Not exactly a game, so this is a bit out of bounds, but I recently had a desire to try one of those castle kits made by Hirst.
I've been aching to try this out for some time now, and I finally had the excuse to buy one of the molds, this one to be precise, and today I tried casting the first of what I'm told will be seventeen batches needed to make this particular model.
I've cast in plaster before, and I've cast in quick setting resin. I've even cast in five minute epoxy resin. What I've never done is cast in Hydrocal, a special scenic plaster used by railway modelers for making rock-faces, tunnel mouths and bridges.
The fist mix was way too thin, I only mixed enough for half a pour and so this was an immediate tip-it-out-and-start-again job. The second mix seemed okay but also seemed to form a skin of thicker plaster over a watery liquid. Very odd.
I decided to give it a go and made the pour into the mold, getting the plaster everywhere on account of making three times too much. Clean-up was a joy.
The Hydrocal sets up in about 40 minutes, at least it does well enough to demold the castings. Mine were quite disappointing. Crumbly and covered in bubble voids.
The voids were caused by my mixing technique which trapped a lot of air in the thick layer. I'll use the same technique I use to debubble resin castings by using my scroll saw as a vibrating table.
The crumbliness of the castings was caused, I think, by having too wet a mix in the pour. I'll know better next time.
Pictures to come, hopefully of a perfect set of castings.
Meanwhile, you should check out Hirst Arts molds yourself. I should mention that even the bad castings will be useful in the finished model and that even my poor first attempt produced some outstanding detail in the finished castings. The workmanship of the molds and the ingenuity of the kits themselves is a pure delight. Not only that, the subjects are atmospheric and cover a wide range of architectural subjects.
The only problem I can see is finding somewhere to display the finished models.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
New Arrivals
Pathfinder core rulebook (okay, I'm a late adopter, so sue me). I had been told that this thing had a bestiary in it and it doesn't, so not quite a game in a book. All the D&D 3.5 monsters will work in it so I guess if you are transitioning it still works out. Why buy? I'm hoping to get involved in a game soon, as a player. Piked it up in paper and pdf becasue that's how I roll - redundantly.
Redshirts: card game from Weaselpants dotcom. An amusing little number that involves giving missions to members of "away teams" with the objective of getting the other players' teams to succeed and your own to fail miserably. First one to kill all his/her Redshirts wins. Much fun, superbly funny artwok and every time I take it out I see something clever I missed the last time I looked. The expected puns are to be found aplenty. Rulebook is horribly vague in places. Even so, highly recommended.
Seven Dragons: card game, in which the object is to play cards in a two dimensional array to make a sequence of your color before the others do so. Fun and challenging.
Cthulhu by Gaslight: expansion for Call of Cthulhu. A new edition of the Victorian setting sourcebook. New scenarios and a little new material, but if you have the original the pdf will probably suffice.
Savage Worlds Horror Companion: An explorer's edition format book that provides setting rules, suggestions and a bestiary for running Dark Horror games (or adding a dash o' dark to any other setting). Recommended.
Smith and Robards' Catalog: Another Explorer's Edition book, this time for Deadlands:Reloaded. Inside there is a huge inventory of Weird Science gadgetry and the rules on how to order it from Smith and Robards. There is background info on Smith and Robards. There are some new rules for mixing it up with Weird Science. A very desirable addition to any Marshal's toolbox.
Redshirts: card game from Weaselpants dotcom. An amusing little number that involves giving missions to members of "away teams" with the objective of getting the other players' teams to succeed and your own to fail miserably. First one to kill all his/her Redshirts wins. Much fun, superbly funny artwok and every time I take it out I see something clever I missed the last time I looked. The expected puns are to be found aplenty. Rulebook is horribly vague in places. Even so, highly recommended.
Seven Dragons: card game, in which the object is to play cards in a two dimensional array to make a sequence of your color before the others do so. Fun and challenging.
Cthulhu by Gaslight: expansion for Call of Cthulhu. A new edition of the Victorian setting sourcebook. New scenarios and a little new material, but if you have the original the pdf will probably suffice.
