I really liked 13th Age until suddenly, swiftly and definitively, I didn’t. So I guess it surprised me by changing from fun to unfun so fast. I feel like it’s a great implementation of the core D&D conceit, but some of the bits just got so much more love than others.

Montsegur… yeah. That was a case where I was surprised by how hard people played it all around the table. The guy across the table who was playing my wife made himself a modest little headscarf that he would wrap on every time he played her in a scene, and his body language was transformative. I honestly think it broke his real-life heart a little when I accused him in-character of being unfaithful. Amazing how much that game is able to pull out of people. Oof, and when I handed Kimberley Lam (playing the little boy) a dagger and told him to protect the Grail (one of our card prompts) with his life and we both instinctively knew where the scene had to break, and then Kim had to go run off and get a hug. Dang that game is so good.