# RPG A DAY 2024: Awesome app / Person you'd game with tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2024 ![[RPGaDAY2024-024x723.jpg]] We're getting close to the end, and I have to say, there is definite improvement in these couple of prompts. I'm starting to get a little tense about throwing down a ridiculous amount of work this coming week, but I can't really complain over much. After all, no one makes me volunteer. If they did, we'd call it getting shanghaied.^[There's actually a pretty good argument that I was shanghaied into this position, but that's a discussion for another day. And probably good reason for people to avoid volunteering their time for any purpose which they think is a net social good. Take my life as a warning.] In ironic other news, after talking yesterday about how much I really enjoy the **[[Steel Rift]]** minis, today they announced that they are releasing a new set of starter kits at what I think is an extremely reasonable price point of $45 to get into it. That's incredible, and I definitely suggest anyone who is looking for a fast-moving mecha war game to keep an eye out for these kits when they go up for sale or when they come to your local game shop, whichever makes you happier.  *As a side note, I should probably consider doing a whole team/army build for **Steel Rift** here in the garden at some point. Given how little fluff there is for the game, that's a license to go hog-wild, right?* But for now, on to *RPG a Day*. ## Awesome app Very easy choice for me to make. It's **[[PocketForge]]**. It's always **PocketForge**. It just makes everything so easy in terms of character generation. So quick and simple. The interface is so smooth. It has all of the assets for **[[Ironsworn]]**, **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Starforged]]**, and **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Sundered Isles]]**. It has all of the oracles for all of the above. It makes play extremely quick and easy, to the point where it's very much close to intuitive for me to go through and handle the mechanics without actively thinking about them too much and derailing me from the fiction. One of my bits of prep for [[DragonCon]] is I'm putting the bookmark on my tablet on the home screen so that I can just pull it up with a flick right from power on and be able to navigate straight to what I need, get information out, and continue play. Seriously, if you are playing any of the **Ironsworn**-derived games, you need to get Pocket Forge in your browser in short order. If not **PocketForge**, [one of the other web-based interfaces that make your life so much simpler](https://www.ironswornrpg.com/resources). I really mean it when I say that they are quite likely the best gaming add-on available for real people playing real games. ![[PocketForge - Screenshot.png]] ## Person you'd game with You know, funny thing is, I don't think I have anyone in particular that I could answer this question with. I think that makes me very odd, even among my contemporaries and peers. Surely there's somebody I'd want to play a game with, right? Some celebrity, some historical figure. Push lead with Napoleon. Command Roman legionaries with Caesar. Throw down some ACW chits with Robert E. Lee. But no, not really. I suppose the closest I could come to answering that question would be to say, "My deceased father." Even though I grew up being a complete wargaming and RPG geek and had decades, literal decades, to play games with him, we just never did. It wasn't something he was really interested in, though he did evidence curiosity in the artifacts thereof. He just wasn't interested in games. Fair enough, not everyone has to be. So I really wouldn't want to push that experience on him given that we both decided it was less than a desirable outcome for most of my life. I like the *process* of play. I enjoy the exploration of new ideas and radically challenging storytelling. I enjoy the experience of putting together a story from disparate experiences post-hoc in even the most abstract wargames, turning them into battle reports and historical monographs. But I don't like *people*. I certainly enjoy play with them on occasion, but I don't like people themselves for the most part. So when the question of who I want to play a game with comes up, no one springs immediately to mind. My only answer is a solid cop-out answer: *whoever wants to play a game right now.* I guess that's as good as it gets.