When a unique mechanic becomes too much. I am a huge fan of interesting mechanics in role playing games. Drawing playing cards to make my character in Deadlands: Hell on Earth? Yes, please. It beats rolling dice. Will my character do crazy stunts just to get Hero Points? Of course. The problem I'm running into is when the unique features of the game get in the way of the game itself: the ridiculous amount of dice you roll in Exalted that takes forever to figure out the amount of damage you do, the ten thousand D&D feats that stack, and, the one that sparked this post, the stupid amount of ..read more

Enjoying something I didn't think I would. So, I've been watching this D&D actual play TV Show called Encounter Party. The title isn't new to me because I've been following one of the actors for years. Actually, that's a lie. I've been friends with one of the actors for years (hi, Sarah!). We gamed together in college and I'm super proud of her for achieving this. I started watching the show because I wanted to support a friend, I didn't think I would enjoy watching people play a game when I wasn't a part of it. Boy, was I wrong. The opening to the show introduced us to the actors and the ..read more

My dice dragon is judging me. Last year I made a bunch of resolutions about getting back to where I was before I got burned out on gaming. I was trying to re-find my joy and spark with the hobby. Of the five resolutions I made, I failed all of them. Now part of this is the fact that I don't enjoy most of the board games my group plays for a couple of reasons: either there are too many people so it gets overwhelming and loud or we've played the game so many times that it is boring. Sometimes, both of those are true at the same time (I'm looking at you, Red Dragon Inn). The other part of me fai ..read more

We recently had to game at a local game store. Our group is in the middle of a huge side quest and our GM had a huge building he wanted to set up for us that wouldn't fit on our normal table. And yes, the side quest is in Hackmaster, a system most of us have never played in before. It got me thinking. I've played just about everywhere in my time as a gamer: larping at conventions, game stores during regular hours, the basement of a dorm, conference rooms at college, private residences, and game stores after close (the perk of running the store myself). And each location lends itself to a diff ..read more

Feeling a bit nostalgic. The hubby and I started watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. I was not prepared for all the feels when the title sequence started up. Because that's the sound of my childhood. I grew up on both Star Trek and Star Wars. My mom didn't discriminate because space was space. It wasn't until I was an adult that I learned that there was a divide in the fandoms. If you asked me to pick as a child, I would've fallen firmly in the Star Wars camp. Original trilogy for the win. I think that's because I watched less of it. There were more Star Trek shows and movies that were sh ..read more

Enjoying the way I game. I'm having a bit of FOMO. I'm looking at pictures of my friends from Gamehole Con and realizing how much my gaming has changed. I miss the old school way. When I started gaming in college, I joined a group of theater majors. That meant accents, props, and music were a huge part of our gaming sessions. It even meant there were a few sessions where we didn't roll a single die. Two examples come to mind: a session of 7th Sea where our group was kidnapped by the Fey and forced to write a play and Little Fears where our characters were out trick or treating and looking for ..read more

The downside to playing it like a John Woo film. I ended up having a long talk with my GM after the last session of Pathfinder where I may have called a god a not so nice name in his temple and almost got the party killed. Luckily, we had a bunch of plot twist cards that got us out of trouble and he had two weeks to figure out exactly what that would look like. What it looks like is that my character's Goddess manipulated time (or just warned us in our dreams, that part's a little fuzzy) so that we are basically doing the dungeon over. But there was a full "keep your mouth shut" aspect to the ..read more

I almost got my entire gaming group killed last weekend, and I'm not all that sorry. For reference, I've been playing this character on and off for five years (we took some time off to play 5e D&D). I am the last of the original group of characters, at least until one of them comes back from planes hopping. Sita's powerful and has made some powerful enemies. A bit of advice I got when I first started playing back in college was to play my character like I was in a John Woo film. And to me that meant that I should play my character without fear. If my actions killed me, so be it, it's just ..read more

One of my friends, Rob, does this thing where after going to a convention, he does a whole write-up of his thoughts on how it went. Having just been to Gen Con for the first time in five years, I'm rolling with the idea. Highlight: Writers' Symposium having much more diverse panels. And they finally fixed the way their name was written so it is plural and possessive. Low light: My friends' badges. We started the convention with someone forgetting theirs at home and one "lost" theirs halfway through the convention. Best bargain (had to buy, no freebies): Writers' Symposium thumb drive. It has ..read more

My gaming group just did character creation for Cyberpunk Red last week. And I was a bit torn about starting a new system. On one hand, I had a pretty cool character idea I wanted to make, but on the other, I did not want to go through a long, drawn out character creation process for a character I'm going to realize that I messed up making. Because it happens way more often than I want to admit. Now, I'm a sucker for gimmicks. I love Smallville specifically for the interrelated character creation mind map. Twenty questions from Legend of the Five Rings? I'm in. Cyberpunk Red has three differe ..read more