Two days ago I played in a Pathfinder 2e one-shot. I was assuming crunchiness and maths but it turned out quite alright, and as most if not all of the players were OSR/NSR minded the GM was quite surprised that we didn’t resort to violence immediately. The only combat was the actual boss fight.
The game-system seems to be really robust. The only thing I’m not that used to is that you start out a lot more powerful at level one than in an old school game. There is a lot more crunch as well, but not in a way that bogs down thing. The designers did a great job making it run smoothly.
I like the ancestry and background system for character creation, as it immediately sparks an idea for your backstory. I mentioned to the GM that I thought it was fun in a narrative way, but that the min-maxers would likely just find the best combinations, and was told that that apparently was wrong. That they went to great pains to try and make every combination equally valid/strong.
The game itself was an adventure module that he’d gotten for free with the Kingmaker Adventure (1e edition), called “the Puzzlebox” or something and was very fun to play in. He had to reduce and rework it at times to make it fit in the 5+ hours session we ended up playing.
It was great fun. And I dare say, a good alternative for people that want to drop WotC/Hasbro products!
Scheduling has been a nightmare lately, so I’ve mostly been playing World of Darkness one-shots (HTR one-shot, and an upcoming V5 one) when I’ve been able to and solo play when nobody can get together and I’ve got an evening free.
I managed to convert a couple people to giving journaling games a go, but we’ve found solo play can get incredibly isolating. A friend & I have started going through old Pathfinder modules in parallel solo campaigns and comparing our notes as we go. It’s been a fun way to play async!
My weekly group is taking a break from the Dolmenwood campaign that I’m running with house-ruled B/X (soon to transition to a lightly houseruled version of the Dolmenwood rules). We’re about 40 sessions in, but took a break after a big tournament to play a Blades in the Dark game that one of my players is GMing.
I expect we’ll be back to Dolmenwood soon, with a Liminal Horror game of The Bureau on the docket as well, but I’m also currently running a pbp Mothership game. Currently going through The Year of the Rat, with the intent to move into A Pound of Flesh afterwards (with the Dream as home base and other modules spinning out from it).
Finally, playing in a pbp game of Prowlers and Paragons as well. I don’t usually play much superhero stuff, so that has been a nice change of pace.
I just DMd the Quintessential Dungeon with Maze Rats for a couple friends. It was awesome!
Edit: forgot to say I changed it juust a bit. I had them start at level 3, and decided that the amount of spell slots a character had pertained to how many spells they could hold in their heads at once, but every time they cast one, they rerolled to get a new one.
I just GM’d my first session of 2400. It was a bit of a challenge, as this group is almost exclusively trad. However, the DM was burnt out, one of them had recently had some good experiences with OSE, and I figured the pump was primed. They weren’t all totally in it, but we’ve got a second session coming up and I’ve got some ideas for bringing things their way.
I run a weekly session using the ENI system I wrote for Zine Quest 4. It’s a minimalist system that we enjoy quite a bit. Free for now (and recently updated) on Itch. ENI by EX FIRST GAMES
Back after a break. Will run a oneshot of Trophy Gold this weekend (Mithril Mines of Airgead) and start a Cthulhu campaign set in Berlin, using Micro Mythos, next week.
Currently running my yearly “Friends of the Clubhouse” for my 7-8 year old students. (Teaching a minority religion in primary school gives very small groups, ideal for RPG in class type stuff).
The latest actual play is here: Episode 2: The Visit!
I just started a game of Ghost/Echo. We’re playing PbF over WeChat. It’s mostly asynchronous play, but occasionally we’re all online together (It makes the game go faster when we’re all together online at the same time. But it’s still text and voice messages). We’re using text messages for the actual narrative and voice messages for the out of character talk.
I played in my first ever game of FIASCO! on Saturday. We used a playbook for a titanic-like ocean liner disaster. I never knew I could have fun playing a bad guy. But knowing it’s a one-shot and knowing that they will somehow not get away with it entirely after all makes it all the more enjoyable. I also felt more of an outside observer than that the PC was a sort of personal avatar. I enjoyed it!
