Epic Blogathon? Unlikely. Touching base, more like.

"Chemlak, you've been gone so long! What's the matter?"

Okay, no one's actually asked me that. That's okay, you're all busy people. So am I. That's kind of what's been happening, really. Life got a bit busy for a while.

And it probably will be getting busier in the near future, so there'll be even less posts from me for a while.

Having said that, though, I'll try to squeeze my weekly (*cough* that didn't work well, did it? *cough*) updates on my regular games in at some point.

So, what has Chem been up to?

Well, other than the day job, pretty much the usual.

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday = City of Heroes (either playing or roleplaying)
Wednesday = 4E Dungeons and Dragons
Sunday = Mutants and Masterminds

As far as City of Heroes is concerned - I've recently started enjoying myself more and more.

Now, to anyone who doesn't know CoH - and more particularly roleplaying in CoH, on the European servers, the unofficial RP server is Union, and on that server, there are two regular and fixed RP meeting places, where anyone is welcome to drop in: Underneath the Galaxy Girl statue in the Galaxy City zone, and the bars in Pocket D. Of course, people RP in other places, but those are where you end up if you just want to RP a character. Suits me fine. My main character, Shadowe, frequented the Galaxy Girl meet (9pm UK time, every day) from mid-2006 until a few months ago. Now I drag him along to Pocket D, and I have to admit, I'm having a blast. New faces, new conversations, new everything, to me. Great fun.

One thing that recently changed in CoH is the introduction of the RPers dream - user created content, aka Mission Architect. We can write our own missions! Populate them with custom enemies! Write the dialogue! It's great. But I have spent an age pondering it, unsure how to actually use this feature for roleplaying.

Then a friend of mine decided to run a plot, using an Architect storyline for the missions. It was fantastic fun, well written, and generally well managed - though there were one or two problems. Undettered, though, we carried on, and saved the day, in a way that has never been possible before. I even wrote a little guide for using Architect as a plot-master, and posted it on the Official Forum for the game. You can find it here: http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=1376229&an=0&page=0#Post1376229

In Dungeons and Dragons, we've been carrying on the published adventure, and I'm enjoying it more and more. Maybe it's just me getting more experiences with the system, but my objections to it are being slowly worn away thanks to two things: The enthusiasm my gaming group is showing for it, and the fact that I remembered GMing Rule Zero - the rules are there to help tell the story. If they get in the way, IGNORE THE RULES.

Yay! Peace reigns, because Chem remembered that he could do what he wanted, and found reasonable.

For Mutants and Masterminds the adventure continues. We've finished the current "episode" (for want of a better term), which means that the story has reached a convenient break point, and I intend to have a couple of relaxing weeks before diving back into the campaign's meta-plot.

That's it from me, for now. More soon, hopefully.