Stingite . . . and the State of His Gaming: Part 3 -- Unplugged Gaming

A lot of fun can be had around the table, and I'd say that lately that's where I've been having the MOST fun. Let's take a looksy:

1- Dungeons and Frickin' Dragons -- Yup!  I'm actively participating in four D&D games lately.

The Barrow Maze -- Ben Durbin (aka Ratbeard for those who know him from the Pirate101 forums) has been DM'ing a group of people through a super unforgiving module where you start out as level 0 peasants and hopefully grow to be powerful heroes -- but don't get too cocky or you'll end up dead. Leveling is strictly based on gold acquisition and experience gains. I joined in a little late . . . late enough to watch a couple level 5 characters die before my level 0 characters even made 1st level.  let's just say there's an undead knight and his army that we freed upon the world. whoops.

Out of the Abyss -- Sam Johnson (aka Blind Mew for those who know him from the Pirate101 forums) has been DM'ing a group of us over lunch time 1 or 2 times a week for the past year, and we're finally nearing the end of the Out of the Abyss campaign.  I play a Rogue with a heart of gold. :)  We all leveled up to sixth level yesterday and defeated the Pudding King in Blingdenstone.  Good times.  Give us 2-3 weeks and we may make it to the surface and out of the Underdark! It's been a riot, and some day I'll have to tell more about our adventures we had here.  By the way, having a master storyteller like Sam be your DM . . . it's a choice experience.

Althea and Company -- This is Jeff Toney's game where he DMs for his daughter, two of my kids, and me . . . I play a bard and for the most part I just try to keep people alive with healing word. ;)  I dedicated an entire blog to our fun and adventures, but I just didn't have the time to keep up with it. This is straight up the Lost Mines of Phandelver. Our party hit level 5 and we're about to move on to things more . . . giant related. *squeeee*

The Saviors -- This is my game. I'm DM'ing the same group as above only with the addition of Uber Wife.  I have a game to DM for all of them on Sunday, and I feel woefully unprepared.  I'm hoping to get some time on Saturday to figure out how to approach this.  This troop is now around the level 3 range, and I've been mostly running the one-shots of M.T. Black and I even wrote a campaign of my own to get them from level 2 to 3.

2- Boss Monster! Every time we go to our local bookstore, my son Miles would pick up the Boss Monster game box and really want to get it.  He likes the retro 16-bit look to the cover, and it just sounded fun to him. Luckily for me, Jeff Toney had a copy of the card game in his car. (You gotta understand, Jeff Toney's trunk is always filled with a few games.) I borrowed it and played it with my family, and we had a great time!  It's a bit of a toss up on games like these and my family is a bit burnt from playing Munchkin, which my family really wants to like but surprisingly really doesn't like. I don't know what it is about that game . . . Anyway, Boss Monster was a hit, so I purchased the game for myself and it's in our family rotation of games now.

3- Near and Far. Jeff Toney purchased this game from a kick starter and it's a sister game to Above and Below, which is easier to find at the moment.  Jeff, myself, and Karl Holbert from work all played this over a couple of lunches about a month ago and it was awesome!  This is one I want to get and play with my family.  

And that pretty much wraps up my unplugged gaming news. I'll have to think about writing a Part 4 to this series . . . it'd be about everything else, like console gaming and other PC games outside of Everquest.  I'll put some thought to it. :)

Happy Dueling!