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
another Kyle game! got to play with eskur and wendi and kim. first time playing into the odd. played Luna Saturday, dreamy moonchild with a cane. we ventured down below a giant tree, and prevented a goblin invasion. (Wendi stopped the ooze ritual and tossed a bomb into the mirror.)
Quiet Midwinter is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2021-12-28 as a DM. It is a discord + owlbear.rodeo Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
super good! ran for z and j. the premise was ‘Cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie for OSE’ and I think they pulled it off really well. Players arranged for the best ending possible: get /everybody/ to meet up at the docks: dinaz and lucretia to steal the ship (desperate move by L to get on the naughty list) both bounty hunters, yvette and midge, to capture dinaz and lucretia + bitter; winter and loss there, snow to arrange a romantic sleigh ride with Z and Loss… it was a beautiful chaotic mess that was super fun. five thumbs up. https://r-rook.itch.io/ose-quiet-midwinter
Ultraviolet Grasslands is a game of 2400 Exiles that I started playing on 2021-12-29 as a Player. It is a discord voice Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
fun! eskur ran it, played with hat and wrongtube. never played 2400 before, that was fun. never played the UVG setting either. that was also fun. played in the Forest of Meat! https://wizardthieffighter.itch.io/ultraviolet-grasslands-and-the-black-city-uvg https://jasontocci.itch.io/2400
Arkham 1628 is a game of Cthulhu Dark that I started playing on 2022-02-02 as a DM. It is a discord voice Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Radsauce. Ran it with Carter, Hilary, and Jimmy. It went a bit over an hour, and the we finished it up in a bit over an hour the next day. Not positive I got all the rolls right, but the players seemed to have fun. I got a couple wtf moments out of them which seems like a success. I think there might need to be something said upfront about how the point of some of the weirdness is just that it is weird. That is, not every theme is a clue to the answer to the mystery. (Speaking directly of the puppet theme in this adventure.) There was interest in continuing with the othe mysteries in the text, so we might start that next week
Dad Overboard is a game of Brindlewood Bay that I started playing on 2022-02-10 as a DM. It is a discord Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
okay so first of all this is a historic game because after years of inviting her to join me in my hobby, this is the first time pete agreed and actually joined. bittersweet: she did not have fun. nor did i, to be honest. this was a very challenging game to run. i felt stressed out and frustrated the whole time. the clues were super vauge. it was hard to understand a new system, and the mystery, and also stay on top of helping people play their character. There was also a bunch of the game that I should have just thrown out because it was not applicable/appropriate for a one-shot. Also all of the clues are objects. There’s no way to have a clue come up in conversation without the person running away so they could find an object, or somehow describing the object for some reason. I had two players (pete and ari) who had never played a game before, pete was kind of lost. i should have thrown out abilities and had a straight 2d6 roll. that said, it was a great group. a real convergence of spheres. I don’t know, i’d run it again. I imagine i’ll feel more prepared the second time around. the players (except for pete) all seemed to have fun https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/307416/Brindlewood-Bay
Strixhaven is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2022-02-21 as a DM. It is a roll20 + discord Campaign and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Strixhaven happen! Background: my pathfinder group agreed to disband and reform as something else. Seems we were a little burned out on the game and needed a change. (I for one have complained to anybody who will listen about how much I hate Pathfinder!) So we decided to try something a little lighter and light-hearted and we went back to 5e D&D and agreed to try Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos. Former DM gets to play, I get to DM, and we finally had our first session. Chierce showed up having not made a character and decided to just lurk quietly and watch, which was both totally okay but also kind of weird. Our planned cadence is ~1.5 hrs twice a week. We’ll see if we stick to it. We got one third of the way through the first 3-part session. We might get through the next two parts next sesh. Anyway, cool, new game! Super fun!
Second session went so much better! Threw out a bunch of the rules. Made the rolls a bunch more simple. Players actually solved the mystery, Got a couple glimpses into the conspiracy. It was a hoot and a holler!
Finished the campaign! That was super fun!
Nyolibhotepβs sewers is a game of maze rats that I started playing on 2022-04-17 as a Player. It is a discord live text Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
finally got to play a game with sean! short little 2 hour live text game on discord. possibly my first maze rats ever. i played a chisled chimneysweep hippie, and we went down into the sewers to find out what the cultists were doing with all the doubleslugs. read the whole thing here: https://sean-f-smith.medium.com/play-report-maze-rats-nyolibhoteps-sewers-1003d411c39f
facing the titan is a game of Facing the Titan that I started playing on 2022-06-04 as a Player. It is a miro + discord voice Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
This was a Swords Without Masters game, the first of which I’ve played. Played with eskur, fergus, and hoid.
Very interesting system. GM-less, narrative, storytelling. Lots of fun. Interesting use of setting tones, and then freeform story telling.
unique d21 tables: roll d66, and the low roll is the tens and the high roll is the ones.
played for 2 hours, didn’t get to finish. but really liked it. very unique to the kinds of game i usually play.
Lichway is a game of Old School Essentials that I started playing on 2022-06-10 as a Player. It is a discord voice Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
played some OSE with sean and the gang. played a human thief named Myla Wygarthe (thanks dmheroes). played very fkr style: there were no rolls at all. very system agnostic. we had some fun searching a spooky dungeon for the dark enchantress.
a game of trophy gold is a game of Trophy Gold that I started playing on 2022-06-29 as a Player. It is a live text Oneshot and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
An ongoing series of live text play on discord. Technically a oneshot, i guess? But spread out over 1 - 2 hours of text here and there on discord.
It’s a Sean game with eskur, 7th Outpost, and wendi. (wendi couldn’t make it this time tho)
I’m playing Ifori, who is basically a cleric of a small god from Brighter Worlds. And who is also basically a less monstrous version of Bbblippt from Wicked Ones. She has a small turnip-like creature that she believes is an infant god. It gives her access to rituals at least.
This game, we escaped and immolated some kind of sucking flesh tree, and then desecrated a shrine to some evil earth deity and then killed one of its priests.
And that was about it! Short and sweet.
