Mysteries of Montreal

The year has come to a close, and as I have done for the last few years, I will review my gaming over the last twelve months. Overall, I managed a cool 88 session. This year, there were no extracurriculars, only my regular gaming groups. Games Played Of the games played this year, of course, the most sessions were committed to the One Ring. This has been a stalwart game since 2020, with 111 sessions under our belt to this point. We are nowhere near the end of the Darkening of Mirkwood (plus extras) campaign, but we're also in no rush to complete it. . The game I enjoyed most for system was Jackals . This is a BRP-like system that reminded me of the old Stormbringer in terms of character abilities, this really hit a nostalgia spot I was not expecting. The game was dropped for reasons of unwieldly lore for the GM to deal with. From there we moved to Black Sword Hack , which while much more Moorcockian in feel, is very far from the Strombringer RPG. Games Run Those following along at ...

 RPG a Day 2024, day 25: Desirable dice ? I'm actually not a big one for dice. Of course I have a collection amassed over the last 30 odd years, but it's surprisingly sparse compared to many. My favourites? Well, i still have the first set of dice I bough from Beatties, a defunct hobby store, possibly in Falkirk or Stirling. I really like them. I think the d20 isn't the original, but the others are all there. As for more modern sets, I do like the dice for the One Ring, but the 1e sets over the 2e sets.

At a recent trip to my FLGS , I was browsing through a new influx of previously loved games. There was what looked to be the whole series of Zweihander (I will not post a link to that, if you know you know), but I do not have either the space mentally, or physically for those books in my house. What I did find that was of interest, was the almost complete set of the 2000's version of Dragon Warriors . I had heard of the original British RPG, but I have never seen or played it. These books I did pick up, as the price was more than reasonable. So I am now the owner of an almost complete run. Only book not to be included in the hoard was In From the Cold . Apart from hearing of this system through podcasts like the Grognard files , the main reason I picked these up was due to the wonderful Jon Hodgson covers. I did buy the Fabled Lands books that were released back in the 80s, by the same author, and I thought they were a clever take on the choose your own adventure genre. I have fl...

 RPG a Day 2024, day 13: Evocative Environments The One ring, either 1st edition, with the hugely evocative art of Jon Hodgson et al, or 2nd edition with the reliance of adventure sites as hubs for scenarios, there is so much going on in this game to make the environment a part of the game at the table, which is so very in keeping with the source material.  Journeys are part of the adventure cycle, and as such, players interact with the environment for both good and ill on a regular basis, and it really helps with the immersion into Middle Earth.

 RPG a Day, day 5: An RPG with great writing ? I must admit, no matter which game it is, I very rarely read much of the fiction in there, nor do I tend to read them start to finish in any strict way. I get a new RPG and I'll start by flicking through, then honing in on the bits I need to know. I use them as technical manuals, rather than reading material, as that is what they are. So for this category, I'll treat them as such, and with that in mind, the best, most accessible RPG I've read is likely either version of the One Ring, specifically the adventures, and the Darkening of Mirkwood campaign. I have not read much, as I am still playing through it, but what I have read is so economical and to the point it's easy to get the information you require for any of the adventures quickly. There is not a lot of text to dig through, which means a couple of things. You get a nice long campaign in quite a thin book, but it does also mean that it is not a campaign I would sugges...

 RPD a Day: day 3, Most often played game? Why is the often in bold? Is that to take emphasis away from the word played? Does a GM count as a player? If so, then the answer is by far Call of Cthulhu. Hands down, over the last few years since I got back into RPGs steadily in 2017, I've ran more Call of Cthulhu than any other game (over a hundred sessions), and I've ran more games than I've played. Now, if the word played is taken to mean only games where I am rolling the bones in front of the screen, then we need to go to the stats. These are not all games played in the last few years, but only the top hitters. Surprising me, is that both Heirs to Heresy and DCC beat out call of Cthulhu. Mothership also makes a good show for itself. 5e is up there in third, mostly due to playing through the Witchlight campaign. Numenera is in second place with a stunning 51 sessions played, and still going, but I'm very happy that top place goes to The One Ring, due to the masterful Dark...

A Happy New Year to you all.  As is my wont, I tracked my gaming process throughout the year, and here we have the annual summary of events.  This last year saw a return to the GM seat, after the completion of a long running Witchlight Campaign where I played Beaghan, the Fairy Bard. This means I had a total of 23 sessions as GM, and 65 as a player. Slightly fewer sessions overall from last year, but still a great amount of gaming was done. One highlight was getting back round a table for face to face gaming on a regular schedule, at one point having 8 people round the table, as there are three of our group who do not like to play online. This has calmed down to a more manageable 6-7 regulars, which is still a good sized group, that allows us to continue even through some members being unavailable. It seems the time taken to build up the group has payed off. In terms of new games tried, there were a whopping 11 new games/systems that hit the table for me this year. Three of th...

 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 ...

 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...

My first RPG was MERP. Middle Earth Role-Playing. Well, actually it wasn't it was Road Hogs, a supplement for TMNT. But lets just skip that for a moment and say that the first game I bought and ran was MERP. We played that game for years, running at least 1 set of characters all the way up to level 10. That may not sound like much, but in MERP, that was pretty huge. I still have all the books, though my original MERP book is now in a well thumbed ring-binder, as the glue on the binding game up the ghost a long time ago. If there is an RPG that will be buried with me, it'll be a copy of MERP (as well as Call of Cthulhu). Add on top of that Tolkien's books, and the films, which I am now passing on to my kids, one could say I have a lot of fondness for gaming in Middle Earth. However, there was a bit of a lull in my TTRPG gaming for a few years as I moved into minis gaming, as they could be played with no prep, and the painting side of the hobby could be done so...