October Shadowrun Campaign News and a new Seattle Scream Prop (#79)

Just finished up with the traditional first Saturday game at Tyche’s Games (please come and play if you are in the Athens, Georgia, area) which was successful.  September was fairly light on Shadowrun sadly, just the one Tyche’s Games run and finished up one SoCal game online.  But been thinking about Shadowrun quite a bit and opened a file just for adventure ideas (which served me in good stead earlier today).

Hot off the bit presses, the latest Seattle Scream (#79) again nothing tied directly to recent adventures as the runner managed to get out fairly clean.  Today’s adventure actually spiraled out of the combat soccer news from Issue 78, where they had to track down a Russian combat soccer player who had gone walkabout.

Still waiting for the official release of the new Shadowrun books so that I can get them reviewed which I am quite looking forward to.

Notes: Image from PxHere and is free to use under a CC0 Public Domain release and is thus free for personal and commercial use and chosen because combat soccer.

Autumn begins with October, goodbye September

Where did September go?  I turned around and now it is almost October!  October is, naturally, the eighth month of the Roman Calendar.  It seems the Romans had no special association for October beyond Autumn, but we have Halloween!  So the theme on the Sea of Stars Design Journal for this month will be Monsters and Monstrous Things!

If you have ideas for a Monster or monster-themed item you wish to see, let me know and I will try to make it happen.

Have a safe Autumn all.

September 2022, saw the following posts here:

Review – The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade, Vol 1

Finally finished The Sea in World History: Exploration, Travel, and Trade, Vol 1 (Ancient Egypt through the First Global Age), Stephen K. Stein, Editor.  it was well worth the effort to go through but one of the great things is that the information is divided into easy section:

Each section covers a discrete historical period and starts off with a good-sized overview of what was happening in that period of history as regards to sea travel, trade, and maritime technology.  Then there are lots of small sections by experts on narrowly focused subjects such as specific ship types, famous navigators, particular regions, and so on.

So you can just dip into the book, pull out the information you need for what you are working on and move on.  Or you can read sections and pull out things that inspire you for world-building.

Such as: the Orang Laut or “sea people” who used to live in family groups aboard longboats in the ocean off Burma and Thailand, where they made their living as fisherfolk and gather other resources from the sea (including pearls) and trade.  They were also often involved in piracy and sometimes worked for local states providing naval forces and acting as coast guards.  While they still exist as a cultural group their lives as travelers of the seas were destroyed by the rise of the nation-states who forced them to settle ashore.  Still what an interesting model for a society to encounter.

Highly recommended for people who like to use the real world as a model for their game worlds.  The only downside is the book is an academic work and thus exceedingly expensive but hopefully your local University library has a copy (which is how I got the copy that I read).

Notes: Some thoughts I had along the way to the review here.

D&D One – Playtest 1: Character Origins

So, I seemed to have missed the feedback window for the Character Origins playtest for D&D One (henceforth, D&D) but I thought that I would post some of my observations and thoughts here so at least they have a chance of contributing to the debate.  Now, I have not actually played much using these playtest rules, but my thoughts are based on 45-ish years playing D&D, and many other RPGs, in various incarnations.

The basic framework seems fine, though much in the race (and honestly surprised they have not changed this to kindred or something similar) section could be improved.  The X of many worlds section is weak, not giving much in the way of roleplaying hooks.  One of the useful things of kindred-based bonuses to statistics was that it gave you an idea of what that culture valued and was good at.  Now, not all X do Y, but it gave you something to hang your roleplaying hat on, either to embrace or to play against type.

September Shadowrun Campaign News and a new Seattle Scream Prop (#78)

Back from GenCon and back into our Shadowrun campaigns!  Visited the Shadowrun room at GenCon and got some cool Catalyst Demo Team gear to wow the players with.  The next game I will be CHing will be tomorrow, the usual first Saturday game at Tyche’s Games, please come and play if you are in the Athens, Georgia, area.

Hot off the bit presses, the latest Seattle Scream (#78) nothing tied directly to recent adventures as the runner managed to get out fairly clean.  I ended up using the MetroPlex Marketplace Meetup (M3) from the last issue for three separate runs!  All taking place more or less simultaneously at different places around the convention.  Very pleasing.

Notes: Image from Pixabay and is free to use and ties into an extraction at a dance club during M3.

It is September now! August is over

Ah, September!  Been focused on my upcoming vacation with my lovely wife so the month slipped by.  September does not seem to have any particular ties to myth or tradition in Roman culture, so as Seven is usually viewed as a magical number, magic and spells will be the theme for this month.   Please let me know if there is anything you would like to see.

