My 2026 Q1 Games
Over the last few years at work we've shifted into tracking work on a quarterly basis. Hardly revolutionary for many workplaces, but it was a shift in thinking for me. I've slowly taken a liking to it. I'm thinking of borrowing that structure for my home life — including tabletop roleplaying games — so without further ado here is my self-evaluation for my Q1 ttrpg sessions and my plan for Q2.
Q1: January - March 2026
Games Played
This month I ran:
- Eight sessions of the game I run for my daughter and her friends at the library using Knave. It's a huge group (10 people or so when everyone shows up), and it's a mix of kids and their parents playing. I won't list all the details, but some highlights:
- Visiting the dragon island on the edge of the map and choosing to pick a fight.
- Defeating a gang of pirates and stealing their ship.
- Robbing some tombs.
- Three sessions of my piratey west marches game. Sessions included:
- The party's first encounter with a ghost (semi-friendly)
- The party's second encounter with a ghost (extremely unfriendly and CON draining)
- Trying to track down the party's talking ape friend who went missing.
- Two sessions of All-Out Apocalypse for friends. One was just a test session of the vehicle rules and the other was more of a traditional adventure.
- One solo session of All-Out Apocalypse.
Designs
I didn't do much significant design work this quarter. I made a few minor adjustments to All-Out Apocalypse, including a change to how dying works (now you roll a d6 to see how many rounds pass before you croak) and changing how looting rolls work (you roll on a chart of categories, and can freely invent an item that fits into that category). I haven't implemented the latter yet, but it's just a matter of typing it out.
Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Kids get derailed SO easily in ttrpgs.
It's tough to balance letting them enjoy something and keeping the action moving. In one session I introduced another adventuring party. They are also seeking the same seven legendary treasures the party seeks, so naturally the kids had lots of questions. There was a proposal made by the younger players to perform some decapitations but the older players shut that down. The conversation ate up well over half of the 1.5 hr play session.
In another session I introduced a Haberdashery Hat, borrowed from my brother's game. It instantly whisks the wearer into a magical haberdashery full of magical and mundane hats available for purchase. I should have known that this would inevitably eat up the whole session, for indeed it did.
In the end, the thing I learned was that:
- All shopping should happen at the END of the session.
- I should just print out like 10 copies of the Knave shopping sheet rather than having the kids ask me.
- We decide where we're going next time at the end of each session so that I can prepare myself, and so that we don't waste time at the start of each game messing around in town.
Lesson 2: I struggle with social encounters
My All-Out Apocalypse games have shown me that I'm just not very comfortable coming up with interesting developments that aren't violent. What makes a story interesting when you have a bunch of people in town who aren't hell-bent on killing one another? Surely it's possible. I've been a player in games where that's the main focus! Yet I struggle to improvise that kind of thing.
I set up the scenario to be a pick-and-mix kind of thing: the town is preparing for a festival and everyone wants to do their own thing with not enough shared supplies. There are some external threats that reveal themselves over the course of the game, layering on the challenges. However, the players instantly gravitated towards the character I had least prepared: Bill, the playwright. I really just threw him in as set dressing (pardon the pun) but I did not anticipate my players bee-lining for the guy. I was caught a little flat footed. I think it went okay but I wasn't as confident as I usually feel behind the GM screen. I need to practice more of that kind of thing.
Lesson 3: Simultaneous initiative is great, but mentally taxing.
The initiative method All-Out Apocalypse uses is pretty simple: Everyone declares what they're going to do, and then everyone rolls and the next few seconds of action happen. It allows for all kinds of cool collaborative stuff (like a fastball special), and generally it keeps the action moving FAST. But as a GM I can have, like, 10 dudes on my plate, and I need to remember what they're all doing all at once! It quickly becomes too much. I'm sure some GMs wouldn't struggle at all but I will need to come up with some strategies to manage it.
Lesson 4: A beloved NPC is an incredible tool
My players love the talking ape they met in the forest. They've spent a lot of time trying to help him now and I think they truly care about him. When I decided he went missing (using my system for making random events interseting) I wasn't sure if the players would care. They did, and it was very gratifying as a GM.
Q2: April - June 2026
Games to Run
Kids Game
The kids game is ongoing. I intend to run that game every Monday until the end of the school year and then take a break. I'm sure that'll disappoint some of the parents who probably want stuff to keep their kids entertained during summer, but it's exhausting to run. I need a summer break, too!
West Marches
I'm hoping to run at least four session of my West Marches game. Keeping momentum going on that game (especially now that I have a really solid group of players) is important if I want people to remember details and make connections. It's tough to remember some distant NPC's name if you haven't heard it in six months.
All-Out Apocalypse
My All-Out Apocalypse game (the one with the social stuff I find challenging) is nearing the point where I have to either pick it back up again or abandon it. I'm sure everyone has forgotten half of what we did in our first and only session (as have I) so that one is expiring like a container of leftovers that got stuck in the back of the fridge.
I might also like to pick up another solo game. It's fun for me. I thought I might try running one of the premade adventures from the 7e gamma world expansion books, or maybe do Isle of Ixx.
Mutant Grinder
Finally, I'd also like to try out my very silly Mutant Grinder game. It's more of a meme game but I'd still like to run it at some point.
Designs to complete
All-Out Apocalypse
I need to implement my looting changes to All-Out Apocalypse. It's all there in my head but as every game designer knows, writing it down is a whole other thing. That's next on my list.
I would also like to format my All-Out adventure into a pamphlet adventure. I think it's a good candidate and it might be fun to sell it if I can get it into a coherent format. That seems like a good goal for this quarter.
Kids Game
I'd like to come up with a more cohesive overarching plot. They're starting to tire of disconnected combats and challenges. I need some cliffhangers and puzzles and stuff! This month I'd like to iron out all the details for the world's history (at least as it pertains to the main quest), and then I can tie all the little sub-locations to some element of that quest.
Blockers
May is a busy month. We have a heap of events and birthdays in May, including a big milestone one, so that'll eat up a bunch of time. I basically am looking at April (which is already well underway) and June. Maybe I can get a bunch of my May responsibilities handled early like a real adult, and then I can turn my attention to my hobby pursuits! We will see. ADHD isn't my friend in that regard.