Year in Gaming 2023

Here we are at the end of 2023. How was it for gaming for me?

Running Dungeon Fantasy

Due to a TPK, this year was pretty odd for me - I actually got to play in a DF Felltower adjacent campaign GMed by one of my regular players, Vic.

So I GMed less sessions overall, but the net amount of DF Felltower-connected play wasn't as low as this seems. 2022 featured only 13 sessions for comparison to me GMing 12 this year - about one every 4 weeks.

Session 178, Brotherhood Complex 2 - Iron Knights
Session 179, Brotherhood Complex 3, Part I
Session 180, Brotherhood Complex 3 - Part II
Session 181, Brotherhood Complex 4, Part I
Session 182, Brotherhood Complex 4, Part II - Demon Grunts & Torturers
Session 183, Brotherhood Complex 5 - Gnolls (Part I)
Session 184, Brotherhood Complex 5 - Gnolls (Part II)
Session 185, Felltower 125 - Return to Felltower
Session 186, Felltower 125 - Return to Felltower Part II - Gnolls & A Level Too Far?
Session 187, Felltower 125 - Fighting the Werewolves
Session 188, Felltower 126 - Werewolf Loot & Crystal Gazing
Session 189, Felltower 127 - Quick Delve

It was great getting back to Felltower.

We added a couple of players, though - Doug and Kevin joined us. We didn't really lose anyone although Galen's player Mike only played in a session or two. Doug and Kevin have been excellent additions and have added a different approach to delving and character generation.

The Forge has been excellent, and Foundry is getting better and better. Still odd sometimes, and still lots of little issues, but overall I feel much more comfortable with it.

Playing RPGs

With our TPK in Session 184, caused by Ye Olde Let's Camp in This Dead End Tactic, we needed to reboot the party again. I didn't want to create yet another starting area, and Felltower isn't a great place for newbies anymore, after endless bottom feeding by high point guys cleaned out anything that wasn't a rat, an ooze, or a gargoyle from the upper levels. So Vic offered to run some games . . . and I suggested we port the characters from there back to Felltower.

We did that. It was a good experience - I'd never co-GMed anything like that before.

I played most of the sessions, missing only one because I didn't want to stay up all night in Japan to game from there.

Felltower Adjacent - Session 1
Felltower Adjacent - Session 2
Felltower Adjacent - Session 3
Felltower Adjacent - Session 5 - Scaring & Murdering Hobgoblins
Felltower Adjacent Session 6 - Traps & Temples of Orcus

There were 6 sessions and I played 5 of them, as you can see above. All in all, then, there were 18 sessions of Felltower-connected games run in 2023, and I played only 17 of them despite it being the campaign I initiated. Heh. Goes with my "our game" idea - Felltower is "mine" and I didn't even play all the sessions.*

AD&D

Another year with no AD&D. I expect this coming one will be the same, although I'm going to try otherwise. I expect the ship has sailed and no one wants to play AD&D anymore. I'm the only one who mentions it.

Other Games & Gaming

I was able to play some other games this year:

Board Games:

Fire in the Lake - simply beautiful, and amazing to play. Every turn feels like a dilemma.
Panzer Blitz - fun, but I'd actually rather play early-war scenarios, like 41-42.

Video games:

GTA 3: Vice City
Borderlands 2 (not so much of it, this year, but I still fired it up a few times)
Pathfinder: Kingmaker (running both my evil monk, and a Lawful Good Paladin aimed at getting the "best" ending)
Planescape: Torment enhanced edition (beautiful, and such a good game)
Fantasy General (almost finished it)
War in the East (played a couple of short scenarios)

I bought, but haven't yet played, Grand Tactician: The American Civil War.

Writing

I started work on a big project with Doug Cole, but SJG ended up putting it on hold for a while. Oh well.

I wrote a few other little things but without Pyramid, they don't have a home, but I like them too much to not try to find a way to turn them into a profit.

Overall, not a bad year in gaming. I'd like to get to 20+ sessions in 2024.





* I still shake my head over the hostile reaction I got in the comments on that one.