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.

Call of Cthulhu - RPG Writer Workshop Summer 2021

 After doing the RPG Writer Workshop in November 2020 and producing Unsettled Ground on DMsGuild, I came into 2021 with grand plans to produce more.

Those plans haven't turned into outputs and it's in part down to the usual "spinning too many plates" but it's probably as much due to a lack of focus on creating those outputs.

I've got 2 other DMsGuild scenarios and 1 Cthulhu-esque scenario drafted but not in the sense that they're ready for proof reading & editing. Significantly rougher than that.

So, to help tackle this and hopefully assert some structure I've signed up for the RPG Writer Workshop for Summer (July) 2021.

This time though I'm writing something for Call of Cthulhu.

Why?

Those who know me may be quick to point out a few things.

• Erm Dave, have you ever played a game of Call of Cthulhu? - Answer: No.
• Ok, but you've ran a game of Call of Cthulhu before? - Answer: No.
• But you do own the RPG and have read it, right? - Answer: Prior to the 26th June 2021, No.

So why am I doing it with Call of Cthulhu?

I had / have plans to publish a series of GUMSHOE powered adventures but due to licensing have to use either Fear Itself or Esoterrorists for it.  Now in all honesty that probably isn't that much of a negative but the adventures definitely have more of a Cthulhu-esque leaning than anything else.  I own Trail of Cthulhu and enjoyed running it but I'm not beholden to it as a system.

So, by doing this using Call of Cthulhu I hope it gives me the skills and techniques for writing that "type" of adventure and then I can either pivot back to GUMSHOE or stick with CoC for what I have planned.

CoC isn't a mechanically complex game, in fact it's quite the opposite. I've just never been a fan (as a GM) of percentile systems.  Maybe this experience will change that? Who knows.

So yeah, I'm writing a Call of Cthulhu adventure during July. I have several ideas of what it could be without using the draft one I mentioned above.

If you're thinking about writing for the Call of Cthulhu Miskatonic Repository then I highly recommend reading the following websites -

• DriveThruRPG: Chaosium - Miskatonic Repository
• DriveThruRPG: Chaosium - Miskatonic Repository Additional Guidelines
• Chaosium Blog Post about the workshop
• Chaosium Blog Posts about the Repository
• Call of Cthulhu Style Guide

Once you've gone through all of those then worth checking out the following -

Free Art Packs

• Miskatonic Repository 1920's Rogue Gallery Art Pack
• Miskatonic Repository Curious Things Art Pack
• Miskatonic Repository III Omen's Art Pack
• Miskatonic Repository Mythos Monster Silhouettes Art Pack
• Miskatonic Repository Phantasmagorical Art Pack
• Miskatonic Repository Weapons and Relics Art Pack

Free Maps

• Mike's Free Mythos Maps Collection #1

Product Templates

• Miskatonic Repository InDesign Template - Also works with Affinity Publisher
• Miskatonic Repository Word Template

All of the links above will help you to publish a finished product.

All you need to do is write it.

Which is what I intend to do by July 31st!

RPGs in Scotland and New Gamemaster Month

I started 2021 with a few notions in the back of my head about what I wanted to achieve this year

I referred to some of those in my end of 2020 post.

Mostly my hobby goal is to enjoy my hobby as much as I can whilst also introducing others to it

One of the things I did in 2020 was to re-launch the Dungeons & Dragons Scotland community and as referenced in that end of 2020 post it has grown significantly and continues to do so.

The Facebook Group now sits at 830 members with the Discord at 412 and both are growing almost daily.

For 2021 I want to diversify the range of RPGs I run and at the same time create a hub for that "non-D&D" community and so thanks to a few others who play a range of RPGs I created a sibling for D&D Scotland called RPG Scotland.

Currently the RPG Scotland community is split into 3 sections:

RPG Scotland Facebook Group (72 Members) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/rpgscotland/

RPG Scotland One Shots Facebook Group (122 Members) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/rpgscotlandoneshots/ 

RPG Scotland Discord (130 Members) - https://discord.gg/zMvpJP2JB6

Why 3? Well the original idea behind having separate Facebook Groups was to have a specific group purely for arranging one shot games.  The Discord is for both communities rather than having it fragmented over multiple servers.  Will see how things develop over the next month or two but I suspect a merger of the two Facebook groups might make sense.

One of the specific benefits of the RPG Scotland community that I can already see is that if I want to run a game that is more of an "idea" than a campaign, then I can get a group of players for it pretty easily.

What to run though? Well I listed several options in my previous post but also remembered early in January that New Gamemaster Month was about to start.

What is New Gamemaster Month?

Well, it happens every January and involves multiple publishers providing support for new GMs to run their games.

2021's list was - Numenera, Unknown Armies, Trail of Cthulhu, Runequest, Monster of the Week & Delta Green.

I ruled out Numenera, Unknown Armies, Runequest and Monster of the Week pretty quickly due to having ran them before or feeling the systems weren't a match for my game style. That doesn't mean I won't revisit them, more that as something I learn to run then organise a game for inside a month it needed to at least be adjacent to my GMing preferences and ideally new.

Gumshoe based RPGs have been something I've looked at in recent years, particularly with Night's Black Agents, so Trail of Cthulhu was the obvious choice.

