Hey everyone, Nathanael here. It’s been a while since I last posted, in truth because I’ve been so busy with other projects that I just haven’t had the time. Wanna know what’s been going on, and what’s in the near future? Read on!

The biggest project that has occupied my time is a new site called Awropla (or Awesomeroleplayers.com), which is based on the premise of Campaign Networking. People can sign up for free, without any ads, and upload and host their campaign information. Characters can be journaled, campaigns chronicled, quotes submitted, and all are tagged, enhanced, and cross-referenced with one another to promote an idea of a community based on shared gaming information. Gamers can start their own online forums for their gaming groups, and use them to plan events and discuss their downtimes.

Needless to say, this has absorbed a large chunk of my time and focus, and I’m hoping it will go officially live in the near future. As it currently stands, I’ve just disabled the feature that required all new accounts receive admin approval before being able to post. Now, anyone can sign up, fill out the reg form, log in and start posting. If you’re reading this, head on over to Awropla, check it out, and let me know if you have any suggestions.

After Awropla are three major game design projects, one being Verses, one a LARP, and the third a fan-made (that fan being Me) game based on a fantastic-awesome-stupendous-fabulous animated TV show which I won’t name at this moment. I think our Saturday test campaign of the Verses RPG is coming to a conclusion soon, at which point we’ll be reviewing the system one last time to see if it is indeed worth sharing with external playtesters. It’s been a lot of fun so far, and I’m hoping it can stand up to the final scrutiny. The LARP, on the other hand, hasn’t really been touched much lately, but I’m hoping to give it a second test session after the holidays have passed and folks are all back and ready to game some more.

Yet another gaming project of mine has been the recent establishment of a dynamic gaming group I call the Portland RPG Noob Crew. The extended details can be found at that link, but the basic gist of the project involves finding locals who want to game but for various reasons never really have, and helping them find out if they enjoy the hobby. We’ve had one session so far and it was a whole lot of fun. The next session has just today been scheduled to take place on Saturday, December 8th.

So, what else is going on?

• Last night finally saw the long-awaited end to the Little Fears game we started several months ago. Our last session was 5 months back, and I know we’re all glad to finally have some closure. Perhaps I’ll make a post about it on Awropla - if I do, I’ll link it here too.
• We’ve got a LARP session planned for GameStorm 10, which is coming up in March 2008. More details on that as it gets closer.
• I have decided that after this holiday season, I will no longer run extended gaming campaigns, at least for a good long time. I just don’t think I’m cut out for them anymore.
• I’m debating closing the forums for now. Now that I’ve moved my personal gaming stuff to the new Awropla site, the forums see no use, and are just taking up dead space.
• I’ve started playing LotR:O again. Oh yeah. Like I have so much time on my hands as it is.

That’s it for now. I hope to update a bit more regularly, now. =)

- Nathanael Phillip Cole

Due to the hectic nature of the last few weeks, I was unable to get an AP report up for the third session of our Saturday campaign. However, since the last two sessions have both been part of the same extended scenario, combining their reports makes it easier to collect my thoughts. So here we go!

The Cast

• Alex, playing the part of Captain Daylen Forgrun.
• Gaston, playing the part of Calvo Sotelovich.
• Nathanael (me), Arbiter, playing the part of Mihoaela Tatiana Kojimirin.
• Nievita, playing the part of Aeroica Mindal Tsvetkov.
• Scott, playing the part of Khazimir ibn Zalikahn.

Two Saturdays ago was the second session in our Undiscovered Countries campaign, using the Verses RPG rules system. In my last post on this game, I gave some details into the setup, the system, and the campaign premise, so I’ll skip all that and get right to the meat.

The Cast

• Alex, playing the part of Captain Daylen Forgrun.
• Gaston, playing the part of Calvo Sotelovich.
• Nathanael (me), Arbiter, playing the part of Mihoaela Tatiana Kojimirin.
• Nievita, playing the part of Aeroica Mindal Tsvetkov.
• Scott, playing the part of Khazimir ibn Zalikahn.

Last night was the first official gathering for my Sunday group’s new Iron Kingdoms game. This campaign is entitled “Bloodstone: An Iron Kingdoms Western,” and is set on the edge of the Bloodstone Marches in a shady little prospector’s town called Ternon Crag. This game is very heavily influenced by the television show Deadwood.

This game also uses the Verses RPG rules currently in development by yours truly. I had originally intended on using The Burning Wheel as the system for this game, but after a bit of minor GM burnout on my part, I made the switch to Verses, for two main reasons. First, I just don’t have the time to dedicate towards mastering the Burning Wheel rules while simultaneously teaching them to others. Second, I want to give Verses a more versatile (pun intended) playtest. Currently it is being used in my other bi-weekly campaign, and I hope that by applying it to an already-established setting I can test its functionality with several new perspectives.

I’ve started a discussion on the Livejournal Roleplayers community on the subject of Traits within the Verses RPG, and their implementation as an answer to the “Perks and Flaws” of other systems. Head on over and check it out.

This past Saturday, July 21st, saw the first actual game-play session of our new campaign. Aside from the goal to have a buttload of fun, the purposes for this campaign are two: to give the Verses RPG rules a working progression towards completion through extended playtest, and to work as a unit to create a new campaign setting in which all involved can be personally invested. So far, after a character and setting jam session and one actual play session, the results are better than satisfactory. With this post, I’ll kick off a series of post-session Actual Play reports. Interested? Keep reading.

This weekend involved a lot of gaming, at least one game (or semblance thereof) per evening. Friday night featured a revisit of our ever-exciting D&D&D game (Dungeons and Dragons and Drunkards). In this game, we take shots as we do various game things, and we kill stuff. Sometimes, the stuff kills us. In this particular session, present were myself, Chris, Alex, Drake, and a brand new gamer Forrest, who has now been successfully converted. This one specific of the night pretty much made the weekend awesome; it’s not every day you get to see (and influence!) the seed of the hobby take root in another’s imagination. She really got into the back-story development of her character, so much that I have decided I will introduce her to better games very soon, before D&D gets in and takes too strong of a hold. I ran them all through a quick homemade scenario, and stuck with a theme of Monster Hunting, which will be revisited each time we return to the hopefully continuous game.

I’ll be running a second playtest of the Verses RPG on July 14th at Go Play! Portland. I’m pretty excited about this, as it will help get some more input before launching it into an extended campaign with my new group of Saturday gamers. I’ll update this blog with more info on the event as I get it, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: This didn’t actually happen, as personal matter prevented me from attending. Maybe next time?