First time playing Trophy Gold. The stress mechanic feels the same as from Cthulhu Dark. I like it. Makes things feel risky and scary, and that you’re constantly on the edge of doom and disaster. Kind of like the token meta-currency. Haven’t gotten a chance to actually use it yet.
Basement Quest is a game of Shoes In The Dark that I started playing on 2022-07-13 as a DM. It is a email play by post Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
This game is the cat’s pajamas. it’s the bee’s knees.
It is a play-by-post game on the tildepals email list.
We’ve had a lot of people dropping in and dropping out, but it is mostly just sinatra and mio playing, and me facilitating. And it is an absolute blast so far.
We are playing the postcard-sized Shoes in the Dark rules, which immensely support the free-wheeling, rules-light style of play we’ve naturally adopted.
https://dozens.itch.io/shoes-in-the-dark
http://tilde.town/~dozens/quest/
Orion Valentine is a game of Thousand Year Old Vampire that I started playing on 2022-07-16 as a Player. It is a journal Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Been meaning to play this one for a while. The catalyst for doing it is that I think my players in my D&D game might at some point soon go meet a powerful vampire NPC. And I wanted them to have a compelling and complete backstory. And now they do! It was a wild ride. It ended up turning Valentine into kind of a wretched thing. Not a proud, beautiful creature, but a desperate, damaged, and unhealthy one. I’d like to play it again, at least one more time. I felt like I didn’t grok it enough to create much continuity or connection across prompts. I had resources and skills, but wasn’t often able to use them effectively. That’s probably on me. Next time! 5 out of 5, would play again.
dragonflyd6 is a game of Dragonfly D6 that I started playing on 2022-07-18 as a Player. It is a live text Oneshot and is currently Hiatus.
Here is how it went!
almost forgot about this one!
sean ran a game of dragonfly d6 for me and tibbius
it is a cardless version of his very interesting insect horror survival with a solitaire card game mechanic, exuviae
https://seanfsmith.itch.io/exuviae
the first playlogs can be found on medium:
https://sean-f-smith.medium.com/play-report-dragonfly-d6-part-one-c8654b2f3a6f
in the second session, Sid and Midge arrive at the Angles house, and shit goes immediately sideways.
Sid heads in to talk with speak with Isolde Angles who behaved and moved most unnatural.
Meanwhile Midge tried to sneak around the side of the house but got covered in eggs, and then chased by the mosquito-stuffed skin suit of Mick the dispatcher.
Sid eventually came to her rescue as Miss Donnelly climbed out of the cab.
It was a total horror show. Midge was not in control. It was really fun!
Cap'n Mushroom and the Case of the Red Slipper is a game of none/fkr that I started playing on 2022-08-09 as a Player. It is a live text Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
a quick true fkr game with me and erika, sean running
mad fun.
https://sean-f-smith.medium.com/the-case-of-the-red-slipper-f99872ab7078
erika played Maelo, a tomb raider / cat burglar with a bit of razzle dazzle magic.
I was Cinder, a grizzled sell-sword who has agreed to do just ONE more job so he can retire and be a mushroom farmer. He’s is also a former beloved child actor, star of Li'l Fatso’s Jamboree.
We were called in to investigate the gruesome murder of Baron von Leffe’s squire. They were besieged by bandits out on the road. The Baron escaped, but the boy was skewered by arrows and had his right arm cleaved off and absconded with! The latest in a string of arm thefts.
Cinder and Maelo quickly established a great Watson/Holmes dynamic, and discovered that the wounds from the arrows display necrotization consistent with the Red Slipper mushroom that grows in the graveyard.
In a cut scene, the two set up a trust and a will so that in the event of their unfortunate demise, the Li'l Fatso Memorial Mushroom Farm will be established to teach children the joys of composting.
Sean pointed out afterwards that there were no dice rolls whatsoever, which I find delightful.
Guardians of the Shadow Frontier is a game of Tricube Tales that I started playing on 2022-08-23 as a Player. It is a discord text Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
tibbius is running a game for me and brine and sean.
I’m playing Toobin, a sneaky little bastard with preternatural senses, and who is often greedy. Joining Toobin are Khedera (sean), an agile sentinel who’s quick and too often vainglorious; and Syfas (brine), an agile seer who can manipulate elements with a touch but can be blinded by vengeance.
We came across a body by a waterfall, discovered that it had been killed by an archer while waiting for a lover’s tryst. Took the body back to the village. People were sad about it :(
And that’s about all we had time for in this OHOS. We didn’t have time for a OHMOS. So we’ll play again next week.
Did a lot more roleplay than Getting Stuff Done. Found out that Toobin is superstitious, and shy around people who aren’t Guardians.
Tricube is fun. Never heard of it before Tibbius suggested it. Excited to explore further the karma/resolve + quirk/perk mechanics. I kind of like the meta token currency.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/294202/Tricube-Tales
cleric+thief is a game of Brighter Worlds that I started playing on 2022-08-30 as a Player. It is a solo Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
Playing a solo game of Brighter Worlds! It is super fun!
https://awkwardturtle.itch.io/brighter-worlds
http://tilde.town/~dozens/clericthief/
Boneheads is a game of Adventure Skeletons that I started playing on 2022-09-08 as a DM. It is a discord live sesh Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
one of my players no-showed during our regular D&D campaign so we busted out a quick onepage rpg
https://gshowitt.itch.io/adventure-skeletons
i’ve been wanting to play this one for quite some time because it looks silly and ridiculous.
Our characters were Vinnie, a sadistic former garbage collector with a vengeance streak a mile wide; Snak, a former orc; and xxx, who used to have a gambling problem.
The skeletons surfaced near a busy crossroads and encountered a shepherd who kicked Vinnie in the pelvis. Snak scared him off, and he ran away with his sheep, vowing to report them to the Visiting Lord.
They regrouped in a nearby barn where they found a shrine to the Visiting Lord. They took apart a goat, Vinnie wearing its pelvis and one of its legs, xxx wearing its head as a hand.
