Mysteries of Montreal

Each year, I try to play and run new games. Sometimes they make it into the permanent rotation, sometimes they do not, but it has been a part of my gaming life since the very start, as the group I grew up with were always open to try new things.  This year, I'm trying out something new, I'm going to sit with my gaming group and planning to discuss their expectations and wishes for the next year in terms of gaming. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that 2 of my players may be taking a break from the gaming table. They already drive over an hour to come to play with us each week, but life changes mean that that may not be feasible for the next while (maybe years). Secondly, one of my players has stepped back from or Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign as she is already playing the same campaign with another group. I have suggested ways round this, but she prefers not to make her life complicated by playing in both, and I respect that decision. So that would mean I...

Another bumper year of gaming, with 93 sessions over the last 52 weeks, 30 as a GM, 63 as a player.  A few gaming highlights were playing Legend of the 5 Rings (1e) with John Wick as GM in January (that's a post of its own). 2024 was of course a NecronomiCon year, which brought a bunch of Highlights (I'm going to call out 2 games with Oscar Rios as the games that have stuck with me). This was also the year when I started to run Masks of Nyarlathotep again, and getting through 2 chapters, plus a couple of self insert mini chapters was also fun, however, since there is a new prologue chapter of the campaign, I am yet to reach mu own high tide mark for running that campaign (London), but we are a total of 18 sessions in all so far, with more to come in the new year.  Special mentions also to Ten Candles, Heirs to Heresy and Deathmatch Island as games that I really want to play/run again. Now, on to the facts and figures. Games Played Games Ran In that selection of games for 2024...

  I've joined the Wood-Paneled Webring .  What is that you ask? well, it's a TTRPG webring for creators, artists designers etc. Oh, you mean what's a webring ? Well, gather round children and let me tell you a tale of the old ways. In the before days of the internet, back in the 1900's there was no Google, there was just Jeeves. It was in this time that the webrings were formed, from the very elementary units of the initial internet. They allowed you to find sites of interest to you by grouping these sites together, and adding a little link box somewhere to allow you to follow the trail of ethereal breadcrumbs from one site to the next.  Why this exercise in nostalgia? Well, for the same reasons as I initially started this blog, communication. As the social media landscape as we know it crumbles and fractions and continues its route to silofication. As search engines are eaten alive by the AIs developed to improve them. Where are we to turn but to the old ways. The ways...

As I mentioned ever so briefly here, back in the review of games played for last year, I have been involved in the playtesting of FiveEvil. This is a game based on the d20 system of the "fifth edition of the most popular TTRPG on the market", aka 5e. FiveEvil takes this base game that many people know and love, and modifies the system and rules to allow the game to work for a horror setting.  The game is currently under development through Handiwork Games . 5e is often used as a system to run any type of game. Mostly because it is the biggest game in the TTRPG space, and has therefore has the largest player base. However, any time the though of using 5e to run a horror game comes up online, this raises the hackles of the horror game community, as at its heart, 5e D&D is a heroic fantasy game where character  agency is front and centre, whereas horror games require putting that character agency on the back burner, and put them in situations where they do not feel in contr...

I am looking to start a Vaesen campaign. This will be a novelty to me in two ways. One it's a new game to me, and secondly, I plan to co-GM this with another of the members of our Thursday gaming group.  We both want to run the game, but as with all games like this, we both also want to play. Moreover, Vaesen is a game where if you have read the adventure, you can't play it. More so that many other games. And the other co-GM had already read a bunch of the scenarios, and so can't play them. With that in mind, I will run through The Lost Mountain Saga , and they will run other, interweaving adventures. Vaesen will hopefully work well for this with The Society being great for this kind of troupe play. With that in mind, I set off looking for a Vaesen character sheet. There is one freely available on the Free League website , but it's kind of basic, and there are surprisingly few variants out there. It's also not form-fillable. So I made it so. Link to the form fillabl...