So I bought the books (print & PDF) as well as some Night's Black Agents stuff I was missing.

Pelgrane Press provided a free adventure for this, Midnight Sub Rosa, and Roll20 offered a discount on the module so I picked it up there.

The adventure was originally designed as a convention scenario and so can be run in about 4 hours. Knowing that it can also take significantly more than that meant making some tweaks to essentially narrow the focus of the adventure.

I advertised it on the RPG Scotland Discord and quickly had 5 players (the most I tend to have for online games) and made it clear that it likely would take more than 1 session although likely no more than 2.

Telegram made using template at https://www.dholeshouse.org/

First session was last Thursday (4th Feb) and served as a reminder of the different style of play Gumshoe provides.  We played for 3ish hours (part two will be needed) and I can't recall any dice being rolled.  This was mostly down to investigative abilities being used which in Gumshoe terms means you don't roll, you simply "spend" a point to get the clue.  Dice tend to only be needed where a direct test is required e.g. in combat situations.

Fun was had and we should have the next session in a couple of weeks time.

I've currently pitched 3 other games on the RPG Scotland Discord:

Feb 25 19:30 The Expanse RPG - One shot [GM: Dave]

Mar 25 19:30 Polar Light (All Flesh Must Be Eaten) [GM: Dave]

Apr 22 19:30 Star Wars: Prison Break (In or Out?) [GM: Dave]

I've run that latter two a few times at conventions and as one shots in the past whereas The Expanse is a completely new system for me and I just need to decide which scenario to run...

Fortunately I have a few options there.

Day 366 of Year 2020...

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.

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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!

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Before I wrap up it’s probably worth reflecting on my Objectives & Principles...

Objectives :

1. Balanced gaming – This is very RPG centric now.  Nothing wrong with that and a complete u-turn on previous times I’ve checked it.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Event Attendance – Technically I attended 5 conventions this year.  All of them were online.
5. Organise Events – AlbaCon is the shining light for this.  I may revisit other ideas in 2021 depending on how things pan out.

Principles :

1. 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…
2. Is everyone having fun? Including you? – Continues to be key and is a regular topic when people ask me for advice on running RPGs.
3. 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 😉.
4. 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.
5. 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!

A look back at 2018 & 2019 and a look forward at 2020.

I skipped the whole of 2018 and 2019 from this blog and I feel kinda bad about that.

Not hugely bad because both years were excellent in hobby terms but still kinda bad as I had plans for this thing.  So how do I summarise the last 2 years in my hobby?

2018 : My now annual visit to UK Games Expo, a return to GenCon, the realisation of a hobby dream in Tabletop Scotland and a return to DMing D&D thanks to my players and Matt Colville.

It was a great year for my hobby, a challenging one but a great one.  Whilst swapping a large chunk of my free / game time for convention planning wasn't hard, it wasn't easy either.  I did manage to offset that a little by running D&D 5th Edition.  2018 was a year that reminded me why I love this hobby.

2019 : No GenCon 2019 but I did go to Conpulsion in Edinburgh, AireCon in Harrogate and Glasgow Games Festival in erm Glasgow which was nice. Obviously I also went to UK Games Expo which in 2019 was a different experience largely off the back of the relative success of Tabletop Scotland 2018 as I had people thank me and the team for the con and "recognisable name" publishers mention that they'd heard about how good it was.  Oh and Tabletop Scotland 2019 happened too, twice the space and at times really tough but hugely worthwhile.  In between all of that my D&D group kept going, with an often disrupted schedule but all good, and East Neuk Tabletop turned 5.

So 2019 was another great year for my hobby.  In many respects a more challenging year due to trying to exceed the expectations of those who came to Tabletop Scotland 2018.  I could write a lot about my Tabletop Scotland 2019 experience but if I was to boil it down to two things it'd be this -

• we hosted over 100 tables of RPGs, avergaging 20 tables per slot. Including games especially for kids.
  As a Roleplayer "first" this gives me such joy.
• our attendance was up by 54% on 2018 with almost 1,600 individual people being there.
  That's a success story and one I'm hugely proud of.

2020?  Well now... it's looking busy convention wise -

• AireCon in March
• Conpulsion in April
• UK Games Expo in May
• GenCon in July/August - there for my birthday and I'll have my GenCon brother Greg with me as always.
• Tabletop Scotland in August
• Glasgow Games Festival in November

In between all of that the D&D game and East Neuk Tabletop attendance will continue; plus I'm planning to add another RPG "slot" to my schedule with Night's Black Agents looking like the favourite to start that off.  I have some other hobby goals for 2020 that probably bleed into 2021 and beyond but they're not currently for sharing :-P

I intend to post on here about GenCon 2020 (tickets go on sale on the 26th January!) and hope to get the chance to meet many people I only know in an online capacity.  So if you're at GenCon and our cyberpaths have crossed somehow let me know as it'd be great to meet you and maybe even play a game.

To wrap this up, I have one thing to ask.  If you see me at a convention, in a game store, at a games club or out and about and ANY of the above mean something to you then let me know.

Cheers and here's to a great 2020 in the hobby.

2018 is on the horizon and it's going to be a busy year...

