I haven’t been very active these last few months, mostly because I’ve been going through the process of getting US citizenship. It’s been a very interesting year to do that, but also not a great time to be a non-citizen living in the US.

I naturalized earlier in August and I’ve been a lot more productive since then. Partly because I’m a lot less stressed, and partly because I feel I have more creative freedom. I’ve been worried about posting anything, or, worse, publishing anything, which could be interpreted as political, and used against me in the future. Whatever risks may exist now are much, much lower.

My Knights of the Road adventure

Nothing I’m working on is actually that politically radical, but I specifically was not working on one adventure previously.

Knights of the Road is an ItO-like that comes in three tiny booklets. I don’t think much has been written for it, which is unfortunate because I think it’s a great setting - a fantasy version of the US during the dust bowl.

I ran an early version of the adventure at NSR camp several months ago and I think people liked it. It has a heist, a train, and a labor dispute (which is why I put off working on it.) There’s a lot of faction interaction and it’s more social than the typical OSR adventure, but there's plenty of action as well.

While I wasn’t working on the adventure, I did finally get to take the modern train it most resembles and so I’ll make you look at my vacation photos:

We went through wetlands and mountains, rolling green hills and towns, but the stark beauty of the Grand Basin made a particularly strong impression on me.

Other stuff

I wrote a few blog posts.

NSR Camp 4, and thoughts on 4E D&D talks about the last NSR camp. I ran Stygian Library (again) and played in a game of GLAIVE and Electrum Archive, but the bulk of it is talking about my experience running 4E at least a decade since I ran and played 4E regularly. Overall, some stuff held up well and some less so, but I think it’s still a very worthwhile game.

What if the Ennies Reviewed Games From Two Years Ago? asks if the Ennies would better reflect what games are good if we reviewed games after people have had time to run them. I talk about some games from two years ago that did not get nominated, as well as some games that maybe deserve to be talked about more.

For the most recent batch of modified public domain art, I’ve been focusing on vehicles and horses.

What I’ve Been Playing

We finished Frostwyck in Cairn, played the much shorter Trouble in Twin Lakes, and now are playing a game of Glowburn and Radscars, a sort of post-apocalyptic mutant-themed ItO-like. I’m playing a giant mutant ant and having a lot of fun with it. The Uncharted Worlds campaign I mentioned last time has continued - this is the longest I think I have played a game which doesn't have any combat (the rules have combat but we're not playing it that way).

I have also been playing a game of Cataphracts, this time set in Britain in about 600 AD, which just wrapped up. If you aren't familiar with the concept, something like 40 people play an entirely play by post, real time, spreadsheet based game about medieval logistics and fog of war. I lead a peasant revolt and managed to stay alive and even hold some territory until the very end, despite immense odds. I just started a new game on a different server - there are a bunch of other games around and they’re always looking for more players.

I also achieved my lifelong goal of playing in a Megagame - a sort of day-long combination of a LARP, a wargame, and a model UN. At no point did anyone have any idea what was going on. I think we all got wiped out by aliens. It was amazing - everything I’d hoped it would be when I first heard about the concept like 10 years ago.

I haven’t played much in the way of solo games - lately I haven’t been doing anything unless it’s scheduled and there is social pressure to show up - but I hope to get back into it soon.