Writeups

I’m running a small local group through the Embers of Dawn mini-campaign; today we did Building the Pyre. Susan, Peter, Mark, Jon, and Noah played. It’s a remarkably fun group of people – there are a lot of fun possible groups in the Baltimore LFR circle and this is definitely one of them. I knew it’d be a good time given the players; I was not really anticipating a great module. Building the Pyre doesn’t read as well as the other Embers of Dawn modules. The combats are OK, if a little disjointed, but the skill challenges are fairly blah and over-long. I’m firmly of the opinion that interrogation skill challenges should not be more than 4/3 complexity. 8 successes? That’s a long, painful interrogation. ...

This was my second run-through of Arts, both times as a GM. Last time I ran it on high; this time was on low, as expected. I was kind of looking forward to finding out how deadly the final fight was on low, but this wasn’t the right group for that, which is perhaps for the best. I ran down at the Games and Stuff game day for long complex reasons – can’t make it down there usually, but for special occasions I can. It’s nice to meet new folks. The table was Susan, Tom, Trevor, Nina, Frank, and Zach – two newcomers, four fairly experienced players. I’d only run for Susan and Tom before. We had a nicely balanced group with two leaders, a controller, two strikers, and a defender. ...

Games and Stuff

My goal is to play in and DM a grand total of 50 LFR games or more during 2010. One a week, no big deal, right? I run a game day every two weeks, which covers half of that; I have a few more Embers of Dawn sessions to go; I go to conventions, which means a lot of games in a short timespan; and I do home games. ...

[ Ed: still with apologies to Television Without Pity. And to anyone who’s confused by this, actually…] This week on Dungeon Majesty: Oliver suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous childhood, Cassie and Millie get hit on by a swim team, Alvin gets a job, Andrew uncovers secrets, and Ferdinand is mostly away this episode. We’re grumpy about that last.

[ Ed: with apologies to Television Without Pity.] Will Maggie Gyllenhaal free herself from an over-protective mother? Will Philip Seymour Hoffman overcome a slight case of being Philip Seymour Hoffman? Will Owen Wilson ever stop being cute, and/or find a distributor for his documentary? Will William H. Macy discover yet another way to lose an election? And most important, will your humble recapper be able to remain coherent despite continuous references to that geeky game she always ignored in high school? We won’t find out this week, except maybe for that last one, but at least the wheels will be in motion.

In the third Dear Brother letter, Reese gets a tattoo and we meet Danny and Angie. Those who read my blog for the politics are starting to get confused. But it’s really a very political game!

In the second installment of the Dear Brother letters, Reese and the gang fight a crocodile. At least, if you define “fight” as “feed a helpless old man to.”

Dear Brother #13 was pretty harrowing to write, and if I’ve written well, it should be tough to read. I can only hope I’ve done justice to the emotions of the session.

In this Dear Brother letter, we find out why Ben was hung on a ferris wheel and how Black got laid in Las Vegas. It’s always the other PCs getting lucky…