So as ever I've not posted here for some time.

Why now?  Well this remains my primary "brain dump" source for what's going through my head hobby wise.  I do brain dumps less and less these days because I have a number of other channels in which to do that but if I want to rattle off a few things then I'll likely come back here.

2017 has been an interesting year for me and my hobby.

End The Turn ended.
Largely down to availability, surprisingly not my availability but Liz's.  Will we revisit a podcast in the future? Unlikely but only because of other stuff that's going on that is eating up time.
It was an interesting and enjoyable experience doing the podcast and whilst I have no desire to start another one I'm not ruling it out.

RPGLiveUK happened.
I ran a RPG at it and that seemed to go down really well.  The weekend as a whole was great fun and I came away from it with the desire to run more RPGs but also accepting that right now that isn't going to happen for all the reasons I've listed previously in this blog.  I'm not giving up but if I do run something I can see it being one-shots and I'd definitely re-run Brave New World again if the notion took me.

Roll Against Cancer faded.
Largely down to venue challenges, i.e. not finding one but more on that to come...

Convention Calendar on Google Sheets became a "go to" thing.
People on Facebook and Twitter started to contact me about it and were actually USING IT to plan their convention travels and perhaps more importantly convention organisers started to contact me about getting their 2018 dates on it.
If you've not seen it before I've tweaked the Bit.ly link to be - http://bit.ly/UKRPG_BGCons - if only because it's not just a 2017 list now...

Objectives & Principles largely remained on track...
If you ignore the lack of RPGing and End The Turn ending that is.

What does 2018 look like then?

Well 1st of all this is happening...

After 4ish years searching for a suitable venue, one appears from left field and I have to say it's damn near perfect.  So on the 1st and 2nd of September 2018 you should come to the Dewars Centre in Perth to attend Tabletop Scotland.
I've written a fair amount on this blog on what a convention should and shouldn't be.  34 posts (excluding this one) are tagged with convention.  I'm sure some of that will come back to haunt me but that's absolutely fine.  If my team and I fail to hit the heights of what I expect then I assure you the first people who'll be pointing that out will be us.

Alongside that I will be going to GenCon again. Whilst I won't be posting with quite the same voracity as I was ahead of that first trip, I hope to post some stuff in the run up to this trip.

Since announcing Tabletop Scotland I've visited a lot of game stores that I haven't been to before.  That will continue with some repeat visits no doubt for those I've recently visited.

I'm hoping to be at UK Games Expo, potentially going to AireCon and more than likely will be at Conpulsion at least for the Saturday to promote Tabletop Scotland.

I'll obviously continue pushing East Neuk Tabletop Games forward and go to DWARF for regular gaming.

Beyond that I've no idea.  All of my spare time and energy is going into making sure that this convention is all that it can be.

So yeah.  2018 is going to be a very busy year.

Attending More Events (2017)

So I think I've been saying this for years and it was about time I actually did something about it...

But to know which events I should attend I need to know which events exist so that I can attend them, right?  Otherwise it's a bit of flat objective isn't it...

So I've built this - http://bit.ly/BrdnRPGUK17 - No it's not some malware, it's a Google Sheet with a list of every single Board/Card and RPG focused convention in the UK in 2017 (that I can find at least).

If you don't want to trust the Bitly link then here's the link in it's raw form - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p5iZrLlU7EthiItODGO5ZweyhCIOVFu7ULj2c25iPQU/htmlview - it looks so pretty doesn't it?

Anyway that's me got a list of options which is all well and good but which events am I going to go to?

This is where you come in.

Months to avoid for me are -

• February - Going to London for the 2000AD 40th Anniversary thing.
• April - I'm likely to be at Conpulsion but if not then I could do something else.  Assuming the day job doesn't get in the way.
• June - I'm at UK Games Expo which is my trip for that month.

Beyond that it's largely up for grabs although I do plan to go to Glasgow Games Festival again once they have their 2017 date announced.

Which events should I go to then?

2017 checkpoint.

I need to stop stopping this thing and instead need to keep keeping it.

So over on End The Turn we've launched a few episodes and posted a number of reviews. We've not had much feedback on how we're doing so please give us feedback.  We'd love it.

Even if it's just people laughing at +Liz Mackie shouting at me.

Our most recently published episode is Gaming Resolutions and it reminded me of my previous New Year posts on here and in turn prompted me to write this post.

So a quick checkpoint on where I'm at before I get onto where I'm heading.

Objectives :

1. Balanced gaming - Still very board / card game heavy.  That's no bad thing but something I want to improve on in 2017.
2. More gaming overall - Think I'm sustaining my ENT / DWARF attendance levels plus with a splash of other home / holiday based gaming it's getting there.  Just needs more!
3. More involved - End The Turn is a large part of this for me but not all that I want to do.
4. Event Attendance - 2017 will be the year I improve this. 
5. Organise Events - I'm going to do everything I can to ensure that Roll Against Cancer will happen in 2017. Venue selection so far has been a challenge (apply many expletives of your choice to this) but hope to make some progress on that in January and February.