August, 2022, saw the following posts here:

GenCon, 2022, Day 3 and Day 4

Following from Day 1 & 2.

Day 3 (Saturday, 5th August)

Ugh, up early.  Shower, coffee, booth.  First task, all of the stock that was left over from BGN off loaded from the pallet, unboxed and on the shelves.  That went pretty well, Howard, Nick and I are a good team and we had some help with the shelving of games.  After I ran a game over to Black Oak Workshop to trade for lovely dice, I got a Firefly D20 for Howard’s daughter Evie and a dice bag for Nick as well as some dice for myself.  The print pictured is from Kat G Birmelin and actually purchased on Day 2, it was the last one at the Con and I was very pleased (and perhaps fortunate) to acquire it.

Work was work, blew through most of the new items that we had restocked the shelves with and had to bring out lightly used copies of the Guild of Merchant Explorers that had been played at BGN.  And those moved a bit slower.  But the shelves were looking pretty bare by the end of the day.  So after the hall was closed to the public, we brought out all of the games we had on special, multiple cases, and put them on the shelves for tomorrow.

GenCon, 2022, Day 1 and Day 2

Following on from Day 0:

Day 1 (Thursday, 4th August) the first real day of the Con and it was going to be a busy one.

Up early, showered and off to Starbucks for some coffee, the wait was only about five minutes but I suspect it will get longer from here on in.  Then off to the exhibit hall, wandered around and visited Baldali jewelry where I picked up a [REDECTED] as a gift for my lovely wife, the Goodman Games booth where I picked up some Dungeon Crawls Classics stuff, and checked in to see how Drew had done finishing the setup for his booth and picked up a lovely mouse pad from him too.

Finally, back to the AEG booth, which I had kept looping back to all through the above waiting for our team leaders to appear and give instructions.  We were told to report at 9am, and they arrive around 9:30ish.  But the booth was still ready when the floodgates opened

People poured in and started buying things, and things, and things, without a break for the first forty-five minutes.  We sold out of one of our recent games in the first hour and a second by mid-afternoon.  The third of the newest games . . . we only have what is out on the shelves and we are out of that too.  Many of the other games that AEG brought are in the same shape.  We only have significant backstock on one major game and a bunch of games they are using as giveaways.   And remember, Thursday is not even supposed to be that busy of a day for sales at GenCon.  Tomorrow will be interesting.

GenCon, 2022, Day -1 and Day 0

Day -1 (Tuesday, 2nd August) was devoted to travel from Georgia to Indianapolis, not a short hop.  We were trying a new route up through Kentucky and Tennessee which, although it took a little longer (maybe) was really beautiful and included traveling through the Cumberland Gap Tunnel (one of only two tunnels in the United States that cross state lines).

But by far the most exciting part of the day was a little after one o’clock when we had been on the road for about four hours.  We pulled off to stop at a Cracker Barrel and Howard, who was driving, said, “Do you hear that?”

To which I replied, “No, but don’t be surprised.  I don’t hear a lot, I have a genetic defect that prevents me from hearing a range of sounds.”

“It sounds like a cat.”

“A cat?”

Where to Find Me at GenCon 2022

You may wish to review my advice to those going, though the preparation section is of less use as the Con is upon us!

I will, again, be working in the exhibitor’s hall for Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) as usual, and we should have banners up, but you can find us at Booth 903.  Right now my schedule looks something like this:

Thursday, working in the booth 10am-6pm.

Friday, working in the booth 10am-6pm.  And from 6:30pm – latish, you will find me helping with AEG’s Big Game Night (BGN) which is down in the Lucas Oil Stadium.  No idea how it is going to be run this year so I am probably inaccessible until BGN is over.

Saturday, working in the booth 10m-6pm.

Sunday, last day, working in the booth 10am-4pm.

S0, yeah, does not look like I will have much free time except on Thursday and Saturday evenings, at least one of which I hope to be able to hit up Games on Demand for some sweet indie roleplaying.

Spotting me in a crowd!  On duty, I will be wearing a black AEG “Dead Reckoning” shirt, and a red AEG t-shirt the other day, with a geek-adjacent mask.  My hair (pulled back in a ponytail) and beard are mostly white, and I am an average height slightly overweight white man, so, yeah, I will not be that easy to spot.  However, I intend to be wearing these lovely masks made for me by my wife when not of duty during the Con. Photo attached for reference.

Beyond that, who knows?  So drop me a note if you want to try and meet up, I am sure we can work something out.

In any case, to all those going and not going: Have fun and play more games.