Gaming Resolutions for 2012
2011 was an interesting year in gaming for me. I played a LOT more old-school D&D, ran the D&D Encounters program for our new local game shop, have become a tablet-PDF junkie, and have managed to hack together a cyberpunk RPG that I’m satisfied with.
Granted, I also took a summer Hiatus this year, from game blogging and playing. I almost killed the blog completely (and then some lame ass hackers did that for me.) I stepped away from the vitriol and flame wars, and took a much needed breather. In real life, I wanted to free my schedule and free time up for having kick ass adventures in real life. Mission accomplished.
So looking ahead in 2012, I’m eager to get my dice rolling again, as well as continuing to write up some fun stuff to share with peeps. While I’m usually not a big fan of resolutions, I think there’s a few gaming related ones I plan on keeping this year:
~20 lbs Weight Limit:
I am DONE with lugging around tons of books, miniatures, grid boards and fiddly bits. 20 lbs is my rough estimate of the weight of my AD&D tote bag (it’s a Rush “2112” book bag that holds ALL of my AD&D 1E books.) My game nights for D&D 4E are infamous for me having to lug so much stuff to the table. I refuse to run ANY game this year that requires multiple trips to unload.
Matter of fact, I’m quite spoiled by how WYRED turned out. Using the PocketMod format, I now have a small cardbox that carries 10 copies of the rule booklets, character folios, pens, dice, and notecards for NPC’s/plot tracking.
Table Economy
This goes along with the ~20 lbs Resolution: I’m sticking to games that don’t require a lot of tabletop space to play. I’ve discovered over the last couple years that I am a STICKLER for table economy. Nothing gets to me more than having limited elbow room because of all the dice, character sheets, skill cards, miniatures, terrain pieces, and then suddenly someone going SNACKS! And all of our stuff is barraged with bags of chips and Little Debbies. No, I’m NOT calling this a problem with our hostess, because chips and Little Debbies are AWESOME.
I’m calling it a problem with the game we’re playing. If an RPG requires us to forfeit player comfort, or involves me standing up and maneuvering around the game table, or can’t even be played in a living room/couch setup, it’s not getting ran by me this year. Same if the game requires additional trackers and fiddly bits.
If a rules call takes longer than 6 seconds to look up…
….wing it.
More Self-Contained Games
I am not getting involved in RPG systems that require hefty investments or multiple books. Especially systems that trickle out supplements that feel like required parts of the game. No more will I buy a Player Handbook and wait months for a Game Mastery Guide or Beastiary to come out.
If I can’t acquire the core game experience in a single purchase, I’m out. And I don’t define “core” as the rules without character creation, and I sure as hell don’t define it as introductory levels of play.
More Love for The Under Dog
My favorite games of last year didn’t come from big companies or have major productions. They came from individuals, with a love of the hobby and were more concerned for writing fun games for people to play than huge games for people to invest in. Creative Commons licensed games won my heart and made me never want to see an OGL again. Other games took old ideas but spun them in new ways that I felt were genius.
This isn’t some kind of hipster finger to the man kind of attitude….this is loving games for the sake of gaming, and I seem to find a lot more of that in the indie and self-published markets.
Ignore the Flames.
True story: this year at our New Years Eve party, I was the idiot who tripped, stumbled, and dove straight into our bonfire. Had to go to the emergency room, get stitches, and have a 3rd degree burn on my arm.
That’s about all the flames I can stand for this year. And those were legit. So forget about me paying any attention to some pretentious bullshit on gaming forums this year. You guys have fun with the edition wars, old school vs. new school, sexism and political correctness in gaming….I’m not going to buy into any of those discussions. I’m gonna roll dice, and I’m going to enjoy my games with my players like we want.
Because, like I said before: the only gaming community that matters is the one at your game table.
