2012 in Game Stuff

Realized Secret Santicore was really good.
Speculated what 5e should look like.
Wrote a GM questionnaire, people answered it.
Saw my players fight ice monkeys.
Realized A Book of Beasts by TH White was really good.
Wrote an essay about people who love rules. Made people who love rules mad. Angry mail. Trolls.
Wrote random tables.
Told RPG companies to hire more women. At least one of them listened.
Played Dwimmermount with James Maliszewski. Fun.
Moebius died.
Thrown off Story-Games.com.
Got GMed by Satine. Twice.
Wrote a called shot mechanic.
Jeff stopped running his Wessex campaign. Everyone angry.
Wrote a superhero story game. It passed the time.
Wrote a Chill hack for Call of Cthulu consisting of one rule. It worked really well.
Wrote an essay about people who need rules. Made people who need rules mad. Angry mail. Trolls.
Got hired by WOTC. Angry mail. Trolls.
Explained that, no, really, I got hired by WOTC. Angry mail. Trolls.
Discovered blogger's Batmanalytic feature:

Wrote a story game using playing cards. Fun enough.

Had International Anklebiter Illustrator Day.

Got interviewed on some podcasts.

Half-bird ranger died in the home game.

Found an excellent RPG-thing carrying case at the antique mall in Medina, Ohio.

Realized the One Page Dungeons this year were really good.

Explained how 'GM Fiat' actually works. Angry mail. Trolls.

Wrote alternate fighters, rangers and thieves for old-style D&Ds.

Played Burning Wheel, had fun, wrote about it. Angry mail. Trolls.

Had an idea about a couple story-games and their connection to wargames. Angry mail. Trolls.

Interviewed author of one of those games. He said the idea made sense to him.

Interviewed authors of the old Marvel Superheroes game and the new one simultaneously.

Talked with people about Sword & Sorcery vs Anime Sci Fantasy. Angry mail. trolls.

Hello? Gammarauders?

Made that:

One year anniversary of ConstantCon.
Ran a lot of FASERIP games on-line. World partially saved. Northwest Russia annihilated.
Hired by LOTFP to write an Alice-In-Wonderland thing.
Realized that was going to be awesome.
Invented a PCs-in-the-middle-of-a-mass-battle mechanic (refining Pendragon).
Invented a PCs-crawling-on-big-monsters mechanic (refining Scrap Princess).
Party druid wrote an article about sexual harassment. Roundly lauded by people who'd previously claimed our game group appearing in the media was "bad for women".
Said Google + was becoming the best forum for talking about games. Angry mail. Trolls.
Wrote some notes on Dungeon World. Angry mail. Trolls.
Won a prize for game thing I wrote.
Went to video game conference about it. Got interviewed a lot.
Saved some FLAILSNAILS PCs from imprisonment in Castle Amber.
DMed for a college game design class.
Thoroughly enjoyed Dungeon Crawl Classics.
Played 4e for charity (again).
Made that:

Invented a sci fi storygame specifically designed to work in G+ hangouts. Passed the time.
Made the RPG Speedcyclopedia.
Hacked Deities and Demigods so you could use it at the table.
Hacked Carcosa so I could use it at my table.
Wrote about my favorite Adrian Smith picture.
Made a Random Villain Generator. Dave abulafia'd it.
Players faced a maximum age maximum size blue dragon. Survived.
Played Night's Black Agent's with Kenneth Hite. Fun.
Made up Murdermaze G+ game. Fun.
Made up Warlords of Vornheim G+ game. More fun.
Ran Cthulhu on Christmas.
Played in Vertique, Hill Cantons, Trash Planet, Cocanha, The Vats of Mazarin, The Malicrux Sector, HUSK, Aggravaina, Scrap Princess' game wherever that is, NGR Kazakhstan, Castle Nicodemus, The Caves of Myrddin, and Outland.
GMed my players from the Horrible Ice Monkey Cave across the sea to the Cobalt Reach and the Fortress of Ferox the Incinerator.
Saw the Goblin King of Gaxen Kane hire a gang of G+ FLAILSNAILERS to hunt down my home group.

Most fun game to GM: Mmmmm...maybe this one?

This one had its charm, too.

