More than one new thing for 2023.

I teased a new project for 2023, this isn't that post.

This post is about other new stuff that I'm doing in 2023.

First up. I should be releasing my first Fear Itself adventure under the Pelgrane Press Community Content Programme in January.

"Only way out, is up" is almost finished drafting, with playtesting aimed for January and then finally releasing it at the end of the month.

I chose Fear Itself for this rather than releasing another Miskatonic Repository title for a couple of reasons.

1. I think I prefer Gumshoe to Call of Cthulhu / BRP mechanically for playing investigative style games. Plus whilst the scenario would work under CoC, it just fits better under Fear Itself.
2. I have more releases planned for Gumshoe so it makes sense to get that ball rolling to test it out from a writing perspective.

Speaking of more Gumshoe releases, I got some lovely Ashen Stars books for Christmas along with the excellent looking Project Cassandra and a bullet journal to take part in #dungeon23

Ashen Stars is another one of the Gumshoe system games that I plan to write stuff for in 2023. I have a 3 part idea that should be playable separately as well as a progression of a wider storyline. Hopefully get the first one done before June.

Would be great if the core book for Ashen Stars was reprinted before I release them but I have it in PDF anyway so no biggie.

Project Cassandra ticks a number of boxes for me, especially having read a lot about Majestic-12 earlier this year. Spycraft and psychics? Winning. Look forward to taking it for a spin.

The bullet journal is for #dungeon23 which in reality will probably be closer to #scenario23 for me as it's unlikely to be a dungeon focused exercise.

The above is also combined with this mock noteboard that I did for my 2023 tabletop resolutions.

If I can do all those things, the ones mentioned above and my new project which is to be announced then it has to be chalked off as a very successful year.

I know I won't be able to do ALL of that but I'd rather set myself a bigger target for 2023, in the hope it gives me more focus.

2022, now that WAS a year.

It's been a year of mixed fortunes, and one I'm both glad and sad to have ended.

Gaming highlights: I went to UK Games Expo, Gen Con, hosted Tabletop Scotland, ran lots of games, published Horror in the Highlands, got back into board gaming at East Neuk Tabletop, and went to Dragonmeet for the first time. Compare that to any year and it's a damn good set of things.

Gaming lowlights: I missed AireCon, had to cancel lots of RPG sessions and my writing took a long detour. All largely down to issues with my ears.

As I look forward to 2023 those same issues with my ears have returned.

This is not a good thing.

Having had months of not-fun at the start of the 2022 I don't really want a repeat of that so fingers crossed the wonders of medicine come to my rescue in 2023.

But this isn't Dave's Health blog, it's a tabletop gaming one. So let's get that on track.

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The normal approach for these posts is to have a review of my Objectives & Principles, although I note I didn't do one in 2021.

These are the pillars I set in place when I started this blog way back when.

Objectives	Principles
1. Balanced gaming although originally this was Sustainable and regular gaming.	1. Only buy it if you’re going to use it
2. More gaming overall	2. Is everyone having fun? Including you?
3. More involved	3. Accept that you’re going to be the GM
4. Event Attendance	4. Change is a good thing and is necessary
5. Organise Events	5. Opinions aren’t as important as knowledge and experience

As things stand they're still very relevant and I suspect any fine tuning would largely be cosmetic. But sometimes that's what you need to refocus.

If I was to write them today though it'd probably be more in the form of user stories.

1. As a gamer I want to play games regularly with lots of different people.
2. As a gamer I want to engage with and be engaged by the hobby and communities around that.
3. As a gamer I want to both attend and organise events, including conventions.
4. As a gamer I intend to only buy something if I'm going to use it.
5. As a gamer I want to make sure that everyone at the table is having fun, including me.
6. As a gamer I accept that I will GM more games than I will be a player in, and I'm happy with that.
7. As a gamer I recognise that Change is a 'good and necessary thing', particularly when it comes to new editions of games.
8. As a gamer I value knowledge and experience more than I do opinions.

Hmmm, that's technically two less but gets the same point across.

So what do I call them? Objectives? Not really. Principles? Well kind of, but they could equally be labelled as all sorts of things. 

Wait... I've gone off on a tangent, I'm supposed to talk about where I am in meeting them.

Ok, so let's do that against these new ones.