The sweet little old farm lady came by and, confusing the skeletons for her long lost Eustice, offered them soup and redemption. But they knifed her to death anyway.
Bert the farmhand stumbled upon the scene and hit Snak in the pelvis with a shovel, knocking her to pieces. They took out Bert, stole a horse, and burned down the barn.
They came up with a two part plan: vengeance on the shepherd boy, and confront the Visiting Lord.
Snak put on a disguise and pretended to be Clarissa, the milkmaid for whom the boy pines. While he was distracted, xxx appeared on horseback and Vinnie leaped down from above and sent the boy, his love unrequited, into the wild blue yonder with one swift kick to the crotch with his +1 Pelvis Kicking Boots.
Now all well disguised, they ventured into the village and found the Church of the Visiting Lord. They confronted him, and he turned out to be Eccentric Kevin, a fellow skeleton and frenemy from the wizard’s dungeon.
They put Kevin’s skull on display on the church as a religious symbol and mouthpiece for their agenda, began to rotate through the role of the Visiting Lord themselves, and started to tax their congregants heavily.
Amassing wealth and spreading their new religion became their new mission.
untitled is a game of plasma torch that I started playing on 2022-09-30 as a Player. It is a discord live text Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/356977/Plasma-Torch-A-OnePage-RPG-of-Derelict-Spaceships
a one-on-one OHOS with tibbius
it was short and fun!
there are two parts to playing the game:
doing stuff: roll d6. +d6 if your background applies, +d6 if you can use your equipment. 5 - 6 = success, 1 - 4 = fail.
resource die: if you fail, roll d8. 1 - 2 = step down your resource die to d4, and your resources are depleted. if you fail on a d4, you die, or whatever.
running the game looks super easy. there are tables for generating rooms and complications as you explore the derelict ship.
i think the resource die is a fascinating way to represent health and death and resources and depletion all in one handy little mechanic.
during the game, my character (Naylen, a rugged ex-convict with a crowbar) sneaked in through an airlock onto an abandoned, derelict pleasure cruiser to find some loot. they struggled a little bit to get the airlock to work, but then made their way into the hallway and down into a medical bay. (which was locked, but Nalyen guessed the password; it was 1234.)
inside the medical bay, he was confronted with some kind of tentacular eldrich horror / medical experiment. it crushed him and ripped his space suit, but he bopped it with his crowbar and got away.
and then we had to stop
two thumbs up, would play again!
tibbius said he’d be interesting in adapting the system to some kind of fantasy dungeon crawler, and i agree that would be fun.
Good Buy, Cruel World is a game of Brindlewood Bay that I started playing on 2022-10-26 as a DM. It is a discord voice, jamboard Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Boy I struggle mightily with Brindlewood Bay. It is such a challenging game to run. There’s no guidance for how to play the characters. The clues that pop up lead the fiction in weird directions, and as the facilitator you’re left holding the bag trying to give your players what they want when following up with questions. And at the end, there are so many red herrings and clues that don’t add up, and just.
The ending, the Theorize Move, is the most interesting and fun part of the game. But it rarely creates a narratively satisfying ending.
I also don’t know how to create tension or stakes in this game.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun.
I just feel like I gotta find a different system to run these characters and this story on.
BTW there’s no written evidence of this anywhere, but the second BB game we played was in March of this year. The first was in February. And this is the 3rd, seven months later in October
Anyway, the module was Good Buy, Cruel World by Michael van Fleet, and it was great. Everybody seemed to love mallwalking and being in the mall. This is the 2nd game i’ve played by van Fleet, the first one being Moon’s Shot, a oneshot for troika.
https://signalstation.itch.io/good-buy-cruel-world
Here’s a character sheet if you want to use it.
Camp Spookypants is a game of Sleepaway that I started playing on 2022-10-27 as a Player. It is a discord + jamboard Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
from Pathfinder to a game with no real rules or objectives: my irl group had a hard time adjusting to this.
it didn’t help that we took 2 weeks 3 months! off from between sessions: we all forgot a lot from the last time we played.
but we settled into the groove, and i think everybody had a really good time!
I play songleader Oleander. I rekindled a friendship with the ropeskeeper, and ended one with the lifeguarder after accidentally injuring a camper.
Killed this game because it was too hard for the group, and decided to go do some oneshots and figure out what to do next for a campaign. Might continue playing this solo just to see what happens because I really like it.
Tales of Athas is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2022-11-17 as a Player. It is a in person Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
an in person campaign with the old vulcamonos gang!
can’t believe it. very excite.
some real mad max / dune / acid death fantasy kind of world building from Keegs, which is really cool. good for him. there’s a huge, cracked, blistering sun; and two moons (they have names and everything but i didn’t write them down). there are 9-ish ‘islands’ of earth in a ‘sea’ of loose sand, so despite being in an unforgiving desert, there’s lots of nautical imagery. different crafts that can sail on the silt sea.
we started out in prison with no items. as cliche as meeting in a tavern, but fun. we felt underpowered and desperate.
i’m playing a lovable rogue based on dolly parton. her name is jolly pardon. she grew up dirt poor in a one-room cabin in the (hills). one day she was spotted by a traveling (prince) who was enchanted by her singing. he whisked her off of to the court of the petty warlord, where she grew very popular. her nemesis Dolene, however, grew jealous of her and spread rumors to besmirch her reputation. Dolene was eventually successful and the warlord tossed Jolly out of the court.
In our session, we broke out of gladiator’s prison, crossed the city, and made it to Shatterglass, an abandoned obsidian mine and outpost of the Veiled Alliance, an organization dedicated to freeing the slave cities of Athas.
We found what was left of my crew there. Zax was a husk. his mind had been wiped. And the others had been dragged deeper into the mines.
Following the trails, we found a strange tableau. Thri-keen eggs had been arranged around the bodies of Verin and Zara. As we approached, a horror burst from the ground and attacked us.
So yeah! Super excited! It’s been about 8 years we determined since we’ve all played together. and Keegs is a super crafty dm. There are battle maps and minis, and he gives everybody dossiers for character sheets and notes, and sometimes he crafts huge stage pieces for the map. it’s all really quite impressive.
