News of my death… blah blah blah…

I know you’re all wondering where the hell I’ve been. I ended up taking an involuntary hiatus this past week-and-a-half. Among other things that completely blindsided me — for a change — I also got this nasty infection in my eyes that made it very difficult to sit in front of a screen at all. I shit you not. It’s been a pretty miserable couple of weeks here, all told, but I don’t want to dwell on it.

But I’m back now and playing my perpetual game of catch-up again. Though I’m not as bad off as you might think.

So lets do the update thing.

August Content

I’ve got four articles chambered and in various states and slowly moving to publication. The first two are True Game Mastery lessons that I’ll discuss in more detail below. Suffice to say they’re to do with resolving social encounters. The third is a random bullshit article that has to do with managing illusions, one of the two most problematic kinds of magic that isn’t actually problematic at all unless you let your stupid brain convince you otherwise. The fourth is a small rule hack that I’m keeping secret for now.

You’ll see the first article at the end of this week, the next on Tuesday, August 22, then the next on Tuesday, August 29. The hack will drop sometime in the last week of the month.

The True Game Mastery Series

Obviously, the True Game Mastery series has ballooned far beyond what I originally and outlined at the start of this year. But I’m not going to apologize. It’s been great and extremely well-received. It really is what I envisioned: a mastery course in game-running excellence that covers all the important topics for actually running games at the table. I didn’t envision spending nearly so long on resolving different kinds of encounters, but I don’t regret that.

At this point, I have enough True Game Mastery content outlined and planned to get through to the end of the year. And it seems like, at that point, I’ll have taught you all everything there is to know about running games and managing campaigns. Meanwhile, though, all the stuff about homebrewing content is probably going to get shoved into a new series starting in January. Something like True Scenario Design.

Hell, it ain’t like Game Masters design Scenarios anyway. So it’s all good.

Meanwhile, the next three lessons are going to be huge. Not in terms of length — I’m breaking two long articles into three less long articles — but in terms of the topic. Because those three articles together will provide the definitive work on resolving social encounters. Which, next to combat, is probably the biggest and most important thing any Game Master can handle.

As I have all three outlined and even have some of it partially drafted, I’m going to finish and post those and then circle back to the last couple of encounter-based topics. Namely stealth encounters and investigation encounters.

After I finish those topics, I have one last little mop up to do before moving on to managing campaigns, which will take us through the end of the year.

I have updated The True Game Mastery Index to reflect the currently published articles and these changes.

Live Chat

The Angry Mostly Monthly Live Chat for August will take place on Tuesday, August 22 at 8:30 PM EDT.

Ongoing Absence

While I’m going to keep pushing the content out in an effort to get caught up, I will also be absent from the Discord and community through the end of August and my responses to all inquiries will be a bit slower than usual. The truth is that as I’ve been struggling to keep up this year, I have been neglecting my physical, mental, and social health. And there are increasing medical concerns that must be dealt with. So, while I will continue to publish my meaningful work, I also need to ensure I’m resting, recovering, and taking better care of myself and my relationships.

Liquidating Used Board Games

In order to gain some space and to raise a little bit of extra ready cash, the Tiny GM and I have decided to start selling off some of our gently-used board games. We participated in a local board game sale recently and moved a few and I plan to offer up the remainder for sale online. Eventually, they’ll end up on eBay or somesuch.

Before I offer them for general sale, though, I’m happy to offer any interested readers a crack at any games they’re interested in. In this lot, I’ve got the following games:

• 5-Minute Dungeon
• Call to Adventure: Epic Origins
• Castle Panic
• Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game: Powered by GURPS
• Gloomhaven
• Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
• Last Defense
• Lockup
• Mage Wars (2012 Version)
• Monopoly Sailor Moon
• Android: Netrunner (First Edition from 2012)
• Smash Up with Over 9000 Expansion
• Vault of Dragons
• Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon

I’m in the process of photographing, weighing, and gathering information to build online listings for each game. Each and every one is in good to near mint quality. Most have only ever been played once. If there’s a game on that list you’d be interested in purchasing and if you’d like more information before I throw it on the Internet, comment below and I’ll give you more information about the game in question and supply pictures once they become available.

Shipping will cost between $10 and $15 for most of those games based on their weights and sizes. I can only sell games to United States residents.

The Angry GM at Gamehole Con?

I’m currently assessing whether I have the time and ready cash to attend Gamehole Con in Madison, WI in mid-October of this year. I’ll know for sure by the end of the month. If you’re a fan and you’re planning to attend, let me know. I do not plan to run any officially scheduled events and I’ll be taking it easy, but I’m always happy to meet up, say hi, and shoot the shit about games. And I might even consider participating in a pick-up game or two.

Comment below if you think you might be attending and maybe we can say hi.