More RPGing: The Quiet Year

9/10 would recommend

(It's this or the real world, friends. So today it's this.)

My current thing is RPG actual-play podcasts¹, specifically Rusty Quill shows. What I tend to get captivated by, though, are the interstitial mini-games, the ones the cast plays three sessions of at breaks just for fun.

The first one I mentioned here was Twilight Abyss from the Magnus Archives feed. jasmine_r_s and M. and I had a brilliant online time playing our scenario New York 1979, modelled on the simple 2D6 rules of that game. Technically we have another session planned, although one character is currently unconscious on a bed of slugs and another is trapped inside a giant seafood organ. So things are not looking great.

I also heard the Magnus crew play Mothership,² an Aliens-themed space RPG with a great stress and panic mechanic. My birthday falling on a Tuesday, I declared the weekends either side as birthday gaming weekends, and made the local crew try Mothership two weekends ago.

That was also fun, although I had failed to really think through the process of interstellar travel, and so very early on we had an interesting moment where I was worried the scenario had broken, but actually there was already enough character development that they players could totally dig the story out if I just got out of their way and let them.

(Always more to learn about GMing. I'm not actually all that experienced. Just bossy.)

Last weekend was my second birthday RPG, but I'd vastly overestimated the energy I'd have for prep. I tried all day to fiddle the bits of my story together into the second half of a scenario.

At 5:30 I slumped back in my vinyl chair and thought: what can I do with this fatigue and this goodwill? I can't write all this, but I still want to gather my friends and play a game against the dark.

Hey. We can play The Quiet Year.

Do you know The Quiet Year?

This is, yes, yet another game I have been wanting to play since hearing the Rusty Quill Gaming crew play it on their break.

If you like collective storytelling and thoughtful map-drawing games about community, I recommend it. You can find it here on the creator Avery Alder's site, Buried without Ceremony.

( About The Quiet Year )

On Saturday, jasmine_r_s and I plan to play a game in Zoom with friends. Very excited to try it out in that format, and just to play again.

The Enthusigasm / Rusty Quill crew are also super into Monsterhearts from the same creator. Have you played that? I read it over and it seems like you'd need the right group to play it with, but with that group, wow.

{rf}

1. There's an old Onion headline, "Man Replaces Entire Personality with Podcasts." L'oignon, c'est moi.

2. Their Kickstarter just blew up big time.

Yet more candles (Jesse's Story)

My excuse is that mass entertainments have failed me, or something.

I saw The French Dispatch this afternoon on impulse. I didn't like it. I ought to have -- Wes Anderson's films are a very particular taste, but they happen to have a flavour profile that usually works for me. This, though -- I was just bored.

When I walked out of the theatre, the rain that had been gently misting down was now trying to float the cars. By the time I got home, I was soaked. "Now," I said to myself, changing into slippers and a raggedy smoking jacket entirely out at the armpits, "marking, or another solo game of Ten Candles?"

To be fair, there's still time to do some marking.

Anyway, these posts are mostly to show myself that I am in fact doing creative work, if work that it's hard to see the exact purpose for.

Recap of Ten Candles: the game plays out in ten scenes; you make crisis rolls to see if your actions succeed, with a pool of dice that shrinks in each scene; when you fail a roll, the scene ends and you tell Truths to move the story along; also, the world has gone dark and They are coming to get you.

What is known of Them for this game: They are lonely.


The vice and virtue here came from boxofdelights .

( Jesse's Story )

{rf}