This Week: Birthdays, Murder, Ameshirel & Seuss!

Welcome to This Week, a weekly series where I discuss all the gaming (both video and tabletop) content I've played, made, prepped, run and seen that's cool this week. If you want to see what I got up to last week, go here.

This week was another special one: it contain my and my partner's birthdays! That's right, we were born 6 hours apart, though in entirely different hospitals (so we can't have been swapped at birth, as I know you were thinking). Subsequently, we tend to combine our birthdays and because this was our 25th, we went big!

Let's jump in with what I've done This Week...

What I've Played

The bigness was actually thanks to our amazing friend Alex who decided to run a Murder Mystery LARP party for us. It was set in a terrible suburban street in Melbourne, in the 70s, so we had a blast. There was a cult (which may or may not have been a sex cult - we haven't gotten to the bottom of that yet) as well as drug dealers, and all sorts of nonsense. It was hilariously fun, and luckily we got a few photos from our Polaroid. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

(I'm really sorry about the chest hair...)

I just want to add also that Alex has never GMed or prepped a tabletop RPG, let alone a LARP before, so this was incredibly successful for a first game. I'm looking forward to what she runs next (because I know for a fact it's not going to be the last). I'll let you all know how it goes!

We also, this week, got a chance to play both Werewolf and Codenames. Whilst it wasn't the first time I'd played either, it was a lot of fun to play them again, and it's somewhat rekindled my love of social games. I'll be talking more about them - and probably making a few of my own - in the weeks to come.

What I've Made

Speaking on things to come, Do or Dice is now in a properly testable state! The game is ready for some serious live tests, and I'll be looking for GMs to take the reins with a few preview copies early. If this sounds interesting to you, please let me know in the comments below, and I'll see what we can do. But this also means I'll be starting the proper home game for it in the new year... Which means that Ameshirel: A World Reforged is close! I'm very excited for this, because it means I'll have even more content to share with you soon.

(Image from William McAusland, used with permission.)

Which leads me to the snippets. You may have noticed that this week I didn't post one up - that's because a) I'm starting to ramp up on a few projects, and I am stretched thinner than I have been previously (I'm also moving house soon, so things are a little extreme right now), and b) I'm getting to the end of the easy stuff to share - the races and basic concepts. That means we're probably going to be getting into more meaty subjects in the coming weeks, which means more time is needed for writing. I'm hoping to release one every fortnight, but they may be a little less or more frequent as the topic allows.

I will keep you all as up to date on Ameshirel: A World Reforged and Do or Dice as I can... I'll probably share our Same Page Tool with you very soon, as well!

What I've Seen

Today I also got the opportunity to visit the Dr. Seuss Gallery in Melbourne which, if you haven't been, you should check out! It's only two rooms, but each is filled with pieces from his life - including his highly political and snarky commentary on his rather stuck-up neighbours at the time of drawing. Located at The Block arcade off Elizabeth and Collins in the CBD, it's a really interesting look into an amazing mind. I've added a picture of one of my favourite pieces that I saw.

(Image from The Art of Dr. Seuss)

There was also a rather fun quote on the wall, which I feel is the best summation of the "What is a Roleplaying Game" section in every single RPG book... "If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good." Beautiful advice!

That's all for This Week this week. I'll talk to you next week, and tell you of all my adventures again! In the mean time, fill your own week with as much awesome as possible.