Good - The Sunset Realms as a location is one I'm happy to have characters exist in, explore, and discover the secrets of
Discovered - Very little of the actual world building aspects are revealed through non-diegetic explanations like blog posts or required reading. Rather than simply dump the history of the setting to provide context, Wizzz allows players to share and miss important context details even when it may be confusing. There is also a secondary “meta” element that exists between campaigns, and while aspects of it have been contentious I have personally mostly enjoyed it
Mechanically Relevant - The lore of the sunset realms has mechanical weight to the gameplay and player character options
As an example, in my first Sunset Realms campaign a fellow player revealed that one of their bonus languages was “Canine”, and that they could talk to dogs. This was not explicitly presented as a character option- there was no big list of languages to choose from that revealed that animal languages could be selected the same as dwarven or elvish. Instead this worldbuilding aspect was spread through the community of players, rather than through an authoritative document. These have been both positive and negative- in the current campaign, a mid level character permanently died after an offhand remark about the taste of cauliflower while surrounded by cauliflower golems. Another example that comes to mind is that characters can eat the heart of a dragon to gain their spells and languages - again, this is never written explicitly anywhere in the game rules, and the information has been distributed to the community by other knowing players from previous campaigns.
(Semi) Strict Time Records
Continuing the mechanical weight of worldbuilding, the Sunset Realms calendar having weekly mechanical effects is a boon to active planning and also a unique opportunity for randomized dangerous events from the Moons in certain campaigns. This is another aspect that is best shown in it's utilization through the community of players rather than a specific authoritative mandate from the GM- as players we've planned several pushes into the final layer of a dungeon based on bonuses or rewards from upcoming calendar effects, such as using empowered wizards to take out the final boss of a megadungeon or planning beast hunting sprees when they gave more experience.
The fact that the actual length of each week period is semi random (being 5-10 days(?)) AND that some weeks have the potential to be skipped prevents some of the tedious nature of day by day tracking that I tend to resist in other campaigns that have attempted to maintain hyper strict daily tracking. A standard game session would take a few days in game, and that plus the fluctuating downtime length would be enough to push the calendar into the next week.
Finally, these time records help add a natural sense of progression as campaigns continue - I hadn't had the pleasure of player characters celebrating their in-game one year anniversary together, and I'm thankful that the time tracking made those role playing experiences possible.
Downtimes
Wizzz's reactive downtime posts are a two way street, allowing players to communicate to the GM what they care about for their characters and the game AND for the GM to spend a little time allowing characters to flesh out through unique events and side quests.
One way I've previously described the benefits of Wizzz's downtime procedures is that they present a unique “opportunity to be selfish” and interact with the many interesting world and setting details (where actual sessions are typically “team building exercises to try not to die and get that bread”). Wizzz’s downtime reports are in fact so good that it's become a bit of an inside joke within the discord community that they're one of the biggest reasons to play his games.
Finally, the downtime logs offer an insight into what's going on in the game for any semi-active players or active players who happen to miss a session in an ongoing open table game, letting them catch up quickly to the events in game.
Fantastic Campaign Hooks and Starting Scenes
Just a Swell GM (and fellow players)
The format we use to play is simultaneous play by post - a fairly unique format, but one I'm happy to have discovered and that works really, really well for my circumstances that make playing over traditional voice chat difficult.
Within this format, Wizzzargh has time and time again shown masterful writing skills in their depiction of a scene, pulling the same emotions as the best of games I've played in more traditional formats without some of the usual tools to do so.
But even more than his skill with writing, I'm thankful that he just seems like a nice person. 8 years is a long time to play with a group, and I can appreciate how rare it is to keep a game group from blowing up due to drama, infighting, or even just apathy. In that time, Wizzz has been dedicated, communicative, understanding, and patient with players.
As a disclaimer to all of this, we don't actually "know" each other in "real life". I interacted with him some through the OSR discord before joining one of his campaigns, but we've never met or had a verbal conversation, phone call, or anything else.
Here's to All-the-games, All-the-days
As I write this, it seems like the current campaign may finish soon, and there aren't any immediate plans on the server for what comes next. I'll be doing my best to run a game in a similar format starting next month. Wizzz takes his campaign prep seriously and there's usually a several month lull between the end of one campaign and the start of another, and that's after a campaign has been announced (which hasn't happened yet). Regardless, I'm thankful for all the games so far, and if you see one of Wizzz's "Open Campaign" announcements, I highly recommend giving it a try.
