Last Day of the Year

Yes, the obligatory year in review post! Luckily, it's going to be short. There's not a lot to review.

So this year, I started the year off by getting back to work on Chanbara with a new revision mostly from the ground up. I'm now happy with that revision (a few things need tweaking, and I'm still undecided on how much setting info to include, and whether to revise the adventure/campaign advice chapter). I'm going to start play-testing it both on G+ with the guys, and on RPOL. Anyone interested in joining? So far, one guy, a friend of friends from two other RPOL games, has agreed to play. If you want to try it out, here's the link:

http://rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=65385&date=1449791951

Other than that, there's not much gaming related to say. I tried to get a GamMarvel World (Gamma World in the Marvel Comics Universe) game going, but got sidetracked by real life. I tried to get my Mentzer Cover to Cover series going again, but got sidetracked by real life. I tried to game as often as possible, but usually got sidetracked by real life.

Well, them's the breaks when you're trying to adjust to a new job (teaching at a university instead of a kindergarten), work on a PhD dissertation (more to come in 2016!), and raise two boys (one seven, the other one-and-a-half).

Happy New Year to all of my readers, and I hope you all have great gaming experiences in 2016!

D&D Winter Workshop

Today was Day 2 (of 10) of my "Developing Communication Skills through Role Play" special workshop class. What do we do in the workshop? Play D&D, of course!

I'm using a slightly different set of house rules for my students, because they are all learning to play and in a second language. But it's still Classic D&D.

I have six people registered for the class. Five came yesterday, but only four today. Yesterday I introduced the game, its history (briefly, and some basic concepts. Then I let them explore the solo dungeon from the Basic Set.

The Fighter lost her plate armor to the rust monster, the Halfling was killed by a skeleton (the player then picked a Magic-user fro the pre-gens), and the whole party lost its treasure to the magic mouth riddle.

Today, 3 Thieves and a Magic-user  (the Fighter's player didn't come) started in on N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

Even though the people at the first plae they visited warned them not to stay there, they spent the night at the Golden Grain Inn and were captured by the cultists.

When taken before the naga, only one was charmed. The magic-user of course! (The player is taking his bad luck in stride.) The others were put in a cell and when they came up with a plan to escape, I made the MU be the guard they unarmed sneak attacked to escape.

They had met the ranger in town briefly, so I had him rescue them from the marsh and take them to town and advise them to see Ramne the NPC Magic-user. They did, but his dispel magic failed to free the PC MU of the charm.

The player said he will try a new character tomorrow. :)