01731: More Tales of Blood

It's our first RPG session of the year and we're back to playing John Wick's Houses of the Blooded. Houses is definitely one of the more interesting game systems that we've discovered in recent years. And as much as the past year featured a rather epic Houses of the Blooded game with a different group, it's still pretty fun to return to this little world of plots and intrigues.

But this is just one of the many games that we have to look forward to in the coming year. We still have to continue the on-going game sessions for games like Night's Black Agents, Dungeon World and even a Vampire game to boot. And those are just the leftover games from last year - that's not factoring in all the new games that we're bound to schedule in terms of one-shots and perhaps new gaming groups.

But yes, it's nice to be back playing wagers and such in Houses of the Blooded. There's something oddly comforting about how the whole thing works. I guess the greater stress on co-narration is what really makes this game work for me. Then you add in the fun of the Ven themselves and their weird machinations that are really all just games to them. A little irony there, yes? A game about games-playing, in a manner of speaking.

But that's just part of what makes all these different RPGs so fulfilling as exercises. They're a highly social activity on their own, but even  more so when the players truly help shape the story in the way Houses supports. Or maybe I just being rather bitchy, as seems to be common among Ven characters.