I did this last year and had lots of fun, so I’m bringing it back for an encore.
From March 1-17, 2010, I’ll be hosting the a St. Patrick’s Day RPG Blog Carnival.
- Who: Open to any and all RPG/Hobby Gaming blogs (RPG-related content preferred).
- What: Write a post on anything dealing with RPGs/gaming and all things Irish. As long as your post is about Ireland/Irish stuff and gaming, it’s cool.
- When: Your post must be published on or before Wednesday, March 17, 2010. As soon as you publish, leave a link to it in the comments of this post. Feel free to use the graphic provided on your posts as well.
I will collect all the posts and publish a round-up on Wednesday, March 17 (though if I have at least 3 posts by St Patty’s morning, I’ll publish the round-up and update as I can during the day).
You can see the post roundup for last year’s St. Patrick’s Day.
I hope you’ll join me and celebrate the Emerald Isle. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section.
Something has been made clear to me from the discussions we’ve had here in the past month or so due to my posts on the Lady Blackbird game and now on the post about Vampire: people want to hurt my characters, “beat the living snot” out of them, as was put by both Mick and Rich. The reason for this is that they both feel that the characters they have seen of mine in a game have been Machiavellian double-crossers playing both sides of the game. And they are absolutely right.
I’d never really stopped to think about it until Mick pointed it out in an in-character comment on his blog in which he called my character, Kale Arkam, a “manipulative loudmouth prick who thinks he knows more than everyone else in the Blue.” That got me thinking, as I wasn’t actively trying to play Kale as manipulative, though he certainly was playing both sides of the equation. This is also the case with my character in the Star Wars Primetime Adventures game we’ve played at Gen Con, Obi-Wan Skywalker, who has been revealed to be both aiding the Rebellion and be in league with the evil Sith lord, Dark Ackbar, at the same time.
So I started thinking back to other characters I have played in the past, and though it isn’t an universal constant, I came up with other characters cut from the same cloth, including an ex-Imperial Scout Trooper who had defected to the Rebellion in a game of Star Wars D6 back in the early 90s. I guess to this I can add all the NPCs I played in our late-90s Vampire chronicle, as well as my main NPC character in the Changeling chronicle, and even my D&D character from the legendary campaign we played while in high school. All these characters have one thing in common: they all walk the line between good and evil.
Cue Alien Sex Fiend here.
Read more…
DriveThruRPG took an amazing initiative last week by offering $5 donation and $10 donation options for Haiti relief which would be matched dollar for dollar by OneBookShelf. Wanting to find a way to help out as well, publishers asked OBS what they could do, and the result is something that can only be called inspiring.
As of today, and for the rest of January, DriveThruRPG and a multitude of publisher partners, are offering the Gamers Helping Haiti $20 Donation Bundle. When you “purchase” this product, you donate $20 to Doctors Without Borders, the recipient charity of all donations collected via DriveThruRPG. As a gift, you get a bundle of products worth over $1400.
This is a win-win situation, as you help out a worthy cause and get some amazing RPG products for your collection. You have until January 31 to get it, so don’t let it pass.
My company, Highmoon Games, is proud to have included four products in the bundle for all those who help out:
- Liber Sodalitas: The Dream Healers (Pathfinder)
- Shrouded Agendas: The Purifiers (D&D 4e)
- From Stone to Steel (OGL 3.5 Fantasy)
- Frost & Fur (OGL 3.5 Fantasy)
The last two will only be available via the bundle and will go back to being “out of print” at the end of January.
Let’s all be a part of Gamers Helping Haiti.
Gareth-Michael Skarka asked about roleplaying via Skype in a recent comment, and though he received some info from my fellow players in the Lady Blackbird game, which was conducted via Skype, I told him I’d write a post about it from the point of view of a newbie to the medium, given this was my first time playing that way.
In general, I am very happy having Skype as a new tool in my gaming box. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t replace face-to-face, in-person gaming, but it is far more engaging than play-by-post/-email, both of which I have done in the past few years and had mixed results with.
Read more…
I normally wouldn’t do this, but I was inspired after listening to episode 82 of The Canon Puncture Show to reminisce quickly about 2009 in gaming and make some resolutions for 2010.
