My RPG Reflection – 2022

Like most years, I ran a lot of games. I did play a bit, but mostly it was running. Let me give you a rundown.

 

Alternating Tuesdays: The J-Team

This year, my brother and his friends headed to Candlekeep, got a bit sidetracked at a tomb along the way, discovered Jim Dark magic was in prison, and raced to rescue him from a prison in the Icewind Dale.

Alternating Tuesdays: Flee to Faerun

I’m still playing Tonyis Ta’ark, a character originally built off of Iron Man, but she’s grown into her own this year, imo. In January, she got her Peregrine mask and suddenly, she’s all about flight.

Jan 4: Shen Yu fight, Peregrine Mask
Jan 18: Vision of Siel, commissioned to kill the horned king, told about power source in Atlantis
Feb 1: Cancelled
Feb 15: Talked to Milo in Neverwinter, get signed on the Spirit of Adventure submarine.
Mar 1: 20,000 leagues under the sea
Mar 15: Cancelled
Mar 29: Easy Leviathan fight
Apr 12: Cancelled
Apr 26: Exploring cave, aggro’d too many ants trying to sacrifice Tonyis to the Shriek.
May 10: Cancelled
May 24: Beat up ants, learn about shriek, meet ant protagonist.
June 7: Beat up Hopper, reach level 7.
June 21: Cancelled
July 5: Loot bugs, dream of gods, choose sides, Tonyis loots quill
July 19: Bridge making scene, doors to Eto. Realize Tonyis is too proud to use someone else’s solution right away, and probably crushes on Gaston a little.
Aug 2: Cancelled
Aug 16: Brought into the city, bargain to stay until the end of the festival
Aug 30: Shopping, First arena battle.
Sept 13: Second arena battle, Roarke is suspicious
Sept 27: Cancelled
Oct 11: Third battle against Rayquaza, tie its mouth to immovable rod. Roarke murders llama guy.
Oct 25: Chasing Roarke
Nov 08: Boss battle at the Crystal, Level 8
Nov 22: Cancelled
Dec 6: Talky session, Elfsa’s dream
Dec 20: Shopping, travel to Neverwinter. It’s on fire. Greba’s dream.

Out of 27 possible games, 9 were cancelled. Not sure what that means.

Wednesday Pregame

Before our main game on Wednesdays, there’s an earlier game for people willing to show up at 4.

Late February – September, Josh’s game.

A bit brutal as combat goes, but sometimes that’s fun. I tended to be the one voice of reason. Sometimes, that helped. But I died a few times. My characters:

• Alum K’dock – H. Orc ‘Druid’ (mechanically a cleric). Died at level 4 when someone else triggered the castle’s defenses.
• Hom – Loxodon dentist (Way of Mercy monk). Died stalling so the party could escape
• Ikoth – Githyanki Warlock. Flavoring genie pact as book based. Utility glass chin character

September- Now:  Spelljammer.

Using the same map as the core Wednesday game makes life easier for me. However, this crew plays different, so it’s all good. Fun times.

The crew of the Sleight of Hand is more about money, so they’re playing the merchant and doing some mining. They did a salvage quest on Housil, touched down on Thorskull where they fought a plasmoid boss, then went to the Venmar belt where we’re learning about mining.

Wednesday Game

My main bread and butter. The first part of the year saw me finish Wild beyond the Witchlight, then spin that into a game I was not prepared for, the Checkered fields which had some sort of chess idea going on. I’d run that very differently, if I did it again.

Across the summer, I did an expirement with episodic, non-levelling play. I was also doing it as a one-shot a week, essentially, and somedays it was brilliant, other times not. We shifted to Spelljammer academy, then to a full spelljammer campaign.

The crew of the Eclipse has traded with yetis, fought a few ships, looted a hospital, found the secret of Martinsk, and have traveled to Lentburn, the cube world. It’s been fun.

Other Games Played

I ran a Chaotica game as part of my DM workshops

For Free RPG day, I prepared GI Joe and Sentinel Comics and had players for both. I also prepped Chaotica but no one came for that. The GI Joe game had a family test game that was super useful.

Early August, I prepared a Megaventure, writing small adventures to tease Spelljammer.

Early December, we did another Megaventure for Dragonlance. Monsters were poorly balanced, and some players were not prepared properly, but it seemed well recieved.

Mid December, we had the “Petrie’s Saves Christmas” RPG event. I prepared for GI Joe, but got to play Transformers instead.

Games not played

A lot of my focus this year has been on Renegade games, their E20 system, and all books they’ve put out. I’m still excited by the system and can’t wait to see what else they do. I spent some time working on thoughts for a Cyberpunk adaptation, working on converting Stray Cat Strut to an RPG.

I also think it’s a good system to maybe run Animorphs. I think I just need to figure out how I want to do the animals part (admittedly a big part) and I could probably run some test games.

Josh and I spent a lot of the year talking about a system that expands off the Basic Roleplaying System (the core of Call of Cthulu) and I have something like 50 pages written for it. We have some neat ideas, but it needs more time to bake.

This year on Experimental D&D, all I’ve posted is my rules for running drugs, and my intro to the Radiant Citadel experiment. So, a slow year for expanding rulesets.

I ran 2 DM workshops, and I’m not sure if I’ll do another.

Next year

I’m loving Spelljammer, so that will keep flying. My Sunday schedule is changing, so we might get a family game going again, but I haven’t talked to anyone about it yet. I want to focus down on the e20 system, really learn the ins and outs of it. We’ll get books with magic (My Little Pony), and more GI Joe stuff, at least. I’ve heard other rumors

I’m heading the RPG days for Petries this year, so we’ll how that goes. Shouldn’t be a ton of work on the day, but we’ll see.

I want to make solid and playable mining rules for D&D. I have the Animorphs game, a Cyberpunk game, and the brutal magic apocalypse game Josh and I have been working on.

It’d be neat to figure out how to code up some testing rigs, to figure out how CR and TL actually work.

I think that’s some good hopes for the new year