This month's SBCGaming GOTM is Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for the Genesis. This was a pretty fun game, especially for a handheld. The music and the graphics really hold up. The game is so fast and crazy at times with only minor slow downs happening. It really works well as a handheld game. I was never exposed to many Genesis games growing up, so this was a nice demonstration of what the system was doing. We were a Nintendo household, but this one really holds up pretty well.

The level design here is really fantastic. Just a ton of moving parts and colors in all of the levels and it looks like there are so many different routes to take. My only gripe with the game is that there are some really cheap shot enemy placement locations (those damn crabs) and the last three bosses are damn near impossible without save states found on modern handhelds. I can only image the level of repetition that needs to be done to memorize all of the locations. 

Overall, a great handheld play, especially on a modern emulation system where you can have save states. 

I had the opportunity to run my game a a Con a couple of weeks ago and I would like to share my thoughts on how that went. 

TLDR

• It’s still super hard to find people who will play and playtest. The RPG Design community really needs to figure something out as the Board game community seems to have a better culture of testing and playing others games. 

• If you can setup a table, that’s great, but it kinda sucks to sit there for hours. 

  • Try and get passive content to have out there. At a minimum a QR code 

  • Free stuff like stickers or a pamphlet work well

  • Board gamers or perhaps “regular” people want to goto a website. Not Itch or Drivethru RPG. 

• Try and Network if you can. I had some good conversations with other game designers.

  • Would love in the future to setup a panel or something.

I had an opportunity to get my table and setup some demo/playtests at a local con this past weekend. It was a super interesting experience and I thought I would share some of my experience that I’ll take away from this and perhaps others will find this useful. 

The Con I was at was in the Chicago suburbs. Not a huge event, but also not small. I would say a few hundred people overall so a “medium” con based on ones I’ve attended in the past. The con has a fairly even presence of TTRPG vs. Board games I think. A lot of scheduled events for both. On the TTRPG side it looked like it was predominately PF2e, Mork Borg (and variants), DCC, and just a little bit of 5e. 

Playtesting

Unexpectedly finding people interested in play testing my game was difficult. I had two demo/playtest sessions on the calendar. One had 6 people sign up (only 3 showed up) and the second had no sign ups. This is understandable I suppose. The event though did have quite a bit of (board) game designers at it. I wish there was perhaps a better way to interface with them before or during the event. I ran into a couple and struck up a conversation. One board game designer was cool enough to come back to my table and even chat with me for about an hour, giving some input on the character sheet. 

There were designers play testing at this event for board games and they definitely seemed to have a better awareness of play testing and supporting each other. Granted, it some cases it is easier to walk up to a table and get a 30 minute board game demo, but it just seemed to me that the designers in the board game realm here seemed to be more active about getting out, testing and then also giving feedback on other people's games.

Running the Game at a Con

If you've never been to a con before just playing a game is gonna be different. The most notable thing will be the noise. You will be in a room with probably 8-10 other games going on at the same time. It will be really loud and hard to hear at times.

The table will most likely be a round table too, in case that matters for your game.

Now, unfortunately for my game, a Con is not necessarily the best playtest setup. My game specifically is designed around a West Marches game, with town creation, etc. That sort of thing can't really be tested so I had to opt for a more traditional "dungeon crawl" sort of adventure, that added some overland travel (to test those mechanics) on the front end. Even those I had to sort of jump ahead through as I could tell the players wanted to just jump into the dungeon crawl to really "start playing".

I feel like in the con setting the only thing I really can test in a meaningful way is combat and some other adventuring related mechanics like skill checks for individual characters. "Macro" systems just won't be able to get tested due to the noise, time limit and interest of the players.

Con Table

I was able to get a con table for free being a designer. The table worked out well, but man did it suck to just sit there. Most people aren’t gonna walk up and just chat with you about your game. If I do this again, I think I will still get a table, but try and just have some more “passive content” at it such as stickers or a free pamphlet people can take. I don’t intent to sit at the table for hours on end. 

My table had a demo setup where I could walk people through character creation and run a quick round or two of combat. I did not get a lot of bites on that. 

Table and Web Content

Get a QR and preferably a business card or bookmark with your info on it. I’ll go one step further and say get an actual website. I do have one, but just from conversations most of the non-ttrpg world didn’t want to sign up or goto itch or DTRPG for a .PDF. When people asked me where they could check out my stuff every single one asked for my website. Now, this could be slightly demographic. It appeared to me that the vast majority of the TTRPG players were 40+. The younger crowed at the event were there predominately for a Catan tournament and for Star Wars Sparks (which I believe is a CCG?)

Had maybe 6-10 people scan my QR code in front of me. 

Seems like handing out and using bookmarks (like for a book) are the new hot thing over business cards. I saw lots of vendors doing bookmarks. 

