2012 is off to a good gaming start! I'm running three games and playing in three games. My classroom simulation of life at the court of Empress Wu of China continues to be a soap opera of intrigue and discovery. Our empress is asserting her power a bit more, and two executions have occurred since I last wrote about the game here, both for treasonous behavior. Those students have returned as the empress' son and daughter-in-law, much to their delight and to the drama of the game. Everyone plots and plans. More than in many past years, these students are looking up information about their characters and times. They delight in both matching and defying the known facts.
After school on Fridays, I have the second term of a gaming group for kids ten to eleven. Some of them are in my regular classroom, but many are from other fifth and sixth grade classrooms. Mostly, it is the same kids as first term, but we have a couple of fun, new members. One of them is a boy that also studies Mandarin with me on other afternoons. It's fun to see his whimsical side manifest in the game group. All of the kids in the game really thrive on the activity.
I'm running a weekend afternoon game set in Glorantha, for which I've enjoyed the chance to write lots of new material. My game runs for five or six weeks, and then three other GMs run their games in succession before mine comes around again. This lets us all be players too and takes off some of the pressure of running a game every week. It has also been a wonderful opportunity for me to learn from other storytellers.
I'm making early plans to participate in some of the summer game conventions. I may have a workshop at Gen Con, and I'm hoping that I'll again be running lots of games at Dragon Con. I'd like to get back to Origins again, but that's probably asking too much of life. If you think you'll be at any of these, let me know.
Have fun!
David
