What I Ran or Played in 2021

In preparation for this blog, I thought it might be wise to talk about some of the games I ran or played in 2021. The year started off strong as we were still in the throes of COVID’s first lockdown and vaccines weren’t yet available. I was playing RPGs roughly five nights a week with a good mix as GM and as player. As summer approached and the world seemed to be waking up a bit, sessions dropped to three or fewer times per week. In that time, I ran or played the following systems/settings:

Ran

• UVG - One of my longest running campaigns, this group has been playing pretty steady since mid-2020. We started using FATE Accelerated, then moved to Tiny D6, before settling on my own hack of Troika! for the system.
• Troika! - I ran weekly sessions for my teenager and his friends for a while. They chased an evil Sorceror across multiple spheres and got into a variety of misadventures along the way.
• Mutant Year Zero - My regular Saturday evening group spent a good long while exploring the wastes around a future London and dealing with troubles and intrigues within the Ark.
• Vaesen - Ran the same Saturday evening crew through the adventure included in the core rule book.
• Warpstar! - Ran half a dozen sessions of A Pound of Flesh using Warpstar! as the system before it petered out.
• Dungeon Crawl Classics - I ran The Portal Under the Stars as a one-shot for a group between regular sessions.
• Barbarians of the Ruined Earth - This was my Tuesday group for a good spell. Trailing and dealing with a marauding sorcerous warlord and his beastly horde.
• Cthulhu Deep Green - Ran a few sessions of Operation: Fulminate late in the year. We haven’t finished it yet.

Played

• Call of Cthulhu - Playing in a series of playtest sessions for a friend’s new adventure/sourcebook that’s been really intriguing.
• Cthulhu Dark - Joined the Miskatonic University Podcast crew in a playtest session as a teenage painter touched (or cursed) with insight into the eldritch.
• Sunset Kills - A Buffyish group of high school misfits battling werewolves and a bizarre carnival.
• Trophy Gold - Played Evlyn Moreau’s Where the Wheat Grows Tall over several sessions.
• Electric Bastionland - Played a one-shot with the Miskatonic University Podcast crew.
• Custom Year Zero Engine games - Played in a group that started off as a Knave hack running a pseudo-Bronze Age Mesopotamian world, but we were all enamored with the YZE and the GM started to craft a custom set of skills and a magic system that fit the world.
• Knave - Began as an OSE adventure, we eventually switched over to Knave. The world our GM created was clever. A Westworld-style amusement planet focused on fantasy. The park had long been abandoned and the AIs governing the system had gone insane long ago. We played as autonomous hosts, still fully grounded in the make-believe world.
• Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - For a few sessions this summer, when we could sit outside and socialize in person, my local group got together to run one of the Candlekeep Mysteries adventures. I played an apprentice wizard emloyed as a docent of the keep.

Welcome to Neverending Pretending

New Year, New Blog

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.” - Plato

“Now is better than never.” - The Zen of Python

I know in my work life as in my private life, I’ve caused myself a lot of suffering by overanalyzing the beginning of something. Over the course of 2020 and 2021, my RPG hobby resurrected in a big way. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years thinking about what makes gaming fun for me and hopefully for the people at my table. I’ve spoken about a lot of it with folks in voice chats, but never properly put thought to word.

Until now.

My number one intention for this blog is to act as a repository for what I hope to be a useful resource for folks who want to tackle settings and adventures for crunchier systems in a more minimalist way.

Welcome to Neverending Pretending!