So that's it. This is just one person's experience at one con, but certainly was educational and gave me some things to think about if I bring my game back to another con in the future.

I've recently discovered that I probably have an inordinate amount of bags for myself. This all arose a couple of days ago when I was discussing with Megan about getting a new bag for my personal laptop. I picked up a new 13" MacBook Air (which is great btw) and decided I need to get a new bag for it to protect it. 

As I began doing some research on this, it occurred to me that I have maybe half a dozen bags already floating around the house that I use in various capacities? Perhaps it's my personal neurodivergent trait here, but each bag I have serves a sort of independent need. 

• I have an old Jansport backpack that might date all the way back to junior high. It's huge, but in incredibly good shape and was definitely from the "Made in the USA" era of Jansport. It is too big for most of my needs these days, but I know as soon as I get rid of it, I will need that space for something. 
• I have a slightly smaller backpack that is from LL Bean that is a day hike pack. I've brought it with me on multiple national park trips and it goes with me on pretty much every vacation trip. That is about the only time I use it though because I don't really need a backpack for most daily uses. It's a great bag, but doesn't have any laptop storage unfortunately. 
• My daily driver is a Chrome Industries messenger bag that I got back in undergrad at college I think? Maybe grad school. It's a pretty big laptop bag that has been my goto bagger work and school for almost 20 years now. It is showing some wear and tear on the edges, but is still in incredible shape and holds just about all of my daily work gear. 
• I have an older canvas Lands End bag that I used for undergrad school that my parents got me years ago. It is floating around somewhere and I really should dig it out. It is another fantastic bag made out of a really durable canvas, but it again doesn't have any laptop storage. For a while it was my goto D&D bag, and I think I might wan to revive it for my TTRPG runs that don't require any digital tools. There was one point when I was using it as my work bag that a banana got smashed in it and it was a paint to get cleaned. 
• Finally I have a Chrome Industries Kadet Mini Sling bag. I picked this up a few years ago for music festivals. I like this bag quite a bit and I should probably use it more for weekend stuff. 
• Bonus Bag: Ahh, I just remembered when discussing the Kadet that I also have a Lunchbox hydro pack, which is a backpack specifically designed for music festivals with a water bladder in it. This I use pretty much exclusively for music festivals, so while it is incredibly utilitarian, it is sort of the perfect tool for a very specific job. 

So, for my next bag I am sort of looking at some options for my small laptop. Again, I want some space to throw just a couple of bags and an additional tablet for RPG sessions, etc. Right now, my front runners are a bit of a surprise as I am looking at a tote bag options. Why a tote bag? Well, I don't really need the long term support that a backpack will bring me. More often than not, I am mainly just carrying my bag from the house, to the car and then back out of the car. Another messenger bag was definitely on the table as an option, but the tote bag with the top opening really caught my eye. The catch is that I don't want something super large. 

Right now it looks like my top options are the Alpaka Bravo Tote and the Bellroy Tokyo Wonder Tote (12L). Both look really nice and I think it will ultimately just come down to which style calls to me the most. 

I've been a Goodreads user for years, almost since the beginning of its inception, and before it was purchased by Amazon. As of late I have wanted to see what else is out there for social apps around reading. As good as Goodreads is, it really hasn't seen any sort of updates to it. The rise of "Booktok" has brought a whole new social aspect to reading that I sort of miss. I used to be part of several bookclubs on Goodreads and at work, but those have largely fallen by the wayside and died. 

I've dipped my toes into a couple of new apps over the past months to see what they are all about. Fable and Tome have seen heavy discussion on my internet circles. I've had Fable for about six months now and Tome for maybe two (it is quite new). 

My initial impressions are kinda lukewarm on both of them so far. They both feature a very modern interface compared to Goodreads, almost like Instagram or BlueSky/Mastodon for the endless scrolling. There is something though rather clean about Goodreads compared to the other two. There is a level of information density that I prefer. Now, part of that might be because I have 10+ years of friends on Goodreads and they are largely still active, but I look at the feeds on these apps and my Goodreads feed is mostly people's book updates. What they have read and what they are reading, whereas my feeds in Fable and Tome are around books, but are not really updates on the books themselves. I see less reviews, less thoughts on specific chapters, and more posts that are people's cozy pictures of them in their living room reading. That's fine I guess, but I kinda wanna have some discussions around a book itself. 

I'm gonna check out Storygraph, but at this point I think Goodreads is still the best game in town. The interface is clean, even with the ads it offers up and it still has the best density of friends and interesting people posting book information. If I'm being honest, I also think the ads are rather good and introduce me to some new books and authors. 

Megan and I saw Dune Part 2 a couple of weekends ago in iMax. It has been years I think since we last went to a movie at the theaters. Probably since before COVID if I had to guess. 