1. I play RPGs regularly with the same people (ears aside) and board games regularly now that ENT is back up and running. I would like to play more RPGs with more people though. That's a development opportunity for 2023 I suspect, not least because we're coming to the end of the D&D AL Avernus Rising campaign so I'll have a game slot to replace with something.
2. I think I do this well. I have plans for 2023 that I can't share yet which will expand on this somewhat I suspect.
3. Having Tabletop Scotland back is a big part of this one, and I've now chalked Dragonmeet off the 'must attend' list. The plans I allude to in 2. above might mean going to more events but if there's one thing that's clear is that I don't currently have the capacity to organise more conventions. Not if I want to continue to write and run weekly games that is.
4. So this isn't quite where it needs to be. I bought a lot of stuff at Gen Con that I haven't played yet, although it's offset by a bit of a purge of stuff in the Tabletop Scotland Bring & Buy. I think the main thing here though is using the RPG stuff I've got for both in-person and online games. Retaining that Tuesday night slot every week (ears permitting) and ideally adding a _once a month_ bonus session whether in-person or online would be great for this.
5. Yep, still doing this well. Particularly evident with the return of ENT I think.
6. Still happy with that. I am getting invites to play more and more these days which is very nice and much appreciated. I think from a scheduling perspective I'm far better at doing that when I'm the GM, which is absolutely fine. I probably do need to play more though.
7. Particularly poignant given all the chat about ONE D&D right now. The fake or even completely inexplicable outrage from the fan base never ceases to amaze me. The test of any edition change is only really possible when it's in front of you and you're playing. It'll either be for you or it won't. If it isn't then you can keep playing with what you have, or try something new.
8. Aligned to 7 a bit here, but as ever I don't really care what others say about a game. I'm very happy to make my own judgements on things based on actual experience...  Same applies to most things in life after all.

So, yeah here we are approaching the end of 2022 and in my next post I hope to not be talking about ears. Instead I want to talk about a new project for 2023.

I hope everyone reading this has a fabulous festive period and that I see you all in some capacity in the New Year.

My Tabletop Scotland 2022

With the last Tabletop Scotland event being held in 2019 I had a feeling of apprehension coming into this year's event.

• Not about attendance levels. Our pre-sales had blown the doors off 2019's pre-sales.
• Not about whether people would have fun. Put gamers in front of games and that's largely a given.
• Not about whether our exhibitors would have a positive experience, especially those with us for the first time. Again, put gamers in front of games and other adjacent things then they're going to explore and investigate it, especially if it was something new to them.

The apprehension was one driven by having not done it since 2019, and likely in part due to fatigue thanks to catching COVID post Gen Con.

So what was the apprehension about?

• Was all the hard work put in to prep and plan for the event going to pay off?
• Had I considered every possible scenario and made sure we had an answer to resolve it?
• Did we have enough volunteers? - It's worth noting that there is no such thing as _enough_ volunteers...

Until we opened the doors there was no way of actually knowing.

But there were two other things which I don't think I really appreciated until the event got closer.

1. Was I going to enjoy it?
2. Plus perhaps crucially, would I want to do it again?

To understand number 1, you have to go back to the 2018 and 2019 events.

• 2018 was hard largely because it was the first one we did, but also because this was the culmination of a vision I had which was refined by the others in the team to the point that we knew what the event should be. The problem was that I didn't relax throughout the weekend, which meant I didn't get a chance to savour and enjoy what we'd achieved until afterwards.
• 2019 was hard primarily because we doubled the floorspace and perhaps jumped too soon into that additional complexity. We also had a lot of last minute stuff to deal with.
  As with 2018, I didn't relax during the 2019 con to be able savour and enjoy it.

2022? Well, other than a few tech issues, the occasional decision and some "have we done this?" moments, I didn't actually have anything specific to do during the convention other than chatting to attendees, our charity partners, volunteer & event team, press, guests and exhibitors. In other words I relaxed and was able to enjoy my / our creation. This freedom was largely down to the efforts of the rest of the yellow team and our amazing volunteers, plus of course we'd done it before so certain things just click into place.

The time I was able to spend with folks at the convention was invaluable, especially those friends that I haven't seen since the last event in 2019 and many for even longer. Ultimately the freedom provided me with the fuel I'd been running out of during the preparation.  Which leads into number 2.

To understand number 2, you have to factor in a few things...

• I have a full time job which is very busy at the best of times.
• I was ill from late January through to early May, which was energy sapping. This impacted a chunk of our planning for the con but we muddled through.
• Then I get COVID early August after being at Gen Con.

Alongside those, I think I'd forgotten how much time and effort is spent on planning the convention. In the 2-3 months prior it essentially becomes a 2nd full time job. A lot of that is of my own creation, I obsess over the little things and like to respond to questions immediately. I like to think that obsessiveness helps make the event work as effectively as it does, but who knows right?