2009 Gaming Moments
Strangely enough, in the midst of all the turmoil the year brought, I had some really good gaming moments, and I am very thankful for those because in very real ways they kept me sane when I was dealing with some really heavy stuff.
At the top is the Primetime Adventures Star Wars Sith Triumvirate game I played while in Puerto Rico over the Spring and Summer. Born out of a failed Star Wars d20 session, it took four players who had never done any kind of “indie”/collaborative narration-style gaming and produced a heck of a story that engaged every single one of us and introduced them to a whole new world of roleplaying games. It was a pleasure to play with old friends with whom I had hack-n-slashed my way across the Basic D&D Known World in high school, as well as with new friends with whom I now have a shared history in a galaxy far, far away.
My other game for the year is the Lady Blackbird game played over Skype with my buddies from the Canon Puncture show. It was hard to keep up at times, especially because for a while I was in Puerto Rico, or had just gotten back after Mom passed away and playing was just not in my headspace, but these guys both fought on to keep the game going and kept reaching out to me when I needed friends to do that. The game has been fantastic, full of rich characters and surprising story, and I count myself fortunate for being a part of it.
2010 Gamer Resolutions
I’ll make only a handful so I have a better chance at accomplishing them.
- Play D&D 4e – I’ve owned the core books since they came out in 2008 and I’ve yet to play it. It doesn’t have to be a whole campaign; I’d like to play it for a session or two, so I can see how it plays and how the moving parts fit. A game at a con would be just right.
- Play any of the following games: Burning Wheel, Dogs in the Vineyard, Don’t Rest Your Head, Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies, Colonial Gothic, Ribbon Drive, Savage Worlds – Ideally, play all of them, but I’m being realistic. I’ve owned them all for a while and it’s time to take them out for a spin.
- Run a game for my wife – I’m a bad gamer husband. Except for the Vampire and Changeling games we played in the late 90s, I’ve never been able to run a game for my wife, usually because I flake out in one way or another. I’d like to change that, and run for her a short game that’s a complete story.
- Play with people face-to-face/find a gaming group – I have offers to join gaming groups, but they require me to commute 30-40 minutes into the suburbs on weeknights. As much as I appreciate the offers, I’d like to find/create a group closer to where I live and get back in the groove of face-to-face gaming.
- Go to Gen Con – I missed it in 09 for monumental reasons. G-d willing, I’ll make it to Indy in 10 and enjoy the best four days in gaming with all my friends.
- Corollary: Game with my Skype group in person and/or continue playing the Star Wars Primetime Adventures game from 2007-08. Both if possible.
- Work on Ierne – What is Ierne? Go back and read the short story I wrote called The Warning. There’s more stories to tell from that land, and some of them may even be yours.
- Not feel guilty when I game – So this is my own hang-up: whenever I game, I feel guilty that I didn’t spend that time with my wife. It’s all me; she’s never been draconian about my gaming, but I can’t help it. I’ve cancelled games preempting the guilt! I wanna get rid of that and be able to enjoy my gaming time without self-impossed psychological shackles.
I’ll go with seven for now as it is a manageable number. Should I get through these, I will then choose some others and update the list, though.
Here’s to a gaming-filled 2010!
Upon returning from Puerto Rico, I eagerly picked up a package that had been waiting for me at the Post Office. The folks at Geeky Clean, makers of gamer- and geek-inspired soaps, sent me some sample bars for me to try out and review, and frankly, I could not wait to get to it.
I met the Geeky Clean crew on Twitter when they began following my @GamerTraveler profile. When I saw the name of the account/company, I had to go check it out. I immediately loved the idea, in no small part thanks to those pretty 20-sided dice floating in the middle of the multicolored bars of glycerin (though they do have other varieties with different things stuck inside). I immediately started a back-and-forth via Twitter and no later than an hour or two later, we had exchanged emails as we discussed ways to help them promote their product. These upcoming reviews are one of those ways.
My wife and I have already been using the Health bar and we’ll go through all three in order to offer both a male and female perspective on the soaps. So far we both quite like them.
In the meantime, go and check out GeekyClean.com and marvel at the selection of geek soaps they offer, then follow them on Twitter @GeekyClean for new product announcements and surprise sales on their merchandise.
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