I need to play more games.
It's an old song at this point, but people who get into games as designers and writers often find that they no longer play the very thing they devote themselves to.
This fact sucks.
My situation is made worse by the fact that I live in a relatively isolated village and find it hard to visit other locations. The nearest games club with regular meetings is in Salisbury (I think) and while I have been to visit it a couple of times the drive is just too much for me – especially at night. Anywhere else is road/rail/walk and so short of going away for a weekend (which I do about every month and a half) there's just no way to get there.
I could host, but people are loathe to travel out to where I am.
That leaves running games online, and that has a host of technical, scheduling and other issues that get in the way of making it work, plus – until we get fibre – I have potato internet and can't bogart the line when it's needed for other data uses too.
Running games online is also borked by the 'closing up' of Google Hangouts, which used to have a smorgasbord of plug-ins and tools to make roleplaying easier, that you could pick and choose from. Sadly the game-hosting programs that exist all seem to be Pathfinder and D&D oriented and to have hosts of complicated options that seem – to me – to just get in the way of the roleplay. All I really need is a shared dice-roller program and a way of showing people maps and art. I don't need a feature-rich option.
Still, I'm determined to get some sort of semi-regular online game going, it just needs to be something that people can drop in and out of without too much trouble and – for the sake of making it 'pay' I suppose I should be running my own games or playtesting them with people.
Finding the people then becomes the next problem.
But in short, and without the whining, 'Playing more games'.
Hey, thanks for stopping by. I'm an independent RPG (and other games) designer and author. You can check out my stuff via the links at the side of postmortemstudios.wordpress.com. If you feel so inclined, after a look around, you can support me at patreon.com/grimachu, Minds.com/grimachu or steemit.com/@grimjim. Questions and queries are welcome, remember, 'Nullius in verba'!