I love the first part of a CCG.

It might not be advisable, but it's entirely possible to do an entire adventure right off the top. I would be surprised if there was a dungeon master slash storyteller slash keeper slash IP specific screen-person who hadn't. Not simply because the vagaries of life create difficulties which are inimical to the manufacture of imaginary worlds for your friends, but also because the form itself virtually demands some version of it.

Kentucky Route Zero might be my favorite game. I've been alive kind of a long time, and played a lot of games, so I am allowing myself a little room to maneuver rhetorically. Not to be tricksy, but to allow for the reality of myself as a finite being. I'm not worried about being wrong - let's say it wasn't actually my favorite game, and it was another game instead. Then I would have two games I loved so much that ranking them was genuinely challenging, which sounds like a win condition to me. No, I want the rhetorical space so that I don't lie to you inadvertently. In any event: when I think about games that are important to me, it would be very near the top of any list worth making.

Legends of Runeterra is one fork-tine of Riot's effort to own every genre. I could put more effort into resisting this force - upon whose banner gleams the very Icon of the Fist - but if they're all going to be as interesting as their foray into this CCG shit then bring on the FPS and the Airship Syndicate collab and the fighting game and whatever else. This isn't some victory lap off League, something to fill a vacuum in Q1. It's marbled beef, a hot take on the form that is built for the future.

PAX East is just a few weeks away and as usual we will have our live Acquisitions Inc. game. However our regular DM Jeremy Crawford can't make this show, and so I'll be taking his place at the head of the table. That's right, it's time for another of my ridiculous one off games! If you are not familiar with my work, you should know that my games tend to be a little...strange. 

Sea of Thieves is still out here thievin' it up, doing all that thief stuff. It remains cool in a way that has an almost mystical capacity to evade review. There is a capoeira aspect to this: it shifts effortlessly into the social space, away from analysis, whenever you try to identify it. Then, when you try and seek it out purely as a social practice, it's like trying to fold water in half. One generates the other while containing it and being contained by it. And the "gameplay" is grounded in such natural principles that it often just… disappears. I consider that capacity to effervesce an index of its craft and genius.

Generally I try to be cool with him about Warhammer shit, because he's one of only a handful of people who can tolerate me and that's a precious fucking resource. I don't talk about it anywhere near as much as I want to, which is constantly.  I merely talk about it all the time.

I'm not ready to talk about records yet. There's a lot I don't understand about it, it's not mine yet, and if I'm going to address it I need to approach that space and the topic mindfully. But I'm definitely starting to get weird about it. Weirder. I mean, think about my baseline.

Acquisitions Incorporated: The "C" Team returns on February 5th - that is a fact well established.  At any rate, it's something I said one time in a place you might not have seen.  The Internet is very big!  But we're halfway through a three part series that is something like a remix of The "C" Team, a Weird West tale sponsored by Chaosium, creators of the Call of Cthulhu RPG and utilizing that system.  Starts at 4pm PST this very night, come hang out.  Here is a cool image!

Okay! I think we did it.

I've been present for the aftermath of so many shows that it's very startling how gone it is and how quickly it is gone. You keep thinking, or… I guess, I keep thinking, that when something like this happens there's gonna be some kind of echo that blooms in physical space, some platinum tracery midair, some mark. As it is, it's like I like through five seasonally appropriate editions of A Christmas Carol a year, and then it all evaporates to the extent that I can hardly prove it was there.  I hope I'm learning whatever all these ghosts were trying to teach me.

This devil's hellthirst can only be quenched by novelty drinks - drinks whose vessels come included in the price of admission.  When I went to the elevator to hit the lobby, starved and feral, a boist'rous Gabriel emerged from the elevator I had, myself, summoned and told me to "drink margaritas" in all caps. And I did.

As someone who has been to more PAX shows than anyone else - only Kiko has been to as many, because it's the maximum number - I am privy to certain artisanal knowledges. I'm not saying this means we constitute a new pantheon or anything, but upon our Twinthrone we will sit in judgement over the affairs of men.

Today is my "Cake Day" over on Reddit. This is sort of like your Reddit birthday and it means I've been on the site for seven years. To celebrate, I'm doing a little AMA over on the rarely used Penny Arcade subreddit. Feel free to stop by and ask me anything! 

Drake of the 99 Dragons is a time capsule from a novel era; there was a lot of stuff that hit as Xbox exclusive which was inexplicable or troubling for various reasons. It also had bonkers shit like Splinter Cell, and credible multiplayer - graduating, ultimately, to Xbox Live, whose approach ultimately became definitional. But Drake is a whole thing and you should look at the video. You should also look at the Wikipedia page, specifically the credits to the right, and look those people up at MobyGames because a few of them went on to be associated with all kinds of stuff, some of it you might have enjoyed. So many little stories have been borne out of it.