Mysteries of Montreal

 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...

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...

A couple of weeks ago now, we played our first game as a family. Seemed to go really well. The Big 'un got really into it, the Lil 'un, took a little more convincing to interact with the game, but I think she'll come round to this way of playing with a little practice. In terms of a review of the system, and book, I am very happy. The game system is simple enough to be easy to understand and play. The rules are clearly written out, and easy to follow. The book has plenty of colour illustrations to make it fun, to give inspiration. Also, the character sheets have a nice large space for you to draw and colour your pony, which was a real draw for all the players round the table, and is a good way to help with the immersion. Glitter is a must. For the adventure supplied at the back of the book, it gets players right into the lore, and gives plenty of points of reference to the show's mythos. It also has a cliffhanger ending that slots right into the next written adv...

Time to introduce the new generation of table-top gamers. I've been looking for a means to get the girls playing RPGs for a while, and have toyed with various entry points. Finally, I spoke to the boss , and she agreed that My Little Pony: Tails of Equestria would probably be a hit, so I finally bought a copy last weekend. I had been holding off on going all in on this game, not because I wasn't sure they'd like it, but because I'm not well versed in the MLP lore. I mean, you want me to run a years long campaign in Middle Earth, Lovecraft Country, pretty much any historical era, Pulp, Superheroes, or many other genres? Sure, you got it! But run a game in Equestria? Ummm... Since there weren't many adventures around for the game, which I would need, I'd not bothered to pick it up, but now there are three seperate adventure books and a bestiary that have been released, so those will help take the pressure off me, as I won't need to write anything for a...