An update: GenCon, Settings, and Systems.

I thought I would let you know what I've been doing in gaming lately.

First off, I can confirm now that I am running four games at Gen Con this year for Goodman Games as a Judge for Dungeon Crawl Classics. DCC is a go-to system for me, as it is what I typically run and play at conventions, and convention games are pretty much 90% of what I get to do in gaming. I think it's got a great mix of old-school and new-school mechanics conventions, and the rules have been written in order to produce a very definite flavor of game.

If anyone reading this is going, I am running Escape From The Purple Planet, The Jeweler That Dealt In Stardust, Caverns of Thracia, and my own adventure, The Temple of Laserface and the Kung-Fu Masters of the 4th Dimension.

The links above are to the event pages.

Although I have run it twice at GaryCon already, I've officially started actual writing for The Temple of Laserface and The Kung-Fu Masters of the 4th Dimension, which will be my first written adventure, assuming it sees the light of day. I am still not 100% sure whether I will keep it system-neutral or specify a rules set. Candidates are DCC, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, or Swords & Wizardry. It would certainly be the easiest to specify no system, as then I wouldn't have to worry about licensing or trademarks. But I feel like the flavor of the game lends itself towards DCC or LotFP.

Before I leave the topic of Gen Con, I will also be excited to hopefully get to meet some of the creators behind Lamentations of the Flame Princess, one of my favorite rules sets and probably my favorite publisher.

In the regular gaming front,  I'm also playing in a weekly RuneQuest 2 game on Google+, and have been since the end of 2016. I think the system is pretty good, although I have reservations about Glorantha as a setting, Half a year of playing, and I still don't have a good grasp on it. Ask me the difference between Pavis and Prax, and my eyes will glaze over.

A setting that I am much more drawn to is that of Tékumel. I've started reading Man of Gold, Prof. M. A. R. Barker's first Tékumel novel. It's a bit early, but I think that setting is much more my jam, since there's virtually no aspects of medieval Europe present. It is all heavily inspired by Mesoamerica, India, and Middle Eastern cultures.

Now I'm hoping to play in a Tékumel campaign, but I am reading through The original Empire of the Petal Throne fairly slowly, in the hopes of familiarizing myself with the most basic aspects of the setting. More to follow as I learn more about it, but I have just finished reading through the EPT introduction, and I'm going to see what the rules are like. I also have a digital copy of Jeff Dee's Bethorm, but I feel like I should stick to one source as I learn what's what on Tékumel.  If nothing else, I will at least be well armed for the next U-Con convention in November.