Hot and fresh post for a new decade

Just like people, I suppose a lot of hibernating blogs get a sentimental poke right around the new year.  Well although I've not posted in a hell of a long time I have checked in now and again.  I've even started some posts on occasion so that people would know I'm out there and still playing games and stuff and I do think about Beacon now and then.


I made the Beacon Blog for the specific purpose of chronicling the design and play of Beacon d20 and so I don't feel its the right place to be posting about other games I'm running/writing/playing or writing about other topics.  I did make some other blogs for other writing and for posting about other games, but since I am not actively working on Beacon, I'm not taking making the time to write in general.  I have still been playing/running games pretty regular and been very busy working and doing the usual things we do to get by.

So why post now?

Someone is playing my game!  I was poking around the Internet and I ran across a blog called Provinto RPG that mentioned they had not only read Beacon but played it a bit, and even seemed to have liked it.  I am certainly very flattered by the review of the system and more flattered by the criticism/house ruling of the weapon system and posting a conversion of an old adventure. It means a lot to have someone read, play and get the system enough to push out elegant additions like this and man oh man converting a module is pure gold.  So thanks Provinto, you certainly made my day.  I'll be reading more of your blog for sure.

I also was trying to catch up on pod casts and hit a cryptic reference to Beacon on Happy Jacks from their 2017 season and it reminded me of days gone by.  Good Ol Stork may not remember the name of the system or anything about it, but he remembers quality.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Beacon.  I mean I will keep the posts up and keep the rules up there for anyone who is interested in playing it, but will I ever update it again is something I haven't decided.  When I started working on Beacon there was a reaction happening online to the D&D 4e/Pathfinder game style and a lot of OSR blogs out and I had strong interest in getting back to a simple play style but with polish and new ideas.  It was a very successful movement.  Since that time a lot of changes have happened and some really good d20 based systems and material have been published, both independently and from the big guys.  D&D 5e was a solid revision and introduced a lot of really good changes to the franchise and systems like Dungeon Crawl Classics introduced a wealth of material of that style of game. In addition to that there have been so many new games put out, and game systems begging for tinkering with.  Since I started working on Beacon I have run/played campaigns in Gumshoe (Trail of Cthulhu and Ashen Stars), Mutant Year Zero, Dungeon Crawl Classics, D&D5e, Call of Cthulhu 7ed, Forged in the Dark (Scum and Villainy).  I've run one shots of Mecha, Mythender and Fiasco.  I've read a whole pile of amazing work and listened to a lot of great pod casts.  If I was to revisit Beacon I would be bringing a very different measuring tape to the genre.

And yet I still like the simplicity of Beacon and think there's a place for a super simple but comprehensive d20 system.  A number of years ago when I was running Ashen Stars on Roll20 I worked with a guy who helped my put a Beacon character sheet up on on that platform and I thought it was great to have a free and simple option for online play.  I think that Beacon stands up to that idea so maybe it would be good to take another pass at it, add some modern tweaks and polish up some of the rough bits.