Regrouping

Now that I don't have to concern myself with the A-to-Z Blog Challenge I can get on to more pressing matters.

What I am running, and with whom...

This is a bit like my past 'State of Gaming' addresses, but with the purpose of helping me to organize my thoughts as opposed to entertaining you my audience (My apologizes. Honestly, I haven't forgotten about you. I'll try to be entertaining anyway).

We begin with...

Dan's Group, and The Masked Age 66':

Following a pretty successful first arc of three, consecutive, Friday night sessions, we are going to alternate the campaign to every other Friday night going forward. On the nights I don't run, my friend Alex is running a Harry Potter/Wizarding World/Hogwarts game in which I am a player.

I am really liking the Hogwarts game a lot so I have no problem switching off. Basically it amounts to playing a Harry Potter game twice a month, and running Silver Age Superheroes with a Twist twice a month. I am absolutely good with that.

Oh course, the Superhero game is not without it's bumps. It's a tough group to please in some respects. I'm hopeful however.

The Google Hangouts Group, Kapow!, and Galaxy Quest!:

Whoohoo! I am super excited about this.

For about two years now my friend Keith has been running a really cool Superhero RPG called Kapow! in his own homebrew world. I have played a number of characters in the setting, but for the longest time now I've been using a Superhero named Equinox.

Equinox is actually a very old character I helped my friend Sergio create waaay back before we even knew about RPGs. When I discovered Villains & Vigilantes in 1982 we made up Equinox for a game, and he was so cool I decided to remake him for Kapow!

I've stepped in a few times as GM to cover Keith when he had a family thing, or had to otherwise miss a session (which in two years has been maybe three times. It is exceptionally rare). When I run, the players play a different group of heroes on my alternate setting of Earth-F-Omega, a variant on the Mutants and Masterminds Freedom City* Universe by Green Ronin.

I filled in with an Earth-F-Omega session three weeks ago, and ended up continuing the story even as Keith came in to join us. Tomorrow will be my last session of the arc. Keith then goes away on vacation for two weeks ( ! ), so I offered to run something else. Something different. That's when things got really interesting...

Keith proposed that going forward one of us (he, or I) would run a game for several sessions, or perhaps a month or so, and then the other would take over and do the same. He will be continuing Kapow!, while I plan on a Science Fiction/Space Opera type series. As a test run, I will be GMing a short Galaxy Quest adventure over the two weeks Keith is gone.

More details as I have them. Very excited to get the best of both worlds out of my Wednesday night online game.

Last, but not least...

The Barking Alien Gaming Group, and What Comes Next:

It's been well over a month since I've met with the players in my Barking Alien Gaming Group.

For a short while there it looked like that particular gaming group incarnation had run its course. Luckily, that is not the case. I had a nice sit down discussion with two of the players, and I'm going to try to redouble my efforts to make a game that works for this bunch. In exchange, one of the players will try to overcome a few of his...um...less endearing habits...which often threaten to derail our games. The other player I spoke to will try to keep the first one on track, and act as an intermediary if the player, and I bump heads.

As I look at what I am running, and playing with the other groups I'm a part of, I have to say I'm pretty happy I'm getting the opportunity to run two of my favorite genres already. I'm running Superheroes with one, and I'll soon be running Space Opera/Adventure with the other. I don't need to run those with my monthly group. I am free to tackle something else.

But what?

Then it hit me, and if it didn't make so much sense I probably would've hit it back.

Aerth. My Dungeons & Dragons-But-Not setting of almost 35 years. Superheroic, Anime Influenced, Folklore Fueled [Vaguely] Medieval Fantasy.

System wise I won't be using any form of D&D however. I want to enjoy this. I'm going to be adapting Ars Magica for this campaign.

Yes. I'm going there.

AD
Barking Alien