So I just realized a couple of things. 1) it’s been almost 1.25 years since we started this campaign already!! and, 2) the way this gamelog—which, according to my git log, I’ve been keeping since 2021-12-23—is set up, I don’t really have any way to keep track of individual sessions of an ongoing campaign in a meaningful way. Besides little updates to existing entries such as this one. That is, if I want to run the numbers and see how many individual sessions I have played over the course of a year, I don’t really have any easy way to do that. I shall ponder this.
Anyway, huge session last night. The culimation of our last year of playing. Let me catch you up:
The city-state of Thanalas is ruled by a cruel despot. Martok, a cannibal halfling with psionic powers in a world of little to no magic. And we’re trying to overthrow him and give the city back to the people. So we rallied a bunch of townies to our cause. And we waited until the night of the Lunar Veil, this big parade + festival celebrating the rare full double eclipse of the sun by the planet’s two moons, to stage the coup. BUT some terrorists, the Ghostflame Syndicate, planted a bunch of bombs in the parade floats to wreck the coup and damage the cause. But we found them and defused them. And meanwhile a couple of us got caught in Martok’s private viewing box in the gladiatorial arena. (We had just executed on a plan to assassinate Martok by spiking his drink with the one half of the explosive components of the Ghostflame’s bombs, and lacing his food with the other half. So after he eats and drinks them… BIO BOMB.) And the rest of us have just found out that our pal Valtor, the hugely popular and renowned gladiator, is in cahoots with the Ghostflames and got them access to the parade and the coliseum to plant all the bombs.
And that’s where we are now.
A whole bunch of stuff happens in parallel. Dakka gets roped into working the announcer booth for the gladiatorial games, pulling off a bunch of Vicious Mockery and Bardic Inspiration through the giant announcer’s horn. At one point, our man Henry shows up in the booth and is like, Hey boss what’s this? And shows Dakka one of the bombs. Turns out there are dozens of them planted in the stands. Which are packed with people. Dakka announces a competition, tells everybody to look under their seats and if they find a little hourglass shaped thing, CAREFULLY bring it to the announcer’s booth WITHOUT letting the sands in the two halves mix for the chance to win a Fabulous Prize! This is maybe the most dangerous thing Dakka has ever done.
Meanwhile, Lucia is running around running all kinds of stuff behind the scenes. Kale, head of the Ghostflames, summons her for an audience and asks her to kill Martok. She’s like, gosh that’s TOTALLY not already part of our plans and is totally inconvenient, gosh. But she accepts. Then Zara—a old pal of Jolly’s from the Veiled Alliance freedom fighter group—shows up in the crowd and approaches Lucia. She tells her the thri-kreen are IN the arena. (We have a kinship bond with the thri-kreen after rescuing their eggs from the ankheg.) They have buried themselves in the sand and will wait for our signal to leap out and attack. When she hears the “competition” announced over the horn, she runs up to the announcer’s booth, teaches our man Henry how to disarm the bombs, and sends him out to find as many as possible. Eventually, he and his boys disarm about a dozen. And about a dozen more are turned into the booth for prizes.
Meanwhile, Darragh, our champion, is prepping for the final event. It’s her versus Valtor. She delivers a pep talk to some of the civilians who have been conscripted / forced into being gladiators. (After we ourselves escaped from the arena, Martok captured a bunch of commoners and forced them to fight in our place.) They are being forced to fight seasoned guards and gladiators in a re-enactment (to the death!) of the ancient battle at the temple, where the execution of Rajat shattered the sun and drained magic from the world, an event to which we are mystically bound and have had visions of. Darragh’s pep talk, and her bribing one of the guards to join the commoner’s side, lead to the commoners narrowly defeating the guards in a dramatic and very unlikely upset. Then it’s finally time for the main event.
Jolly and Diablo have been entertaining Martok, his personal bodyguard Grak, and a couple of guards this whole time in Martok’s personal box. A lot of deception and sleight of hand and luck have made this go fairly well. He noshes on the laced grubs. And as the final event starts, he cracks open the bottle of his finest wine. Which is the drink spiked with the catalyst. He toasts, and downs the drink, and he fucking EXPLODES. Jolly and Diablo dive behind the thick oak bathroom door and avoid most of the blast. They’re stuck in there now though, so they escape down the poop chute and end up outside the arena.
Simultaneously, Darragh and Valtor square off out on the arena. A dozen guards encircle them, and behind each of them is chained a giant ten foot tall scorpion to force them into close quarters. Darragh immediately gives the signal, and the sands rumble, and over a dozen thri-kreen warriors emerge from the sand and start wrecking the gladiators. Darragh easily dispatches Valtor and when she grabs his scimitar it burns her hand and sears her mind.
When Martok’s booth explodes, Grak the half-giant (with whom we have a lot of personal beef) is thrown from the booth, through the air, and lands on the arena floor far below. He survives, but just barely. Only for Lucia in passing to magically catapult a small stone through his skull.
An over-excited fan shakes her hourglass in the stands, and blows several rows of seats to kingdom come, and also blows a hole in the side of the arena. Disastrous. But also the only unintended explosion after recovering two dozen something bombs?
And that’s where we ended. Now you’re caught up on a little over a year of D&D.
Good sesh. Largely dealt with The Aftermath of the previous session. Jolly (me) and Diablo spent a lot of time just trying to find everybody and get caught up on what happened.
We also spent a lot of time digging in the rubble trying to save some of the victims of the bombing + collapse. Diablo was dead set on finding a child to save because that would be the most heroic thing. The first whimpers and faint cries we investigated turned out to be an old man whose legs were pinned under a beam. Diablo was greatly disappointed. We tried to free the old man by lifting the beam, but we are both weak and injured, so we accidentally drop the beam on the old man’s chest, crushing him and killing him instantly. Oops! I try to replace the rock that had concealed him originally, but I am too weak and cannot hide the body. So it remains shamefully on display for all to see. We investigate another cry and find another old man. We don’t kill this one, and Diablo perfunctorily stabilizes him and sets him aside and keeps digging for a child. I leave at this point because I am too weak even at my best to lift rocks. I go to find Dakka, because I heard his voice coming from the announcer’s booth, and he’s the only party member whose whereabouts I have a lead on.