Principles :

1. Only buy it if you're going to use it - Still largely sticking to this although I think my board game purchasing record is proving a challenge to comply!
2. Is everyone having fun?  Including you - Cornerstone of every time I play a game.
3. Accept that you're going to be the GM - Well this is an eternal principle but hopefully 2017 will see me be a Player Character if only in games ran at events.
4. Change is a good thing and is necessary - Cult of the new is something of a thing with board games especially. The "edition change" dynamic hasn't occurred for a while...
5. Opinions aren't as important as knowledge and experience - So this is being challenged a little via End The Turn where I'm essentially giving my opinion on things but hopefully it's an educated opinion.  I've not had a hobby related rant for a while though!

Next post will be about number 4 in my Objectives.

A New Podcast is born - End The Turn

So as with my post on Roll Against Cancer (hopefully have shareable news on that soon) I have another one of my revised Hobby Objectives to update you all on.  This time it's More Involved.

Tomorrow at roughly 6pm UK time a new podcast will launch.

End The Turn is a drunken promise I made at UK Games Expo to my good friend +Liz Mackie

Unlike other drunken promises I may (or may not!) have made at UK Games Expo this one is now a reality.

End The Turn is a podcast about the hobby, focusing on RPGs and Board Games but also likely to cover other stuff in and around this wonderful hobby of ours.

So what does that mean for A 2nd Chapter?  Nothing specifically.

I'll be posting content here and I'll be posting / podcasting content there.  Some of that content will blend between both but some of it will be different.  You're definitely going to get more RPG related content over on End The Turn alongside Board Games. A 2nd Chapter will continue to be about my views and thoughts about my hobby and the hobby and I think they're compatible outlets.

So have a listen when we launch and let me know your thoughts either here or via the End The Turn avenues.

Thanks!

Roll Against Cancer

As part of my revised hobby objectives I set out to be more involved in the hobby at large and to organise events.

Roll Against Cancer does both of these.

I've been involved in charity events in the past, mostly during the 1st Chapter but also through events at DWARF over the years.

I've am close to people who continue to fight Cancer and have lost people due to Cancer.
As have many other people I know.

I can't cure Cancer.
I also can't raise enough money on my own to cure Cancer.
I can help though.

Roll Against Cancer is an attempt to help but what is it exactly?

Well right now this is embryonic but this is what I want it to be -

• Event will be from 10am to 10pm on a Saturday
• RPGs - I want at least 4 tables of RPGs running over at least 2 slots (preferably 3)
• Board Games - I want a board game library for people to pick up and use but I also want to have some scheduled board game events and hopefully a demo team from Esdevium
• Wargames - Not sure what to aim for here as I don't want to dilute / detract from other local events.  Perhaps X-Wing or Warmachine / Hordes or perhaps something else.  Depends on what the Scottish scene can handle.
• Card Games - Unlikely to have anything that will compete with the Magic scene but will take that under advisement from my network.
• Game Jam Lite - I want to use this as an opportunity to have a Game Jam Lite.  I say Lite as there's no way we could host a full on Jam.
• Something published (PDF and/or Print) - I want to use my network to get game related "stuff" collected and published to either a) raise funds or b) be a give away to all who attend or c) something else.  This needs a LOT more thought.
• Raffle / Prizes - Not wanting this to turn into a rewards scheme for people necessarily but it would be good to get some stuff together to thank those who come and also provide additional incentives to those who would consider attending.
• Seminars / Talks - Nothing grand here but I'd like to have something along these lines.
• Introductions - I'd love to have people who have no connection to the hobby to support us in some way.
• Plus of course I want to raise money to fight Cancer.

So it's essentially a mini-convention.

The specifics around What, Where, When and How for Roll Against Cancer will go on that web page but I will post about it here too.

That said. If you want to help, let me know as I'd love some input.

A Fresh Look @ My Hobby Objectives

So way way back on 20th August 2013 I posted this on my Hobby Objectives.

This is what they looked like almost 3 years ago and where I think I'm at with them.

1. Sustainable and regular gaming.
   Think I've got this covered.
2. Play more with more.
   Again largely got this covered.
3. Home based gaming.
   Hmmmm... not quite happening other than on rare occasions.  Will it stay as an objective 3 years on? Not quite.
4. Play something new at least one in every six gaming sessions.
   I think I achieve this every gaming session now, particularly with board & card games.
5. Visit more game shops.
   Not really managed this and not sure I feel the need to drive it as an objective.

As per my post on the RPGLifeUK TweetUp at UK Games Expo 2016 I think I need to revamp / rethink some of these as in reality I've either demonstrated that I'm doing some of these with little or no effort due to circumstantial changes OR they just no longer apply...

