Sunday Swords Without Master at #Fastaval18

Sunday Swords Without Master at #Fastaval18
This in-character photo is all washed out and 90s and I don't even care! Squeezing a game into the last day of a con is always a great, especially when we can do it with a person new to the game and with such wonderful skill as Muriel. Not including character creation, the session was a whirlwind 50 minutes helmed by our Overplayer Jonathan Jung Johansen. I can't wait until next year!

Keith Stetson​ and I finally had a chance to play #SundayAMSwords this morning at Camp Nerdly!

Keith Stetson​ and I finally had a chance to play #SundayAMSwords this morning at Camp Nerdly! We played with Rachael Storey​, Dylan Ross, and Ara M, who flew away before we could snap this pic.

City of Fire and Coin, the larp

City of Fire and Coin, the larp
I don't know how many of you know this, but the thrilling starter adventure for SWM is also a larp! It uses Kat Jones and Evan Torner's Parlor Sandbox system and was first run with Epi and Emily Care Boss at Intercon in 2013. Myself and tom Fendt helped Evan and Kat run it once more in 2014, I've linked what few pictures we took of everyone's amazing costumes below.

I was thinking about how much fun this was again recently, since we ran it 3 years ago this month.
http://larphouse.tumblr.com/tagged/City-of-Fire-and-Coin

I had the great privilege to play SWM this weekend with Jonathan Jung Johansen​​​​, Johannes Oppermann​​​​, and...

I had the great privilege to play SWM this weekend with Jonathan Jung Johansen​​​​, Johannes Oppermann​​​​, and André Rodrigues at the Danish freeform festival Fastaval. It's normally a larp dominated space, so we were rouges ourselves to play tabletop.

Jonathan and I met at #SundayEveningSwords a few weeks prior in a lightning in a bottle session with Derek A. Kamal​​​​, Josh McGraw​​​​, and Miguel Zapico​​​. Jonathan and I knew we had to meet in person and play again, and I'm so very glad we did! This international community of SWM fans really is something special to me. 

Sunday Evening Swords: 28 February 2016

Sunday Evening Swords: 28 February 2016

I'm ahead of where I need to be in packing for my trip, so I can create time for #SundayPMSwords this week.

Here's our organizational thread. Comment below if you're interested in playing Sunday evening and mention if you're comfortable being an Overplayer and whether or not you have played Swords before.

When we get an Overplayer and three or four Rogue Players, those players will run off and start their hangout. For now, let's focus on getting everyone into a group.

Calling Derek A. Kamal and George Pletz! It would be awesome if we could nab that 7-9pm Eastern slot again.

If you prefer morning gaming, check out #SundayAMSwords , I'm sure someone will start an organizing thread soon.

P.S. There are some tips and links to useful files here: http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com/blog/2014/7/14/sunday-morning-swords
http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com/blog/2014/7/14/sunday-morning-swords

Worlds Without Master Long Con

Worlds Without Master Long Con

I'm organizing a 4-session Long Con game composed of games released in Worlds Without Master taking place in one shared world. There will be three consistent players besides myself.

I'm planning SWM as the backbone, with a short session present in 3 out of the 4 time slots. My goal is to explore at least half of the released games and teach most of the Rituals from SWM.

Slot 1
Set the palette (from Microscope)
SWM
A Scoundrel in the Deep (2 concurrent games)

Slot 2
SWM
Wolfspell

Slot 3
Enter the Avenger
Masks of the Mummy Kings

Slot 4
Player Choice (perhaps No Longer With Us, or whatever's new if Eppy releases an issue in October)
SWM or Player Choice

Does anyone have any experience offering Worlds games back to back? What else should I be considering to make this a cool experience?
http://www.conplanner.com/ConventionHome.aspx?c=1182

I swear someone from this community linked me to this comic, but I can't find the original post.

I swear someone from this community linked me to this comic, but I can't find the original post. Every page is worthy of a Tale!
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/

I added a new page to my unified list of tricks, The Neophyte's Tricks of the Trade.

I added a new page to my unified list of tricks, The Neophyte's Tricks of the Trade. It's a one-page list of the simplest tricks I plan to use while teaching the game in 2-hour Games on Demand slots.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4nYXSvbVX-AaS1qbHRzMzJvT28/view?usp=sharing

Fists Without Master Alpha

Fists Without Master Alpha

A gritty martial-arts hack by David Hertz, tom Fendt, and myself.

This design could use more work, but my co-designers are feeling weary. Perhaps we will return to it and improve Fists. Perhaps you will use it as the beginning of something you create...

More discussion can be found here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/112039504234839788974/posts/TppUaHzK4aP

Fists Without Master Playtest

Fists Without Master Playtest

FWM is a hack for gritty martial-arts action, like The Raid. This write-up for Keith Stetson.

I was the Overplayer for my co-conspirators tom Fendt and David Hertz, and one other player.

* The tones of Pain and Elegance work overall.
* Having so many Perilous phases is tiring! We should either design around it, advise more rogues phases, or drive hard for very short sessions.
* Our new Ritual of the Companion wasn't used, can't yet evaluate it.
* It's helpful for the Overplayer to jot down a list of signature weapons, martial-arts styles, and locations for fight scenes.
* We used the Add/Ban mechanic from Ben Robbins' Microscope to flesh out our world a bit before play.
* Should the Discovery phase stay? We used it only once.

Characters
* Fushida, Japanese drug dealer
* Ismail Cane, Senegalese sumo wrestler/underground fight club manager
* Dr. Adi, Indonesian mob doc/hitman

Moments
* The wrestler grabs two police officers by the legs and uses them as manchaku.
* "Show us your absolute resolve to kill Juan Duarrez."
* A fight between our heroes and every officer at the Police Ball in the ballroom of a vast yacht during a storm.

Used Vincent Baker's Sundered Lands: Night Watch as an excellent addition to SWM tonight.

Used Vincent Baker's Sundered Lands: Night Watch as an excellent addition to SWM tonight. In our campaign we were longing for more backstory and conversation than is possible in a typical discovery phase and so began our play with Night Watch tale-telling followed by a 2 hour SWM session. It was a blast! The themes of the stories told bled into our SWM play, making it one our best sessions ever.

We chose the title, eidolon, overtrick, and tale requirements before playing Night Watch which helped everything mesh across systems. The whole thing took 4.5hrs, I highly recommend trying this if you've got a regular SWM game!

Perhaps Alex Carlson, Chris Larabee, Molly Forsythe, or Adam McConnaughey have stuff they want to add?

I propose the Overtrick Philandering Rogues:
Swords and Sorcery is not honor-bound to one dice-laden mistress! Rogue characters may travel between role-playing games, provided they return to Swords Without Master within one session of play.

As a frequent Overplayer, I'd like to create hand gestures for indicating which phase I'm starting.

As a frequent Overplayer, I'd like to create hand gestures for indicating which phase I'm starting. I think it's fun to launch right into description for a scene but my players keep stopping me to double check that they've read my intent correctly about what type of scene it is.

Finger to chin--Discovery
Making a fist--Perilous

I'm using the miscellany from previous issues Worlds Without Master to inspire scene setting in SWM.

I'm using the miscellany from previous issues Worlds Without Master to inspire scene setting in SWM. Is anyone else doing this?