Diablo finally finds a child in the rubble and cannot wait to save it so that everybody can see how heroic he is. He cradles the child in his arms and walks out to the center of the arena so everybody can see. The Double Lunar Eclipse ends just at the right moment to bathe him in otherworldly light. “Look! I saved it! I saved the child.”
The child lightly protests.
“Shhh. Hush, I’m your mommy now.”
“Have you seen my grandpa? His legs were crushed under a beam. He’s all I have left.”
“No,” Diablo says, not even considering telling the nameless, genderless child that he had just crushed and killed its only living relative. “Hush. I am saving you.”
Having delivered the child to the center of the arena for maximum views and likes, Diablo sets the child down and leaves to go find the rest of the party.
Lucia had gone back to confront Kale, head of the ghostflame syndicate. I think they each kind of were trying to shake the other down. So Lucia went Flame On and turned into a fire demon and maimed one of his guards. And then when Dakka showed up as backup, Kale went Panic Mode and tried to set off one of the bombs and go kamikaze, taking out himself and everybody else, including the innocent child Broccolini. Lucia was able to lunge forward and burning hands the bomb and melt it at the very last second, heroically saving everybody at the very last second. And then she coup de grΓ’ce him with what is now considered her signature move: a small stone magically catapulted through the skull.
So everybody finally gets back together for the first time in probably a couple of hours in game, but what is also probably over a month out of game. We have killed all of the major power players in town: Martok the ruthless despot, Valtor the violent traditionalist, and Kale the head of the evil and chaotic Ghostflame Syndicate.
In the aftermath, there is a little bit of chaos and looting in the streets. So we assemble a few parties of thri-kreen, the surviving gladiators, and the loyal mull to go stamp out the remaining loyalists and calm everybody down. Everybody else gets assigned to rescue efforts in the arena.
We put our support behind Henrietta, a completely random NPC, and her plan to create a new democratic ruling council, and then we go to Martok’s manor in the town square to get the city charter so that the new council has the authority to govern the city.
Martok’s manor is the place we saw in one of our collective visions. The place where some of us are killed by the place’s traps and wards. Jolly cautiously enters to seek out and disable any physical or mechanical traps, followed closely by Lucia who is on the look out for any magical traps she can disarm. We sidestep several obvious traps. And then Lucia sneaks off by herself to check out a room, and is disappeared by some kind of phantasm.
Great sesh. When we last left off, Jolly and Lucia were exploring Martok’s tent. It was heavily booby trapped, and is also the place where we saw a vision of us all dying while at the ziggurat. Lucia got disappeared, and Jolly went back to get to get backup. Darragh and Diablo stood watch outside while Jolly and Dakka went back in and got attacked by the grasping vines of an Oota Root. Jolly and Dakka got entangled and started slashing at it. Diablo came in and helped with some heals, and also stabbed at the root with some arrows like a mean chopstick stabbing thing. Darragh ran around the tent, climbed up on top, slashed the canvas, and then slid down like she was zip lining, or like she was in a swashbuckling pirate movie. She comes flying in and kicks the jar the root is in, knocking it over and exposing the root ball. We start hacking on the roots. Meanwhile, Lucia is trapped in an illusion by the floating brain in the jar. She sees all our dead bodies, and faint shimmers of the real world. She tries casting burning hands at one of the shimmers and catches Dakka’s leg on fire. Finally she figures out what’s going on, and shatters the brain jar, ending the illusion. When she reappears in the real world, we have the root on the ropes, and she casts incandescent form and smother burns the root. The brain bonds with Diablo, who convinces everybody not to squish it. We keep it in a pickle jar and it is our friend now. Its name is Martin. We drew a couple of different faces on the bucket so Martin can express himself. So after all of that, the documents we’re looking for are still inside this large, ornate desk. Martin tells us that the desk is a mimic. We make a plan to sedate the mimic by feeding it all of the drugs in Martok’s opium den. Then we’ll get the stuff and get out. Easy right?
fun sesh! we ended up spending a lot of time playing with the mimic / desk in martok’s tent. first we got a whole bunch of opium and laced some meat jerky, and fed it to the mimic with mage hand. then lucia illusioned herself to look and sound like martok and put on a bunch of his clothes to appear friendly to the mimic. then she pulled her arm into her sleeve and Dakka cast mage hand to act as her hand as she pilfered. It worked pretty good! we found some magic rings and i got a half-working magic dagger, and we found all the papers we were looking for, and also a little more than we bargained for: i found an assassin’s contract for members of the Veiled Alliance, including myself! a bunch of names were already crossed off, and the payment was made to “Darro.” We also found a map that lead us back to Valtor’s and, after solving a glowing book puzzle, into his secret sanctum. we found a mysterious book with Lucia’s dad’s name on it, and when she picked it up, we all got Myst sucked into the book!
Lyrmwithmas Holiday Special surprise: K and Chuck swapped places, with C behind the screen for the first time ever and K at the players table! Super fun, C did a good job. We all got transported to an illusion puzzle of Lucia’s childhood castle home. Everything was layers of mirrors and reflections. We got to hang out with Blane / Gavin (K’s character) and everybody got a shiny platter. We eventually found the key to the tower and got back home but not before a final trick / temptation of the castle: it showed us the lush verdant forests of Guthie, Darragh’s home. She chose to go through the portal and we thought we were going to say goodbye to her forever, but at the last second she realized it was another illusion, and Blane roped her out of there and we portaled back home at the last second. Lyrmwithmas was a huge celebration as always. Dragon noodles, cake, brownies, decorations, eggs, candy, gifts, costumes. Already can’t wait for next year. Hail Lyrmwith!
Castiron Sworn is a game of Ironsworn that I started playing on 2023-01-02 as a Player. It is a Solo Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
sinatra inspired me to read Ironsworn, which I had been meaning to do anyway for a long time.
