So. Many. Games.

Right now, I am living the good life for an RPG enthusiast. I am running a metric butt-load* of games and playing in a few as well. Here’s a listing of what I’m doing these days.

7th Sea (Second Edition): I’ve just started a campaign of this one with a small group of friends. It’s a gem of a game with a truly unique set of mechanics aimed squarely at Rule Zero. It’s a swashbuckling game of bigger-than-life Heroes performing feats of derring-do in a world not unlike our own 17th Century Europe (though a new Kickstarter is introducing rules for an Asian-style setting as well). The campaign is called “Velvet & Steel” and features a Castillian duelist/relic hunter seeking knowledge and glory, a Vesten battle blacksmith seeking revenge, a woman of the Highland Marches, posing as a Castillian, who seeks safety and respite from the loss of love, and a Vodacce aristocrat who seeks personal freedom.

Deadlands (Classic): I’ve been running my wife through a Deadlands campaign set in the little town of Paiute Springs, Nevada. We’ve been having a ball. She is playing a Mad Scientist with a stubborn-streak and has been getting into all kinds of trouble. This game, set in an alternate-history “Weird West” setting in which the Civil War carries on into the 1870s, California has dropped off into the sea, and the newly-discovered element of “ghost rock” powers all manner of odd mechanical devices, is just awesome. It uses a great mechanic using playing cards to resolve various actions that makes it immersive into a setting in which card-sharp Hucksters can cast magical spells with a cut of the deck.

The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game: I’ve also been running my wife through her own story in this awesome proto-Fate RPG based on the world of the best-selling novels by Jim Butcher. I love the storytelling aspects of the game and the use of Aspects to spur your character to action. She is playing a White Court Vampire whose powers are based on rage. It is set in Portland, OR–things just keep getting weirder there.

I am also playing in a DFRPG game in (relatively) nearby Lawton, OK. Only this group has incorporated Fate Core rules to the game. It’s also sort of a LARP/Tabletop hybrid group. It is a lot of fun and they are a great bunch of folks to play with. It get to play Dr. Charles Martin (aka “The Wandering Jew“).

Pathfinder: I am currently running three Pathfinder campaigns and playing in one. I run one campaign for my wife, who is playing a half-elf bard by the name of Azuredee Silverthistle who wanders the world, singing songs and having adventures with her human cousin, Alys Mournbow, a Cavalier of the Shield. I also run two other campaigns for my regular gaming group (both in my home-brew world). In one, “Shadows of the Rift”, the party is a group of outcasts who have banded together as a “family” to face the world and collect fame and fortune. The other, “Rage and Raven”, a barbarian and a cleric of Imtiau (whose aspect is the raven) have banded together to seek their fortunes. That smaller group has grown to include a halfling relic hunter, a surly dwarf magus, a swashbuckler, and a summoner.

I am playing in a campaign called “It’s War!” in which I am Belamdil Greymorn, a half-elf cleric of Faeramriel, an elven goddess of mysteries, illusions, and the night-sky. I travel with my sister, Tansy (a bigger-than-life rogue), and a paladin of Glo’ir by the name of Reeve Steeltalon, trying to thwart the machinations of the Baroness (now Queen) Kricerys Vale.  It’s a blast as well.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to. What about you? What are you playing? Feel free to drop a line in the comments!

*I converted to the metric system for measuring butt-loads, as opposed to the Imperial system, back in the 1990s.