Casting Shadows

When I first came to Korea, I was too busy adapting to life, working 12hr days 6 days a week, and training in two martial arts to have any time to run, play or seek a roleplaying game of any kind. Eventually, I got a little time and tried to run and play in some PBeMs, but they always died out. In those days the Internet and E-mail were curiosities for my friends back home, not the daily necessities they were for me.

After more time passed and I moved into Seoul, I found enough players to get a group going and have been able to game fairly regularly since, although not always in a game I enjoy. One real bright spot has been getting to play almost as much as I GM, which is a first in my experience.

Except for the first year here, which was 14 full years ago today, I have kept RPG stuff about me, and kept notes of plots, plans, campaign arcs, character ideas, and the like no matter how low an ebb gaming had reached. I have seen too many people drift from the hobby and wind up bland drones, or slaves to some watered down online parody of roleplay, and did not want to end up like that. Figuring that an object in motion will keep on keeping on, I filled the void of gaming with attempts to game, and prolific planning. Thankfully, the three-year dry spell between arriving in the country, and moving to Seoul was the longest drought since I started gaming, and the hiatus gave me time to dream up and record a wealth of ideas I am just now starting to convert and tap.

A year and a half ago, I started this blog in response to a looming drought which fortunately did not fully manifest. With a little luck and hard work we have managed to inject a lot of new blood into our group, and the decision to embrace Ubiquity as our system of choice is paying off both in fun sessions, and in increased creativity in planning for other games. You know what they say about absence…

The State of the Union
So, in terms of keeping in motion, I have been lucky enough to have a stellar group of players, both familiar and strange join me in a year+ venture in online mechwarrior roleplaying using A Time of War. I have gamed with this crew, mostly from my hometown, for many years, but we are now scattered across the globe. The game has rekindled old friendships, inspired some great dramatic moments, and brought about other reconnections. It is not easy to be a player in this game, and as its GM, I am constantly kept on the edge of my seat reading, researching and plotting, but it is an extraordinary game, and I am loving every minute of it….. except maybe the period between sending a post and receiving a reply…

I have also been lucky enough to be one of two GMs running a Desolation campaign live, at a coffee shop here in Seoul on Sundays. Our players are all new to the game and the system, but are a great group of gamers from different areas and different exposures to types of RPG, so I am finding it both engaging and refreshing to prepare for this group each session. We are experimenting with Obsidian Portal for Campaign reporting, so you can follow along there.

As mentioned in some recent Blog posts, I am getting to play A Time of War as a PBeM, with part of my mechwarrior game’s group and another old friend from home. I really wanted to get a chance to see the game from the other side of the screen, so this has been a great gift. I get to be a player with one of my oldest friends and earliest gaming partner in this campaign and that alone would be worth the price of admission, but it is also my first time to game under BF Wolfe as GM, although he has played in a few of mine, and we were both part of the ‘one game to rule them all.’ I really cannot wait to see what he has concocted for our band of desperate men on the edge of known space.

I am also getting a chance to explore the New World of Darkness via a PBeM Changeling game. I don’t invest in any nWoD games, so it has been interesting to see what has changed, what hasn’t, and to nostalgically take angst and atmosphere seriously again. After a very long setup time where busy schedules prevented starting, the game is off at a good clip. Nearly drowning about 2 minutes into the chronicle really set a tone, so I know I am up for some challenges. Having basically seen the GM grow up in gaming, it is fun to see how her style has evolved, and what strong imagery she has learned to evoke since those early days of Vampire 20 years ago.

Being involved in four games is pretty good, I think, and a fifty-fifty split between running and playing is ideal. I suppose that amount of gaming should be enough, but I try to do a little more, such as my Pulp setting for HEX, my deathly slow-paced Palladium Fantasy PBeM, my All for One campaign which can hopefully start up soon, a new idea I have for a Shadowrun campaign, the burgeoning idea I have for a classic Call of Cthulhu campaign, and a growing collection of notes and ideas I have for Brass&Steel, Unhallowed Metropolis, and Broken Gears….. I am trying not to think about Outbreak: Undead, but it keeps stumbling around in my head eating my brain, so… something may come of that as well.

Objects in motion tend to stay that way. If you are currently without a game, and starting to forget the simple pleasures of the clatter of dice, the flipping of pages, the flash of a brilliant plot hook, and the witty banter…. get moving. You know the rest of the axiom of objects and motion.