In light of the news of the passing of Erick Wujick, on Monday, I wanted to delay my weekend update post until after Monday, so the article on his passing would remain at the top of my feeds.  But so that I don’t completely forget how to write on this blog….

I had a good gaming weekend.  It was my night to run Iron Heroes, but rather than running a normal session, we changed things up a bit.  First,  a bit of back story.  At my last session of IH, it became clear that the end of the campaign was in the horizon.  We had completed most of the PC’s personal stories, and all the groundwork for the coming war had been laid.  It was decided about a month ago, that no one had the time to do a d20 Mass Combat campaign to play out the war, so we were left with a gap in the story, before the final story arc could take place.

So rather than just narrating the war as the opening to a session, I decided to enlist my players to help describe how the war went, and what events transpired before we resumed playing.  I cobbled together some quick rules, inspired by Universalis, and came up with a simple, coin driven narrative mechanic.  I got the players on board, and on Sunday night, we gathered around the table, with our stack of poker chips and began to collaboratively tell the story of how the war progressed, what happened to the players during that time, and how did they come to be on the steps of liberating Arion’s country, Kotkala.

The session was a success, and the ideas generated were excellent and far more detailed than had I sat and worked out the narrative on my own.  I captured the whole process on our campaign wiki, and am in the process of cleaning the text up.  When it is done, it will server as not only the historical account of how the War for Kotkala went, but it is seeded with ideas for things to weave into the final story arc of the campaign.

So that was Sunday, last night, Sargon and Spenser came over and we worked more on our Global Frequency rules.  Work on this had taken a back seat with the arrival of 4e (of which I have not yet received my box set Amazon!), and the launch of Sargon’s Star Wars Saga campaign.  But last night, we had time to do some work on it, so after some amazing Indian food, we headed down to the Gaming Lounge (read: Basement) and in about 90 minutes got through the material we needed to.  Now I will turn the notes on my dry erase board into some more rules, and then prepare for one more round of play testing.

One last RPG update, I finished reading Corporation just in time for the late arrival of my 4e core books.  I will post my thoughts about Corporation later, but I liked the rules well enough to buy the starter adventure, and will be running it for Sargon, Spenser, and some friends, in a few weeks.

This week, I will be writing a post for Gnome Stew, on the replay-ability of certain RPG’s.  I will also get my thoughts about Corporation up as well.  So update your RSS feeds and keep an eye out.

I am sad to report, that Erick Wujcik, the great game designer, has passed away. It was made public, months ago that he was diagnosed with cancer. I am a great fan of Erick’s work, and when I first read the news, posted an article, that summed up my feelings for what he meant to me as a GM, and what he did for the role playing world. That post can be found here.

Thank you again Erick for all you have done.  I will not forget the times that I got to meet you and that sense of awe listening to you talk about games and game theory.   My condolences go to Erick and his family and friends, and to all the gamers who were touched by Erick’s games and words.