It looks really rad!
I made a character and ran her through an encounter and it was really fun. Different. Combat was very cinematic. Treating the battle as a progress meter that you can test to see if it’s complete is a totally different feel than just attacking a sack of hit points.
I liked it a lot. I’m going to keep playing!
Newton Handle is a game of Quarrel & Fable that I started playing on 2023-01-04 as a Player. It is a live text Campaign and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
I missed a couple games due to being out of town. But now I’m back. Tibbius is … what’s the ttrpg term for distro hopping? We ditched tricube for Quarrel & Fable, which he then hacked into his own “Test Metal”.
https://seanfsmith.itch.io/quarrel
https://tibbiusgames.itch.io/tst-mtl
I missed the entire fight with the ‘mirror wolves’, but dropped back in just in time to pick back up the original murdered lover mystery, which is exactly where i left off.
Brine left the game, sean i think got busy with something else, so it was just me and tibbs, which was just fine
Lost my notes for session one :(
Played another sesh this morning. Cleared level 1. Fought a giant butcher. Sidestepped the boss, a mopey goth cenobite. Levelled up.
Sean ran almost the exact same exploding corpse encounter for us that Tibbs ran for us in Planar Nexus! π€£
sean is running me and tibbius through a dungeon!
i am playing Cali Copperpot from Castiron Sworn.
we played a quick 90 minute sesh this morning and did some exploring.
I rolled all 1s during character creation!
Cali gonna dieeee
https://seanfsmith.itch.io/quarrel
https://quarrel-fable.carrd.co/
Almost a month since we last played, no updates. Moving to dead.
this game fizzled out. The second ADF Troika game I’ve played to do so! Too bad. I enjoyed the brief time that I got to create some McDonalds cosmology. Just for fun, here’s Gliftwirp expositing a little bit.
Gliftwirp bites into a burger that he swiped from somewhere, closes his eyes, and sighs happily. “How grand that your falcon-headed god gave you his own sight as a boon! How grand that you can even know your god!” “Sadly, my god grants no boons and answers no prayers. It is a long story with which I shall not tire you okay fine if you insist.” He settles in to tell a story. “Long, long ago, my god (whose name I cannot say for reasons you will soon understand) was a member of high stature in the Court of the God King. And his best friend and closest confidante was the court jester, Rhahn Ald. But their friendship would end in tragedy! Just listen and you will know why.” “You see, Rhahn Ald, the trickster, had quietly and discreetly been stealing magical items from the king’s coffers, slowly, over the years, accumulating glamour that he used to increase his influence in the court, to weaken the God King’s mind and make him reliant on him. My god (whose name I cannot say) eventually found out and threatened to expose Rhahn Ald. So the mad jester framed his best friend, and easily convinced the God King of his guilt.” “So as punishment, everything was stolen from my god, including his name. The Court of the God King will only allow him to be referred to as the Evil Nemesis. (Bit dramatic don’t you think?) He also had his handsome physique stolen from him: he now inhabits the form of a large, four-armed, purple worm. And he had his home and all his land stolen from him: he now resides in a damp cave. Most cruelly, he had his intellect stolen: he remains just barely aware of what he used to be, of what was taken from him. But his eloquence is gone. He is incapable of forming the words he needs to defend himself, or gather followers to his cause.” Gliftwirp sighs sadly and nods. “My god was cursed and exiled because of the evil trickster god Rhahn Ald.” “And in retribution for his wrongful suffering, his followers turn to holy acquisitions and righteous theft. Just as everything was taken from our beloved Evil Nemesis, so do we take and redistribute. And so we shall until he is redeemed and restored to his rightful place.” Gliftwirp continues quietly to himself, under his breath, “Robble robble, Amen,” and takes another bite of his hamburger. “I truly am happy that you get to know your falcon-headed god, Kiara. It is a gift I hope you won’t take for granted!”
planar nexus is a game of 1400 that I started playing on 2023-01-16 as a Player. It is a live text Adventure and is currently Dead.
Here is how it went!
Played a tibbius game with sean.
I’m playing Orrowyss the Haunted, a spirit mage. A portal to the spirit realm exposed Orrowyss to otherworldly energies. They are followed by the sound of tinkling bells. They wear an ancient amulet, and a faceless mask (it has two black eyes, and a black vertical line through each eye running the length of the mask) when channeling spirits from the spirit realm. Their familiar takes the form of a small but vicious dog.
Me and Sindie were sent to run off some ratfolk bandits. We tracked them to their caves, and they promised to leave the humans alone if we cleared out the caves of the presense.
good fun!
Got a little further into the dungeon. Fought off some vines and a woozy trippy room. Found some loot and some tech that might active a Portal
Fought a spooky spider and got kind of roughed up. Made it to the portal room. But still missing 2 glyff balls. Got to turn into a Ghost Form, and then switch back and do some stabs. That was pretty awesome.
Almost a month since we last played, no updates. Moving to dead.
Holiday Oneshot is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2023-01-18 as a Player. It is a live and in person! Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Played a live and in person game for the first time ever! (Since before pandemic)
Work friends: C. (DM), EH (bard), EK (artificer) A. (bard), and M (geomancer (druid)). and Me (bard).
3/5 of the party was bards! It was bard-tastic!
I played Barumpa Pumpum, the lizardfolk College of Creation bard.
https://tiny.tilde.website/@dozens/109706687499993446
They were a little hillbilly, a little redneck. Straight from the swamp. A little uncouth.
We had to go save Santa from (spoilers) Cleff Tezos, who wanted his company, The Nile, to be the sole supplier of Christmas Toys. So he made a big old evil Robosanta to go on a rampage in the North Pole.
Structure was great. Like, 85% puzzles and 15% combat.
We had to find a key, a code, and an RFID card do get into Santa’s Palace. That was the puzzle part.
During the final part, there was a dance-off mechanic that the DM came up with before realizing that the part was 60% bards.
Anyway, super fun. Haven’t gotten to play 5e as a player in a while. Good times.
