It has been 31 days since my last post and it also happens
to be the last day of 2020.
As far as leap years go, it has been a year full of challenge and no doubt many people will be keen for it to be over with as soon as possible.
While looking forward to 2021, I have some hesitation about
how quickly things will improve with respect to the pandemic, politics, and
ongoing aspects of other things 2020 will be remembered for.
But this blog is not about those things and I am not
planning to change that any time soon.
Let us talk about tabletop games.
I usually start one of these with a reflection on the year
gone but I think my most recent posts do that for me.
Some brief highlights?
AlbaCon was a success and raised over £3,000 for an amazing
charity.
I published Unsettled Ground. An adventure for Dungeons & Dragons on DMsGuild
after taking part in the RPG Writer Workshop.
The Dungeons & Dragons Scotland Facebook Group has grown from 0 to 725 members and the associated D&D Scotland Discord Server now has multiple games running on it every week. Not bad. Naturally there was a big upturn of members after March...
I’ve DM’d more sessions of RPGs than I have since my teens including continuing to DM two ongoing D&D campaigns and running several intro sessions of D&D at work and for friends looking to explore RPGs. My two campaigns are made up of:
- Homebrew set in Forgotten Realms with some flavourings of my own. We hit two years of running this in October and successfully migrated to playing online back in March.
- The other is a run through of Season 9 of Adventurers League – Avernus Rising.
I’ve also played more RPGs than ever including playing in games of the Eberron - Oracle Of War storyline with Shane, Pete, Iain and Ian run by Rich. Fabulous people I would usually only get to see at events like UK Games Expo but thanks to the wonders of online gaming I have the pleasure of spending time with them semi-regularly.
Probably worth a few hobby related lowlights too? Although in the grand scheme of things these really are not that important…
Lots of conventions were cancelled, including Tabletop Scotland 2020.
I haven’t played a board game since March, largely due to East Neuk Tabletop being on hiatus.
So with 2021 on the horizon, what plans do I have?
Conventions?
If (and it's a BIG if) in-person events are actually
possible in 2021 then my plan is to go to the following: AireCon, Conpulsion, UK
Games Expo, GenCon, Glasgow Games Festival and I plan to finally go to Dragonmeet. That’s with organising Tabletop Scotland 2021
and AlbaCon 2021.
If in-person events are not possible then I’ll look at attending
an equal number of online conventions, although most likely to play RPGs.
Other stuff?
After completing the RPG Writer Workshop I intend to write
& publish at least 3 more DMsGuild products & maybe some other
non-D&D stuff too. I’d like that
number to be nearer 6 but that’s going to be dependent on available time which
will be driven by whether Tabletop Scotland goes ahead or not. I fully expect to take part in the RPG Writer
Workshop events in July and November 2021 either way.
Alongside continuing to run my alternating D&D Tuesday
campaigns I want to run at least 6 games other than D&D for more than a
one-shot. Now that’s not with the
intention of starting up another campaign but more a case of running short (2
to 4 sessions maybe) arcs. What games? Damn good question…
Night’s Black Agents – Unlikely to be the Dracula Dossier
(given the session constraint above) but want to run a short arc, likely one of the published ones.
The Expanse or Ashen Stars or maybe both. They can offer similar play experiences but are different both in setting and play style.
Mutant City Blues or something else that’s police procedural.
Maybe 2021 is the year I run Cthulhu?
I’d like to run some Savage Worlds although unsure what
setting I’d use. I could use this as an opportunity to write some Savage Worlds stuff as I have run games of it at cons "back in the day".
Plus it’s about time I tried out 2d20 (maybe Star Trek?), Cypher,
Cortex and a couple of other systems to see if they work for me.
Typing that up highlights the challenge I’m setting but I
think it’s doable. Especially if my roleplaying
remains online exclusively. 52 weeks in
the year. If I run 3 sessions on average for 6 games that is 18 sessions.
Something tells me I’ll be reflecting on failure with this challenge
but that’s why it’s a challenge!
Before I wrap up it’s probably worth reflecting on my
Objectives & Principles...
- Balanced gaming – This is very RPG centric now. Nothing wrong with that and a complete u-turn on previous times I’ve checked it.
- More gaming overall – So, I think I’m still doing this. Between the campaigns and running one-shot demos of D&D I think I’m “up” on previous years albeit RPG only. Board gaming has stopped and likely will remain thus until ENT can return.
- More involved – Interesting one this. Conventions help with this a lot and now with a plan to publish more RPG material I think this will develop further.
- Event Attendance – Technically I attended 5 conventions this year. All of them were online.
- Organise Events – AlbaCon is the shining light for this. I may revisit other ideas in 2021 depending on how things pan out.
- Only buy it if you're going to use it – Well this took a nosedive in March / April. When the first lockdown came, I started to buy more board games. Partly because I wanted to support Scotland's FLGS’ but also because I wanted some retail therapy. I stopped buying board games shortly thereafter and instead bought a lot of RPG books. Mostly D&D books but also other RPGs and lots of PDFs…
- Is everyone having fun? Including you? – Continues to be key and is a regular topic when people ask me for advice on running RPGs.
- Accept that you're going to be the GM – I called this an eternal principle a few years back. It still is and something I’m still very comfortable with. Getting to play is nice though 😉.
- Change is a good thing and is necessary – This one has never been more evident than now. I’ve historically been resistant to playing RPGs online but when it became the only option, I embraced it.
- Opinions aren't as important as knowledge and experience – This remains to be a truth for me. I continue to value input from lots of people, moreso when it comes to feedback on conventions I organise and of course with the release of Unsettled Ground. That said, I continue to reserve the right to ignore opinions in favour of relying on knowledge and experience!
