Mysteries of Montreal

 Hey look, it's that blog that posts once a year! Whoo, must be 2023! This year was another bumper year for games. With a total of 17 session ran, and 76 sessions played. The trend of me getting to play more that I run, is continuing. As we seem to be coming out of the pandemic, more of the games I ran were actually face to face games. A trend I foresee continuing into the new year, however, the online gaming aspect, even for the local gaming group will remain something we fall back on, especially to allow everyone to play/run games. In terms of what games I ran? Well, there were a total of 7 different games/systems (8 if you count Pulp Cthulhu as different from Call of Cthulhu, but let's just say it's the same thing). All but one of these were one-shot games. Filling in space in the calendar, or allowing others to take a break in their schedules, with the exception of the One Ring (2e). This I ran as the mini-campaign in the boxed set, then a few sessions at the end of the...

 As with 2020, 2021, for all it's problems, was a bumper year for gaming. Even more so as the local gaming group I like to think I have fostered includes others willing to run games, meaning even more so than last year, I played more sessions than I ran (34 sessions ran, 63 session played). I like to think there is an increase in diversity too, as I moved away from regular Call of Cthulhu games that dominated last years tally .  The year started with a few final sessions of the Mothership campaign, 'A Pound of Flesh', which I fully intend to return to with the new edition of the rules . Most sessions of the other games ran were one-shots, and space fillers (Mork Borg and SLA Industries, Call of Cthulhu: The Necropolis), which were player favourites. There was one longer Call of Cthulhu scenario, 'The Darkened Hermitage' which we ran as a play test. A solid scenario, based in Quebec. Most of this year's GMing was linked to the Bounty Hunters Campaign, using West ...

A recent conversation with my home group pulled into focus a desire I have to run or play a bunch of the games I currently own. Pulling my books out of storage to populate some nice new bookshelves, has  also meant that I have a visual on the games I own, and want to play. So, I am formulating a list of games to offer to my players. What I will do is offer them in pairs, and get them to chose one. The full list is as follows: Escape from Dino Island Mork Borg Star Wars WEG d6 version WFRP Lasers and Feelings Everyone is John Kids on Bikes Tales from the Loop These games are going to be split into the following pairs: The One Shot Escape from Dino Island A powered by the Apocalypse Engine RPG system, which is one I have not tried, but really think I should. This is basically a Jurassic Park game, made with one-shots firmly in mind, and requires no prep to run, as the table designs the set-up together.   MÖRK BORG This is a very different game . Players are scummy villainous dir...

 This past year has been many, many things. Most of which are outside the remit of this here blog, so I shall pass them by without another word.  What this year has been for me, and for many others, is an eye-opener in terms of how accessible gaming has become online. This has meant that not only have I run as many games as I would have in a normal year (maybe even a few sessions more) but I have played a lot more gaming sessions than I have in decades, AND a lot more variety of games than I have since just as long. Rather than list them all out, let's see the numbers. This year, I have played in a whopping 48. Forty eight gaming sessions this year alone. Just to give you an idea, last year I played in 13 sessions of various RPGs, and 5 of those were at Necronomicon. I think the year before I managed 2! What have I been playing? Well, looky here... Of those games played, I am very happy to have finally got in a game of Fiasco . It went very well, and am looking to get more gam...

As mentioned previously , Games Workshop are re-releasing older books in their back-catalogue. I really enjoyed " Drachenfels ",  so this was a great opportnity to increase my Old World lore, get my oldhammer fix, and read some good stories. As I mentioned in my last post on the subject, there is " Drachenfels " and " Genevieve Undead ", to which I have now added " Beasts in Velvet " and " Silver Nails ". If you only read one of these four books, make it Beasts in Velvet. There is so much going on in this book in terms of plot threads and characters for you to mine for your game, you could get a whole campaign out of it. This book makes the Old World come alive in your mind. Silver Nails is a great follow up, where the author shows us other little vignettes for the characters we have come to know and love, showing their further adventures. There is also pay-off in the final book that explains what was a non-sequitous plot thread in one...

I did not come up through the D&D route of RPGs, so the random table was not something I used at the table unless for very certain circumstances, mostly as outcomes to certain in-game happenings: Sanity loss in CoC; mutations in WFRP, that kind of thing. I of course knew about random encounter tables and the like, but I did not use them. For me, encounters had to fit with the story.  However, I was running a session of  ' Tails of Equestria ', where I was looking to beef up a session that was going too fast, so I overcame my hesitancy, and rolled on the table. The resulting encounter led to some cool role-playing by the players, and I was very happy with the way it worked out. This was enough to turn me round on what I had previously thought would be something that would just be too random to add to the story being told. Jump forward a year or two, and I've been looking through a bunch of OSR games, some of which contain nothing but a bunch of random event tables. My ne...

 This thread was started on twitter by @SKenson. I don't do twitter, so I'm doing it here.  "my personal wish-list of tabletop roleplaying games to play in or run, if I had unlimited time, energy, and resources..." To this I'd add "and have the right group." Don't get me wrong, I love my players, but not all players fit all games and vice versa. I think some of the games I want to run on this list are because I don't think they'd fly with some or all of my current players. Since this is a wish list, I'm going to avoid the games of which I have had a current fix, and can most easily get moving, which is currently Call of Cthulhu , The One Ring , Vampire  and Mothership . Alright, let's see... I have never played, run or read any of the Pelgrane Gumshoe games, While the latter is easily rectified, I would really like to finally get to play one of them. I could make a top 10 list of which specific ones I'd like to play, but let's...