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.
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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?
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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.
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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.”
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Question 2: What is an RPG that you would like to see published?
A few things spring to mind here: games that are just about to be released like Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha; the Stars Without Number Revised Edition from Kevin Crawford, already storming it on Kickstarter; and, also discovered on Kickstarter, a (not a game) called Dialect, about languages and how they’re born, how they die away.
All of that is coming soon and promises to be well worth the wait.
But I’ve also given some thought to the idea of things-I’d-like-to-see-as-a-game.
First up would be one I mentioned back during my first attempt at RPGaDay in 2015; Stargate & Cthulhu. I think that would be a great blending of genres. Indeed, if you just played early 1900s Stargate and upped the ‘cultists messing with alien tech’ side of things it would probably work pretty well within the existing Stargate rpg rules. Whatever they are. I own them and haven’t read them yet…
Anyway, I still think it would benefit from a proper game. I’m currently running something like it with Silent Legions, also from the aforementioned Kevin Crawford, but it’s not quite there yet in terms of system – though the eldritch-mythology creation section is tremendous. Also I haven’t told the players what’s actually going on, so…spoiler alert, I guess.
The other thing I imagine would make an interesting game of some sort, at least for a one-off or two, is the recent Ben Wheatley movie Free Fire, trailer here. Which is not to say that Ben Wheatley’s other movies might not make interesting games also, but this one in particular is a slightly retro days-before-mobile-phones plot where an arms deal goes wrong in a remote warehouse and then the shooting starts.
So I’m thinking small number of player characters, random location, set up to go sideways and everyone starts wounded. Limited ammunition, not exactly top class weapon skills, two, or three, factions and maybe everyone has different objectives: complete the mission, get out alive, kill adversary X…
Needs more thought, but there’s definitely/maybe something there.
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In which I manage to answer the question on the correct day.
Question 1: What published RPG do you wish you were playing right now?
There were a few candidates for this, from both the nostalgia laden past and the future facing present, and also one game that’s a little of both. In terms of revisiting things-not-played-for-ages there’s Twilight 2000, DC Heroes, Cyberpunk 2020, whilst the present offers M-space, Luther Arkwright and Apocalypse World. And then there’s Tales from the Loop, a very here-and-now game which nevertheless ticks all the boxes for 80s reminiscence, wild super-science, and kids-investigate-mysteries-and-encounter-Stranger-Things…
Despite all of that, the game I’d most like to be playing is:
Broken Rooms from Greymalkin Designs.
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It’s that time again. A month for discussing the positive and (here’s hoping) interesting things about roleplaying games. Or, a month in which I attempt to post something about games every day.
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The temple fell burning, and black ash motes peeled off, spiralled away, swirled and scattered from a rolling turmoil of endless ruin. Molten alloys bubbled, ceramic armours splintered, whole sections of decking rippled in the maelstrom. Bulkheads bulged, faltered, finally failed as—birthed and bred amongst silence and stars—the temple at last struck the atmosphere of an unknown planet and plunged down to destruction…
All of this is accidental, incidental even; wrong space, wrong time.
A Kovanarii combat-cruiser—Empire Light class, name of Tesallanc, for those keeping notes—in pursuit of an entirely different agenda, clipped the Temple Althren amidships with a brace of spiral seekers launched for an altogether different target.
Temple Althren warped into that field of fire, took the mortal damage aimed at another, and the Kovanarii’s quarry jumped away, lived on to fight again.
A brief scan for survivors—inconclusive—a suitably contrite and concise flash-message to high command, and the Empire Light Tesallanc left the system, coruscating waves of warplight fading, as the temple fell burning in their wake.
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No one remembers the factories. Not really. They appear only in dreams and old photographs and nobody ever thinks too hard about them or about what happened there.
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The sword swings—too slow, too high—and Lake needs little effort to avoid the arcing blade
“Not good enough.”
Nemeric grunts. His tunic darkened by sweat, eyes wide and wild, his breath hard and ragged. Not pacing himself at all.
“Like we practiced,” Lake tells him. “One-“
Lake pivots from the hip, weapon raised, sweeping inwards. A clash of his sword against Nemeric’s, the shock of it felt in the fingers and forearm.
“-two-“
Lake pivots into a high, fast backswing and Nemeric dances away to avoid the speeding sword point.
“-three.”
Nemeric is recovering as Lake thrusts forward, a quick jab, no danger of it reaching Nemeric but he oversteps backwards, stumbles, falls flat on the sand as Lake moves in.
“Better,” he says.
The crowd roars in the high stands around them. Not for Lake and Nemeric. The main action is taking place on the broad wide expanse of the Square—in fact a rectangular plateau of bright white marble in the centre of the stadium—whilst Lake and Nemeric shuffle and feint and make a show of struggle, in the shadows near the edge of things.
Nemeric is flailing around with his sword as he struggles to rise, red faced and gulping air.
“Quickly, man, quickly,” Lake tells him. “Much longer and they’ll think your heart’s not-“
A howl from Lake’s right and he spins. Continue reading
