2026!

I just can't even wrap my mind around the fact that it's 2026. It should be 1989 -- and 2026 is the year of a cyberpunk campaign I'm running on Sugar Mountain BBS. 

2026 is also the year I hit the half-century mark. Yikes...

2025?!?

Wait, is it really 2025? That's a date I would have used in an '80s campaign to represent a dystopian near-future setting that was rife with corruption, power-hungry tyrants, bitter political strife...oh, wait...

Milestones

I ran my first campaign -- Earth Commanders, a superhero game using the Champions rules -- back in the summer of 1988. Although I don't have the specific start date, it was sometime after school ended, so maybe right about this time of year. Today's as good a day as any to celebrate thirty-five years of gamemastering Front Porch campaigns. I'm grateful to all the players who've joined me on this journey and shared their boundless imaginations to bring these games to life. Here's to 35 more years (at least!) of roleplaying fun!

There are a couple more milestones in 2023 that are also well worth mentioning. It's a big year for the Druid Cycle setting. Although, technically, I created this world in 1991 for the Fate of the Grand Duchy campaign (marking the first appearance of Tim W's Lwcus, one of the most important Front Porch characters of all time!), that storyline took place in the early history of the Druid Cycle world. The first campaign set in the "current" time period started in 1993 -- thirty years ago! -- with the rise of Jason's paladin Sir Roberts and Scott's cleric Stalker. If we skip ahead five more years, to 1998, we come to another milestone: the introduction of Tim W's wizard Cathbad and Kevin's cleric Senchan, who both helped shape the course of world events. A big shout-out to Scott and Jason on the thirtieth anniversary of their iconic characters, and likewise to Tim and Kevin on the twenty-fifth anniversary of theirs!

It's fitting, then, that 2023 is the year I brought my kids into the Druid Cycle setting. Why did I wait so long? Well, when the boys started playing D&D six years ago, I used my Shattered Realm setting for something a bit smaller and less complex than the Druid Cycle world, and they grew to love their characters so much that we just kept going in that world. Now I feel the time is right to get them into the big leagues, so to speak. Their first introduction to my largest campaign setting came a couple of months ago when we started an online campaign with their older cousins in Chicago. However, I have something special up my sleeve just for Matthew and Nathaniel: a second game in this world that will be a true sequel to the original 1993 Druid Cycle campaign. As the late lamented Sir Roberts might say, "Bring it on!"

Happy New Year!

Lots of great game-related stuff to look forward to in 2023! Tops on my list is the D&D movie! Time to start counting down the days to the March 31 release! 

One Thousand!

This, my friends, is the 1000th published post on the Front Porch blog. Thanks for reading!

Annnnnd...

...we're in the new house! Now comes the dreaded unpacking phase...

Hibernation

According to the almighty Blogger, we have over 870 published posts (hat tip to Chris B. and Tim W. for their contributions). I guess I don't have any point of reference for comparison, but it feels like that's a lot of posts. It's probably enough for now.

This blog has been a great forum for writing about various topics that have come up over the last couple of years -- the Fifth Edition D&D playtest, creating a campaign-spanning Front Porch multiverse, and my family's burgeoning interest in board games, to name a few. However, I think the time has come to put the ol' game blog into hibernation for a while. Perhaps I'll resurrect it again when there's a lot of cool gaming-related news to discuss (like the upcoming D&D feature film).

Thanks for reading, and keep those dice rolling!

Wow, It's 2016!

I woke up to a new year this morning, because somehow last night I had forgotten that it was New Year's Eve! I hope you all have a wonderful 2016!

New (Old) Blog Address

Heads up, yo! The www.virtualfrontporch.us URL that you've been using to access our delightful bloggery is going to change. Please find us again at our original URL, frontporchgg.blogspot.com.

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all have a great 2015.

Happy Holidays!

This will probably be my last post of the year, unless some exciting game news drops between now and January 1. I hope you and all your loved ones have a safe and happy holiday season! If you need me, I'll be playing Icewind Dale and Star Wars X-Wing...

600th Post!

And for what it's worth, this is the 600th post on the Front Porch blog!

500, Yo!

This is the 500th post for the Front Porch blog. Thanks to everyone for reading and sharing your thoughts and ideas. With 5e D&D coming out in the next few weeks, I'm sure we'll be off and running toward 1000!

Happy 2014!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope we all have a great 2014!

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday season. I may add a few posts here and there if any big gaming-related news comes up, but otherwise I'll see you all in 2014!

Home Stretch

It's the first of November, so we're heading into the home stretch of our twenty-fifth year of the Front Porch and twentieth of the Druid Cycle campaign world. Time for a quick recap of the year so far.

Our first big event was "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes," a short story that spawned the Front Porch "multiverse" -- a formalized structure linking virtually all of our previous campaigns into a single but multi-layered narrative environment. With input from a dozen players on the characters and campaigns (including those run by Scott, Timothy, Matt, and Chris) of a quarter-century of tabletop and online gaming (special shout-out to Timothy for the treasure trove of early documents he sent me), this multiverse is not just a pleasant stroll down memory lane, but a springboard for future storytelling. As a direct result of "When Last We Left," I now have fully fleshed-out settings for mid-twentieth century Earth, twenty-first century Earth (with or without superheroes), and post-apocalyptic Earth (with or without crazy powered-up mutants), along with all-new settings like the Old West and the far future. Add these to fantasy settings like The Druid Cycle, Torchlight, and Shattered Realm, and we've got a lot of toys to play with.

Much of the rest of the year has focused on The Druid Cycle and the war against the immortal trickster Ekhis. Several epic-tier characters, heroes and villains alike, perished in the climactic battle (thanks to Jason for agreeing to sacrifice Sir Roberts!), and the fallout from the heroes' Pyrrhic victory (a term derived from the name "Pyrrhus," but not the same Pyrrhus as the namesake of our own beloved rogue who died in this battle. But I digress...), has perhaps been even more interesting than the battle itself. That wasn't the only highlight. We also resurrected (literally) some long-lost characters from an earlier Druid Cycle storyline (featuring Tim B, Chris, Kevin, and Tim W) and integrated their new adventures into the Ekhis plot. Scott (Hachulors) and Timothy (Scyld) brought back characters from the '90s, and Kevin earned a well deserved promotion for his hero Senchan, who may be the most highly respected man on the continent of First Home.

Where is this all headed? In the next post, I'll give you a glimpse of some plans for the rest of our dual-anniversary year.

We're Back!

As you can see, we're back online! After some technical difficulties, the Front Porch blog is now firing on all cylinders. Big thanks to Timothy for getting us up and runing again.

One Year

Timothy and I started this blog one year ago today. We hope you've enjoyed reading our posts as much as we've enjoyed writing them. We'll continue bringing you gaming news and views for years to come!

Gallery

Our "Front Porch Gallery" page has now been updated with a number of photographs from over the years. Check 'em out! And if you have any pictures that you'd like to share, just send them to me and I'll post them in the gallery.

Launch of the Multiverse

Today I sent out copies of the story "When Last We Left Our Intrepid Heroes" to Front Porch players past and present. This story marks the beginning of a new era in Front Porch gaming. Now all campaigns -- as diverse as The Druid Cycle and Cyberwars -- are part of an overarching multiverse setting. Timothy and Amy are about to start new adventures in the multiverse era. If you'd like to start a new story of your own, just let me know!