Savage Worlds Horror Companion: An explorer's edition format book that provides setting rules, suggestions and a bestiary for running Dark Horror games (or adding a dash o' dark to any other setting). Recommended.
Smith and Robards' Catalog: Another Explorer's Edition book, this time for Deadlands:Reloaded. Inside there is a huge inventory of Weird Science gadgetry and the rules on how to order it from Smith and Robards. There is background info on Smith and Robards. There are some new rules for mixing it up with Weird Science. A very desirable addition to any Marshal's toolbox.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Some Thinks About BRP
I like the fact that BRP has an APPearance stat rather than a nebulous CHArisma one. I think it more accurately models something people react to the first time they see someone: their physical prettiness or ugliness. It is a stat that is helpful when it comes to roleplaying where Charisma isn't. It is a stat that give lots of traction to a player trying to bring the character to life.
Recent rewrites of BRP derived games have replaced APP with CHA. The latest version of BRP derives CHA from APP directly. I think both of these are wrong and miss a rather neat point.
Charisma in real life often works at odds with a persons appearance, but we don't ignore that appearance when we interact with an ugly or deformed charismatic individual. A pretty charismatic is more appealing than a homely one.
My thinking about this was long and twisty but finally zeroed in on three BRP characteristics: APPearance, INTeligence and POWer (defined as a person's "inner reserves", Chi, what-have-you). My thinking is that charisma could be expressed in terms of a combination of these stats, derived from them. Let's talk cases.
Bill Clinton: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, good looking (so I'm told), very centered but poor impulse control - lets say moderate inner power.
Alistair Crowley: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, very average looks, high inner power (we might suppose).
Hitler: Highly charismatic, distinctly average intelligence, good-looking by the standards of his day, very driven (high power).
Now admittedly the sketches above are highly subjective but they are based on other people's assessments I've noted over the years (but cannot cite of course).
Anyway: I was thinking that perhaps charisma might be arrived at by averaging the APP, INT and POW characteristics, which allows for people who are ugly (in some way) and yet still fascinating.
Lets take a case:
STR 9, INT 13, SIZ 12, APP 5, POW 15, DEX 8, EDU 13. This is a character of average strength, above average intelligence, big, distinctly homely, possessed of high inner/psychic resources, a tad clumsy on occasions and educated to around A-Level (associates Degree) level.
The BRP charisma stat for this character would be 25%, for too low in my opinion given that outstanding POW. Lets average out APP, INT and POW rounding down, giving 11 which converts to 55% in the BRP scheme, which multiplies by 5.
Conan: POW ~ 10, INT ~ 9, APP ~ 18 - Charisma from BRP: 90% Charisma from my figures: 60% (His attraction is all about his looks).
James T. Kirk: POW ~ 16, INT ~ 16, APP ~ 18 (can't argue with the man himself) BRP Cha: 90% My value 80%
So. Hmm. Not a finished system perhaps, but definitely better than "APP times 5".
Why do I care? I play mostly Call of Cthulhu, which is played using a stripped-down BRP. In that game it seems to me that first impressions are highly important, it being at heart a detective game. I need a way to express "The guy has terrible wounds, obviously a result of some WWI injury, but you can't help but feel a strong fascination for him" and "This woman is drop-dead gorgeous but there is something repellent about her".
Something else occurs to me: Charisma is used to modify NPC reactions to PCs in negotiations and interractions. Call of Cthulhu (and by extension BRP) models this mechanism by the skills "Persuade" and "Fast Talk".
All this suggests to me that BRP doesn't need a Charisma stat as much as other systems do, and providing one can be done without throwing out the existing stats in the interests of political correctness.
Azathoth forbid anyone should admit there are ugly people out there.
Recent rewrites of BRP derived games have replaced APP with CHA. The latest version of BRP derives CHA from APP directly. I think both of these are wrong and miss a rather neat point.
Charisma in real life often works at odds with a persons appearance, but we don't ignore that appearance when we interact with an ugly or deformed charismatic individual. A pretty charismatic is more appealing than a homely one.
