Updates
It is has been over a year since the last update. Sorry about that.
Classic Traveller
We finished off our game of Classic Traveller. There was no conclusion but it became untenable for me in terms of my time, energy, and ability to stay in sync with the accumulation of content when we're only playing once per month.
It was a good game and I learned a few things about how encounters can feed into situational content. If I were to GM it in the future, I would start with a stronger situation and adapt encounter tables on a periodic basis rather than using what is in the book.
I think the procedural setting generation in Classic Traveller is very good as an inspirational springboard but of course one must make their connections and interpret what it all means for the generated content to be playable. I'd tweak the probabilities to generate fewer water worlds and skew them towards higher tech levels if I do it again in the future.
Change in hosting providers
The provider I was using (Digital Ocean), and have used for over a decade for various work and personal projects, has donated millions of dollars to a fascist. I can't support that so I changed to another provider that better reflects my values and is more deserving of support.
Reflections
Killed by Dice has been successful and fulfilling in some ways but exhausting and disappointing in others. I would like to reflect on those things before discussing future plans.
Exhaustion
When this site started, I hosted games every Sunday, without fail. This brought in a bunch of new people and we got to play a lot of different games. But for the most part, I was picking and preparing the games. I kept this going until I was physically and mentally exhausted. It was a good experience but it wasn't sustainable in the end.
We barely played that thing!
One issue we encountered with playing so many new games is that we never really got good at playing any of them. So when exhaustion set in, I shifted gears to start playing longer term games with a fixed group of people (see previous blog posts mentioning Sorcerer and Classic Traveller). I think this is ultimately a better way to enjoy role-playing games. However, I think there is still room for some casual play and experimentation with unfamiliar game systems and I am planning some future events to address this.
Resisting consumerism and mass media
I am happy that some people, including absolute beginners, were able to try obscure role-playing games. They were also able to do this without paying money to large toy companies and media companies. We were also able to appreciate role-playing as an activity without being influenced by mass media and a set of unrealistic expectations about what the activity should be.
Nobody wants to GM
I was disappointed by one thing though. Nobody else wanted to GM. I think people make too much of a big deal about it.
At the most basic level, it is just a particular set of tasks that someone must do for a group of people to be able to play at all. What tasks and how much work are features of each particular game. But they don't necessarily or generally entail the following:
- Being a rules expert/teacher
- Social organizing
- Creation of all content
I have GMed games where other players knew the rules much better than I did, other people scheduled or even proposed the game, and where the content we expect the GM to make up was made up by other people.
I am not sure I was ever able to convey these points very well nor could I find a way to encourage and support people to get over the hump. This is something to work on.
The future
I would like to continue doing Killed by Dice so I am brainstorming about how I can continue to have fun doing it without burning myself out.
I will be scheduling some events in the coming months to try and find this balance. Of course, I also want to work with people who participate to see if we can strike this balance together.
I would also like to say that I am very appreciative of everybody who has attended so far and I look forward to playing with you in the future.