Dune. So much Dune.
Not enough snow
Winter is my favorite time of the year, and I've greatly enjoyed the colder days here in Germany. It's still too warm for my taste, but at least I got one day of snow, where I took a relaxing walk through a nearby park. Something about snowy trees always puts me in the mood to immerse myself into fictional stories. A hot cup of tea, a cozy blanket, and a good book to escape in. I just love the sense of peace and quiet you get from it all - something extremely rare in the city I live in.
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| It would look so much better with snow on it. |
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| 5 years ago - it rarely ever snows that much around here |
In terms of solo tabletop, I've mostly stuck to a few games and played them extensively. In an effort to enhance my analog play experience, I also dipped my toes into the world of arts & crafts.
Dune
I've been doing so much stuff related to Dune that it needs its own category. I don't know why, but I've been really craving sci-fi lately, and Dune hit the perfect spot for me.
Board Game: Dune Imperium
By far my most played game of the month. I only own the base game as a physical copy, but I've also played several (including multiplayer) Rise of Ix games through Tabletop Simulator. It's a fantastic blend of worker placement and deck builder. I can't recommend it enough!
Books: Dune - Dune Messiah - Children of Dune
After rewatching the Dune movie, I decided it was finally time to re-read the novel again. The first time I read it, I wasn't fluent in English yet and barely understood half of the book. Now that I've read it again (and actually understood it), I absolutely fell in love with the setting. I instantly bought the next two books in the series, and am currently reading the third one. I also watched the Dune movie another time because, my god, it is absolutely breathtaking.
RPG: Dune Roleplaying Game from Modiphius
I've been keeping my eye on this one for a while, and now that I've come to fully appreciate the setting for what it is, I'm itching to get my hands on a copy of the box set. The only issue I have is with the 2D20 system it uses. I watched the Glass Cannon Podcast Inherit the Sand series, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to use such a system for solo play.
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| Beautiful Cover Art |
My hobby budget for February is already reserved for other things, but I might have to shift some other projects around to make room for these gorgeous books later this year.
The Paizothon
For people who don't know, I've undertaken the marathon project to play through all of Paizo's releases, starting with their D&D 3rd Edition content. Foolishly, I also decided to add some of their 'Dragon' and 'Dungeon' magazines as well. I'm probably going to be doing this for several decades, but it's ok, I'm not in any rush.
For me, the beauty of crunchy games is their detailed rules covering way too many situations to be practical. I love needlessly complex systems and enjoy working my way through dense rule books. Sadly, that takes a lot of time and effort. I had never played third edition D&D before this project, so It took some time to familiarize myself with everything. So far, I've only scratched the surface, but I don't plan to dive all too deep, because my main focus of the Paizothon is going to be Pathfinder and the Golarion setting.
A New Campaign
As part of the Paizothon, I also play "normal" solo campaigns using the GEMulator and other solo tools to play free-form games. They take place in the same setting as the published adventures I'm currently reading, so I can easily integrate them into the ongoing campaign.
Right now, I'm working on a 3E campaign based on the Knightly Order framework I created last month. I used the random tables to create the Order, my main Knight, and his first mission. The knight is the main POV character, and the rest of the 4-man party is his entourage.
The idea is to play a few smaller adventures first, before throwing them in the depths of the Dark Elf Sanctum. This gives them the opportunity to gather some experience, and gives me time to paint all the minis. According to my rules of the Paizothon, I'm only using minis from the time of the adventure's release or before. I specifically ordered a couple of older Reaper metal minis and have a lot of painting still to do. Maybe I'll even throw in some simple scratch-built terrain to complete the early 2000s look.
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| The player characters and a potential villain |
I plan on making a separate post about the campaign, once the minis are painted, and I've played a couple of adventures.
Arts & Crafts
Analog play has always been my preferred method of play. With the emergence of incredibly powerful tools like FoundryVTT, character builders, random generators, wikis, AI, etc., it has become harder and harder to justify playing without any digital assistance at all.
Over the last few months, I've become more and more serious about my note-taking. Instead of random scribbles during my game, I've actually spent time to make them look nice. I've started to appreciate the process as a rewarding hobby by itself, instead of just a necessary evil for other games. Hell, I might even give journaling games another chance.
As with every niche hobby, I immediately went on the internet to look for like-minded people that are nice enough to share their knowledge and provide tips and tricks for newcomers. Before that, I had never even heard of Scrapbooking, for example. I discovered the addicting joy of stationery. I never thought I'd spend hours looking at washi tape, stickers, and journals, but here we are. Not only that, but I even dug up my old fountain pen from my school days. After a bit of cleanup, it still worked like a charm. Not bad for a cheap 15+ years old pen that survived several school years of mistreatment.
Puzzles
For some reason, YouTube recommended me this video about the World Jigsaw Championship. I'm not complaining, because I absolutely love seeing people so passionate about their hobby. It also made me want to puzzle again, so I cleared my table and did two 1000 pieces puzzles. It's weirdly relaxing and the perfect opportunity to listen to some audiobooks.
Honorable Mention
Harry Potter
For me, winter is always linked to Harry Potter. The image of a snowed-in Hogwarts is burned into my mind, and the first book/movie has an incredibly nostalgic effect on me. I'll always remember my time as a child reading the books and being absolutely entranced by the entire thing. Yes, the worldbuilding doesn't make any sense, but I'm willing to make an exception in this case.
I remember being angry with Harry because he always got into trouble and was wasting his opportunity to study at a magical school. I vowed to be the perfect student, if I ever got into Hogwarts. My 11th birthday left me severely disappointed in that regard.
That memory got me thinking, though. I'm sure there are plenty of games simulating a student life at a magical school (especially journaling games), but what about the students that aren't the Chosen One? I think it would be a ton of fun to explore the life of a Hogwarts student that's just trying to live his life. Something like a life-sim, where you have a schedule and pick specific activities that each have their own random table for all kind of "boring" events. No need to save the world - just your grades.
If you know of any such game, please let me know. Otherwise, I might need to cobble up something myself.
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