William Brandes Stoddard
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A Fifteenth Year of Blogging
🕑 Added 2025-11-21 03:29:22 +0000 UTCIt’s another year of blogging done, even if the last few months have been very thin around here. Some of my big clients have had steady work for me, and Citadel has taken whatever was left over from that. We’ll see how that develops over the next year.
Games I’m Running
1. Aurikesh has just hit 13 years and 169 sessions, with 170 coming up this weekend. We’re still having a great time, and still haven’t made a rules system change to the 2024 revision. I use 2024 monsters a fair amount of the time, because most of them are better balanced.
2. Dragon Heist had a lot of scheduling problems this year that couldn’t be helped, so we’ve just had our 100th session. The party is now 11th level and has just returned to Waterdeep, after five levels of trekking across the Sword Coast North.
3. Citadel LARP has now finished its first “real” year (there was a year of in-canon playtest one-days). This year had four 3-day events and one 1-day event. I think our 3-day events have been steadily improving, and I hope we can keep that trajectory going.
4. Mage: the Awakening has been a single-player chronicle – Kainenchen is playing two characters, an Obrimos and a Mastigos. This has been a ton of fun so far.
Games I’m Playing
Much shorter list than other years, because I actually am playing fewer distinct things. I’m leaving off some video games I’ve spent only 15 or 20 minutes with but might go back to.
1. Alliance Atlanta – the chapter’s first arc concluded in May, and their second arc has begun with a new plot committee. My character is now middling-to-high-ish level by the chapter’s standards, I guess? It’s just the nature of Alliance that it’s hard for me to judge.
2. Resurgence LARP had extensive scheduling challenges for Kainenchen and me this year. K made it to two events, and I only one. Looking forward to next year!
3. Pulp Cthulhu by Gaslight! I’m playing an Anglican vicar who has gotten sucked into a world of weirdness and magic. He’s very knowledgeable about the occult, but has a very poor POW score so he’ll basically never do any magic.
4. Tombsday has shifted to Wednesday, due to scheduling challenges, but we’re level 15 and using 2024 rules in another campaign in continuity with the three before it. I’m still playing Skara, my githyanki Hexblade, and having a great time.
5. Ethan still runs his 13th Age game (1e rules), and we’re gradually closing in on the end of the current adventure in the Court of Birds. It’s been an absolutely wonderful mystery, with what feels like a lot of the vibe of Lois McMaster Bujold.
6. When we can’t get the whole 13th Age roster together, Ethan runs 4e D&D in the Death Mantis campaign, and Sangasu has recently had huge plot developments as he sort of gets back in touch with his own past. He was the temple warden of a death cult, and now that he’s a revenant that means something strange and different.
7. Silksong is amazing and I’m closing in on the end of Act 2.
8. Ball X Pit is a really good blend of bullet heaven and Breakout. Big fan.
Games I’m Observing
1. Critical Role Campaign 4. I listen to the podcast, so I’m a little behind, but holy heck is Brennan off to an incredible start.
2. The Wizard, the Witch, and the Wild One. Yeah, of course I love this, it’s never less than outstanding.
3. How We Roll is coming into what I think is the last chapter of their Two Headed Serpent campaign, and it’s crazy fun. I’ve been recommending them for years, and listening to their pulp campaign has helped me offer some rules advice (only when asked) for the Pulp Cthulhu By Gaslight game I’m playing.
Games I Want to Get to the Table in 2026
1. Sword of the Serpentine. I have an almost limitless appetite for pastiches of fantasy Venice, what can I tell you?
2. I’d love to play more Ultraviolet Grasslands. I think with the expanded character mechanics and gear in Vastlands Guidebook, I could help my PCs reach the character functions they were reaching for.
Comments
Geoffrey Fortier
Congratulations! Great run, and looking forward to many more years of your blog!
Tim Baker
Congrats! Fifteen years is huge!