The movie was quite good and I really enjoyed the movie experience. As with any movie adaptation there are some changes from the book and I fully understand how those changes needed to be made. In the movie version there appears to be a much larger emphasis on the Bene Gesserit and their role in the whole prophecy. I would've liked to see a bit more of the space guild and the mentat, if only to highlight a bit how there were more forces as play in the whole galactic politics. 

My only other gripe with the movie that jumped out at me was the handling of Chani's relationship with Paul at the end. In the book she was much more aware of the potential political marriage that needed to occur and stayed with Paul. The movie changed this dynamic quite a bit, apparently having the two split up and bringing forth the conflict between Paul's religious war and the longterm identity of Dune itself. 

It's an interesting take. I got the impression from the books series that the Freeman wanted Dune to become green. The movie portrayed this a bit differently for me, and I got the impression that there is a sector of the Freeman who want to be free, but have Dune remain as it is due to their "heritage". I feel Chani would fall into this camp. The movie conveyed a real sense of dread and devastation. The scene where the Emperor's ship is attacked on the Dune surface was a demonstration of a brutal and devastating blow. 

I had a great time though and despite the hight cost of going to the movies, I would like to get out a bit more and go back. The past few years of movies have not aught me at all. As I posted about earlier this year, I am getting a bit burned out on streaming services and subscriptions all over the place. It was nice to get into that whole movie experience, with the popcorn and everything. Here's to the hope that movies can make a bigger impact as we move forward. 

I started reading the ACOTAR series a little of a year ago and the behest of my wife who had been reading these books for quite a while. It was only after seeing the continual clips on TikTok that I decided to give the the series ago, if only to see what the fuss was all about and to connect with my wife on what she was reading.

I liked the first book, but I didn’t love it. I could see the appeal, but as a pure fantasy novel, I wasn’t entirely taken by the story that was presented. I continued on reading the second book and I could see how the writing improved significantly. While working through the series it was interesting to observe my interpretations of the scenes and development compared to my wife. I saw things that she didn’t and vice versa.

By the end of the second book I was hooked. I was really drawn into the world and if I am being honest the love story between Rhys and Feyre was very well written. The overall story was just “OK” for me, but it was the personal moments and the family that she built that really had me invested in this story.

I love that the third book gave us the opportunity to really learn a bit more about the other kingdoms and get to know those characters. The war with Hyburn was a nice topping point to the whole series. In the end I only had a couple of minor quibbles with the final book, and most of those issues arose near the end. The first issue is the sudden reappearance of the Archeron sister’s father. For me it came out of nowhere with no context. I dont even believe Maas connected his coming to Lucien setting out to find the one human queen. The other major issue was that none of the major characters or other lords died at the end of the book. It made for a happy ending sure, but it seemed a bit improbable and removed some of the gravity of the situation.

I was also a bit confused when the other high lords who were able to change into a beast during the final battle. Rhys and Hellion I believe both did this. I though that was Tamlin’s specific power as the lord of the Spring Court? All of the other lords have distinct powers, but if they all can change into beasts what does that leave Tamlin with?

In the end though, this who series was about the relationship between Feyre and Rhys and it had me fully invested. It was touching and quite beautiful and I love how Maas showed how much they actually cared for each other.

I’m not sure if I will continue on to the other books in this series, but I think I am definitely a fan of Maas and her writing, and I will certainly check out some of her other series at some point.

Our group had our session 1 this past Friday, or I should say perhaps session 0.5 since it appears that half of my table didn't fully fill out their character sheets or somehow forgot a stat or two. So after about 45 minutes of doing that again we finally got started in Morgansfort. 

Here are the names of the players we rolled up.

1. Ysln Candlewick (Female)
2. Cwingeld (Male)
3. Arjune (Male)
4. Cybil Burle (Female)
5. Beatrice (Female)
6. Canhoreal Studerman (Male)

Morgansfort Primer

For those that might be interested in running the module, it essentially is a fort placed on the edge of the “Western Lands” which are part of the former Urd Empire. The fort is placed right near the edge of civilization which allows for plenty of opportunity to engage in the wilderness. It features three dungeons to explore along with general wilderness areas. The module has a nice bit of information (2-3 pages) that provides enough background information for GMs to give their players a sense of place, but not so much that one can’t easily modify or adapt it to their own setting or needs. A nice summary is provided right on page 1 of the three dungeons and the fort.

There is also a really detailed bit of information of the world’s religions and the fort itself, including details on all of the buildings and numerous NPC’s within the fort. 

Our group had two characters randomly roll up clerics as backgrounds so they took an interest in the religion information in the Morgansfort module. I won't write it all out here, but here is a brief summary.