So if I was writing these now they'd look something like this -

1. Balanced gaming.
   So right now I've got the regular gaming largely in the bag but I'm heavily leaning towards Board & Card Games and whilst's that's been fantastically rewarding... I want to get some RPGs back onto my gaming agenda and I also want to play Battletech : Alpha Strike on a more regular basis. So really what I want is balance to my gaming hobby.  How do I achieve that?
2. More gaming overall.
   So this is how I achieve 1 unless I re-start RPGs at DWARF Fridays but right now I can't see that.  So how do I do it? ENT Fridays. One of the challenges with DWARF for RPGs is the slot length on a Friday.  ENT has the capability to host RPGs on Friday nights for approx 4 hours and I see that as a way of scratching that itch. DWARF Fridays will probably default to board games with us playing Pandemic: Legacy and likely some Battletech : Alpha Strike added for good measure at both ENT and DWARF.
3. More involved.
   What do I mean by this? Well, I think I'm pretty involved in my local / regional hobby through clubs (previously ORC, DWARF and of course in the past couple of years with ENT) and of course having KoA helped define that to a certain extent. However if there's something that I've wanted it's to be more involved or more precisely "involved" in the hobby as a whole.  How do I go about that? Well that's what I need to define but I suspect it's going to be a combination of things.  There's more definition needed here.
4. Event Attendance
   Similar to 3 in that it's about being more involved in my hobby. This however is a more direct response to the #RPGLifeUK tweetup where if I took anything away it's that I need to attend more events / cons / whatever.  2016 won't be terribly good for that I suspect as work is going demand a lot of my free weekends between September and the end of the year but I'd like to go some way to tracking this objective in 2017.
5. Organise Events
   So this one does relate to 3 to a certain extent but it more focused. Bottom line here is I want to organise and deliver an event or series of events which would showcase the hobby. This will likely have a combination of micro and macro entries but in the end what I want to do is enable growth of the community through events.

So that's where I'm at now I think.  It's a decidedly different set of objectives to those I set out with when I started this blog but I'd suggest far more of an evolution than anything else.

The next step is to start delivering against them.  Let's see how that plays out.

UK Games Expo 2016 - RPGLifeUK TweetUp

As per my previous post about RPG Life UK I met up with some twitter folks to talk about RPGs and other stuff.

Tweetup Part 1 - Hilton Thursday 8pm

For something that was largely a random collection of twitter folks this went better than it probably should have.  Ok, so we didn't really get into any kind of debate about the UK RPG Scene or anything like that other than to conclude early on that there really wasn't one.

The group chat seemed to only last for about 15 to 30 minutes but after that we largely split off into different groups to chat about all things hobby and not just RPGs.  Also had the benefit of chatting with a retailer post the retailer event to get the inside “scoop” on what was coming out.  Some cool stuff was talked about (Mystic Vale I'm thinking of you) but nothing ground breaking or market changing etc.

There was one particularly interesting snippet from the overall conversation - "There are lots of RPG conventions in the UK so we don’t need any more."

Ok so this wasn't what was actually said but it was how I interpreted what was being said.

We didn’t really get into this in the tweetup but I've been reflecting on it since the tweetup itself and I suppose my underlying thought here is that it’s not actually reflective of the UK.

It may be reflective of England but then that’s probably not a surprise given the relatively healthy state of the English RPG con scene.
It is also probably a reflective position as the diversity of RPGs people were interested in and able to talk about at the tweetup likely has a causal relationship to the diversity of the cons where RPGs are played in England.  A lot of the games people talked about were small press and relatively obscure (to me), including a decent selection of home designed systems.  All of which is great but serves to remind me that I’m not gaming enough, or specifically not RPGing enough to enable any form of diversity in my RPG gaming.  Something that I need to resolve or accept.

Tweetup Part 2 - Beer Bus Saturday 2pm

A few extra / new faces this time and it was a more general meet & greet.  Managed to chat with Adam from RPGKitchen about Game Jams / Game Chef (I’ll include content in the post I’ll do on the seminar) which was a lot of fun.

Again it was a pleasure to chat with folks who have a similar interest and for want of a better word “belong”.

Conclusions?  Well other than I need to do more of this sort of thing I also took away a number of outcomes that I will endeavour to achieve.  Let's cover that in a future post though as I think reality it's as much about a re-visit of my hobby objectives as it is anything else.

And we're back...

At least for now.

I've kinda drifted away from the blog for a while.  I'd say it's been the best part of a year since I really blogged anything of note.  So why am I back?

I suppose you could call it a checkpoint or perhaps something more fundamental than that but I just felt the need to say - this is where I'm at - and measure that against - this is where I want to be.

So where am I at?

Twice monthly board gaming at East Neuk Tabletop continues with the regularity of a regular thing. The community that +donjondo and I have built growing regularly. Still suffers from the retention challenge that a lot of community groups experience but it's getting there.

Irregular / not quite monthly gaming (largely board gaming) at DWARF also continues albeit not with the regularity that I'd like.  That's mostly work related but other factors come into play too.  It should improve with a few of us playing Pandemic Legacy though.  If I can up my DWARF visits to twice a month I'd be happier.

And that's it.

Where do / did I want to be?

Well... I want to play more and I want to play RPGs too.  Right now that seems a distant possibility. Largely down to available time due to Real Life stuff but also I'm not convinced I have the right facilities to do it.

ENT doesn't feel conducive to RPGs, not for any particular reason other than we default to board and card games (not a bad thing).
DWARF similarly doesn't feel like it works all the time, largely down to slot size (<3 hours).

So what are my alternative options?

The artist formerly known as Friday Night Gaming (in Anstruther) has rebranded as Monday Night Gaming.  Unfortunately that's a non-starter for me scheduling wise.  Not that FNG was a regular thing for me (especially during the colder months as the venue didn't have heating...) so it's not really a loss in that sense but it has removed an option other than in very rare occasions.

