Hi! Been a while. How’s it going?
Alright? Good. So. Quick update. This year is still racing by, and I still feel like a table tennis ball being ping-ponged back and forth between work stress and semi-sicknesses; light fevers, headaches, COVID brain fog, the likes.
Whenever I get the time, I work on one of my of writing / gaming projects or annoy / bore flash fiction prize committees with the occasional rushed entry. I’m not even bothered about the outcome anymore, I just do it for the sense of achievement. I want to believe that it’s possible for this writing thing to coexist with my day job, even when the latter is as extraordinarily exhausting as it’s been this year.
Finally, to make sure I don’t run the risk of ever getting too much done, I’m in the process of starting a couple of new TTRPG campaigns. And by a couple, I mean five. Four of which I’ll be GMing. I’m not sure as to the actual reason; I guess I just really wanted to play. And go see people. And it turned out there were other people with similar ideas.
Speaking of ideas, here’s a quick teaser for each of the campaigns:
- A fantasy special forces unit, the members of which have been chosen by a mystical oracle, carrying out missions in the name of their silver dragon patron and investigating the rise of undeath across their country. This is the continuation of a D&D 5E campaign* that ran for almost a year prior to the pandemic.
- Finally putting the D&D 5E Acquisitions Incorporated module to use! I’m not gonna run the adventure from the book, but boy am I hyped about the company roles and headquarter upgrades. This will probably be the silliest of all the campaigns – and thus, I suspect, the one that prepping for will come the most naturally to me.
- Going oldschool with AD&D 2E’s Dark Sun setting**; exploring the post-arcanocalyptic desert planet Athas, probably through the eyes of a party of escaped slaves fighting for survival. I’m not quite sure whether I’ll learn and teach everyone 2E or 4E for this or try my best to convert the rules over to 5E. I’m heavily gravitating towards the former though. Gotta change up the systems at least a little bit.
- The wildcard campaign I don’t have a concrete idea for yet. Also D&D 5E, probably something dungeon-crawly. Haven’t had much of a chance to talk to the players yet, we’ll see.
- The campaign I’ll be a player in. We’re probably gonna do an official D&D 5E module, dunno which one yet. I’m just excited to see the other side of the table again.
Campaigns #1 – #3 will be in person, #4 and #5 remote. Each one is gonna be an evening a month. We did a session zero for #1 this week,*** and the one for #4 is coming up. So yeah, if you don’t hear from me for another three months, at least this time you’ll know why.
* With some added-on character options from my still-in-development Wild Magic add-on that I will totally and absolutely finish one day. Maybe.
** I first came in touch with this setting through an adventure Jerry Holkins from Penny Arcade ran for Mike Krahulik, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub. Must have listened to that about four years back, when I first got into D&D and Acq Inc. It’s still on YouTube, check it out.
*** My first ever session zero! When I was reading up on the format and assembling my checklist, I’ll admit I was still a bit skeptic. But not only did we get through all of my list in pretty much exactly the allotted time, it was actually a fun evening filled with constructive discourse that I think everyone was glad we had. I’ll see how the next three go and maybe share my checklist on here after.