Every Time at a Table, May '18

Posting for a Spacers(TM) session to continue the play-testing started an impromptu Hoot weekend. Last Saturday and the next day was three RPG session half-marathon. Jedi, little Tom, and Sarah decided to come up to Cleveland from Springfield and were looking to do some serious tabletop partying. Then the "Frequent Sundays" ICONS campaign with Curtis and Mr Wylie from Oklahoma took place on-line two hours after that other gang left.

I am making notes on each session adding hard parts from the SPACERS(TM) Core rules and adding in the players' touches as they occur. This is mostly to watch a sci-fi campaign grow organically-- I other scenarios and campaigns have been tightly defined but the CLE-216 Frontier is not. With the help of Colin and a couple of unplanned visits from out-of-towners, the Saturday group at the Weird Realms has been the place to do that. I outline a session, re-read the rules while we play, and then type in problems and working parts in the after notes. This session in particular Jedi helped me focus on problems in ship damage system while enjoying Little Tom's technobabble ability while playing a "Fixer" Type. Peryton's Psychic character is helping me expand that aspect of the game as well.

The Saturday role-playing didn't end there. Sarah, on a lark, decided to do a first run of an idea in her head for Crawlspace Deluxe.  Mixing in the actor/producer dynamics into the story line, she took the college kid survival horror drama and mixed in cannibals and folklore. It was fun and we, mostly because of tipsiness and fatigue, dove hard into the All-In Hand mechanics. Jedi started coming up with a 7-card Holden variation which I over-ruled for the session, but may delve into more the deluxe redux edition. I would like to see the "EAT ME!" scenario published over the summer. We'll see what happens there.

Peryton and I were able to shrug off fatigue, sipping whiskey and drinking coffee, respectively, to conclude a story-arc which can only be called "The Chompers Cycle". This ICONS super-pets issue was just wrong and definitely not approved by the Comic Code Authority. More than a few of obscure members of the Scrap Pile, our "Avengers/JLA" super group, were able to make cameos, the GM doing their personalities while their original players watched. It was fun and showed us how rich our superhero campaign world is despite more often than not used for over-drinking with far away friends without the dangers of drunken driving.

So that is how the "off season" is going for gaming. My efforts to reconnect with early ties to local gamers, doing so-so, but what a time for Cleveland being a RPG tourism market.