Hopefully I get to play with this group some more in the future.
Small Medium Large is a game of Troika! that I started playing on 2023-02-09 as a DM. It is a Discord Voice Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
First time playing with the Aftermathematicians!
Ran a game for Enki, Tuesday, Dril, and Lofi.
We played Small Medium Large, winner of the 2022 one-page dungeon contest.
https://www.dungeoncontest.com/
Been a while since I played some Troika. Good times.
We had a lawyer, a sorcerer of friends, a dwarf, and a gremlin catcher.
Spelljammer is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2023-02-23 as a DM. It is a roll20 + discord Campaign and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
Started a new game for the Beekey Blinders. Supposed to be just a one-shot of spelljammer, but they liked it a lot and wanted to just keep playing this. So now this is what we’re doing!
Completed this game a couple months ago. It was heckin fun! The gang hasn’t gotten together for a game since then though. sadface :(
Betrayal at House on the Hill is a game of D&D that I started playing on 2023-08-01 as a Player. It is a in person Oneshot and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
what is up this is a oneshot game that i played over two sessions with a bunch of coworkers from the office. connor ran it and erin was there and those were the only two i knew from our holiday oneshot and everybody else was new. we were all potential heirs to lady longbottom’s fortune and all we had to do was survive one night in her weird spooky haunted house. we used betrayal at the house on haunted hill to procedurally randomly generate the house. that part was pretty fun. it made it feel like a classic traditional dungeon crawl which is a style of play with which i actually have no real experience. we just showed up, gelled as a party, and started exploring. i played professor plum—that is, christopher lloyd from the movie clue—a bumbling wild magic sorcerer which is one of my favorite classes to bring to a level 1 game. and i was a firbolg silverquill initiate. didn’t get up to too many hijinks but did get to wild magic surge twice, turning myself blue and casting confusion on myself. dm brought the optional sanity rules from the dmg. consequently i lost control of my character a couple times, which resulted in me downing one of my party. he turned out fine. i fell off the top of the tower not once but twice. and then the guy i downed fell off the tower and fell on me and downed me. what goes around comes around i guess!
Ultraviolet Grasslands is a game of Halberts (Fantasy Traveler) that I started playing on 2023-12-14 as a Player. It is a discord audio + campaignwiki.org Adventure and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
finally got to play with kensanata and the boys! trading, exploring, buying goods, negotiating prices, hiring guards = economics simulator. i actually installed ledger-cli to keep track of accounts and inventory. played for 2 hours and at the end of it, we have a spreadsheet and a loan and a trade route. and a guard. i am playing Bagagalio Quatro! which is a name i got from the UVG name generator. i guess they are from fantasy italy. he is an exiled bluelander and cultist of the blue god, a rapscallion and magician. first time playing any kind of traveler. character creation is really interesting with the past careers and stuff. https://campaignwiki.org/wiki/MontagInZ%c3%bcrich/Ultraviolet_Grasslands
Twilight Dungeon of the Void Magus is a game of Fighting Fantasy Hack that I started playing on 2023-12-19 as a Player. It is a discord live text Adventure and is currently Complete.
Here is how it went!
This was a LTLT OHOH with Sean and Florik. I played Roderik the Frail (because I rolled abysmally low Stamina), a librarian and amateur entomologist who wants to make a quick buck and to capture some rare insects. Florik was Lonk the Lazy Jewelry Store Guard, who just wants to go fishing. I don’t actually know what system Sean was running, but it had the familiar Skill Stamina Luck format of Fighting Fantasy, which I know he loves. Banter between Roderik and Lonk was jolly good. Brain and muscle. We explored the dungeon, avoided the Invisible Apes, captured a blind salamander, found a secret passage and a hoard of jewels, and fought off a dwelf or dwarf-elf. (It was “a bearded elf” that we rp-ed into being a dwarf / elf hybrid, yee-haw!) 10/10 would play again!
An Empty Dream is a game of Girl By Moonlight that I started playing on 2024-01-03 as a Player. It is a zoom Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
Started Session 0 of GBML. Mal is GMing. And I’m playing alongside tehfraga, el, deafgamer, and chantel. We did a whole lot of worldbuilding, session planning, and character building. I was pretty excited to play this game beforehand, but I gotta say I’m REALLY excited to play it now! This game is part of the Lantern Light Adventures game network. So it’s going to be streamed on twitch, and then published on youtube and also as a podcast. It’s my first time playing anything quite so public, so I’m a little bit nervous about it. But also looking forward to it. Wheeeee! https://www.twitch.tv/lanternlightadventures
Session 1 of An Empty Dream was magnificent! Got to meet Splendiferous Cogwell and beat him soundly in a robotics competition. And then there was a great reveal toward the end with him turning into Splendiferous Maximus! Then we defeated him with Feelings and everybody cried. It was th best. Can’t wait for more sessions.
Another great, heart-wrenching session of magic girls!
On the one hand, I know I’m still in the honeymoon phase with this game. (It’s only our second session!) But on the other hand, I think it may really be that good. Players are really starting to settle into their characters and really inhabit their personalities. Calliope is wracked with doubt and insecurity. Nif is trying way too hard to keep everybody together and happy. Janus is about as high strung as you can get. And Cary is an arrogant alien. And it all just works. Everybody gels together really well, and we’re a really weird, very loving little family.
Last night, Nif and Cal got to go visit Poppy, Nif’s stand-in mother, to get some heirloom seeds for Nif’s experiments. Janus got some guidance from Moonflower about her troubling visions. Cary “liberated” a bunch of mats and weapons from the student center martial arts club to help Cal build out the practice room in the hideout.
And then Corvus, Cary’s former best friend from the dreaming, came and turned our friends into a bunch of crow people and started wrecking stuff. Cary and Corvus basically had one prolonged tearjerking breakup scene throughout the encounter. Nif sang the entire time. I did some timey wimey bullshit and yanked Calliope from the timeline when the crowpeople started closing in on them, and then jumped myself out of harms way and behind Corvus so I could tabletop behind their legs and Cary could tackle them.
