It’s My Party and I’ll Blog if I Want to.
Hey everyone, Karington here to tell you that if you didn’t know it, the end of September is my birthday. In accordance with family tradition, we are not going to discuss how many trips I have taken around the sun, but I wanted to take time in today’s blog to say a few words in honor of this special day. Is this going to be a sappy thank you note from me to all of our fans? Yes. Is this going to be a shameless plug for our Extra Life fundraiser? Also yes. Is this blog also going to have an interesting suggestion as to how to tie birthdays into your roleplaying campaigns? Unsurprisingly, yes.
As I type this, we are just about to wrap up the first campaign we started as Open Heart Games; I have already launched our third campaign, Call of the Netherdeep, and are about to embark on our fourth campaign, Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis. I cannot express how excited I am by the success of Open Heart Games and knowing that each of the precious hours we devote to our small business continues to contribute to its success and growth.
These last two years have been fantastic and our reach has been due in large part to our wonderful community of RPG fans and an unsung hero of Open Heart Games: our Vice-President, Abigail. Abigail runs all of our social media, creates all of our reels, maintains our website, Facebook page, and Instagram, and edits, formats, and posts each weekly blog post. So thank you, Abigail, for all that you do to help keep things running!
Next up, I would like to thank our wonderful community of players who have donated their time, asked for the support of their friends, and helped us to raise half of our goal in our first event! As of the writing of this blog we are still halfway to our goal and if you would like to donate, you can do so here: https://www.extra-life.org/team/Open-Heart-Games
Finally. I encourage you to remember that your players and characters all have birthdays. I have seen groups have cake and ice cream at the table, focus the session on the birthday player’s character, and/or get the player whose birthday it is the gift of new dice or a miniature. These are all kind ways to show your gratitude for the players at your table and to celebrate their special days. For characters, consider how a wandering adventurer might mark the occasion of each passing year. Perhaps it is something as simple as the halfling offering their last sweet cake to the wizard on their birthday, or something as lavish as a public birthday party in the center of town. Also consider if there are any traditions that are unique to the culture of the world you are playing in. In many cultures, with certain ages come rites of passage which can be excellent inspirations for plot and character development. And to anyone who thinks the idea of incorporating birthdays is lame, I will kindly remind you that one of the greatest stories ever told began with an Unexpected Party.
‘Til next time,
Take Heart and Happy Birthday (whenever yours might be).
Karington Hess
Game Master and Founder of Open Heart Games
