Gaming Operations Director Jacob Matthew's Email
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Well, the people have spoken and the votes are all tallied. The very first G.O.D. campaign in Bellingham will be...
Current
Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you are. I thought this one might be a bit esoteric, but it's what we're going with. Head over to the Now Playing! page for more details on that. I'm shooting for a minimum group size of six players, but I'll have to see what the interest is like before setting anything in stone.
In addition, given the change of venue, I'll be going back and re-visiting the list of House Rules. They've been called by various people things like "mean", "draconian", and "dude, chill out already." All of the rules came from incidents of people in the Spokane community being awful during games, but that doesn't apply anymore. Besides that, I've come to the conclusion that people who wouldn't be affected by the rules don't need to be told and people who would run afoul of the rules don't care.
So with that said, recruitment is open! Head over to the Now Playing! page if you'd like to learn more about how to get in on any of this.
Game on!
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Being the best GM in town is a lot like being the best dentist in town: everyone else gets what they need but you can't exactly do it to yourself, now can you? Well, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to report that I am no longer the best or only GM in Spokane.
This is because I am no longer in Spokane.
G.O.D. Productions has relocated to Bellingham, WA and, depending on the roleplaying community here, may soon be actively running games in the area.
Stay tuned for further details!
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Hello, my name is Jacob and I used to run roleplaying games in Spokane Valley.
After my Æon Trinity game ended in August 2017, I had to decide how to continue as a GM in this community.
For eight years, I ran a game session every single week. When a game would collapse or end, I would write a new campaign, drum up a new group of players, and keep going.
During that entire time, I never found a single game that I could play in. Each time I had to put a new group together, I had to scour the community for players and drag people in, bending myself double to accommodate their needs so they could show up. When they did show up, players never seemed to care about the game, each other, or me as the GM.
Now, I understand that gamers tend to be on the poor starving artist end of the spectrum, but even beyond that gamers in Spokane always put gaming as the lowest priority. "Real LifeTM Comes First" is a phrase that gets tossed about all too often around here, as if this hobby – this community – was some childish thing that should always be set aside. As if wanting to spend time on it was something to be mocked, even by others in that same community.
Roleplaying is a team activity, though, and when players use Real LifeTM as an excuse to flake out, they're letting down the entire team. Just like any other "real" responsibility, people must learn to honor their commitments rather than treating the game, the other players, and the community as completely disposable.
GMs get the worst of it. Even as so many players are looking for someone to run a game for them, GMs get taken completely for granted. Players have gotten so used to Pathfinder and its drop in/drop out style of gaming that they just expect someone to be there with no regard for the amount of talent and hard work required to run a game. Community meetup websites have gone completely silent with hundreds of members waiting around for someone else to entertain them. Local conventions whine and plead for people to run their gaming tables, then require anyone who volunteers to buy tickets and pay for the privilege of showing up to entertain their guests.
So I've decided to hang up my GM screen. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of games that I want to run and stories I want to tell, but until the community changes for the better I can't justify putting in the time and effort when I know I'll be the only one bothering to do so.
I'll continue updating this site, using it as an information base for all the games I've run as well as adding in all the new ideas for games I'd like to run as I think of them. Other gaming-related projects will get their own sections as they go live as well. There will even be information on what I'd need to start running regular games again at some point, just in case someone gets tired of chasing games that either never start or fold after two sessions.
This isn't a drop mic, walk off stage. I'm still here, and I've built my bridge more than halfway. The rest is up to you.
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My current gaming group is getting ready to switch gears and delve into some hard sci-fi. I will be running an Aeon Trinity game and I ∗may∗ have a spot open for a good player or perhaps an interested couple.
The setting is near-future. After DC-esque superheroes go crazy and wreck everything, China forces them to leave using orbital nukes. Fifty years later, they've decided to come back, only to find humanity now has psions to defend them.
The setting encompasses all of your sci-fi favorites, from cyberpunk to space cowboys to post-apoc wasteland, and we're going to do our level best to explore as many of them as we can.
The game runs every Tuesday night starting at 6pm. Information on the game, as well as how to get in touch with me, can be found on the website at:
https://godproductions.org/
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This game is designed as a game for couples where one person plays the dragon and the other their human captain either as part of the newly-formed American Aerial Force or local tribesmen tapped by the government to provide instruction and support. Individual players are welcome also; such players are generally assumed to end up as part of a dragon's crew by either hefting a long rifle, leading aerial boarding actions, or otherwise supporting the wing formation.
