Year in Gaming 2022

Here we are at the end of 2022. How was it for gaming for me?


Running Dungeon Fantasy

We had only 13 sessions of DF this past year, from session 145 - session 162. That's down from 20 - I think - last year. It was a lowsy year for gaming.

Session 165, Felltower 118 - Beyond the Repelling Doors
Session 166, Felltower 120 - Draugr Do-or-Die (Part I)
Session 167, Felltower 120 - Draugr Do-or-Die (Part II)
Session 168, Felltower 120 - Draugr Do-or-Die (Part III)
Session 169, Felltower 121 - Second GFS - Part I
Session 170, Felltower 121 - Second GFS - Part II
Session 171, Felltower 121 - Second GFS - Part III
Session 172, Felltower 122 - Desmond Takes Command & Stirges
Session 173 (Part I), Felltower 121 - Second GFS - Part IV
     Interlude: Prisoners of the Masters
Session 173 (Part II), Felltower 123 - Dungeons & Dwarves
Session 174, Felltower 124 - Mission for the Masters
Session 175, Felltower 124 - Mission for the Masters II
Session 176, Felltower 124 - Mission for the Masters III - Beholder
Session 177, Brotherhood Complex 1 - Tricks, Traps, and Triger


Our player pool dropped, too. We had only seven players this year, down from ten. All regulars, no new people. But Galen's player hasn't played since 2021, along with a couple others. Some can't seem to handle Foundry, and I can't handle Roll20 anymore. I'm not sure I need new people, but I do need to get some of my players back.

A good chunk of the game was in Felltower - all of it except the last session. No gates. A little deeper exploration. And a number of sessions centered on the ill-fated delve that led to the capture of the PCs, and the consequences. That derailed a lot - it took a while to get people together to play it, a long time to resolve, and then we had a few sessions of trying to satisfy the Masters's needs but they ended in a TPK.

Oddly TPKs don't seem to dissuade anyone from playing. Which is good, although if everyone threw up their hands and say no more Felltower aka DF on Hard Mode I'd just run something else.

Foundry has been annoying, but vastly better than Roll20. I'm getting more skilled at it. I anticipate paying The Forge to host another year - it was well worth the price and their tech support - the one time we needed it - did all that we could have asked. As a former IT guy myself, I'm both understanding and very picky. I understand the issues, but I expect results. We got results.

Playing RPGs

I didn't get to play any.

AD&D

Another year with no AD&D. I expect this coming one will be the same, although I'm going to try otherwise.

Other Games & Gaming

I got my copy of Fire in the Lake. I've read the rules, but I need space to play it.

I played Pathfinder: Kingmaker and enjoyed it a great deal. I'd play it again except I need to give it a little more time before I'm properly decided what to do in it. I want to run an unarmed monk, and I'm trying to decide between good (again) or evil. Fun stuff.

I didn't really get a lot of other video game playing in.

Writing

I wrote all of one article for Pyramid for publication. I'm a lot busier with work - at my place of employment and with my own personal business. So not as much time to write . . . and not as much interest in writing what came along.

I did put my name in the ring for a possible project in 2023. We'll see if I get the gig. If so, it's GURPS, and it'll involve my usual areas of interest. That's all the hint I can give.

I am still keeping up the blog, but with more breaks than last year. Call it 319 posts this year. Not bad, although I will try to keep up daily posting more in the future. Still, it's over 11 years in and 3900 posts.




Overall, a so-so year in gaming. I will do my best to make sure the next one isn't so light on gaming as this one.

Friday's Links 12/30/22

Early post today, because a power outage took out my workplace and cut my day unfortunately short.

- I'm almost done with How to Defend Your Lair. I'll get a full review up - I think it's well worth it.

- I finished reading Slaying the Dragon. Not worth a full review. It's a readable, general audience overview of TSR from inception to the Wizards of the Coast takeover. It's not bad, but it's light on the deep details I'm interested in. Also, this may be accurate, but Peter Adkinson comes off pretty much like a Deus Ex Machina, swooping in and fixing everything with money and by being the best guy possible to everyone. I had no idea . . . but it felt a bit overly lauditory.

- I managed to finish my mapping and most of my monster input for our next Felltower session. Not all of it, but most of it. Enough to play through. Next game is 1/8.

- I have to take some time today and write my annual report of the blog and gaming. I'm looking forward to seeing how much we played this year.

- Here is a fun Labyrinth Lord character generator.

