Looking Ahead

Happy New Year, everyone! I know it's a little early to wish everyone this, but if you look at my posting rate this month, it shouldn't be a surprise. 

2024 wasn't a great year over all, but gaming wise, it was pretty good. My TS&R Jade campaign is going well. Everyone is enjoying it. My side campaign of Star Wars d6 is also going well. We just played it yesterday, and had a good time. The Call of Cthulhu game was pretty fun, and hopefully it continues into next year [This one isn't actually a campaign, as we make new characters for each scenario]. And here and there, we got to try out a few smaller games as one-shots. 

In the realm of play-by-post, the long running 1E game had a reboot, with new PCs starting at level 1. It's not so bad, when the other option was the DM shutting the game down. I really enjoyed playing my primary PC in that game, but at times I was thinking it was time to retire him anyway. The one 5E game I still play there has been pretty slow due to the DM's real life schedule, and honestly, I keep forgetting to post there. I got into the ground floor of a RECON game, but different player styles/expectations frustrated the GM, and now maybe one of the players will take over. We'll see. 

The two games I'm running there, Gamma World and Star Wars d6, are moving along just fine. 

Looking forward into 2025, I see these trends continuing. Well, hopefully the 5E game picks up the pace a bit. Otherwise, things seem to be going well gaming wise. 

On the game design front, I'm plugging away at Flying Swordsmen 2E. Over the weekend, I made some character templates as the equipment chapter was kinda boring me. I'd been somewhat reluctant to get into the weeds of templates, but so far, it's been kinda fun trying to figure out the basics of different martial arts/wuxia stock characters within the framework of the game I'm creating. 

The other thing that's been on my mind lately is an idea I've had of converting the Isle of Dread for my TS&R Jade campaign. It would be a fairly superficial thing, but at the same time it would take a fair amount of rewriting. I'd want to change the Isle's native culture to be less Polynesian and more SE Asian in nature. And of course the wandering monster tables and a few of the encounter areas would need to be reworked to include more SE Asian style monsters along with all the dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasts. 

But do I really want to put the breaks on the local campaign to send the players off to a multi-session arc on the Isle of Dread? I mean, it's a fun module, but I'm not so sure it's the right thing for the group. Maybe I'll make some notes and then throw a few rumors/hooks their way. If they bite, I'll finish fleshing out the idea. If not, then I'll drop the idea.

My first 40 years as a role player

Today, I turned 51 years old. And, as I've mentioned on numerous previous birthdays (and probably numerous "how did you get into gaming" posts), I got my Mentzer Basic Set for my 11th birthday. So I've been a D&D and other RPGs player for four decades now. 

For the first decade, 1984 to 1994, I both ran and played BECMI with my friends and family. We also ran a lot of Star Frontiers. We also played some AD&D of both the 1E and 2E variety, but not that much. And occasionally we'd play, or at least make characters but never get around to playing, lots of other games. Gamma World. Star Wars d6. Cyberpunk 2020. TMNT and Other Strangeness. Marvel Superheroes. I'm sure there are others we tried or at least sampled that I'm forgetting. We played a LOT of BECMI D&D though. Tales of this decade are labeled as The Old BECMI Group, obviously.

For the second decade, 1994 to 2004, after a bit of interruption in RPG play due to Magic: The Gathering and not wanting to associate with the campus Gaming Guild who embodied most of the negative gamer stereotypes that were out there at the time, I got back into gaming with a group that played a mix of 1E/2E AD&D. Then I went to Japan, and by the time I got a group to game with, 3E had just come out. So we dove into the world of the d20 system, playing 3E D&D and a bit of d20 Modern and d20 Star Wars. The final few years of this era, I had moved to a different part of Japan, and started gaming on RPOL.net since I hadn't found a group to play with there. These tales are under the Evansville Group (1E/2E), and Toyama Group (initial 3E stuff) tags.

From 2004 to 2014, I got in with a group playing in Tokyo. Again, we mostly played d20 stuff, including 3E, d20 Modern, and d20 Conan. But through this group, I also got to try a variety of Forge-style story games, and also it rekindled my love of old school D&D. I also got involved (finally) with some local gamers, and we played some Abberant (an obscure White Wolf game), 3E, and old school D&D. We also developed Presidents of the Apocalypse, which I know I've mentioned many times before, but no, it will probably never get released because it's so scattershot. In the middle of this era, I moved to Korea. For a few years, the emphasis was on board games, but eventually I got some old school D&D going, using the house rules that have by now evolved into Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins. I also got to try 4E and we sampled a few One Page and microlite RPGs, played a bit of Gamma World (the 4E D&D stuff AND classic GW), Pathfinder 1E, and a few other games here and there. I continued to game on RPOL, and also got to sample various OSR offerings through online realtime play (Google Meet, when that was a thing). I also developed, play tested, and released Flying Swordsmen. You can find these stories in the tags Ebisu and Yamanashi Gamers for the Japan era, and Busan Gamers for the Korea era.

My fourth decade, 2014 to today, coincides with the release of 5E D&D, and I've played it a fair amount. As a player, it's fun. As a DM? Not so much. So I've mostly stuck to my TS&R old school D&D rules as a DM. And I've been running my d6 Star Wars game for many years now. As a player, there have been a wealth of games and game systems, that are face to face, online realtime, and play by post. While I've mostly given up on 5E (except for a really good game on RPOL), my TS&R game and SW d6 game are both going well. I've sampled lots of OSR and micro-games, both in person and online. I've recently started both a Gamma World and Star Wars game on RPOL. And very recently, just joined a game of RECON. I developed, play tested, and released Chanbara, and have recently finished up releasing everything to make TS&R a complete game that others can play. I've been too busy to post about that. These last few years of gaming can again be found under the Busan Gamers tag, as will most games I post about going into my fifth decade of gaming. 

The first 40 years of gaming have been on the whole really good. I'm excited for the next 40 years!