I just finished a six-session run of Cthulhu in Berlin, using MICRO MYTHOS coupled with Dark Secrets from NAMED.
We had great characters. The home base was Ida’s bar, Ida being one of the PCs. The other three were guests involved in Investigations. In the beginning, Ida only helped them in the hope of retrieving the money they owed her.
Erich was a young soldier still struggling with his war experiences. A dark secret later revealed thta he had shot an officer who wanted to send his men into certain death.
We also had Clemens. a photographer with an unhealthy inclination to take pictures of the dead, and Rudolf, a researcher of nobility who felt the loss of the pre-war world order keenly.
They managed to stop a cannibalistic serial killer, but not the rise of the Nazi party nor an ancient Babylonian goddess summoned by some fools dabbling in magic.
We had a sad ending, as two of the characters died in a Babylonian shadow kingdom, and the survivors could not do much more than escape from all the misery in Berlin.
Happy to see some love for Whitehack. I’m not quite sure if I would consider it NSR but it’s a gem for sure. I’m working on a rework of the system that modernizes the most old school parts of the system.
I tried D&D as I was getting into (or trying out RPGs) and found them too much of a time investment with a tiny payoff. So I made my own rules-light system so I could play with my son on the drive to school. 4 years later we are still playing that and run a weekly session with 5 of his friends online. The system is called ENI and I still have no idea what I’m doing, but it’s going well. In some sessions, no dice get rolled. And in others, there is nothing but trouble. ENI by EX FIRST GAMES
My Into the Odd crew managed to survive The Iron Coral without any casualties. Next I have seeded hooks for Temple of the Blood Moth and Date of Expiration. I just appended the Date of Expiration hex map above the Fallen Marsh map (from Iron Coral) with a mountain range in between to explain the biome shift. I also dropped the Blood Moth village in the hex south of the Date of Expiration tower, so that they have a base of operation for multiple delves.
What I’m actually playing… mostly D&D which is surprising to me.
I am GMing D&D 5e and OSE at the moment. If I could be playing anything at the moment though, I think it would be The Between. I want to try running a campaign of it.
In July and beginning of August, my typical table tried one-shots of some different systems. Though not everyone was into that since the systems were not light. Also unfortunately, the DMs had to cancel the last two and resulted in a lack luster time for those two weeks.
Goblin with a fat ass (hilarious silly time. We’ve played it once before)
Arc Doom (only got to play part of)
Shadowrun 4e
Cyberpunk Red (didn’t get to play. Will eventually)
Honey Heist (we’ve played before)
We typically play DnD 5e or Pathfinder 1e. We just finished a Pathfinder 2E and a homebrew DnD 5e game that was Bloodborne the videogame brought to the table. Both good.
We alternate every other week between two GMs so it’s easier on them and keeps things different. We’ve played Call of Cthulhu 7e before and are going to hop back into that along with a DnD 5E Curse of Strahd campaign.
Eventually, I wanna return to Arc Doom and even GM one or two for it. I think it lends itself well to self contained story arcs due to the IRL time constraint so I wanna really give it a good in-depth try as player and GM.
Besides from my typical table, I’ve been trying to join some open tables or one shots to try out different systems. Mostly OSR games like Whitebox: FMAG, Sword & Sorcery, World of Dungeons, Wolves Upon the Coast, and most recently His Majesty the Worm.
Will soon try CBR+PNK one shot. I’ve played one Blade in the Dark session before, and I think CBR+PNK has promise.
Burning Wheels: played three family members trapped in a time pocket helping the rest of the group fulfilling their destinies (mostly dying).
Windsoul: Raya the the Lost Dragon-ish. South-Asian style, but fantasy. No metal in the world, very colorful, and the entrance of Shadow when magic raised a decade back.
Shadowrun: Anarchy: Light-weight with collaborative storytelling. I would play this as a pick-up-and-play kind of game, where the players choose new (or used) archetypes every time for doing heists. I would also leave out a few archetypes so the players can “unlock” them when meeting them.
This is Pulp: My own Indiana Jones game takes about 90 minutes to learn and play. It focuses on creative challenges by making the players include a bunch of stuff in their descriptions when overcoming dangers.
