A telegraphic wrap-up for August and, well, most of Semptember

I’m experiencing one of those too-busy-to-even-update-my-blog phases – so much for the regular monthly wrap-up posts! I’m still having a gaming life, though. Thus I’m going to concisely, telegraphically go through the last games I played, as a place-holder and summary, while fully intentioned to write in-depth reports of the most interesting ones sometime in the near future. In case you’re interested in hearing about something in particular, ask: I’ll try to oblige requests as soon as possible before writing about any other games.

— § —

As I mentioned already, early in August I was able to play a full game of Swords Without Masters – City of Fire and Coin. It was a three-players game (as opposed to the recommended four) played over two sessions in a private house, and I’m much obliged to Epidiah “Eppy” Ravachol for providing me with the necessary rule variants in the first place. In fact, I should probably be writing an AP report for Eppy’s benefit right now, as long as I can remember a thing, rather than be blogging like this. Let’s just say that I’m going to grab the finished book as fast as I can as soon as it’s out, but also that one of the reasons I want the book so badly is that I’m looking for those game-teaching methods other than City of Fire and Coin it’s supposed to include.

— § —

Other August games included a single playtesting/playstorming session for I reietti di Eden (which confirmed it can’t currently be played as a single-session game), a short but juicy game of Ben Lehman’s The Drifter’s Escape (boasting an unusual combination of features: it was both a demonstration of a sort, to a new player with very little previous role-playing experience, and a sequel from an old game with a much-beloved main character), and, unusually, just a few scenes of two-players Remember Tomorrow (to finish off an episode).

— § —

On September 1st and 2nd I attended GnoccoCon in Reggio Emilia. It was as good a convention as always, a few minor quibbles with food logistics nonwithstanding: the record attendance this installment achieved (75 people or more!) obviously taxed the existing structures and routines past their limit, but hopefully the organizers are going to pay this a thought and bring a measure of change to next year’s edition (which I’m anticipating already).

I ran a game of Meguey Baker’s Psi*Run (which proved very convention-friendly, as expected), a round of Ben Lehman’s Clover (as cute as expected, more bittersweet than expected) and the one-full-length-timeslot Fables of Camelot mini-campaign I was hoping for (though we didn’t actually make it to endgame in time), plus I was finally able to try out Daniel Solis’s Dō: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple (lots of potential). It was a good two days indeed.

— § —

There was, then, a bit of a role-playing hiatus. But last weekend me and Barbara got back to Remember Tomorrow again to start a new episode, which already expanded our fictional world with some totally unexpected content while reincorporating favorite characters of old.