The State of the Game - April 2021

1978 Ken Barr cover to H. Rider Haggard’s The Wanderer’s Necklace

It has been a busy month and full of games. I figured I'd babble a bit about how they are going.

Vampires & Dragoons [COMPLETE]

I wrapped up my gothic frontier Whitehack campaign, Vampires & Dragoons, with my main table. The setup for mechs was fun and my players got really into the western vibes... before using the Dragoon to wipe out the town after a confrontation with the local law went sideways! With the party becoming no different from the inhuman tyrants of the Nobles and ruin everywhere, we ended our bio-mechanical jaunt in the dark future. Power corrupts and all that.

Mechs are tricky, especially in a setting where they aren't everywhere. It's less of a fun item for the party and more of a regional WMD. This really showed! And while this was very fun, I think the player motivation was a bit difficult to tap into with the usual exploration style of play we tackle. My main table is very casual and the dark vibes of the setting (notably more so than our usual style) didn't vibe too well. Regardless, it was a nice change from the longer classic fantasy campaign that we wrapped up at the beginning of the year. 

More Western-themed games and adventures are practically a necessity with these folks though as we all thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of things. I think a table that was more into the macabre, the occult, and super heavy RP would enjoy this setup and I'll definitely be keeping the Gothic Frontier in my playbook for future tables.

Beyond the North Wind [ONGOING]

I'm coming up on sessions 10-11 of my Whitehack 3e open table this weekend. I have ~10 players that I take on a rotating basis to explore and delve into a setting that I've affectionately labeled "anti-canon Trudvang". Now I haven't talked too much about this one. I mostly use this space for weird things I do with my main table, but this is going rather well. It's not entirely set up like a Westmarches game, but it's pretty darn close so far. Taking inspiration from the wonderful art and vibes in the Trudvang books has been primo brain fuel as the players have tackled strange forest creatures, small homestead drama, spooky barrows, and cruel warriors. 

Overall, the third edition of Whitehack continues to impress. Taking it and my single-volume print of OD&D is pretty much all I need to tackle my games these days and the reaction from some of my players here (mostly younger folks new to the hobby or having only played 5e) has been wonderful! Seeing things click and shift into this more conversational and exploratory style for them has been super rewarding.

A 40k Play-by-Post [ONGOING]

Over on the NSR discord, I'm still powering along with my first attempt at running a PbP using my Bastionland/Into the Odd hack, Outlaw Merchant. Running my players through a classic noir-style investigation in the lower hive city has been a blast! It's going pretty smoothly for my first time too. Being a new medium of play, there was some adjusting needed on my part but the pacing and cadence of play with a post every day or so has been rather relaxing. I don't know if any of my mates would be into this type of play but I've enjoyed it a lot more than I suspected.

Oh, and Outlaw Merchant has been working quite well too. I run it very FKR style as it's basically me running and screaming away from the FFG 40k games. It's doing its job.

Where to next?

I'm looking for a more fun and casual setup when it comes to my main table. More Western shenanigans are definitely on the table given what a good time we had and they have also expressed some interest in trying something like Jason Tocci's Grave for a "soulslike" game. It could be very fun to try and mesh the Live-Die-Repeat style of fantasy with my Whitehack/OD&D tendencies on my end.

Either way, a big thing that they have requested is a megadungeon. Something where that is the central draw of things. Or at least dungeon-delving being a big part of play. Whether I crack open an existing module or take my own shot at a Mythic Underworld, I'm sure it'll be fun given how our last dungeon-focused campaign went!