For all that my goal for the year has been to game more, I'm actually gaming less. I've missed 2 monthly meetups of my local gaming club, which had been a ritual since they restarted after COVID. It's fair to say that I haven't been gaming at all this year.

It's easy to blame the job for scheduling me on those Saturdays. I could request the day off, but that's something that I'm terrible at. I still remember my first job and my boss, Shawn, telling me "The more time off you request, the more time off you're going to get." It typically takes me a while at a particular job before I'm comfortable requesting time off for gaming, and I've only been at this for 2 months now. Worse, I only have 2 months left. I'm working at a tax office that is only open for the tax season, so once April 15th rolls around, I'll be cut loose.

Which means that I'm still looking for other jobs. And I haven't gotten any significant nibbles. No emails, no phone calls, no interviews all year. I'm learning to spot the devilcorps: the unscrupulous people who send out armies of poor schlubs to knock on your door and plead for donations or sell you AT&T services. I worked at one of those for a week when I first arrived in San Diego 7 years ago. It's one of two experiences that tell me that I'm not a salesman.

If things don't start looking up, I'm planning to go back to school in the fall. I graduated high school and never moved on to college, even to drop out of it. But I have gotten suggestions for careers that would suit me well, but would require the education. Typically teacher, but I've also gotten theologian. I'm not particularly religious, so I don't know how that last one would work.

It would mean getting financial aid of varying types and navigating that whole process. Not student loans, of course. Just seeing everyone else having to deal with those is enough to put me off. As many grants and scholarships as can be managed, though. Starting at the local communnity college to keep my costs low, then transferring to a 4-year school. I hope there's a gaming club. That would be fun.

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 28-Is there anything else we should know before we head home?

This month has been a great opportunity to flesh out pieces of my setting that I hadn't really thought about.

One thing that I thought was clever was my reference to "podcasts" as a sort of live public discussion back on Day 12.

This was inspired by a couple of social media posts.

So the idea of "podcasts" continuing older social and storytelling traditions seemed like a fun thing to bring to a post-apocalyptic society.

But as I was thinking about it, I remembered that there were local television and radio stations. And with radio and music turning up in Fallout 3 (which I recently completed), I think I want to take some time to develop and explore that.

One of the fun things about basing your setting on a real place is that you can do research and look things up. Which just puts the parts that are completely made up into perspective. Specifically, the Bigfoot rulers of Squatch-ville.

On top of the challenge of making up Sasquatch society from whole cloth, I know there are certain threads I clearly want to avoid. Mostly trying to avoid the sort of "Native American fetishism" that is easy to fall into when you're trying to build an "ancient culture that lives in balance with nature."

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 27-Do you have any amusing anecdotes from the campaign?

Forget dramatic, tell us about a moment that made everyone laugh out loud.

I'm thinking about running that one-shot again, using it as a "pilot episode" of a campaign. And while I've talked previously on my blog about putting more effort into pushing the final encounter into violence to put the combat system through its paces, the other thing that happened that I feel like I should be more prepared for is when the party decides to take a slamon from the river.

I designed the encounter as a mini-game rather than a combat for a couple of reasons.

1) The slamon were not directly attacking the party. They were jumping out of the water and over the bridge, making making contact with the bridge before flopping off of it.
2) There was not a limited number of slamon to defeat. The objective was getting across the bridge.

On the fly, I ran it more or less as a simple combat encounter. There are B/X stats for giant fish, so that wasn't hard. But thinking about it, I think there should have been a process of grappling the fish to make sure that it stayed in one place in order to deplete its hit points.

Thankfully, the AWN grapple rules are not as onerous as the D&D 3e grapple rules, which are what ruined grappling for everyone.

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 26-Are there any dramatic events from the campaign you can share?

Tell us about a moment of exciting action or tense thrills that has happened during your game. When and where did it take place?

These are the hardest entries because I haven't run this campaign yet. I did run a one-shot using this setting, but part of my hopes for this month was to generate more material to present to the players of an eventual campaign.

As much as I hadn't planned on the "talking solution" to that one-shot, it was a little less "easy mode" than I complained about. Because I had planted some information on a local rumor table that I had cooked up that the mayor had possibly been bribed to take the doctor prisoner. So the PCs were able to locate that rumor and apply it as leverage in the confrontation. I was actually a bit glad to see that come up.

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 25-Where can I do some shopping?

 I want to buy some souvenirs from this trip and maybe snacks for the voyage home.

Thinking about my idealized shopping experiences from when I lived in the area, I can't help but think of Globe Imports and Picky Picky Picky. Both places prepared me to take my girlfriend (now wife!) to her Senior Prom.

Globe Imports was the retail version of those catalogs where you can buy cheap knickknacks and kitsch in bulk (It's giving more Oriental Trading Company catalog than necessarily Wish.com or Temu in my mind). I bought a black silk rose and incense-infused matches there. I might have also bought scented tea candles there, as well. (They're out of business, but strong enough in my mind that I might bring them back in the setting.)

Picky Picky Picky sells outdoor equipment as well as military surplus. We had decided to go with a camouflage theme for our prom outfits, so I was able to buy off the rack for my outfit. Getting a camouflage dress for her took a little more effort and creativity, but the result was worth it.

This does make me wonder what the currency of the area is going to be like. I could follow the Fallout tradition of bottle caps. Though a funny idea does occur to me that the main currency could be marijuana. The standard unit would be a dime bag or "dime" though small silver coins might sometimes substitute for product.

Different strains could affect valuation, creating "denominations" of currency, but even a baggie of "ditch weed" will get you somewhere.

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 24-What are the major imports to the area?

What is it your campaign region needs but doesn't have and how do they get it? Maybe it's not a need but a want? Some other place has the very best something and the people of your campaign desire some of that action.

Historically, the main things that have been imported into the region are manufactured goods, tools and machines.

While self-sufficiency and local production would be the name of the game for a while after an apocalypse, I'm sure they would still be importing any machines or technologies that can't be produced or maintained locally.

I'm not entirely clear on what kinds of technologies those might be, because I'm leaving things deliberately open in terms of exactly what sort of technology does or did exist before the War That Ended Everything. Especially with the Fallout franchise hanging over the genre right now, the ability to include some of the more gonzo elements and technologies, which are supported by Ashes Without Number.

RPG CAMPAIGN TOUR CHALLENGE 2026 Day 23-What are the major exports of the region?

A campaign can be big and different places within it will be known for different products. Pick a few of the best sellers or most interesting things and tell us about them.

Logging has been the economic engine of the area almost from its initial settlement. I expect some version of that to continue, though nowhere near the scale it achieved in the 20th century.

Cow Town was able to export farm products to the local settlements of Sohum and even as far south as Willits before their current famine.

Squatch-ville actually has easier access to points east along Highway 96, so would likely have trading partners in Yreka (a real place, believe it or not!). My current thinking is that Squatch-ville is actually the most successful of the region's Enclaves, so there would likely be a good bit of surplus for them to export, typically in the form of hides and meat from deer, bear and other forest creatures, as well as acorns and other nuts. Woodcrafts are also popular exports.

Marijuana is an actively cultivated crop throughout the region, with growing operations large and small all over the place. Enclaves have large grows, but even homesteaders might grow some to trade for other things that they can't produce. Mutated and weaponized forms of the plant are probably lurking in the Ruin of Calpoly.