Most fun game to GM on G+: Warlords of Vornheim. (Session 1, Joe's maxed out FLAILSNAILS wizard gets killed by a catapult crit in round 1.) Close second to Chill of Cthulhu.

Most fun game to be a player in in real life: NBA with Kenneth Hite or 4e with Satine.

Most fun game to be a player in on G+: It's very close, but Jeff's Wessex games or the Murdermaze games Scrap and Joey ran. Though it's a reallll close run thing with a lot of other games.

The Cutting Edge of Cocking About

"This has never been done before."

"Yes. We are in fact on the cutting edge of cocking about." 

-Top Gear

__

So I ran the player-vs-player sci fi deathmaze. It was beautiful.

So 6 guys in a maze, right?

Rey's robot samurai is on one side of a door, he knows Joey's robot is on the other and vice versa.

Rey's robot samurai guy charges through a door with a sword, stabs his fellow robot, gets knocked to the floor almost immediately by a stun pistol, the other robot is ripping him apart, he's hovering on the edge of death, the corridor fills with someone's smoke bomb, the smoke bomb guy (a hobbit) stabs Joey in the back, Joey dies, Rey cannibalizes Joey's robot for spare parts.

Joey makes a new goblin PC who then stabs the hobbit in the back while he's trying to kill Rey (who is still on the floor and has been all game) then the hobbit is slain trying to flee, Joey's goblin runs off, then...

Joey's goblin is on one side of a door, he knows Rey's robot samurai is on the other side of the door and vice versa.

The same door.

Joey charges in. They grapple.

And here comes Han Solo. Because Ian died in another part of the complex earlier and made a new guy fast and so he made Han Solo.

Solo fires wildly into the smoky corridor and hits Joey. Joey dies.

Rey pulls a black bomb grenade off the goblin, tosses it into the room Solo's in.

Solo is blind, after some edge-of-seat back and forth with the crit chart, Rey kills Solo.

Now...

...this man, this fellow who has seen 3 foes slain on top of him without standing up, then cannibalize done's body to cold himself together, then stole their weapons and killed Han Solo after starting the game with nothing but a sword limps down the stairs, one-eyed, one arm smashed, one leg shattered, to kill the last surviving 1st-generation PC from the first round....

This man--this warrior--he howls for the coward's blood. And what happens?

It's so horrible, I can't bear to even type it out. Grisly details here.

___

Anyway...

"

Ian Johnson8:33 PM

+6

This is the best game, and I hope to play again and I want this to become an insane trend and I want to run a league and I think +Zak Smith 's huge brain is amazing because this is so much fun.

"

I'd call that a successful playtest.

Sign up.

Oh and for Ken's take on that Night's Black Agent's game from last weekend go here.

Welcome To The Gigastructure

I'll run a 40k/Gigacrawler/RIFTSy 4-person player-vs-player sci-fi deathmaze hangout game tonight.

11 pacific time. Or maybe earlier if that's better for everyone. Ask.

Sign up on G+ if you're into it tonight or another night.

*Murdermaze PC rules* 

Any race you can think of or invent so long as you are roughly human size. Cyborgs, hybrids aliens and mutants are totally ok.

6 D&D stats roll 3d6 in order

EXCEPT: Charisma is replaced with Racial stat: this represents the powerfulness of any stat associated with your race (night vision, claws, robot stuff, cyborg parts. etc)

Pick a class:
Soldier- +1 to hit EDIT: Soldiers roll 2 d8s and pick the highest for hp
Thief- Backstab and other thief functions based on dex rolls d6hp
Psionic- Pick 2 spells from any basic D&D d4hp
Techy- Pick EDIT: 2 extra objects , d6 hp

Pick any two objects to carry, they have to be smaller than a breadbox, subject to GM approval, do not be a dick. EDIT: You can have any nonpowered melee weapon as one of your items, even if it is longer than a breadbox.

Constitution modifies HP as in 3.5 or Castles and Crusades:
3=-4
4-5=-3
6-7=-2
8-9=-1
10-11= no mod
12-13=+1
14-15=+2
etc.

Players will start in different parts of the complex, the complex contains various useful items.

Play goes until only one PC is left standing.

Being the last PC standing lets you keep the same PC next time. You can switch out equipment or spells if you have them and add class hp (without your constitution bonus) to whatever total you have when the fight ends.