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.