As a result, when combined with the above, I felt drained physically, mentally and emotionally going into the convention. All of which had me seriously wondering whether I wanted to do it again.

There's a kind of expectation that Tabletop Scotland will happen every year. An assumed state that obviously we'd want to do it etc etc. I'll be honest and say that it wasn't until the Monday after the convention that I really felt the desire to do it again. That's because everything largely worked as planned, and as a result I was able to relax and even enjoy the convention. But it's also because I've missed doing it, missed the people, missed the thrill of opening those doors and seeing friends old and new come in. 

So, Tabletop Scotland 2023? That's the plan. When we have something to share, we'll share it.

Days and Weeks

This time next week I'll be at Gen Con. Fly out on the morning of Tuesday 2nd August and then get home again on the 9th.

Plus it's less just over 4 weeks to Tabletop Scotland 2022.

As I said in my previous post, I'm more than a little bit excited to be returning to Gen Con and Indianapolis.

My plans for Gen Con fall into three categories:

1. Fun: Play games, enjoy the experience of being there and have fun.
2. Writing: I'm attending several seminars / panels that related to self publishing. Mostly D&D centric but a few generic ones in the mix too.
3. Tabletop Scotland: Mostly from the perspective of picking up new releases and titles that are hard to get in the UK. These are both for my own collection and for the Tabletop Scotland games library. The BoardGameGeek Preview is quite useful for that, although you do have to keep in mind that some of the games that are new at Gen Con are already available in the UK & Europe. There's also an unofficial list of all the RPG products coming out over on RPGGeek. As always I fully expect to buy a mix of stuff from those lists and lots of impulse buys too.
   I'm sure there will be photos galore taken too.

Event wise this is what my schedule currently looks like. It will almost definitely change between now and I arrive.

If you're going to be at Gen Con and you want to meet up, let me know.

Once I'm back from that we're into the final prep stage for Tabletop Scotland.

Safe to say, August is going to be busy!

Gen Con 2022 Event Booking

 As I said in my recent post, I'm looking forward to Gen Con 2022.

Flights, accommodation, tickets etc are all sorted.

So the next step is to work out what I'm going to be doing for my best 4 days in gaming.

Gen Con event booking is different to most conventions, not least because the sheer number of events hosted.  Gen Con 2019 had 19,630 events... I'm expecting 2022's number to be something similar.

Here's the Gen Con 2022 Event Catalog: https://www.gencon.com/events?c=indy2022

And here's a handy alternative web tool with the same info: http://gencon.eventdb.us/index.php

The first drop of the event catalogue was published on the 1st of May and event booking opens on the 15th of May. So what happens in that two week period?

Well, you build your wish list based on the events published at that time, sort them into a priority order, and then at 5pm BST on Sunday 15th May you submit it and see what spaces you've managed to get. Where you didn't get spaces you might want to look at other events to fill the slots.

As I covered back when we went to Gen Con in 2014, the wishlist + submit approach works and it's effective given the sheer number of events and people wanting to book them.

What will I be looking to do? Well I kinda covered that during my Gen Con 2020 post but here's what I've currently got planned.

It's very likely that schedule will change between now and Sunday, and it's also very likely that schedule will change before the con as more and more events are added. But this is what I've got so far.

Worth noting that STEAK NIGHT on the Sunday isn't an official Gen Con event, it's just become a tradition of our visits to Gen Con.

Most of these events don't actually take place in the convention centre, so I see a lot of walking in my future... The convention is spread out across the Indiana Convention Centre (ICC), Lucas Oil Stadium including the pitch / field / whatever, and lots of surrounding hotels that have events space.

Conventions (and ears) in 2022.

So, as with many things, attending conventions in 2022 have an element of hesitation about them.

Many of us who go to multiple conventions per year can't wait to get back to visiting them, whilst at the same time we're all maybe a little bit apprehensive.

So when this year started I had it all worked out.

• March - AireCon
• June - UK Games Expo
• August - Gen Con
• August - Tabletop Scotland

and anything else was a bonus.

Of course, the best laid plans etc etc...

At the start of the year I developed a lovely (it wasn't) ear infection in both ears. An infection that prove resistant to all attempts to treat through the usual means (I have a long medical history with my ears).

The infection's main impact was pain followed closely by an inability to sleep. Fortunately pain killers exist, unfortunately I needed really strong ones. If you've ever been on really strong pain killers for any length of time, you'll know that when you stop taking them it isn't a pleasant experience...

So January came and went, then February, and March (had to skip AireCon) too. With April approaching and no improvement it became clear (well to be fair it already was) that surgery was the only answer. Now, because of my long medical history with ear issues that's never a simple thing to consider but it was becoming a 'necessary evil'.

