• I spent the better part of 2010 writing, in collaboration with two others, a 66 person LARP called Al Shir-Ma. It’s set in an Arabian Night-esque world which borrows from Al-Qadim. It was done for the yearly KapCon gaming convention here in Wellington, and it’s first run through is happening next weekend. It’s been a really interesting experience and has I think made me a better scenario writer. But man, has it been a lot of work.
• I wrapped up my campaign, using the Green Ronin A Song of Ice and Fire rules, in a not hugely satisfiying way. By the end I’d kind of lost interest and time, and it all got a bit too railroady. It showed me that I really want to run long term games that leverage off character backgrounds and story rather than some over arching plot I’ve come up with. Means less work for me too.
• I ran Peril in King’s Landing a pre-written scenario for ASoIFRP. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually run a pre-written scenario and while I liked the low prep of it all, I found that I had the most fun when I was adding in new elements passed on player actions.
• I played a lot of Xbox 360. Notably Alpha Protocol, Fallout 3, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and Fallout New Vegas. Some of these games, like Mass Effect, I played through for a third time so I could carry my character into the new game. Yes I am that much of a geek.
• I played a lot of table top and LARP games. For the first time I played more than I GM’d and it was great.
• I discovered some great new table top games like Prime Time Adventures and Apocolypse World.

So from a gaming perspective 2010 was great. Though as the silence from June on might have told you, other stuff wasn’t. Now though it’s time to look forward to 2011!

The launch of their last two licenses was done with a hiss, a roar and the promise of great support and interest. However as time marches on it seems that this isn’t quite happening.

A Song of Ice and Fire has had it’s core book, a GM screen and an adventure in the year an a half since it’s been released which is great. But the Campaign Guide is almost a year overdue and momentum seems to have really slowed. This is a great game and one which has given me many hours of fun, but despite winning ENnie awards and getting great feedback from the community, I worry that it isn’t going to get many more books released.

Dragon Age is the other major licence they’ve recently released and while this has only been around since late last year there has been very little in the way of news about new products. A book of adventures and adventure seeds called Blood of Feralden has been announced, but a release date hasn’t been. This game has the potential to tap into a whole group of gamers who don’t have any experience with dice, but unless GR keeps up the momentum on this licence I think it’s just going to fade away.

While I’m sure that Green Ronin is certainly very keen to support these lines and no doubt see them prosper, it is hard to stay enthused when there is next to no news of what’s coming up. I know that they are a small company and that they no doubt would rather be writing and producing games than creating hype. However part of keeping a fan base happy is news, rumor and titbits of information. It would be nice if they were a little more forthcoming with this sort of thing.

So the point of this post, if there is one, is that a great company like Green Ronin, who release interesting games with good systems needs to work a little harder to support the communities it has already established. I’m more than happy to accept that games like A Song of Ice and Fire and Dragon Age will have long approval processes. But if that is what is holding things up, tell me and while you’re at it, tease me with what’s next to come.

So with out any further ado. The List!

1. Actually finish my KapCon SDC entry this year. I’m going to tidy up and polish Still to Come.
2. Stop being so soft on the players in the A Song of Ice and Fire game I GM. It’s a tough world and sometimes, people die.
3. Continue to overcome the distrust I have of LARPing.
4. Play more of the games I look at and think “I really want to play that!”.
5. Blog more, not just re-posting cool stuff from elsewhere.
6. Get a new PC so I can play all these awesome CPRGs on the platform they are meant for.

I think that’s it really. There are other things, but these are the main ones. What about you? Do you have any gaming goals for the year?

• Jaime Lannister – played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
• Daenerys – played by Tamzin Merchant
• Robb Stark – played by Richard Madden
• Ser Jorah Mormont – played by Iain Glen
• Theon Greyjoy – played by Alfie Allen
• Sansa Stark – played by Sophie Turner
• Arya Stark – played by Maisie Williams

Some of these actors are such unknowns that they barely have a web pressence at all. So for more info head over to George R. R. Martin’s Not a Blog to read up on them.

This is all very good news. The finished product is still a long way away, but it looks like it’ll be pretty grand once it gets here!

I’m hoping that off the back of this positive response to the game that Green Ronin firms up the plans for further products as well as officially announcing when the Campaign Guide will be released. According to a report from Gen Con on the Green Ronin boards, the hold up is not that they are waiting on approvals from George R.R. Martin. Though this of course should be taken with a grain of salt until there is some sort word from Green Ronin.

Most of the other award winners covered off DnD 4th ed, Dark Heresy and Paizo Publishing, though it was great to see that some of the smaller publishers and games had a good showing like Mouse Guard (which I own, but have never actually played) and Evil Hat Productions with both Don’t Rest Your Head and Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies. Unfortunately my friend Malcolm’s Hot War didn’t pick up awards in the two categories (Best Setting and Best Writing) it was nominated.

A full list of winners can be found over at the ENnie Awards site.

We can only hope. At that rate, he might be finished in time for me to get the last book for my 40th birthday…

To start with the World this house is going to inhabit is not George R R Martin’s Westeros. I’d decided a while ago that as two of the players hadn’t read the books and as I wanted them to have as much freedom as they wanted to mess up the world that I’d make my own setting, which borrows very heavily from George R R Martin’s masterwork. So I filled the players in a little on what to expect, and then we lept straight in with total random rolls to let the dice decide the history of the House.

It’s a very simple system which has a huge amount of depth in it’s small series of tables. Essentially each house is created much like characters. Players or the GM  roll 7d6 and that decides the house ‘stats’. Each house is made up of Defense, Influence, Lands, Law, Population, Power and Wealth. The result of each 7d6 gives your house their starting values. These are then adjusted depending on the realm the house is located in. Finally you decide on your house’s history.

I think this is the element of  house creation I like the most. You roll 3d6 this time and it gives you a broad event type that happened to the house. Things like Glory or Favour or even Madness. These give you ideas on how to develop your house and if you’re the GM gives you good story seeds to add flavour.

Most interestingly, to me at least, is that this whole process is deeply collaborative. The night that we rolled up the house I was expecting it to take an hour or so. It took 3 hours and all three of us were rivited the whole time coming up with reasons and stories. This whole section of the game is extremely easy to use and I expect will help hugely when developing other NPC houses.

Here is the coat of arms on of the other players created for House Argent, their house. If you want to see more about how the House turned out, feel free to download the pdf I prepared for the players.