Campaign Journal

Very soon, likely next week, my gaming friends and I will embark on our biggest journey yet. We will take on the Age of Worms adventure path. This game will take us through every level of game play (1-20), and will most likely take one year for us to complete. Considering that we meet twice a week, for usually 5 hours each day, that makes for 520 hours of gaming together.

My friends and I will be chronicling our deeds with an online campaign journal, where we will post our experiences throughout the game. As a group that has had the deserved reputation of never finishing a game, our first real complete game in a very long time was the last time I ran a game (we went through the Legacy of Fire, a 1-15). So, with me at the helm once more, the lofty goal of a complete game is one I'm very interested in meeting, and one I'm encouraging. The journal is one way I'm doing that.

The journal will be found here.

So if my blog is neglected, you guys will know precisely why.

UPDATE: My character's origin is up.

Design Thoughts

Getting one of those, "A-ha!" moments is a fantastic motivator when designing anything. It's a very satisfying feeling to progress in a fashion that allows for these moments to occur.

I've been on and off with this game of mine for 7 years now. What draws me back most often is two things: a fundamental dissatisfaction with tabletop RPGs as they are, and those "A-ha!" moments.

I've made it a routine of mine to at least take a look at something different every week, despite not making much headway lately. Maybe I was hoping for a breakthrough, but maybe I was just making a habit out of doing nothing with it. Either way, I have at least temporarily alleviated the lack-of-progress condition I've had.

Every now and then I like to play-test the design in progress with a group I trust to give honest feedback. Each time it's been different people, and each time I've made big strides in how the game itself functions at the table. I look at everything at this time. What they react to, how they react, what I'm doing, how I feel about the flow of the game, after-session feedback, are all things I think about after each session. This is interactive entertainment, and the more engaged they are, the more interactive it becomes.

One of these days I'd like whoever is reading this blog to play my finished game, or even play as a tester when the opportunity shows itself.

Scottish Pirate Metal

You know, I have an interesting taste in music. I'll elaborate on this in later posts, but just know that I found this pretty entertaining, and I'm not much into metal. Pirates are awesome, though, so that just may explain it.

Quote of the Day

Link.

“…With No More Heroes 1, the idea came when I was literally sitting on the toilet. It was the result of trying to empty my bowels, if you like. With No More Heroes 2, I tried to get rid of whatever was left in my bowels, and luckily it happened. What we are hoping to do now with No More Heroes 3 is probably to digest everything we eat, and then purge absolutely everything in our guts, just like diarrhea.” – Suda51

Game development as described by an infamous developer.