Player: Lore-wise, what are the classes of the Mage Breakers, mainly?
Me: A lot of commoners and some lesser nobles, plenty of third+ children
Me: ... Oh you meant like game classes. Not, like, economic.
Player: Yes.

Only a few sessions in, but it *is* seeming like villains, more than other elements, are the... what, linchpin? fulcrum? of a Fabula Ultima game.
So I am curious to see how they'll turn out in my other game, where I'm on the player side.

Been doing this with pretty minimal prep so far, which means I've introduced the villains under maybe sub-optimal circumstances. We've got a minor villain per rival faction - the Dame Khalitzburg, serving the Chivalry; and the elf Tiril, serving the Mage Breakers (endorsed by the Church).

But perhaps one step drives the next.
Preparing for these events spurs me to reach out to other RPG enjoyers and communities, to dig deeper into how they work, and what keeps them going. (It's also given me a reason and opportunity to meet or talk to a lot of great designers and players!)

On a personal level... it still feels like a struggle. On one hand, it's done what it set out to do (get those indie games going, find players who might otherwise not have played), but on the other hand, it does feel like there is much farther to go (organizing events is hardly my strong suit).

It was... revitalizing, I guess? In a sense, it brings me back to my personal impetus for floating this idea in the first place: having a venue for people to play lesser-known/played RPGs.
[I agreed w/ co-organizers Bim and Benj from the onset--anything but 5e! That's widely available already.]

I've had my own copy of RotRG since it was released by Kickstarter--but fortuitously, I never quite got around to reading it. I could hardly have asked for a better intro to it than that session.
When I do read it, it will be with a mind to seeing just how Beej interpreted the score, as it were.

The game was a blast - probably the most fun I've had in an RPG session in quite a while. The GM, Beej, did an amazing job enlivening the game world and keeping things moving at a riveting clip.
My fellow players were amazing too, and there was never a dull moment with them.

For our fourth game day (and last of the year), we focused on games from #RPGSEA. We had three tables:
Gubat Banwa gubat-banwa.itch.io
A Goon's Guide to the Galaxy mister-erwin.itch.io/a-goons-guid...
Reach of the Roach God (sadly no longer available), using OSE - which I joined as a player

This time around, though, I'm seeing the payoff of shared worldbuilding (including the group theme and inter-character bonds) as prompts for roleplaying and character motivation.
Our party has coalesced around a rather impulsive chosen one, who never gives us a moment's rest--and it's great!

Does this sound like a board/card game setup?? Maybe. But make no mistake, my aim here is to consider how else we can imagine the dungeon--territory, denizens, treasures--as a means of articulating narrative.

But what if the DM could show off the dungeon's splendor all at once--with their character (so to speak) instead expressed in how they maneuvered that dungeon?

Is this how I would like to DM? I'm not sure. I think part of the appeal is the mechanical justification for the DM having a transparent, persistent presence in the game (without the baggage of a DMC).
Typically, the DM's role is to slowly pull back the curtain on a dungeon shrouded in mystique ...

This does open itself up further: What if we instead then have multiple Dungeon players (each at once faction and territory), and a sole player of the adventuring squad?? (I am actually rather less interested in this, but hey, it's something.)