Happy 2nd official day of Winter! We’ve short days and long nights complete with sub-zero temperatures here in the northeastern United States. With this being the last Behind the Screens of 2016, I thought it might be a good time to take a moment and reflect how this year has been for me in terms of geekery and gaming.
The last twelve months have been a bit of a ride. I started this year in two different Pathfinder groups, one where I was GMing Hell’s Rebels and another where I was playing through Iron Gods. The PFACG group I was in had just finished the boxset of Rise of the Runelords and we’d just started Skull & Shackles. I had recently been elevated to Venture Lieutenant of the Metro Boston Pathfinder Lodge and was working on elements for upcoming Pathfinder Player Companions.
In non-Pathfinder related geekery, I was delving deeper into tabletop wargaming and was taking my first crack at small skirmish-level game design. To help overcome what I’d perceived as a plateau in my miniature painting, I’d just acquired an airbrush and was struggling with the challenges of its operation. I was also experimenting with building various terrain features for some 3D gaming and looking into writing rules to incorporate into grid-less RPG combat.
Mid-2016 saw the end of my Pathfinder games as players moved or began new work schedules that were too difficult to game around. I got to go to PAX East and demo the PFACG for a weekend, which was a blast. My miniature painting really took off and quickly became one of my favorite ways to unwind. I attended (and won!) my first Warhammer 40k tournament. Unfortunately, neither GenCon nor PaizoCon were in the cards for me, so I wasn’t there for this year’s major announcements. But that’s what next year is for!
December finds me stepping down from Officership at the Boston Lodge. It’s been great, but over the course of the year I’ve found that I couldn’t keep up with the responsibilities required by the position and that ultimately it wasn’t fair to our players. I’ve since been replaced by the wonderful and talented Lisa Neilson, who is already doing a better job than I ever did.
I also seem to have inherited a tabletop wargaming club.
At some point in 2016, a group of friends and I went from being prominent players at our FLGS’s 40k club, to being officers of said club, to having taken over entirely. The short story is that the previous president stepped down having decided to move on to bigger and better things and the remaining officers decided to continue onwards under a new name.
Add to this plans to start a new homebrew Pathfinder game, a job promotion, and potential freelancer leads in the new year and 2017 is shaping up to be awesome. Busy as heck, but awesome nonetheless.
So what have you been up to in the last 12 months? What are you hoping for in the next 12? Let me know in the comments section below!
