Shark Bone

Shortly after publishing my previous blog post, I had a major curve ball thrown at me: the company that employed me sold their book of business in the state I work in. I was given the opportunity to take a position at the company that was doing the buying, which I of course took. I didn't have any other options lined up and the job market is pretty rough, to be honest. So, I moved to the new company and it's been a mess. A fun mess, to be sure, but a mess. It is a brand new program and I'm helping to create its shape. No one else at the company can do what I do. For the moment. So, I have a lot of responsibility. A lot of responsibility means a lot of time. I've been dedicating more time and energy to work, which means I have less time and energy for other pursuits. But, I don't see this as a bad thing. For the first time in my life, I'm focusing on my career, really trying to build it into something more than I've ever had, something that could fulfill t...

Some months ago, I made a post about a little game called Orpheus, and my desire to run it. And, I pondered what system would be a good fit for it, as I didn't want to use the rules as presented in the actual game books. I ended up going with Fate, creating rules for the characters and their myriad powers and ran it for more than 9 months, and more than half of the adventure with those rules. Boy, was that the wrong call! I admit, we had fun with the game! Some great stories were told and we all enjoyed the time we spent at the table. But, it started to feel flat after that long. The system didn't support the length of play, or the growth we wanted. I eventually mentioned to the group that I wished we had gone with another system, and they enthusiastically suggested we just use the core rules. So, we did. I scrapped the session, last minute, and we sat down to create characters using the old World of Darkness rules, as they are presented in the core book. That, was the right  c...

  This post contains affiliate links for DriveThruRPG. If you use one and make a purchase, I will earn a small percentage of that sale, and it will cost you nothing extra. Thank you for your support! For the TLDR rating, click here! It’s no secret that I am a big fan of tabletop role playing games. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve written that exact sentence on this blog at least once before. I play a lot of games. I read a lot of game books. I think that my reading time is likely evenly split between game books and fiction books. Non-fiction is thrown in there, too, but I read a lot fewer non-fiction books than I do fiction and game books. Okay, getting out of the weeds, there: I recently picked up Claim the Sky , which is a superhero supplement for the Cypher System by Monte Cook Games . I read through the book, slowly and bit by bit and… I gotta say that I really love it. The Book Image from MonteCookGames.com Like all of the Cypher System books I have, it’s a beautiful book. The ...

Chances are, if you’re reading this, you know I’m a big fan of table top role playing games. You might have listened to my old podcast, Shark Bone, or you follow me on Twitter. Most of my online presence has to do with table top RPGs. Initially, this blog was supposed to be apart from them, but they are such a huge part of what I like, I found that trying to separate them was short-sighted, and not very true to who I am. Besides, they are stories. And if this blog is about anything , it’s about stories. In my gaming group, there is one story that is something of a white whale: Orpheus . I’m talking about the role playing game published by White Wolf in the early 2000s about ghosts. It is a story that spans 6 books and is rather epic in scale. I had the opportunity to play in a game, almost from start to finish, near to the beginning of my gaming career. It was intense and amazing. I created and played two characters for the game, experiencing their tragedies, learning about myself, a...