It’s Been a While!

It has been way too long since my last update. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on things - I have! More on that shortly.

I’m a bit bummed and disappointed in myself. I had a Rifts campaign going for a while, about a year or so. Scheduling is difficult, so I came up with an idea: instead of one, long campaign requiring an a long commitment, I broke it up into “mini campaigns,” of 3-4 sessions a piece. This way folks could play for a few sessions, sit out for a bit, the come back for a future quest. There’d be a month or two break in between campaigns.

The premise was simple: the players own a shipping company based out of MercTown. Every mini campaign, they’d be tasked with delivering some cargo to a destination. The cargo could be valuable goods, it could be construction supplies, weapons, or even people. In one case, they have to transport a dangerous criminal. For players that were able to commit to every mini campaign, I tried to tie their backstory into the adventure somehow.

I still like the premise, but it became a little too loosey-goosey. Players weren’t always able to make it to a session for one reason or another, myself included. I guess this is a common problem with RPG campaigns. Online has made this a bit easier, but in our case it was still challenging. I’m frustrated with myself for not reigning things back in and jump starting the campaign. I was hoping to do that this summer, but with GenCon coming up, I need to devote my weekends to event prep and play testing. More on that shortly. Overall, I considered this to be a missed opportunity, especially since I had good players in the campaign.

I recently realized something about myself

Despite playing Rifts off and since it was published, I’ve not been a player in a Rifts game since 1992. I’ve only been a GM, not a player. Even at Palladium Open Houses, I find myself only running events, not playing in them. Similarly, growing up, when I’d play D&D with my friends, I was always the DM, never the player. And I played with my childhood friends all the way through high school and college. That was a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it was a great bonding experience for my friends and me. So many great memories.

The problem is that they were the only players I knew. And after playing with the same players for so many years, they become quite predictable. This became a problem when I started playing in college with all nw people. I was like a deer in the headlights.

Oh, also since I only played with the same people and was only ever the DM/GM, my house rules were the only rules. I learned how to run a D&D game from my older brother. I didn’t realize he house ruled a lot until I got to college and learned that - oops! - I’ve been doing it wrong. Sorta.

Back to Rifts. Having never been a player for all intents and purposes, I don’t get the perspective from the other end. I still have no idea how aligned my GMing style is with others. I know I take canon seriously, and perhaps too literally. I know I house rule combat somewhat (don’t most of us?)

It wasn’t until my mid-late 30s that I started running events at conventions. That helped my GMing skills immensely. A GM never knows what players they’ll get a their table, which means every session is different. I also learned that I’m much better at running one-shots I’ve written than campaigns. And speaking of one-shots, if I may toot my own horn here, I’ve written some very run ones and have had some great events. Of course, I’ve had a few duds too. I think my biggest dud was my attempt at a Nightbane one-shot at GenCon many years ago. I don’t do horror well, I just don’t have the personality for it. I even got a pep talk from Mark Oberle (the author of several Nightbane books) just prior to the event. The event started….. and it just didn’t execute well. I was running Nightbane as if it was a Heroes Unlimited game, despite my attempts at creating a horror mood.

That said, I thought it would be fun to play in a Rifts events at GenCon this year! Unfortunately, besides the fact the few Rifts events sold out too quickly, they conflicted with my event schedule. Oh well… perhaps another time!

And speaking of GenCon….

GenCon 2023!

I will be at GenCon 2023 this August! I’m running three events. Unlike previous GenCons, I’m running events that I have already run before. This year, I just don’t have the energy to write a new one, test it several times, build the props, etc. Instead, I’m running the following:

Band of Bothers (Heroes Unlimited)

One of my favorites, and is my one submission to The Rifter that got published (The Rifter #68). It’s mean to be a light-hearted adventure where you play as a superhero with seemingly useless or silly super powers. The party has to solve the mystery of their mentor’s assassination. I love seeing how creative players get with their super powers. I’ve been running this one at least 5 or 6 times at various conventions.

Zombies 101 (Dead Reign)

This is another favorite of mine. I am really not into zombie movies and stuff like that, but I enjoy the Dead Reign books so I decided to write a Dead Reign adventure. It is a roleplay-heavy adventure that takes place at a university overrun by zombies! The players have to get the vaccine from the university lab and escape, but it’s not that straightforward. Each character has a brief bio which may or may not provide an alternate goal for the character. It also provides the party with options to help them along the way. I’ve run this three times now and it’s been a blast each time. My most recent run was at TotalCon earlier this year. Check out the happy players:

Meltdown (Rifts Chaos Earth)

This is one of my newer events, and I’ve run it twice. Though everyone had fun (I hope), I wasn’t pleased with how it went. I think it was just too easy for the players. It takes place just days after the coming of the Rifts. The players have to protect a nuclear power plant from melting down and make a valiant attempt to keep power running for the remaining area population. The problem is I’m a terrible combat tactician (just ask my players). This is why my events tend to be role play heavy. I really hope this one goes better than my last two events. I have a good feeling…

My events tend to be prop-heavy, and I really like that. I think it adds flavor. I even make pretty character sheets printed on heavy card stock. I think it helps! The problem with props at GenCon is that they need to fit in my luggage and survive the flight to Indianapolis…. I’ve become a pro though.

RC Builder

I’ve made a lot of progress on the app. Rather than go into them all here, I’m just going to paste the change log. One thing I’ve been struggling with recently, and just got it to work (sorta) is the printable audit log. By “audit log,” I mean the app keeps track of every stat and every bonus used to calculate that stat. For example, suppose your character has a P.S. of 28. How did the character get a P.S. so high? Well, the audit log will tell you that the player rolled 17 on 3D6, so it exploded with another D6, bringing to 21. Then they selected Athletics (General), Body Building and Weight Lifting, and their O.C.C. granted an P.S. bonus. It’s a really neat way to track your character, and helpful if you want to min-max. Here’s a snippet from the audit log of a level 15 Lemurian Rogue Scholar:

Level 15 Rogue Scholar audit log (page 2)

I’ve typed enough for enough… if you’re going to GenCon this year, maybe I’ll see you there!

Character Builder Updates and GenCon 2023!