Star Crossed Musing

So school started and I finished an editing job and... yeah. Also, my corgi decided to chase a buck and suffered some muscle strain, and was the most sad corgi ever for a couple of days. (He's fine now). But yes, I let this get away from me, and now I must catch up. RPGaDay2015: Day 20, Favorite Horror RPG So, for a lot of years, the World of Darkness was like the only good answer to this question. I couldn't have picked a specific flavor of it until these last few years, where it was really Changeling: the Lost . There's a lot of resonance there for me. That said, I honestly have to say that Chill 3rd Ed has replaced it. My favorite thing, bar none, is being a person trying to fight off the bad things. That is the horror game I want, and I want some success to be possible. I wanted Kolchak the Night Stalker, etc. And Hunter sort of did that, but not in the way I wanted. Chill does. And yes, it's kind of a gimme, since my company made it, but seriously: I freaking l...

Following the ghoul battle, everyone went to get cleaned up. Zeke's phone rings, though. It's his mortal, not-informed girlfriend calling to verify their dinner plans.  Ree'sha (I'm spelling this wrong, I know, but I don't have his sheet in front of me) asked if they were still getting together, and whether or not she needed to buy a new dress for his friend's wedding, since she got an invitation but she remembered his friend was a bit odd. Zeke immediately went on alert, as his girlfriend was now planning on attending Uno's wedding when he still didn't have an invite, and from all they could tell, wasn't going to get one. He broke off from the rest of the group and set about getting dinner reservations and getting cleaned up and prepped for what might be a difficult evening. Upon hearing that people were getting invitations to his wedding, Uno starts freaking out. People work on calming him down while they start checking with their own loved one...

Dear Readers, all 10 or so of you, the past few days have been somewhat fraught. I have started fall semester orientation, gotten my son's senior pictures, baked desserts of legend, and seen my sons leave for the summer. I am, frankly, spent, and not a little sad. I have therefore allowed the RPGaDay project to fall off my radar. Today, however, I'm catching up, with days 17, 18, and 19 all in one overstuffed post! Day 17: Favorite Fantasy RPG So, this one's actually hard for me, because although I started off in fantasy just like most other gamers... I'm not in love with playing in fantasy games. It takes something very unique about a fantasy world for me to engage with it anymore. I've got no interest in Tolkien-esque settings if it's not actually Tolkien; no interest in the bog-standard D&D stuff either anymore. I think the closest thing to standard fantasy I'm into anymore is something like Blue Rose , which has a nicely developed fantasy world...

Day 16: Longest Game Session Played I think I have to credit my ex for this one, as he wrapped up his long-running game with a session that lasted an entire weekend, with a huge boss battle and a final denouement that wrapped up everyone's storylines. There was even a papier-mache terrain map of the lost city we reclaimed as the head of the half-elf empire reborn. Seriously, it was a ton of work, and worth the weekend we spent playing. Good times. Never playing AD&D again. :)

First of all, happy birthday to my husband and best GM ever, Matthew McFarland! *muppet arms* Yaaaaaayyyyyy!!!! Day 15: Longest Campaign Played Whoo boy, this one's hard. I think -- I think -- that the current title holder has to go to our monthly Monsterhearts campaign , which has been running for two years almost exactly. I player Briar Rose Stephens, who's a Chosen that lives with her absentee single professor dad and a housekeeper in Perdido, CA. Briar's boyfriend is Austin Fairchild, whom Matt has been trying to kill off for like three seasons now. She owes a life to the king of the Fae, and she looks at it as a personal responsibility to keep Perdido as free from the threat of monsters as possible. She's about to graduate high school, though, so who knows what will happen? :) Prior to that, it was the bi-weekly Changeling: the Lost campaign, titled Snowblind (which I don't have an easy link for, but I'll work on finding one and updating it), which ...

Day 14: Favorite RPG Accessory So, my favorite RPG accessory, hands down, is my ARU, which stands for All Rolled Up . I picked mine up a couple of years ago at GenCon (mine is white with a black scrollwork calligraphy pattern on it) and I love it so very much. It's where all my dice live. Pencils and even index cards go in it. It's basically my gamer go-to bag and it keeps everything handy and neat, without becoming the black hole that a dice bag can turn into when you're not looking. It could also function as an impromptu knitting tool bag (too small to hold yarn, but that's okay) or a mini art supply carrier, or whatever. They also have versions that use chalkboard fabric, versions made with oilskins so they're waterproof, and all manner of nifty things. You can even custom order them. If you are looking for a very cool, very portable thing for your gaming love, I can't recommend an ARU highly enough. But not mine. You'll have to get your own.

Got behind yesterday, so here we are today doing two -- which probably figures, because I don't really have excellent answers for either of them. Day 12: Favorite RPG Illustration So, I love art in RPG books. Love love love. As a result of that... yeah, I got nothin'. I don't have a favorite, really. How could I ever pick just one? I will tell you who I love as an illustrator, though: Alessandro Alaia. The above image is "Line of Defense," and he did it for Chill -- and that, to me, is so indicative of the game that I can't even express it any better than he did in images -- and as a word person, that's saying something. If you want to know what Chill is, look up. It's all there. And it's gorgeous.  Day 13: Favorite RPG Podcast So, there are a billion awesome RPG podcasts out there, and I don't regularly listen to any of them. I know, I feel bad about it. But grad school, you see, and I can't work while someone's tal...