August 2023 Newsletter

The Past

A huge amount has happened over the past month, mostly in the form of Gencon!

My intention is for this newsletter to be a little shorter than normal because I’ve already done a lot of writing on the After-Action-Reports and uploaded lots of photos to the website. Speaking of which, you should definitely go and check those things out right now:

Gods of the Ancient World

AAR: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/blog/aar-gods-of-the-ancient-world-gencon-2023

Pictures: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/pictures/gods-of-the-ancient-world-gencon-2023

Deephaven

AAR: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/blog/aar-deephaven-gencon-2023

Den of Wolves

AAR: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/blog/den-of-wolves-gencon-2023

Pictures: https://www.dukesofhighland.net/pictures/den-of-wolves-gencon-2023

The Present AND The Future

Now that Gencon is over, there’s a lot of stuff to do for planning for next year. I was originally thinking of just copy-pasting my to-do list here but it’d give away all my super-secret plans. Not that I’m trying to hide anything necessarily, but more about having lots of plans that aren’t solidified. Here’s some of the things I’m working on:

• Work on viability of running a game in <new city 1>

  • No comment

• Work on viability of running a game in <new city 2>

  • No comment

• Restart the mentor program

  • We’ve been running it for about a year now, helping folks design and run games. It got put on the back burner as I got busy with my own games but now Gencon is over, I’m hoping to have a little more time to restart it.  

• Build and advertise Gods of the Ancient World - The package

  • I’ve developed the game in such a way that it’s hopefully easy for other groups around the world to run it. ie. You buy the package and you can run it “out-of-the-box”. Most megagames are not this way and I hope to change this.

• Read rules to It belongs in a museum

  • To see if it’s a viable option to run it here next year.

• Talk through Deephaven with my regular control group

  • To see if it’s a viable option to run it here next year.

• Work on turning my version of Watch the Skies into its own game

  • The original designer of Watch the Skies told me he didn’t think that the version we ran was close enough to the original design to be called Watch the Skies (totally fair). In response, I’m going to change more of what I already have, repackage it, and run it under a different name. Not sure yet if that’ll be next year though.

• Continue to work on my Lovecraftian-inspired mega-RPG.

  • I have a LOT of work to do on this. I’m going to take my time.

• Work on Tik Tok promo

  • Ewwwww, Tik Tok. When BeckyBecky released a Tik Tok video earlier this year, it had excellent traction which makes me think it might be a viable advertising method. But still, ewwwww. I’m over 40, do they even let xennials on the tick tocks?

• See the new venue in Louisville

  • I have my eyes on a new venue here locally. I want to do do a walkthrough before I book.

As you can see, lots going on but not really a lot to talk about. Lots of irons in the Dwarven forge though.