My thinking about this was long and twisty but finally zeroed in on three BRP characteristics: APPearance, INTeligence and POWer (defined as a person's "inner reserves", Chi, what-have-you). My thinking is that charisma could be expressed in terms of a combination of these stats, derived from them. Let's talk cases.
Bill Clinton: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, good looking (so I'm told), very centered but poor impulse control - lets say moderate inner power.
Alistair Crowley: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, very average looks, high inner power (we might suppose).
Hitler: Highly charismatic, distinctly average intelligence, good-looking by the standards of his day, very driven (high power).
Now admittedly the sketches above are highly subjective but they are based on other people's assessments I've noted over the years (but cannot cite of course).
Anyway: I was thinking that perhaps charisma might be arrived at by averaging the APP, INT and POW characteristics, which allows for people who are ugly (in some way) and yet still fascinating.
Lets take a case:
STR 9, INT 13, SIZ 12, APP 5, POW 15, DEX 8, EDU 13. This is a character of average strength, above average intelligence, big, distinctly homely, possessed of high inner/psychic resources, a tad clumsy on occasions and educated to around A-Level (associates Degree) level.
The BRP charisma stat for this character would be 25%, for too low in my opinion given that outstanding POW. Lets average out APP, INT and POW rounding down, giving 11 which converts to 55% in the BRP scheme, which multiplies by 5.
Conan: POW ~ 10, INT ~ 9, APP ~ 18 - Charisma from BRP: 90% Charisma from my figures: 60% (His attraction is all about his looks).
James T. Kirk: POW ~ 16, INT ~ 16, APP ~ 18 (can't argue with the man himself) BRP Cha: 90% My value 80%
So. Hmm. Not a finished system perhaps, but definitely better than "APP times 5".
Why do I care? I play mostly Call of Cthulhu, which is played using a stripped-down BRP. In that game it seems to me that first impressions are highly important, it being at heart a detective game. I need a way to express "The guy has terrible wounds, obviously a result of some WWI injury, but you can't help but feel a strong fascination for him" and "This woman is drop-dead gorgeous but there is something repellent about her".
Something else occurs to me: Charisma is used to modify NPC reactions to PCs in negotiations and interractions. Call of Cthulhu (and by extension BRP) models this mechanism by the skills "Persuade" and "Fast Talk".
All this suggests to me that BRP doesn't need a Charisma stat as much as other systems do, and providing one can be done without throwing out the existing stats in the interests of political correctness.
Azathoth forbid anyone should admit there are ugly people out there.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Buy-In And The Reluctant GM
I'm on record with my opinion that one need not be an expert on a given setting in order to run a roleplaying game in that setting.
This came up most recently in my gaming circle with respect to The Discworld RPG. A GURPS GM was pontificating on games that might be floated and I suggested Discworld (a GURPS-based game) only to be told that while he loved the setting he didn't feel he could do it justice. He also felt that the players would be highly challenged trying to duplicate Terry Pratchett's humour style.
I reacted strongly (and badly) to this, opining in no uncertain terms that if we were to wait while someone became an expert on what was - when examined in depth - a body of work that had changed with almost every book added to the series and was still changing, well, we'd all be lying in a pine box under six feet or so of soil.
The clear implication was that the idea would be to somehow duplicate Pratchett's style when running the game, but at what point would the game take place? Pratchett's style was not the same in the opening three books as it was by Moving Pictures (something like the tenth in the series) which in turn was not the same as Making Money (well into the twenties or possibly tweaking the thirties - I dunno, I just read 'em I don't count 'em). I felt (and still feel) that this evasion was a never-resolving one, and would result in no game, ever.
I also felt that announcing that should a game run, the players would also need to be experts in the Pratchett style was a monstrously unfair precondition and more to the point not germane. The story we would unfold would be ours, not Rincewind's or Vimes's or ... well, you get
the picture.
And this is the key point I feel that many people miss. The point in playing any setting, be it Middle Earth, Gormenghast, The Disc, Barrayar or the deck of a Federation Star Ship, is not to recapitulate someone else's story in some sort of bizarre tribute RPG, but to have new and therefore unknown and exciting adventures of one's own, be they over the sights of a phaser or whispered campaigns of intrigue in the Court of Elric. Who on earth would want to play that other sort of game?
