War is not the answer

A change to the usual set up this week, as we start with:

Console Gaming

Could have been PC gaming but despite having purchased the Brothers in Arms 3-game collection at a very low price, I completely failed to install it on my PC. I was distracted by the equally cheap and even more hectic Battlefield 4 on PS4, in which I have achieved very little so far; beyond marvelling at the pretty graphics and the sheer amount of ammunition expended.

Gaming

Achtung Cthulhu continued to happen. The characters investigated some suspicious goings on in Rome, and managed to avoid launching an infiltration mission that would most likely have ended in a fascist bullet-storm and many, many allied fatalities.

In the meantime

Back with more waffle about what I’ve been up to lately, in a vague attempt to build up a blogging habit.

Gaming

The proposed launch into OSR did not happen as planned, due to unforeseen circumstances for one of the players, and there was a short discussion about what the rest of the group should do instead. In the end, I decided to run a session/play-test of my fledging ‘game about vampires, and stuff’.

randoms xv: it starts with the hands

I had a dream about people turning into cows. Not actual cows, more a kind of Gerald-Scarfe-Pink-Floyd-video grotesquery of lumpen bovine humanity. It starts with the hands and feet, maybe, becoming useless club-like stubs at the ends of spindly limbs. The rest of the body is bulked out, the epidermis peeling away to leave dun coloured patches of blubbery flesh. The face is elongated, snout like, the ears are curved protrusions of stretched skin. In a certain light I guess they do look more like pigs? But in the dream they called them cows at first and that name sort of stuck. 

It’s not a localised event. It’s a worldwide phenomenon; a social crisis and a health catastrophe. How does the world respond? How do family and friends cope if it happens to a loved one? What do you do if it begins to happen to you? 

I woke up before that part of the dream unfurled itself. In many ways that’s a blessing.

 

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 10

Question 10: Where do you go for RPG reviews?

Various websites (Drivethrurpg, RPGnet, some blogs), ancient issues of White Dwarf for the older games, recommendations from friends and fellow gamers.

These days if I’m not picking stuff that’s been around for two or three decades, I’m buying things off Kickstarter before the reviews are even in.

It’s going well so far.

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 9

Question 9: What’s a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions?

(I’ve let things slide a bit over the last few days, time to catch up a little)

As I don’t tend to use scenarios at all–more inclined towards making-it-up-as-we-go or setting out a vague series of events with which the characters can interact–games typically go on (and on) until we reach what seems a suitable point to pause.

In the supers game the player characters killed a persistent enemy and stopped a nuclear detonation. Perfectly respectable to take a break after that.

In the Stars Without Number campaign of rambling space adventure, they’ve stopped off at a remote planet to help an escaped recording artist lay down some tracks for her new album.

No idea how many sessions it took to get to those particular points.

I’ve never really thought about ‘timing’ for games unless they were really short “this’ll take a couple of sessions, tops” sorts of thing.

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 6

Question 6: You can game every day for a week. Describe what you’d do.

A few times in the past various groups I’ve been involved with have done vague ‘seasons’ of a specific genre of game. Everyone taking turns to GM a crime game, or a military game, or whatever. So a week of gaming would probably involve that.

Also, it would probably be an ideal opportunity for running ‘team conflict’ games where you have two (or more) groups of players in different rooms and the GM goes between them as each group heads for the same ultimate objective.

Mostly it would just be whatever gaming we’re doing now, except more of it.

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 5

Question 5: Which RPG cover best captures the spirit of the game.

Setting aside all the tv/movie tie-in games where they can’t really go wrong with the covers (Doctor Who, James Bond, Star Trek), most covers haven’t made much of an impression over the years.

I guess the following would be high on any list:

Call of Cthulhu 1st edition. There’s a spooky house, it’s night, you’re woefully ill-equipped for the task at hand.

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 4

Question 4: Which RPG have you played the most since August 2016?

The group has had a number of games on the go since then. The standard procedure is to have two games running on alternate weeks; with the opportunity for some random stuff if people can’t make it, need a change of pace, whatever.

There was a lot of Lamentations of the Flame Princess; in a 17th century London milieu/melee where the characters are investigators on behalf of academia. A GM plan for us to complete all of the Lamentations scenarios one-after-t’other has resulted, in approximately half a year of gaming sessions, with one whole scenario done and dusted. Let’s say we’re very methodical. Still, onwards and upwards, eh?

#RPGaDAY 2017: Day 3

Question 3: How do you find out about new RPGs?

These days, seemingly at random.

As others have noted, there seems to be a lack of the old-fashioned sources for such things (gaming magazines like Dragon, White Dwarf, Imagine etc), and also the new sources seem a little disjointed and not exactly coherent (endless numbers of blogs and websites all burrowed into their own little niches).

So, mostly it’s whatever comes up on Kickstarter, whatever latest-new-thing is appearing from creators/publishers that I’m already following, a few blogs, some word of mouth from people in my gaming group who are more in tune with what the wider ‘gaming community’ is doing any particular month and, very rarely, things that I might encounter entirely by accident.

And of course not forgetting whatever Runeslinger is currently talking about playing or is unboxing on Youtube.

randoms xiv: you can sleep

She can hear the static in her bones as it gets closer.

“This thing,” he says, “the monster you say is after you-”

“It only travels at night,” she tells him. “In the light I have a chance.”

The pick-up truck is real old, a lot like its driver, and worn down; paint chipped, chrome dulled, seat leather smooth and cracked. There’s a stack of old yellowed newsprint in the foot well on the passenger side, a litter of this and that scattered here and there on what might once have been a square of carpet.

The engine grumbles and strains when he turns the key in the ignition. The whole pick-up shaking to its core as he struggles the wheel around, points the vehicle’s nose towards the rising sun.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “She’ll get going right enough.”

Maybe she’s convinced.

“Settle in,” he says. “You can sleep while I drive.”