As I type this it's the day after surgery and already I can tell a big difference. It's not a long term fix but it'll do for now and means I can now actually have confidence in my plans for going to conventions and organising Tabletop Scotland (the latter was never actually in doubt!).

UK Games Expo - Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th June 2022

For me this will be Thursday 2nd to Monday 6th June purely from a travel and social perspective.

I'm really, really, looking forward to UK Games Expo this year. I've missed the event and the people that I normally see there. Plus it's always a useful event from a Tabletop Scotland perspective.

Gen Con - Thursday 4th to Sunday 7th August 2022

For me this is Tuesday 3rd to Monday 8th August factoring in flights etc. Technically Tuesday 9th August as that's when I get home, timezones huh.

If I am really, really, looking forward to UK Games Expo. You can probably add another 2 or 3 reallys onto that for Gen Con. Returning to Indianapolis after 4 years away and going back with Richard, Simon and of course Greg. The festival atmosphere of the convention and the whole celebration of the hobby that the event has really is special.

The event catalog gets released tomorrow and I am looking forward to planning my Gen Con experience.

If I could only go to one convention every year, and could justify the cost every year, then it'd be Gen Con. No Greg that doesn't mean we're going every year.

Tabletop Scotland 27th & 28th August 2022

Then we have Tabletop Scotland. It's amazing to see so many people excited about our event this year. After 2 years without it, we as a team have really missed hosting it. It seems that our attendees and exhibitors feel the same, which is really special.

We have a lot planned and we really think this will be our best event yet. So if you're in Scotland or can make it to Scotland at the end of August, come to Perth and visit the convention.

Horror in the Highlands - A Call of Cthulhu Scenario

On Friday 23rd February 1722, something horrible happened in Moy.

It is almost Friday 23rd February 1923, and Moy will once again experience something horrible.

The Bodach Glas has come.

There will be Horror in the Highlands.

After writing The Oxford Articles (now a Silver seller on DriveThruRPG!), I decided to go back to my original idea for an adventure set in the Highlands of Scotland.

There are a lot of horror / mythos style stories that could be written and set in Scotland purely because of the rich history of the country. As with The Oxford Articles, I wanted a hook that tied to a historical event and then build a fictional horror story from that.

I settled on using events in and around the village of Moy and started to look at key events in the local history.

Moy is known for a few things:

• Moy Station and the Aultnaslanash Viaduct were constructed in ~1895 ahead of the railway line opening in 1897.
• Moy Hall is the home of the Clan Mackintosh. The building itself has gone through multiple iterations what with fires and the like.
• Loch Moy is there and in the loch sits both the Isle of Moy and the crannog Eilean Nan Clach. Both of these have interesting histories.

But Moy itself has no obvious ties to Horror, at least no more obvious than any other rural location in the Highlands. So in many respects placing the adventure in Moy is more down to leveraging what it does have and then applying a 'what if?' type of horror story to it.

One of my goals with this adventure was for it to be playable in one session. Whilst The Oxford Articles can theoretically be played in one session, it wasn't written with that in mind. Ultimately my goal wasn't quite met as whilst the adventure could be done in a single session with some truncating of events, in reality it likely needs 6 hours of play to get under the covers of what's going on with enough content for perhaps 10 hours depending on how deep the players explore the narrative.

Researching various sources of Scottish folklore, I stumbled across a reference to the Bodach Glas. A sort of malevolent spirit that gives warning that death is coming. Traditionally linked to the clans, and knowing the Clan Mackintosh has their home in Moy, the story started to come to life.

It's now published on DriveThruRPG and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Ten Years

You know, if you said to me 10 years ago that I'd go on to do what I've done within the tabletop hobby I would have thought you were nuts.

I mean, I didn't join the army nor have I become a professional hitman but it's definitely been a life changing period.

What happened 10 years ago? The 1st Chapter ended, that's what.

It's weird to think back on it, mostly because my emotions at that time were very ragged and I was both mentally and physically exhausted. I was also very much done with all things board, card, roleplay, war game and comic book related.

I recently had cause to be on the street where the shop was and I took a photo. Not quite wondering "What if?" but more in reflection on whether the 2nd Chapter has only been possible because the 1st ended the way it did... No way of actually knowing I suppose but it certainly gave me pause for thought.

If there's one truth that I can take from that thought, it's this, I value my hobby more now than I ever have.

Probably moreso given the last couple of years of COVID.

So, there it is. Ten Years.

Here's to the next ten.