Home based gaming is something that can happen albeit rarely. I had a gathering a few months ago after a DWARF Saturday session (which I'll come back to) which was great fun.  Board & Card gaming from 9am until about 3am playing a variety of games with people I enjoy playing games with - what more could I ask for?  Other than doing it more often of course, although probably not til 3am!

DWARF has a monthly Saturday meetup, the trouble with that though is my ability to plan attending is curtailed by Real Life.  In many respects a Saturday mid-morning to late afternoon gaming is the perfect opportunity to roleplay.  Harks back to my time at ORC Edinburgh.  I think if nothing else that's the most likely of options. So long as it's not on an ENT weekend I should be able to go on those occasions when the stars align.

That's largely it and it really boils down to DWARF Saturdays.  The next one is on the 25th June which "clashes" with ENT on the 26th so unlikely but maybe...  The problem with DWARF Saturdays and RPGs though would be momentum.  I want something more guaranteed or at least semi-regular.  Although in saying that it would lend itself to more oneshot style RPGs which would work for me, especially from a prep (or lack thereof) perspective.

So I think I need to consider whether any of the above are actually viable or indeed whether I have other options as yet unexplored...

Let's see where this goes.

2014 Retrospective

2014 has been full of highs in relation to my hobby and how I explore it.  There are some low points but those are heavily out weighted by the high points.

My continuing attendance at DWARF is a high point albeit there were times when that attendance was infrequent. In spite of that I think I managed to attend 2 out of 4 sessions per month on average with peaks of 3 when not impacted by Real Life™ stuff.  The key achievement with DWARF was the completion of the Beyond The Rim story arc in my somewhat elongated Star Wars : Edge Of The Empire game.  As per previous posts on RPGs I would like to have done more RPGs and maybe 2015 will be when I do that but that’s for another post.  Specific thanks would go to my Star Wars group ( John, Simon, Ross, Ant, Dougie and Scott) and a few others at DWARF (namely Brian F, Brian W, Colin, Graham, Greg and +Scott Melrose ).

The establishment and flourishing community that has been built up around East Neuk Tabletop Games is probably the high point of the year.  Not necessarily because it’s been a roaring success (although in some aspects it has) but more because it’s enabled me to help establish a local community who are hungry for gaming, specifically board and card games but with an appetite to try other things.  Biggest thanks goes to +donjondo (Alan) but also to Michael, Richard, Oliver and Martin who have consistently supported our fledgling community.

Another obvious high point was my attendance at Gen Con 2014.  Not quite a life long ambition but from a hobby perspective it was always there as a goal and one that I can now mark as complete. Whether I’ll return to Gen Con in the future is debatable largely due to the financial cost of going (not just due to what games I’d buy) but I’d like to think I will return in the next few years (although not 2015 Greg!).  Big thanks to my travel companions +Liz Mackie and +Greg Barr but also to everyone I played games with and chatted to during that amazing experience.

Other highlights are largely sub-headings under those above but in the main it’s been an excellent year for my hobby and one that’s been quite cathartic in washing away some of the negativity I’d held at the start of this 2nd Chapter.

If I was to single out any form of low point it’d be largely down to personal frustrations over available game time along with the associated balance I need to find in amongst Real Life™ stuff.
I also have some frustrations over the speed of growth and consistency of attendance at East Neuk Tabletop Games but that’s largely irrational and down to my impatience when it comes to building communities.  The Field Of Dreams adage of “If you build they will come” is very fitting here as whilst it has an element of truth to it there are always delays in realising the potential of something like building a community almost entirely from scratch.

What would I have done differently in 2014?

Somewhat positively I’m not sure there is much that I would have done differently.  I’m happy with most if not all of my decisions in 2014 and it’s refreshing to look back and see that.

If I was to nitpick though?

• There are some bridges that I feel I could have actively worked on in 2014, particularly in relation to the ex-KoA community. As yet I’ve not managed to bring myself to do that, which is largely down to the negativity I referenced above.  Whether 2015 is the year I do that or not is debatable and I’m trying to not timetable that “recovery” or indeed confirm that there are bridges that actually need re-building.  I’ve deliberately remained distant from a number of people that were involved both within KoA and as part of that community.  Some of that is due to personal reasons that I won’t divulge here but also it’s because I don’t really want to be reminded of that low period which unfortunately I associate entirely with that community. This isn’t a big deal (to me) but there are times when it feels like the right thing to do.
• I had grand plans of organising some special events in 2014. None of which materialised, with the exception of the Tabletop Day event at DWARF.  This was largely down to that Real Life™ thing again but also because I was the only one involved in making these things happen. Something I plan to revisit in 2015 with a plan forming as I type.

Other than those though it was largely a low point free year for my hobby which is itself a cause for celebration!  There were obvious low points indirectly related to my hobby, not least of which was the death of my good friend Ray Gillespie.  One of those special events that I didn’t manage to organise was with him in mind so fingers crossed I can sort something out for 2015.

So what about those guiding principles and objectives I’d set myself way back in this process?

