At a recent game night my nephew and i display our dancing skills.

Get the gaming where you can!

When real life lets you down on the gaming front, then turn to the virtual world.  Google plus is a haven of gamers getting together over video chat and game. The feeling of these games is wild and wooly much like the games I played back in the 80s. The spirit of anything can and will happen,  flourishes in G+.  Since my home is lacking currently I think its time to take my first love to G+.

Gamma World was my first real rpg. The first one I played correctly. Through my learning with GW I in turn mastered D&D, Top Secret and many others. I have ran campaigns of GW around the world while in the army. For just my little sister when I was still in junior high. I have sat for hours and scribbled out bits of world and characters to encounter. It has always been my first gaming love.

Weekly game nights

How does a perfectly good gamer group go from fantasy adventure rpgs to family games?
I dont know if i would have believed it if i hadnt lived through it.
Slowly but surely what used to be a hard core rpg group became a friends and family game night.

Gameing went from ....to...

Now it feels like this...



Dont get me wrong, i like good fun for all board game. Untill it becomes the weekly thing.
I think in my current group i have 2 actual gamers, a tag along, a warm body, a thrill killer, and a social butterfly.

Now the wife is joining in and buying new games from target to play... Yes apples to apples is fun, no it isnt the game i want to play week in and week out.

How do you get a derailed group back to rpgs?

I know what derailed us, boot hill. By trying to make it less of a shoot em up and more of a strategy game I lost the casuals. The main fantasy game was derailed by attitudes. They arent able to play supers, no one acts like they care if innocents are harmed or die. As a group they hate Gamma World. I could try Top Secret and see if a high pc body count will drive em back to D&D again.

Neighbors move i score cool wall hangings!

A couple of months just flew by. Not much going on here other than life.
Had my big Independance day BBQ party. Went to some birthday parties for friends and relatives.
It has been a hectic summer thus far.
I broke the rear hub of my bike. stripped it completely. pedaling does nothing now.

On the gaming front board games and card games are all i have done recently.

The game 'Trailer Park Wars' i can not rate this little gem of a game high enough.
Its a card game about running a trailer park. you win by gaining the most pink flamingos. The game with 100 pink flamingo minis.


The rules are this simple.

Count how many flamingos you get.
Play 3 cards (cards have everything about them on the card)
Discard one card if you want
Draw back to 7 cars.
Next players turn...

Short sweet and fun. it is a screw your buddy game, you play bad trailer park tenants and disasters on other players park and good ones on yours.

If you have a chance pick up this game !



Its deffinately better with more players. I would think playing with only 2 people would be less fun.

Boot Hill campaign in full swing.

factions

Tommy two-guns gang (Outlaws)
Lazy J ranch
Texas Rangers
Skinya's indian raiders.

Have played almost a month of time, starting may 1 1866.

Painted 71 15 mm size western plastic figs.

They are all mounted on pennies to given some weight and keep them up right in play.
Prop (toy) guns and hats add to the festiveness of Boot Hill.
While playing out a card game one player pulled a gun on another who was cheating and surprised everyone at the table.

2 sessions 3 deaths

Kill totals

1 Indian raider, 1 outlaw, and 1 law man dead. So far the rancher is playing it cool. The outlaw has robbed 2 banks and a stage. the raiders killed and burnt down an entire ranch. The law made a couple arrests and killed two trouble makers in the county seat.

Drug out Boot Hill last weekend. Couple people seem very excited to play. Aiming a campaign as opposed to a short bloody bank robbery gang. Everyone had to create a group to play.  I made everyone roll up one character in everyone elses group. So far we have
1 Gang of desparados (bank robber gang)
2 Indian raiders
3 Lawmen of the county

I am placing the game in nevada shortly after the civil war. 1866 vetrans are streaming to the open west and bringing guns with them. It will be very wild and wooly.

Working on goals for the players so far i am going with

1 outlaws, rob 100,000 and escape to Mexico.
2 Indian raiders, kill/loot/pillage enough to start an Indian war. Escape with their tribe to Mexico or Canada.
3 Lawmen, capture all the wanted men in the teritory.

Working on town maps and such , reworking some encounter tables from an old gaming book. Will post my western encounter tables asap.

Happy trails!

Most important

Who is the most important person in a rpg?

I know some story teller games people will cry 'No one is more important than any other. We are all equally important at the table.'
I tend to disagree with that. The GM/DM/CK/ref is the most important. No GM no game period. How ever every member at the table is important. There is a social contract of sorts between player and GM. There is a fine balance of power between players and GM. The GM can can do any thing , make any ruling kill any character on a whim. The players have the collective power of no confidence. They can walk or threaten to walk and influence the GMs decision.

If either party is too heavy handed the game breaks down and no one is happy.

As a GM i find recently I will tend to allow more of the players ideas to succeed lately. By giving them the illusion that they are helping direct the game when i take their suggestions. I know everyone can be creative why limit my game to only my creative input?
So I am saying yes to plans and ideas in the past might have said never gonna work or roll for it. It seems to speed play and the players only really want to bash things get  cool stuff and feel like their characters matter.

I guess it all boils down to everyone having fun. No one sits down to game with the idea of not having fun.
Finding the balance in the GM -v- players struggle is what I think makes a good GM.

Side note, wife just baked brownies and gave me some still warm from the oven.. yum!