Highmoon's Ponderings

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.

Click here to purchase the Gamers Helping Haiti $20 Donation bundle.

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:

1. Liber Sodalitas: The Dream Healers (Pathfinder)
2. Shrouded Agendas: The Purifiers (D&D 4e)
3. From Stone to Steel (OGL 3.5 Fantasy)
4. 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.

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Those were Rich’s word during the game and on his after-game tweet (see my previous AP post) to describe how our Lady Blackbird game came to an end. “French” here could stand for “artistic/impressionistic/avant-garde,” but I’ve a feeling that it really stands for “unsatisfactory.” Or more completely, visually spectacular, but narratively unsatisfactory. If you take a moment to read through Rich’s AP Report and Mick’s Report of the last session of the game, I believe you’ll arrive at the same conclusion.

What is interesting is that, to me, describing it as a “French movie” made a lot of accurate sense. I’m not gonna say that I’m a film connoisseur–that title more aptly goes to my wife who does have a degree in Motion Pictures and is the one who studied the various film movements that we could lump under “French”–but being married to my wife, I have picked up a bit of exposure to this kind of art cinema over the years. And yes, that means having seen movies that fit the very same description I wrote above (Picnic at Hanging Rock, I’m looking at you!). But that has also taught me that not all stories are linear, and that sometimes a story is done even if I don’t think it is.

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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!

Read the Intro, First Session Report, Second Session Report, Kale’s Second Session Report, Third Session Report, Kale’s Third Session Report and Kale’s Fourth Session Report.

Though we had planned to do this the last week of 2009, fate decreed it would be the first week of 2010 that would bring our Lady Blackbird game to a close. And boy, did it bring it to a close! We gathered around the Skype table and soared off into the Blue to find out the destiny of the crew and passengers of The Owl.

Rich, our GM, is going to write up his general recap, which I’ll link to here once it is up. What follows is all from Kale’s point of view.

I would suggest you go back and read the previous report to catch all the strings being tied-up here.

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Read the reports for the Pilot, Episode 01 and Webisode.

I indeed had to return to Puerto Rico in June, so my friends and I decided to do our best to finish this game in the time I had. When we got together to play, we decided to wrap up the series in two sessions to be played over the two weeks I had available. That meant condensing four episodes into two action-packed extravaganzas. I merged the Screen Presences for episodes 2-3 and 4-5, giving us two final episodes that looked like this: 2/3/2/2 & 3/2/3/3. If you have played PTA you can see how that second merged episode is totally nuts; if you haven’t, the first spread is fine, with one spotlight character (3), but the second has three spotlight characters, meaning each of them is THE main focus of the episode, if that makes any sense. I knew that this would be tricky, to say the least, but we girded our loins and plunged back into the story.
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