I sat down this weekend and listed out the three games I currently have planned, then started thinking about what I want to do next. All of my current streams take place on the Variant Roles channel on Twitch, for what it’s worth, and are archived on YouTube.
As I’ve previously mentioned, I’m running a D&D 5e game in Krevborna called “Gothic Brunch” on Sundays at 11am Central / noon Eastern. Our third session is coming up with the party (who just hit level 4) investigating necromantic activity in the university town of Creedhall on the shores of Loch Riven. This game is scheduled to end in early September; after that, we’ll figure out whether to do a second arc (season).
Beginning this Friday at 7pm Central, I will be running the final chapter of “Dungeon of the Mad Mage”. In fact, I’ll be doing a minor bit of cosplay for Halaster Blackcloak since I already have the beard! This arc should run about four sessions. Preparing for this game has been really special since it’s the final capstone to a large community project at VR. Hopefully I can reflect all the many hours of gaming that has gotten us here!
After that, in August I will run three or four weeks of “Dungeon World” (using Jeremy Strandberg’s “Homebrew World” hack) in a short arcI haven’t named yet. But it is intended to take place in a world sort of like “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” or “Horizon Zero Dawn,” in a lush landscape with some precursor ruins. Or, as eloquently phrased by one of the players, “robots and GREENERY and tech magic and HOLOGRAMS”. That short arc will run on Tuesdays.
I ran a short example of “Homebrew World” last week, actually, using a dungeon starter called “Into the Fungal Forest”. Somehow, despite blood mushrooms and a froghemoth, the party managed to destroy the Stone of Yth and prevent the summoning of a demon-god who would have brought great woe upon the land. Fun times!
After that, I’ll probably keep running short arcs of Powered by the Apocalypse games. I feel like that sort of fiction-first, mostly narrativist ruleset suits a streaming environment much better than D&D does. More importantly, I really enjoy “Dungeon World” and other PbtA games like “Monster of the Week.” Other games that have run slightly further afield but still consider themselves PbtA to some extent also have turned out a lot of fun, like “Blades in the Dark” and its offshoots.
Not all my future gaming will be streamed. I still have a gaming group that meets most Sunday evenings, and I would like to get a medium-term campaign going on Saturdays once the Mad Mage stuff is done (because that game takes a LOT of prep time). I don’t know what it will be, but the lower-pressure environment of “N O R M I E G A M E S” is something to preserve. Engaging with chat and a wider set of friends while streaming creates one sort of experience, and I like it, but at the same time it can feel a bit like a job, with some pressure to be an “influencer” or otherwise capitalize on my hobby. That’s not what any of this is about for me: I just like being able to have more folks than the 5 or 6 of us in the game be able to share in the fun.
Technoskald's Forge 
Hey Kyle! Happy to see that you’re running Homebrew World. How’d the “Fungal Forest” game work for you? Any feedback on the Homebrew World materials? Anything you particularly liked or that tripped y’all up?
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I liked Fungal Forest just fine, had to dial up the weirdness for that group (e.g. I added a Blood Fungus danger) because we like it really out there. As far as Homebrew World, we REALLY liked the backgrounds. The gear rules seemed to trip people up a tiny bit, but they got it after a bit, I’d say. Next month, I’ll run a 4-session arc using HW so we can try out more advances and whatnot.
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Do you recall what tripped them up on the gear rules? Like, just the whole concept of “undefined” vs. defined items? “diamonds” vs. the “small” items? Something else?
Thanks!
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