Principles

1. Only buy it if you're going to use it. – Still largely on track with this, yes even with the haul of games I brought back from Gen Con!  Definitely helped by the creation of East Neuk Tabletop as I have more opportunity to play games now. East Neuk Tabletop has also been successful in bringing some historic purchases which have languished on the shelf onto the tabletop instead.
2. Is everyone having fun? Including you? – Yep, again partly down to East Neuk Tabletop but also due to some occasions at DWARF where I’ve ensured that people aren’t without a game to play (wherever possible!).  I’m definitely enjoying my hobby a lot (especially board games) and no signs of that changing. As I reflected in my recent post on RPGs there are things I’d like to do differently but nothing that’s preventing the fun.
3. Accept that you’re going to be the GM.  – This one I’ve been challenged on by a few people in recent times. It’s also been challenged by me at a certain level after being a player in a few RPGs at Gen Con.  I still think though that this principle stands as in the absence of anyone else looking to run something (that I’d want to play in…) I am always happy to be the GM.
4. Change is a good thing and necessary. – Out of all the principles this one is hardest to define other than in editions/revisions of games. What I will say though is that 2015 may also be a year in which I change how I engage with my hobby.  More of that though in my Year Ahead post.
5. Opinions aren’t as important as knowledge and experience. – Still strongly behind this one, if only in relation to reviews and also when it comes to community dynamics.  I’m pretty strongly opinionated myself and so this has to be there in the back of my head when I start to “rant” about the hobby, which does happen from time to time…

Objectives

1. Sustainable and regular gaming. – Massive tick in this box with the advent of East Neuk Tabletop Games.  Whether I can expand on the volume of gaming I’m doing is debatable and something I’m investigating just now ahead of my 2015 post.
2. Play more with more. – Again East Neuk Tabletop Games is helping with this as is DWARF to a lesser extent primarily through the board gaming I’m doing.
3. Home based gaming. – No real movement here but again something to improve upon for 2015.
4. Play something new at least one in every six gaming sessions. – Successfully being achieved without really any effort, thanks in part to my ever growing collection of games but also down to the growth in the gaming community that’s around me.
5. Visit more game shops. – Hmmm. Still mostly in the same space I was this time last year. Indeed since then Major Arcana in Dundee has sadly closed down.  I have continued to support Black Lion Games as my chosen FLGS and have (thanks to work) made many visits to Fan Boy 3 in Manchester but apart from those it’s been limited.  Sure I’ve made a visit or 2 to Common Ground Games in Stirling and Highlander Games in Dundee but those have been opportunistic as opposed to being part of any grand plan.  Not that this is a bad thing of course!
6. I've decided to formally add this one to the Objectives list.  Attend more gaming conventions. – Gen Con and Conpulsion were my conventions in 2014. 2015 looks to be slightly (very slightly) busier…

So what else is worth noting from 2014?  Nothing springs to mind so I’ll call it quits at that. If anything it’s probably been one of the best years in hobby terms for me for many many years.

RPG Pre-Conditions and Self Limitations

So way back when I started this blog I kicked it off with a post called "I'm Dave and I'm a Roleplayer" and I proceeded to talk about the rediscovery of what I wanted my hobby to be.

Since then I've managed to rediscover my hobby and I've achieved some things too, not least of which would be attending Gen Con and establishing East Neuk Tabletop Games.

As my post on DMing Lost Mines of Phandelver attests though I've not really lived up to the title of that first post - namely I've not done much roleplaying since this 2nd Chapter started.

Why is that?  Well.....

My Star Wars game has suffered as a result of conflicting schedules (mine and my players) and establishing another game has proven to be more challenging than I think I ever appreciated.  Not through a lack of player interest more that I've not found or indeed at times made the commitment of time to run a game.

One of the beauties of boardgames is that the majority of them can be played in 90 minutes as a maximum time span. Yes there are some that will take longer but the majority of the ones I own can be played in that 90 minute slot which is great.

RPGs can also be played in a relatively short slot too but I'm beginning to think that I don't like that... I actually think that for me RPGs should be in a 4 hour slot as a minimum.  Sure you can play one-shots in 2 hours or even less and that's essentially how the Star Wars game has functioned since it started.  Now if any of my Star Wars players are reading this don't fret, I'm not about to say that we're only going to play it if I have a 4 hour slot (although that would be nice...).
What I am saying is that for any RPG that I kick off from here-on I want the slot to be roughly 4 hours.

This obviously brings me back to my challenges with that around available free time etc but it also gets me thinking too.  What other things should be pre-conditions of running a RPG?

4 hour slot is great but it should happen semi-regularly. Ideally it should happen fortnightly as a minimum although weekly would be preferable but let's not over extend things and just stick to the fortnightly as a minimum.

The funny thing is that I used to be able to do this.

Every fortnight I'd turn up on a Saturday at +ORC Edinburgh and run a game.  Not always a campaign game but a RPG and I'd run it for 4 hours.  This worked really well for a good few years and then I found I couldn't sustain it due to Real Life (tm) getting in the way...  Ok so that sounds bad. Real Life (tm) didn't so much get in the way, it was more that my priorities changed when I became a dad.

So how does that help me now?  Well it doesn't really.

