2015 was an odd year for me. "Unstable" is probably the best way to describe it. And that goes for my gaming as well.
The beginning of the year saw a false start on a Technomancer game. This was a case where working on the world and templates was more fun than figuring out what exactly is going to happen in each session.
And after the false starts we had at the end of 2014, I decided to go back to something that had worked really well previously: Dungeon Fantasy.
This time around I went with a "kitchen sink" approch to DF. Just about anything was allowed in the setting. Instead of getting a party of totally mismatched crazy characters though, everyone wanted to play Arakuns (my Racoon-men race). This game when on for five sessions then sort of came to and ending point.
The big story arc was somewhat resolved, and I wasn't sure where to go with the game. Again this was reflecting the general chaos in my life. So, we started another new DF game.
Since my own creative process kept stalling on me, I decided to go with a ready-to-serve solution. I ran the Lost Mine of Phandelver using GURPS Dungeon Fantasy (for those that don't know. LMoP is the adventure packed in the D&D 5th edition starter box).
The game went very well and things started to get back to a more consistent format. The Players made many interesting choices so as a GM I was kept very entertained. The most challenging part was converting the D&D monsters to GURPS. I used a few simple rules for conversion, But the special abilities of some monsters are still geared for D&D and I knew that any session could be the last.
Well the session I expected to be the last was... but not for the reasons I thought. The party were practically right outside the "big bad's" room, when they decided to circle back around. Some enemies had fled, and they didn't know what the rest of the dungeon looked like. This cost the characters' lives.
They got ambushed by a bunch of ghouls with paralytic attacks. This was bad enough, but they also never seemed to get the upper hand in battle. Some bad dice rolls, some turns spend on positioning that didn't really help, and a few other factors led to the death of the PCs.
TPKs are never good, but I still felt that this was a good campaign. It lasted a good while, and was a lot of fun. ( 10/10 would TPK again! )
There was another false start with an Infinite Worlds game. Then we went back to another familiar setting: Fallout.
I've run 8 sessions of Fallout so far, and it has been fun. We're running through the events of the first game, but I think things might take a left turn from that soon.
So, here is to another year of gaming!
A note on the blog: updates have been few lately. This is due to a lack of time and because I am not pondering on rules as much (my Fallout game is not using tactical combat). Still, I plan to post more this year.