In the end, Corvus left us because of the power of love, and fled. But, I think, did not forgive Cary for leaving. And everybody cried. Hats off to Mal for really just twisting the knife every session so far.
Another fun session of Girl By Moonlight. Long overdue. We only made it through the obligation and downtime phases, which means that next session will start with the mission. This group is aaaallll about the feels. Lots of vulnerability, acceptance, disappointment, loneliness, worry, love, fear etc etc etc. Janus joined a bridge tournament at the local senior rec center, accepted the tutelage of Esther Lastnameunknown, and found new rivals in the team of Charlotte Lastnameunknown (no relation) + Ruth Cogwell, Splendiferous’s auntie (shakes fist angrily and curses). Nif had to deal with the fallout of Helios being touched by the Dreaming; he started having vision of Atompunk Virgin Mary, which led her to discover the nascent revival of the enigmatic Our Lady of the Atom. Nif also solicited Janus for help building an ambulatory robot garden for easily moving her carrots from the lab to outdoors, a task to which she immediately fully devoted herself, reluctantly enlisting the help of Splendiferous Cogwell. Cary forgot about trying to be a human and picked a fight with Sensei Gutierez, who had confronted her about stealing a bunch of mats and weapons from the student center. They agreed to a fight, and she soundly beat him, and then agreed to work with him teaching the kindergartners in the community class. Caliope spent some time getting emotionally abused by her mother, and then trained for a while with Ky, who revealed that Verdade (the Dreaming entity that chose Cali as their avatar, but with whom they have so far been unable to fuse) was the leader of the Dream Rebellion, and was maimed in battle. Cali considered the fact that they are both crippled, and considered her own inner Hero.
Following up our last session, we dive straight into the Mission phase and battle a weird airplane creature that when it stands up is a four stories tall kaiju. Everybody starts doing their thing: Concordia starts singing to soothe it, Lykos starts punching furiously, Calliope starts trying to lead the creature away from the citizens with coffee shop pastries, and Cronos does science and time manipulation to find weaknesses and protect people. My most favorite thing that Cronos has managed to pull off to date: creating a great time travel paradox, Janus appears in the cockpit of the creature and starts wrestling with the pilot even while Cronos is battling the creature with the rest of the gang. The creature is eventually subdued and de-morphs to reveal a passed out woman in military fatigues. We take her to the abandoned trailer in the back of the Arbys parking lot. She turns out to be Captain Alice Ramos. Several pilots have gone missing over the bay, coinciding with the appearance of more ‘creatures’. Somehow Storm Industries is involved. (Founded in the 1980s by Santa Marta alumni Albert Storm.) In the meantime we find out that during the battle, there was some kind of explosion at the old physics building, the site of the re-emergence of Our Lady of the Atom. Good sesh! Felt like the Mystery is starting to pull us deeper into its embrace.
So following up last session, Cary is battered and bruised and passes out in class during an exam because they didn’t take care of themself. The paramedics carry them off to the emergency room, and the whole gang and the whole extended family all flocks to their side. There are some strong hints at Verdade almost crossing over to this side via Calliope. Nif tries to have some sexy times with Helios but keeps getting interrupted while trying to “plant the carrot.” Janus discovers that her mentor Moonflower aka Dr. Tabitha Day was instrumental in founding Our Lady Of The Atom (an organization created to criticize zealotry and idolatry in the science community) back in the 70s with Albert Storm of Storm Industries (evil!) and the mysterious Agatha Vogel. Vogel suffered some kind of accident back in the day. Tabitha knows where she is, but isn’t telling. And also Vogel is somehow connected to Kai and the “conduit” that it uses to connect to the Dreaming. The gang decides to split up, with Nif and Cary going to the bay to investigate the anomaly that is turning people into airplanes; and Janus and Cali are going to the abandoned and now mostly demolished physics building that seems to be at the epicenter of the re-emerging Our Lady of the Atom.
Fronds of Benevolence is a game of Troika! that I started playing on Thu, 01 Feb 2024 16:35:10 -0700 as a DM. It is a netnews + irc play-by-post Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
Not going to be able update this every time I play a “session” because it’s play by post, and there aren’t really sessions. But I did make the first post to the news server. I’ll make an update here every couple of posts to keep track of things. Maybe every couple of weeks. Hope this works out! It is already a fun experiment in using new (ha) technologies for roleplaying!
Last Things Last is a game of Delta Green that I started playing on Wed, 20 Mar 2024 09:45:35 -0600 as a Player. It is a discord voice + video, foundryvtt Campaign and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
Session zero-ish. Did some character building. I made Tuesday Pryor, paranormal investigator, cryptozoologist, and podcast host.
session one of D-Green. We are the lowly middling P Cell, assembled to investigate the untimely death of agent Baughman and determine if any leak needs to be covered up or damage control needs to be done. I am playing Tuesday Pryor, paranormal investigator, cryptozoologist, and hit podcast host. codename posssum. (after one of her favorite cryptids, the Appomattox Possum; a giant bipedal possum.) didn’t get very far, but we examined Baughman’s house, found only a few minorly creepy things, and then drove out to his cabin in the woods, where things are about to get spooky.
Fun sesh! We snooped around Baughman’s cabin and found some clues and stuff that lead us to zombie Marlene trapped in a buried tank in the backyard. Possum wanted to free her and help her. Parkour wanted to torch her right away, with Parliament joining his side. Persimmon was neutral until he found out that she is undead. Possum lied to the group and told them that the handler gave them extra time. Possum and Persimmon went to go study some files, and Parkour is probably going to torch Marlene.
Dark Conspiracy is a game of Die 100 Times that I started playing on Wed, 20 Mar 2024 09:46:56 -0600 as a Player. It is a discord play by post Adventure and is currently Ongoing.
Here is how it went!
Kicking off a new play-by-post game with Sean and the boys. Kind of playing the same character that I’m playing in this new Delta Green game. Die A Hundred Times is probably the smallest working d100 ruleset for BRP/COC style games: https://alexandre-kobayashi.itch.io/die-a-hundred-times