Tuesday 31 December 2013

That 2014 Look Ahead Post

A blog like this wouldn’t be a proper blog without taking a look at the year ahead and making some bold commitments.  So what does 2014 look like from here?

Game Time

It looks like I’ll largely continue where 2013 left off when it comes to game time.  I want to be able to commit to at least 3 sessions in 4 for attending the club on Friday nights.  Not quite sure how best to allocate those (if at all) but Star Wars EotE will definitely be 1 of those session as will board games.  If I can sustain attendance and if Alpha Strike (post to come on that) gives me the ability to play Battletech within the clubs hours then I can see that being a semi-regular game.

Alongside that though there’s a small group of people that I’ve met via BoardGameGeek who are looking to establish a board game night in St Andrews.  Not quite sure where this is going yet (early days) but if I can add this to my game time then that’d be great.  Note I say ADD as I don’t want it to be simply a case of more options, same amount of play.

I have been tempted to try and establish and ORC style community/club near where I live for some time but never really had the time to invest in making it happen.  Maybe with the help of the other guys who are interested that might change.

I also expect (or should that be hope?) that 2014 will be the year that home based gaming becomes a reality. This might suffer depending on how the St Andrews thing develops but I have enough “gateway/pseudo-mainstream” board games to make this a reality and have some neighbours / local friends who have an interest in the hobby that needs to be explored a bit more.

Commitment wise I know there’s a limit to what I can do here but let’s go with the following –

  • 3 sessions in 4 on Friday nights at DWARF.
  • Once a month gaming with the St Andrews crowd.
  • Once a month gaming at home.

That gives me a fairly low bar to aim for.

What to play?

As with 2013 I expect my board game collection to develop further, possibly more likely to be expansion related than new game related though especially when it comes to games like Gloom, Sentinels Of The Multiverse, Seasons and Lords Of Waterdeep.

RPG wise I’ve already said that Edge Of The Empire will likely be a mainstay for the first half of 2014.  I’d also like to do more with D&D Next prior to the official launch and of course the Atomic Robo RPG is due out in 2014 so expect that to be my “New Year, New Game” game.  Whether I play it that often is yet to be determined but I know if nothing else it will be a great pickup game.

I also hope that Alpha Strike (seriously there’s a post to come on that!) gives me the opportunity and the players to play Battletech. It might also lead me to trying to run the Battletech RPG – A Time Of War again but I’m not making any commitments around that!

What else?

Well GenCon is probably the main thing.  I plan to fly out from Edinburgh on Tuesday the 12th August returning on Monday the 18th (well Tuesday the 19th really due to timezone stuff).

Tickets go on sale on the 26th January and I’ve got a few options accommodation wise.

What I would like, although happy to do without, is for some of my gamer colleagues to come with me!  Yes Richard Talbot, +Chris Brind and a few others I’m talking to you!

When I’m at GenCon there are a number of things I want to do, not least of which will be play some D&D Next with the D&D team.  I want to play Atomic Robo RPG with Mike Olsen, assuming he’s planning to run games of it again, and no doubt I’ll be playing a variety of board and card games when out there.

I also want to meet up with some other gaming bloggers when at GenCon, specifically UK based bloggers.  I don’t really see myself as a blogger.  I mean sure I’ve got a blog (the one you’re reading) and it’s about gaming but it’s not review blog or anything like that so not sure how it fits in other than being MY blog about MY views on the hobby.  Mind you how is that different from any other individual blog?  Anyway… I’d like to meet up with some other bloggers when out there if only to just y’know meet them!

Other than GenCon?

Hmmm not sure.  Without revisiting some of the objectives I’ve set I’m really not sure.  I would like to try and get this blog back onto a regular schedule, whether that be daily, weekly or whatever but I’m not quite ready to set that agenda plus I seem to be writing longer and more detailed posts just now so maybe that’s an evolution of the blog that I should just let evolve further.

I always have a temptation to get my original gaming group back together and 2014 will be no different. Whilst I would still like to do that the challenge as ever is getting us all in a room and given that this happens once a year at most there’s usually other things that we want to do.  Still in many respects I think that temptation will diminish over the next few years as my game time grows and my gaming group grows with it.

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