My how the world has changed since I last posted.
Needless to say, anyone's expectations for how 2020 would turn out have been
largely scuttled, especially those occurring from mid-May onwards, especially for
those of us living in the United States.
To be fair, I'd meant to make several posts in the time
between then and now, but just never seemed to get around to it. Then
again, I have mentioned this would get sporadic updates as opposed to constant
ones, and I generally hold to the opinion that I should really only say
something if I feel I've got something to say.
As for how I'm weathering the current state of affairs,
to be quite honest not a whole lot has changed for me. I've pretty much
been working remotely from my apartment since late last year, with the only
difference being that I'm now officially a full-time work-at-home
employee. Which suits me fine, as most of the folks that I knew in the
actual office have themselves transitioned to working remotely full-time or
have left the company, some by choice but most not.
In early March I made the trip to Walt Disney World along
with my mother, with my main intent to spend as much time as I could hanging
out in Galaxy's Edge. And I will admit that the work Disney put into that
section of Hollywood Studios was amazing, as it very much looked like a place
you'd see in a Star Wars film. The Millennium Falcon ride was a lot of
fun, with my favorite position being pilot; sadly if you do the single rider
line, you're pretty much stuck being an engineer, which was the most boring
position. I did plan ahead and booked a session at Savi's Workshop to
build my own lightsaber, opting for a purple crystal and an Old Republic themed
hilt; I did also pick up a blue and red kyber crystal as well as a Jedi
holocron, as well as the obligatory t-shirts and stuff for a few other
folks. The only downer was that my mother and I caught what she believes
was a (luckily) very mild case of the coronavirus, with us having a nasty cough
and sore throats; the worst of mine went away in about a week with a lingering
cough for another couple weeks, but other than that I'm fine with no other
symptoms.
Now one of the things I do miss due having to social
distance is the Friday night live table gaming, which began with an Adventures
in Middle Earth campaign, using Cubicle7's D&D5e adaptation of their One
Ring game, with the campaign starting out with an adaption of the Lost Mines of
Phandelver adventure. In that game, I played a Dunedain Wanderer (their
version of a non-magical Ranger with some generally better class features) that
was unashamedly an Aragorn-clone, though completely lacking in leadership
traits. It was a fun game, but wound up falling by the wayside as half
the players in that group just didn't care for playing online, and I get the
feeling that campaign has pretty much been scuttled.
Fortunately, enough of us remained and were able to rope
in a couple newer local folks that we knew and had zero issues with playing via
Zoom (we tried Skype and Discord, but there were connection issues that we've
not had with Zoom), and have launched into a D&D 5e campaign, one that is
very much in the theme of gothic horror, but per the DM is not set in
Ravenloft, though I'd be very surprised if he's not pulled elements of the
Ravenloft setting to populate this Uberwald region. I've very much
enjoyed playing Esryn Vandryr, a Half-Elf Blood Hunter of the Order of the
Profane Soul, using the 2020 updated version that Matt Mercer published much
earlier in the year. It's amusing, as I initially made the character as a
"what if?" concept, with no aspirations of him ever seeing play, so
getting to actually play this snarky, semi-broody hunter of monsters has been a
great deal of fun. We've got an interesting crew, including a couple of
characters for whom the players unapologetically took inspiration from Critical
Role, being a female human monk (Beau) and a tiefling genderfluid bard
(Mollymauk in personality), though our monk (who with the GM's approval is
using the updated Path of the Cobalt Soul subclass that Matt Mercer posted
online some time ago) is much more cheerful and socially adjusted, perhaps
being the most upbeat and energetic PCs of the group (though not anywhere near
Jester levels).
Speaking of Mister Mercer, I guess I can officially
consider myself a Critter, as I'm very much on the Critical Role
bandwagon. While Campaign 1 had some rough patches, I've generally
enjoyed Campaign 2, with my favorite characters being Jester (who honestly
doesn't love how Laura Bailey portrays the adorably bubbly and mischievous
little blue tiefling girl?) and Caleb (Liam O'Brian does a fantastic job
balancing the pathos involved without drowning the entire campaign in it).
