Currently On My Table

Too many games, too little time. Here's a quick overview over what I've been doing the last few weeks.

Preface

During April, I haven't been able to post as much as I wanted to on here. Mostly, because I simply didn't have the time and energy to engage with the solo part of the hobby. There is a lot going on in my life currently that limits my hobby time, and what time there is, I've been spending GM-ing a Starfinder campaign and playing video games. I love Solo Tabletop games, but the reality is that they require a lot more creative energy than simply playing a video game or watching a movie.

That being said, I still did a couple of things worth mentioning. "Currently On My Table" is going to be the type of post where I talk about all these smaller parts that didn't justify an entire post of their own.

RPGs

In my last Randomized Roleplay post, I talked about playing each adventure in its entirety before making a post about it, and that's exactly what I've been doing. I'm roughly 2/3 of the way through the first adventure and, so far, it has been quite a bit of fun. The sessions have been shorter than I usually prefer and the breaks between them are longer than I'd like, but it's still better than not being able to play at all.

Worlds Without Number is the first OSR-style game that I've ever tried to do a longer campaign with, and I have to admit that the simplistic rules are throwing me for a loop. The list of skills feels weirdly out of place, and the character sheets somehow feel wrong. The first TTRPG I ever played was Pathfinder 1e, so I'm sure that it's just a bit of culture/rules shock and that it will pass with a few more sessions.

Another thing that I'm still figuring out is how I want to structure my Scenes for the GEMulator. I originally envisioned the campaign as a dungeon crawl, but it really didn't feel like one so far - not that that's a bad thing. For me, solo play tends to vary drastically depending on how I envision the core scenes. GM emulators can only work with what you give them, and scene transitions can only push the story forward if you let them.

I'm going to talk about this in more detail when I finish the adventure and give it its own post. It's definitely an interesting topic to explore, and maybe even something for a separate advice post.

Boardgames

The only solo boardgame I've played over the last two weeks is also one of my favorites: Lost Ruins of Arnak. I played with the Expedition Leaders expansion and had it set up on my table for a few days. Every day, when I got the chance, I sat down and played a game with a random leader - it was fantastic.

I'm definitely going to make a separate post about the game later down the line, but sometimes it's just nice to play a game and not think about anything else beyond that point.

Miniature Painting

After a longish break (and several furniture tetris attempts later), I finally have a dedicated painting desk once again. It sits next to my computer desk, so I don't have to shuffle things around and change chairs whenever I want to paint something. My current project is a simple Space Skaven kitbash for my Five Parsecs from Home campaign. It's just a basic weapon swap of some old Warhammer Fantasy clanrats and some other Skaven models that don't even need any modification to fit in a sci-fi game.

My painting progress currently moves at a glacial speed, so it's still going to be a while before I get them on the table.

New Books

The most exciting thing was the delivery of my Print-on-Demand order from DrivethruRPG. I have never looked at the Mythic Variations, so I'm excited to finally get my hands on a physical copy of Mythic2E.

Scarlet Heroes is a game that I've owned in PDF form for a long time, but I wanted it in physical form, so I could use it for OSR sessions without any digital tools.

The Great Book of Random Tables is part of the effort to grow my physical collection of random tables. I have countless resources on my computer, but I wanted more options for my non-digital sessions. And as always, can you ever have enough random tables?

The print quality seems decent. It's obviously not comparable to a proper print-run, but I'm happy with what I got. The actual test will be how they hold up after a few months of regular handling. I've read concerning reviews about the binding basically falling apart, so let's hope that won't happen here.

Closing Thoughts

No wargaming this time, and I miss it already. I might have to sneak in some other games before I can continue with Five Parsecs from Home. I don't mind the "paint them as you need them" approach, but it certainly can lead to longer breaks that disrupt the game.

Otherwise, I'm hoping to finish the WWN campaign in a timely manner and to find more time/energy to sit down for longer solo sessions.

Either way, I hope to see you there and that you enjoy your own hobby journey!