7 Play Reports in 500 Words or Less
Over 20 hours of gaming in one weekend, distilled down to their essentials
I often chafe against character limits on the various microblogging platforms. Perhaps that is why I enjoy macroblogging so much, where I can pontificate for several thousand words on a single subject. However, sometimes constraints, even or perhaps especially artificial ones, can be put to a creative purpose.
Play reports are healthy for the hobby. They memorialize the fleeting moments of fun the medium provides and transmits information about what games and played and how beyond the immediacy of the table where they are played. However, I rarely write play reports because even standard blogpost-length play reports can be tedious to write but even more tedious to read. But what if I imposed a limit on the reports? What if each session summary had to fit in Bluesky’s limit of 300 characters or less?
I attended the Dice + Diversions gaming convention in Atlanta this weekend, at which I played in five games and ran two games. With so much gaming in such little time, there was hardly a better avenue for testing my new play report process. So here is a summary of a weekend full of gaming, literally over 20 hours total of rolling dice and pretending to be frogmen and catgirls with strangers, all in a quarter of my usual blog-length. Of course, these went up on Bluesky first, but you’re getting them with a few typos removed.
Pasion de las Pasiones: I played a triplet who was only recently legitimized after one brother went missing. The family convened at sea to read our dead matriarch’s will but the lawyer was murdered, for which I successfully framed my brother with the help of my other brother (only presumed dead).
Fabula Ultima, “Press Start”: teaching adventure that was a railroad as a result. Nonetheless, I (catgirl skycaptain with a spear) saved the BBEG (my former mentor, now evil) from a collapsing building instead of letting them die, which the GM said was a first for him despite running this many times.
Mörk Borg, “RagnaBorg”: Another combat-heavy QuickStart but this time nonlinear. We Vikings (I was a skald) went to read runes on giant bones to augur our clan’s future. We fought a two headed hog, demon vultures, and undead hoards but cursed our clan by casting our runes into a well deceitfully.
Cairn, “Barkeep on the Borderlands”: I ran this. The players met wooly mammoths and their future selves, made a sinister deal for a vial of unicorn blood, rode on a moonshiner’s boat, caught vampirism on the dance floor, fought goblin guards at a host club, and killed a tiger in an apartment at 4am.
Pathfinder 2e, “Rain falls on the Mountain of Sea and Sky”: Total railroad with lots of rolling dice, scant RP. PF2’s vaunted action economy underwhelmed me. I played a ravenfolk storm-oracle. We obliterated the encounters. On the last one, we went so nova they never got a chance to counterattack.
Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, “A Birthday for Gertrude”: I ran this. An oblivious Gertrude never even ticked one track to suspect a party was afoot despite helping decorate the garden. Hey Kid was aghast at the idea of carrot cake so the party ended up with 3 cakes. Gertrude put an IOU into the swear jar.
Daggerheart, “The Sablewood Messengers”: Surprisingly liked the mechanics! I played a frogfolk rogue. Entered an enchanted forest, saw a crashed wagon but defused an ambush with words. Went to a forest city to deliver MacGuffin and had to protect NPC mage from waves of undead while they did a ritual.
Seeing the write-up for Barkeep, my colleague from the Dododecahedron blog asked, “I'd be curious to hear more about how you got through so much in (I'm assuming) a few hours. How much of that was a function of system/module versus refereeing techniques or player decisiveness? Do you have any tips on running fast-paced sessions or one-shots with a strict time limit?” My response, for what it’s worth, is as follows:
“I think it’s mostly a result of the adventure design (I’ll try not to strain a muscle patting myself too hard on the back). On the one hand, there is the timers of (1) actual time passing; I kept a giant die in clear view to show what time it was and moved it forward when the risk die indicated, and (2) the player’s had dwindling money and sobriety as they kept drinking. On the other, every turn (significant action by the PCs) triggers a 1/3 chance of a random encounter and all the random encounters in barkeep are pretty tightly designed to be memorable and to entangle the PCs. So even though this was a group entirely of 5e players (but not super normie 5e since they were willing to sign up for something new!) and had to get used to me constantly asking “okay, what do you do next?” rather than being railroaded to the next thing, there was just a lot for them to contend with and they kept wanting to push on to see what the next bar held.” - Me
Elsewhere on Blogs:
Here are a few recent posts from other blogs that I enjoyed.
Roll to Doubt: Quick Comments on D&D as Western
Blark Blog: DRATS! The Single Roll Encounter
From the Sorcerer’s Skull: Crunch and Complexity
New School Revolution: Answers, In No Particular Order