- This is grim game inspiration, but I watched The American Experience: The Battle of Chosin. Short version - US and Korean troops attacked by the Chinese in the dead of winter and have to fight their way out. Longer version - it starts out about battle, but mostly is about slogging through horrific cold during a retreat (for the US) and during an attack (the Chinese, while inadequately equipped for said cold.) It's game inspiration in that it is a good look at what terrible weather is like. If your game features bad weather and bad conditions but the weather and conditions are just a minor descriptive filip, I think you're potentially missing out. Of course, in a fantasy game, PCs will just cast Resist Cold and undo a lot, but at least make the conditions part of the adventure or I'd say just skip them in the first place.

Felltower numbering - fixed! Maybe.

Following up on a comment by Periapt Games, I had to go in to my Felltower summaries and do some renumbering.

First, I had to make sure I was only missing the ones I was missing . . . and then go and edit each one to make it right. This took quite a while.

I'm not certain I did it correctly. I believe the numbering should be correct, now, for sessions numbered from 150-177. I didn't check earlier but I don't seem to have missed any sessions earlier.

If anyone wants to take a check, feel free! The html address will be misnumbered - I'm not going to try and fix those if I even can - but the titles and descriptions on My DF Campaign page should work fine now!

Felltower shirt sale!

Just a quickie today - the Felltower t-shirt is on sale.

I Died in Felltower

Yes, the I Died in Felltower t-shirt is now only $16.08 with code WINTERDEAL22, plus shipping. Need a late Christmas present to honor a late PC? Feel left out by being left off of the graveyard?

Proceeds go to support the player who designed it, who has to care for the widows and orphans of Ulf, Bjorn, Hjalmarr, eventually Desmond, and others!

Must-Have Dungeon Features

If I'm creating a dungeon, I make sure to include these:

Latrines - or something similar. A midden, refuse heap, garderobe, etc. There needs to be some place for folks to relieve themselves. Lack of these indicates the builders don't produce wastes, or the GM just forgot. Make sure it's the former.

Pro tip: Put these in convenient places but where it's unlikely to interfere with living there. Humans rarely want to live right on top of an open sewer. Ensure there is a way to have them emptied, or make sure they self-empty.

Dining areas - and lacking these, a place to eat where people barracks up or otherwise live.

Storerooms - absolutely necessary to live, given a lack of Doesn't Eat or Drink on everyone in the place. Plus players will probably insist on going through this stuff like crazy. I've seen players spend more time on barrels of hardtack and "what kind of dried fruit do they have? My character wants to eat some" than on 1,000 pieces of gold. Make sure the amount makes sense - if you have X guards and 2 days of rations for X guards, that should be an issue.

Water Source - lacking Doesn't Eat or Drink, you need this. Bonus if you can also clean dishes, wash yourself, etc. in this. Make it liveable.

A Way to Restock - not more monsters, although that helps. I mean reprovision food, etc.

Stuff to Do - unless your inhabitants are automatons, they need entertainment. Dice, cards, books (for a literate culture), a practice area, etc. are necessary if you're saying the inhabitants live there for weeks and weeks.

I'm sure I'm missing some things . . . but these are pretty important in my book. I've seen too many dungeons without them.

Terrain, Tokens, and Decorations for Foundry VTT?

I'm busily creating my dungeon features for Felltower in Foundry. I'm having the usual issues - perfect minis for a token but I can't find the mini in my collection, tools that aren't always the friendliest in the world, a Run Time "5" error on GCA sometimes killing my NPC imports, and so on.

My current wonder is, how do I do terrain features and the like for Foundry? I've found lots of maps with details on them, but I really need a set of things like trap doors, couches, bookcases, boxes, urns, etc. like I had (somewhat) in Roll20.

Even being able to roughly draw them would be fine, except that drawings are all-or-nothing. It's very easy to wipe them out with a single wrong click and it's hard for me to draw well with a pencil nevermind a mouse or trackball.

There must be a "terrain pack" of some kind. And something with weapons so we can place dropped weapons down would be sweet. I'm beginning to think I need to take a lot of pictures and make tokens for each and every one. That sounds . . . very labor intensive.

So if you know of a good pack, or a good solution, I'm open to suggestions!

Merry Christmas from Felltower

I spent this morning updating maps, uploading NPCs, snapping pictures of minis and making tokens out of them, and assorted other game prep for Felltower.

It was a nice way to spend a quiet Christmas morning. I hope yours was excellent as well!