It was rough not having the show to look forward to, but I totally get why they
shut things down until a safe way to continue the sessions could be
implemented. Though I've also been enjoying their Narrative Telephone
series, and do hope that continues for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the current federal
administration's absolutely botched job of handling the pandemic, the another
thing that I'm missing out on this year is GamerNationCon. While I
ultimately wasn't planning on running anything, it's still nice to get together
with members of the D20Radio network to roll some dice and exchange
stories. But with Texas being in the condition it is now, I can't see
anyway they'd be able to hold the convention this year, and unless things seriously
change even trying to hold it in April 2021 might be a stretch. I hope
that's not case, and that once a new administration takes effect in January
things will start to drastically improve. But sadly, I've lost a lot of
faith in humanity over the past several months, so I'm setting my expectations
really low.
Another thing I very much miss is opportunities to hang
out over lunch or dinner with my long-time friends Amy and Tiff. I miss
the two of you horribly, and hope that you both remain safe and sound; once
things are under control and it's safe to do, I am eager for an opportunity to
get together over good food and hear all about Amy's initial efforts of running
a campaign of her own.
Back to personal gaming, a couple weeks ago, on the night
of the Fourth of July, I concluded my Force and Destiny campaign. I'd
started this campaign way back in August of 2015, though with a number of
breaks so that other folks could run games, especially during those times when
one of the players was unavailable for personal reasons (some good, some alas
painful). The campaign, called the Errant Ventures, ran for a grand sum
of 43 sessions, with the PCs generally being at around 1000 XP. The group
enjoyed it, and as a GM it's reassuring to hear that your players are saddened
for a campaign to end due to their ties and investment into the world you've
created. I will admit that it was fun to have the PCs from my friend
Linda's sadly aborted Age of Rebellion game show up as cameo appearances,
especially as it was the same group of gamers that had played the members of
Roke Squad that played in my F&D campaign. I did mention to them that
I wasn't adverse to returning to those characters at some future point, but
sadly one of the glaring problems that's shown itself with the FFG system is
that it can be difficult to remember all the stuff a PC can do (especially if
they're a Force user) if you've not played that character for several months.
Currently, we're gearing up for Linda to run the
Onslaught at Arda campaign for a new group of Age of Rebellion PCs, with that
due to properly start up come the first weekend in August, with that running
however many weeks it takes. Sadly, one of the players has a prior
commitment for the next couple weeks, so August is the soonest we could
start. But this should be fun, as it gives me a chance to once again play
my Chadra-Fan Engineer/Saboteur whose quasi-Brooklyn accent is in zero way
indicative of his being a pastiche of a certain explosives-loving, gun-totting
anthromorphic procyon lotor whose good with motors.
The other game that is being worked on by my Canadian
buddy Eric is a new Mutants and Masterminds campaign. He'd made the
decision that it was time to bring the story of the Stormbreakers, the team of
heroes that had started with the long-faded Punching for Justice podcast, to a
premature conclusion. We did have a pre-Session zero conversation this
past Saturday, both to discuss how events of what would have been the final
sessions would play out and how our PCs would be involved in the gigantic
galactic event that would be thwarting Collapsar's attack on Earth, as well as
the aftermath and why this iteration of the Stormbreakers would go their
separate ways.
Now, I'll be honest in that a part of me is going to miss
the opportunity to play my take on Spider-Man, and someone did mention
"you could just a Miles Morales and make a legacy character!" but
that just doesn't feel right, and it does feel like it's time to put that
character aside and let him become a background element of Emerald City, being
one of its few active superheroes and one that's very much paying attention to
lower-level street crime (in between juggling college courses, a paid intern
program at MarsTech, and maintaining a long-distance relationship).
However, I am looking forward to the new campaign, as
we're playing teenage heroes in the newly founded "supers school" of
Arcadia Academy. I've come to really like Emerald City as a campaign
setting, and it'll be fun to play a new hero (very much leaning into a Paragon
archetype for this one, making for a substantial change from Spider's role in
the Stormbreakers) in a setting that I'm more familiar with now and that has a
history that I and the other players have helped shape. Plus, high school
hijinks and the various emotional minefields that come with playing teenagers,
especially ones who truly have the power to change the world around them.