The game will also serve as a field test of the Cortex Plus dice system. For those of you unfamiliar with the system (presumably everyone reading this), Cortex Plus is designed upon a radically different premise than most dice systems. Where a classic dice system is an attempt to model reality through the probabilities of individual actions, Cortex Plus seems to have been designed to model the difference in entire scenes. Where a traditional system asks "does this one punch land or not", Cortex Plus asks "does this fight go in the favor of one party or the other" and the player with the winning roll is invited to narrate the scene.
On the one hand, this might lead toward a more narrative roleplaying experience, with less time spent on turn order and individual rolls and more time devoted to creating a cinematic and interesting story. On the other hand, this idea would require a group of players capable of that, as the loopholes for munchkins and powergamers to abuse the system are big enough to ride a dragon through.
This game is planned to run as a shorter-format campaign than previous stories. It is not expected to last more than a year, the plot will be more singular and straight-forward, and player characters will be more subject to the authority of their superiors as opposed to the normal free-roaming sandbox nature of previous games.
So if 19th-century American colonialism and riding dragons appeals to you, visit and contact the GM today!
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Recruiting is now open for an upcoming Trinity long-term game to launch soon!
The game will consist of a group of individuals brought together to work toward a common goal. All of the characters are expected to have found a way to work through their differences and be able to function together as a team. I reserve the right to inflict severe misfortune on anyone whose primary entertainment comes from shit-stirring.
Characters should have enough curiosity and sense of adventure that they should want to be part of the group, they should be invested in digging to uncover the truth, and they should be willing to seek things out on their own. Any characters who wait to be caught by the plot hooks or dragged along the railroad plot rather than actually contributing to the story will be left behind.
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The game is now in session. If you are interested in joining, please thoroughly read the instructions and follow them. Most of the people who receive no response do so because they failed the reading comprehension portion of this evaluation. Also, the description in last update about players who can pull their own weight and make a positive contribution still applies.
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I am anticipating having to fill a slot now or in the near future, so there's no reason why I can't just put another person in the game now rather than making them wait until a slot opens up.
What I would LIKE is a quarterback, a leader. Someone who can earn the respect of the other players/characters and lead them to victory. However the chances of actually finding that are slim-to-none, so here's what I'm looking for in a general player:
I'm looking for players who can pull their own weight in the game. People who will put time and effort into making a positive contribution to the game rather than just showing up and saying "I'm here now! Entertain me!" People who won't just expect to be dragged along by the story; people who will act rather than just react.
Some examples are as follows:
Proactive: Your character has decided to become a computer hacker. To begin on this quest, your character begins talking with the other player characters trying to find out who might have relevant contacts - and if they have nothing, begins working on their social network to try to find the right group.
Baggage: Whining at the GM or other players that hacker skills are "totally bitchin" and pouting that the opportunities to use those skills don't immediately present themselves to you.
Proactive: Taking time each week between games to reflect on what happened in the game, deciding on what your character wants to do and how s/he is reacting to situations, making some notes (possibly a character journal!), and coming to the game with ideas for conversations that should happen next session.
Baggage: Making a mental list of the three time-waster activities your character does to supply to the GM when the current events do not interest you and the GM turns to you and says, "So what's your character doing?" "Praying," might be a perfectly appropriate character action, but it doesn't add anything to the story. At least not after the first couple of times.
Proactive: Be willing to work with the group! Be willing to develop friendships between your character and other characters in the group.
Baggage: Creating a quarrelsome or difficult character to seem aloof and cool and expecting other people to go far out of their way to befriend your character, or acting out in the guise of roleplaying.
There needs to be a cooperative effort between the players and the GM to create an interesting story for everyone. So that's what I'm looking for in a player: someone who will work with me to continually add to the game instead of being dead weight that everyone else has to carry.
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There is currently one slot available in this game, however in order to fill it I am looking for a very specific type of player: a Quarterback.
The Gamer Jargon page of this very site defined a Quarterback as: "A player in a roleplaying or adventure game that tends to drive the plot with their active approach to problems and willingness to lead."
I am looking for a leader. Someone who is comfortable with making decisions and forming plans. Someone who can earn the respect of both characters and players. Someone who will care enough about the party to take responsibility for keeping them together and look after their well-being. I'm looking for my James Kirk, my Jeff Winger, hell I'd even settle for a Peter Quincy Taggart.
If this is starting to sound like a job interview... I suppose on some level it is. I'm trying to find someone with all the qualifications of a small business owner who's interested in helping a group of people run a ship, look for work, and keep flyin'.
So if this sounds like something you're interested in, send me an e-mail telling me all of the following:
What are your leadership qualifications?
What is your best story from a roleplaying game?
What sort of character would you create to play?
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