Tag Archives: Eldritch Sigils

2018 in gaming (for me)

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It’s time to reflect upon this year.

2018 was a bit of a game changer (pun intended). I made a conscious decision to avoid roleplaying since I had felt a major burnout on that subject. I have been roleplaying for about 25 years so it is a big part of who I am and how I perceive myself. And I have to admit that taking that break has been one of the best ideas I have ever had.

Since roleplaying has been my main way to see my friends I felt that I wanted to fill in that void. And luckily our Guild has a vast number of players willing to play different games.

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Failing Campaigns

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Biggest lesson from last few years of gaming to me might have been that I can accept the fact that not all campaigns will work.

At first this seems like no-brainer. But only after some consideration, failures, and successes was I able to embrace this. It is not “letting your players down” nor is it “failing”. Understanding your own resources as GM is a tool.

So in this post I will try to explain this personal notion.

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Sandbox on Rails

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Sandbox campaigns are a dream I have chased for years. A campaign where the players participate in the story, create memorable content and I act only as a referee. I know that many people chase the same white rabbit and I’m going to discuss my methods of catching it.

We finished our latest season of Eldritch Sigils just last night. It was one of the most epic season with game starting in 2099 and ending in 1770s after a detour in about 2300. When we started this campaign exactly ten months ago I had no idea where the story would take us. I was once again trying to force my players to play with me on my sandbox.

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Designing Eldritch Sigils

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Last Sunday I published the beta version of rules for Eldritch Sigils. This is a game I have been working on for about five years. I have actually published earlier drafts over the years but this was the first time it actually has consistency and it is actually playable.

This has been a long process and one that is still in the works. But now that the rules are “out there” I thought it would be a good chance to talk about them. Since game design is quite an interesting topic I hope that sharing my process might produce new ideas or at least be curious.

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Maps and Level Design

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Maps. Most roleplayers (that I know of) like them. Some (like me) are even fascinated by them. In my opinion they make many situations in games easier to handle and might even inspire the players. Last night while playing Eldritch Sigils the group explored the subway tunnels under Berlin and I happened to draw a map I was exceptionally contended with. This made me think about mapping while playing in general and I decided to share a few of my thoughts.

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[Eldritch Sigils] Is Transhumanism > Being Human

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New season for Eldritch Sigils is on. This time we will play in the end of the 22nd century where the PCs are member of the organisation trying to keep the reality from shattering. It’s less than hundred years from “now” but Cyberpunk (as a time and style) is still a thing in the past and that means some changes in the way things work. And during the first session we had an interesting conversation about transhumanism.

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Season of the Witch, End

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Playtesting sheets

Playtesting sheets

Last week we played the long anticipated tenth session of our last “season” of Eldritch Sigils called The Season of the Witch. Rather than being (all) about the last session I try once again debate about ending a campaign.

At the start of this campaign we established that the characters were chosen by George Washington to uncover a diabolic cult of witches that had been plaguing the New World since its founding. As with most campaigns it all went to hell but this time with an intended bang.

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Season of the Witch, Part 5

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It is quite remarkable how a few random words can make a big difference. I though I was having great time yesterday while playing Eldritch Sigils but once we were leaving Mikko‘s place after the game one of the players said something that not only made my day but also made me think (again) about how and why we play. It wasn’t a big thing at all – he just said: “I didn’t remember to mark down my exp.”

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Season of the Witch, Part 4

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session4bThough it seems we have more than enough of timing issues with this campaign we are managed to have an awesome fourth session yesterday. And even though we have been using Eldritch Sigils for a few years for the campaign it seems we can still find minor details that need correcting.

It seems like ages ago when I was GMing ANKH to my friends after school and just had to tweak the rules of the game to suit my taste. It might have been twenty years ago but I’m still doing it. And for the life of me I cannot see the reason why?

Why cannot I be satisfied with the rules as written?

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Season of the Witch, Part 2 (and 3)

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It took us some time to get back to this (well, actually about two months) but finally returned to colonial America. Since I’m already writing a campaign debrief on this forum I decided that we do not really need another one. Thus this post is mostly about stealing stuff from other games to improve your own.

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