Where it leaves me is going back to that consistent element of "time". The only way I can really kick off a new RPG session in a 4 hour slot is by making that time.  That really means that something has to give and the most likely (and also easiest) option is that I swap some of my existing game time for other game time.

There is another option, or perhaps just a different nuance to the option above. My Star Wars game has just completed the Beyond The Rim scenario and whilst the players are keen to continue maybe I should put it on a short break and run something else (likely D&D) for a time...  I'm not overly keen on that though as my preference leans more to running RPGs at ENT and given we're now running in a 4 hour slot that becomes more likely.

No conclusions as yet, more pondering required about my options but without pre-empting my 2015 look ahead post I think it's clear that more RPG play is going to be one of the objectives I set myself.

So what's next?

It's been a month since Gen Con and since then I've been really busy at work leading to my limited time to write here.

I have however had some time to play games that I picked up at Gen Con including Dragon Slayer, Sentinel: Tactics, Abyss, Cash & Guns and Battletech: Alpha Strike (which I had a post about but the Blogger Android app wiped it...).  All of which I can happily report are great fun.  That's not all I've been playing though and the growing games library is certainly getting used at the moment.  There are a few games that might be close to being removed as they're just not getting played but that might be a post for future.

But considering the first 8 months of 2014 was largely dominated by my build up Gen Con I have to wonder what the remainder of 2014 really holds with respect to the blog and my hobby.

There's no grand announcement here as at the moment my immediate focus is on playing games on Friday nights at DWARF and specifically on trying to grow the community that is starting to form around East Neuk Tabletop Games in Anstruther, Fife.

So what is next for my hobby and indeed for this blog?  That's really 2 questions.

My Hobby - More time for gaming.  I've posted before about my hobby objectives and my challenge around available free time.  The position in the latter post has changed a little and there may be an option to some irregular gaming on a Tuesday night soon which would be great.  Just need to ensure I'm keeping a balance though as I'm already sustaining a 3 weeks in 4 attendances at DWARF and have the 2nd and 4th Sundays at ENT.  What neither of those is giving me though is time to play D&D and that's kind of important to me.

The Blog - No real change. I expect and intend to continue to post on the various topics that I've been covering. Not least of which are those that fall under my hobby and the hobby.  I'm equally passionate about both aspects and they are things I have more to write about, especially "the hobby" but right now it's about finding / making the time to write that's proving a challenge.

So yeah, that's what is next. More of the same but obviously with less / no Gen Con content at least until 2016 when I might look to going back (2015 isn't an option for a variety of reasons!).

The first East Neuk Tabletop Games session.

I should have done this post on April the 13th itself but unfortunately it's taken til now for me to get around to it!

So on Sunday April the 13th, Alan (+donjondo) and I hosted the first of hopefully many events under the banner of East Neuk Tabletop Games.

So how did it go?

It went really well.  We had more people than either of us reasonably expected to get and whilst most of the attendees were people we each knew there were some who had heard either through the grape vine or indeed through the flyers that had been distributed.

Games played were - Pandemic, Sentinels Of The Multiverse, Zombie Dice, Zombies!!!, Quicksand, Hey, That's My Fish and several other games that I can't remember.

All in all people had fun and want to come and play again.  That first meet (or moot?!) of ENT Games was completed and deemed a success!

If you're reading this and you happen to be near #Anstruther or indeed the #EastNeuk in general then do get in touch.

We're trying to bring together what appears to be a relatively strong but fragmented community of gamers and so far we're really only finding the board/card gamers.  There will be others that we haven't found yet, after all we've kinda thrown this together in the space of a few weeks.

Our next meet up is Sunday the 18th May and whilst that causes me some challenges (It clashes with the Event Registration for GenCon....) I am thoroughly looking forward to it.

First there was an ORC then a DWARF. Now there's an ENT.

Ok so that post title needs an explanation...

When I moved from Glasgow to the East Neuk of Fife I had a bit of a purge of my gaming collection with the expectation that if I was to get back into gaming I was start anew.

The first breakthrough I had with my gaming was via the Ottakars Roleplaying Club as it was originally known but what is now the Open Roleplaying Community (Edinburgh) or simply ORC for short.

The second breakthrough came as part of starting this 2nd Chapter.  I had been to the Dunfermline Wargaming And Roleplay Fellowship (or simply DWARF for short) prior to opening KoA and during my time at ORC too.  However, it wasn't until the start of this 2nd Chapter that I really became part of that community.  DWARF isn't "just" for wargamers or roleplayers though. Quite a few people play board & card games there as well as CCGs.

So that's the ORC (A RPG club) and the DWARF (A Wargaming and RPG club).  What's the ENT?

Well... As part of my Hobby Objectives I have been looking to do the following 2 things.

2. Play more with more.
3. Home based gaming.

ENT is how I'm going to satisfy number 2 and in a round about way it also supports number 3.

So again.  What's ENT?  ENT is East Neuk Tabletop Games - so that's any of the games I refer to in my What Are Tabletop Games? post. Oh and it kicks off next Sunday the 13th April in Anstruther from 2pm to 5pm and it would greatly please both myself and +donjondo (Alan Stewart) if you were able to join us for it!

Full details can be found either on the Google+ Community or the Facebook Group or follow us on Twitter and indeed on the website.