Oh, that's right! I've still got a blog!

It's 2017. Wow, I'm amazed all my postings are still here. How long has it been since... okay, no, that is unacceptable.

That was Then. This is a Slightly Later Then.

In so many respects and retrospectives, 2016 has been an absolute toilet fire.

With regards to my gaming, though, it's been kind of okay. And I don't say this because of survivor's guilt. Thinking back, I've done a good bit and am continuing to forge ahead.

• Well, my Thursday night game (Hero/Champions) suffered its state collapse and subsequent abandonment in 2016, but it did run for a while.
• My Sunday game Project Bankshot Weasel (Fate/Core) continued its successful run, but then I put it on hiatus...
• ...so I could instead run a short campaign called The Bryant Falls Mysteries (Gumshoe/Fear Itself), also on Sundays. That is going strong, and reconvenes on January 8th.
• At a one-day event I ran an Ashen Stars (Gumshoe) scenario. Pure one-shot, no chance of continuation. This was also the event where I started to solidfiy my habit of printing Gumshoe clues on individual index cards for the players' potential benefit.
• A one-month multi-session event called Shenanigans at the Symposium (Fate Core) featuring every bit of the steam- and none of the -punk (sort of as a proof of concept of the stuff I talked about in this earlier posting),
• My weekend game Spectres (Hero/Champions) was also running fairly strong, but also went on hiatus...
• ...And I slipped in a demo run of Bubblegumshoe (Gumshoe, duh!) which admittedly ran into choppy waters because I couldn't quite tailor the scenario out of the book to the characters they created...
• ...so I could instead run a short campaign called Helsinki Chicken (Gumshoe/Night's Black Agents), and that is currently going strong though the team of agents is acting a little less Shadowrun and a little more Delta Green.
• Also, one of the players from the weekend game asked me to run some stuff for her group, so I started a thing that I'm calling The Princess of Twine and Twigs (Apocalypse Engine/Dungeon World) but I didn't tell them that name because I thought it might give too much away¹. That is on its last legs; I wrote it with an intended ending, and it is now in sight.

So, yeah, "Don't cry for me Argentina" indeed. One of the things keeping me from writing here may well have been the fact that I've been running sometimes three games a week, and I sometimes get a little voluminous with the notes, to the expense of other things. And you, gentle reader, have been neglected. I am going to try to fix that.

There's also the possibility that I overextended myself in 2016.

Future Plans for 2017? Yes please.

Predicting is difficult, especially about the future, but I have what I think are some fairly solid plans:

In Gaming...

• The lady who ultimately got me to run Dungeon World for her group asked if I could run something else next: a redux of Helsinki Chicken, and after my initial thought of "Leftovers?!", I was kind of flattered. She hasn't played through much of that yet, and seems taken with it.
• There's no doubt I'll get back into running Project Bankshot Weasel again, since The Bryant Falls Mysteries also has a very definite ending.
• There's also no doubt I'll get back into running Spectres after I finish running Helsinki Chicken (again, definite ending) for the weekend crowd.
• It's not guaranteed, but I've got this idea to run The 2323rd (GURPS) at the store on future Thursday nights. And this one has an additional challenge to it: Marketing.

And Here on IPTD...

Just looking over the stuff I've written above has given me ideas for things I need to write about here. No time like some time within the next twelve months, right? This is not an exhaustive list; as time goes on, I will (hopefully!) find other things on which to write.

• Avoiding Burnout: How much vicarious tabletop fun is too much, and how do you know when you're getting there?²
• Marketing The 2323rd: Can a posting on a back room bulletin board really lead to gaming happiness? I'll discuss the process from start to finish.
• Take Note. In Fact, Take Several: The players may never see the notes you take before or during your campaign, but they're not the ones that need to—you do, though. I'll talk through some shreds of my process and why I spend so much time and effort chewing scenery nobody will ever see (hint: because they might).

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1. My rabbits get the bends, that's how deep some of my rabbit holes go.
2. This one may be as much for me as for anyone else.