Note that I don't say the GM must have no "buy-in". I've attempted to run games in which my personal resonance was low, my prior experience not voluminous, or to put it another way, in which my buy-in was zero. They were all-but universally a bad time for all (a notable exception being Space 1889 that turned out to be unexpectedly riveting while prepping for my first game and is now a favourite), at least until I was able to reconcile the parts I found a turn-off with my personal vision of what the game could be. The trick to doing that is to warn everyone what's going on and to stay in touch with the core values of whatever it is you are tweaking. If you don't, you end up in a classic Bait-and-Switch which the players will never forgive you for.
Which is why I cannot for the life of me work out why I volunteered to run All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a game of the Zombie Apocalypse. I like watching zombie movies as much as anyone, but I don't live and breath the milieu and I really think that might be what is required to make this game shine.
However, I've been running Lovecraftian Gothic Horror RPGs since they were invented and have a good feel for how to pace a scenario for the time slot we have (four hours) so I have dredged my rather superficial knowledge of the movies for tropes and think I have a rather neat scenario along with a twist I don't think the players will see coming, and I'm throwing myself into the rulebook so I know how the game should flow.
The only thing I'm not doing is making excuses because I'm not word perfect on the body of Zombie movies out there.
This came up most recently in my gaming circle with respect to The Discworld RPG. A GURPS GM was pontificating on games that might be floated and I suggested Discworld (a GURPS-based game) only to be told that while he loved the setting he didn't feel he could do it justice. He also felt that the players would be highly challenged trying to duplicate Terry Pratchett's humour style.
I reacted strongly (and badly) to this, opining in no uncertain terms that if we were to wait while someone became an expert on what was - when examined in depth - a body of work that had changed with almost every book added to the series and was still changing, well, we'd all be lying in a pine box under six feet or so of soil.
The clear implication was that the idea would be to somehow duplicate Pratchett's style when running the game, but at what point would the game take place? Pratchett's style was not the same in the opening three books as it was by Moving Pictures (something like the tenth in the series) which in turn was not the same as Making Money (well into the twenties or possibly tweaking the thirties - I dunno, I just read 'em I don't count 'em). I felt (and still feel) that this evasion was a never-resolving one, and would result in no game, ever.
I also felt that announcing that should a game run, the players would also need to be experts in the Pratchett style was a monstrously unfair precondition and more to the point not germane. The story we would unfold would be ours, not Rincewind's or Vimes's or ... well, you get
the picture.
And this is the key point I feel that many people miss. The point in playing any setting, be it Middle Earth, Gormenghast, The Disc, Barrayar or the deck of a Federation Star Ship, is not to recapitulate someone else's story in some sort of bizarre tribute RPG, but to have new and therefore unknown and exciting adventures of one's own, be they over the sights of a phaser or whispered campaigns of intrigue in the Court of Elric. Who on earth would want to play that other sort of game?
Note that I don't say the GM must have no "buy-in". I've attempted to run games in which my personal resonance was low, my prior experience not voluminous, or to put it another way, in which my buy-in was zero. They were all-but universally a bad time for all (a notable exception being Space 1889 that turned out to be unexpectedly riveting while prepping for my first game and is now a favourite), at least until I was able to reconcile the parts I found a turn-off with my personal vision of what the game could be. The trick to doing that is to warn everyone what's going on and to stay in touch with the core values of whatever it is you are tweaking. If you don't, you end up in a classic Bait-and-Switch which the players will never forgive you for.
Which is why I cannot for the life of me work out why I volunteered to run All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a game of the Zombie Apocalypse. I like watching zombie movies as much as anyone, but I don't live and breath the milieu and I really think that might be what is required to make this game shine.
However, I've been running Lovecraftian Gothic Horror RPGs since they were invented and have a good feel for how to pace a scenario for the time slot we have (four hours) so I have dredged my rather superficial knowledge of the movies for tropes and think I have a rather neat scenario along with a twist I don't think the players will see coming, and I'm throwing myself into the rulebook so I know how the game should flow.
The only thing I'm not doing is making excuses because I'm not word perfect on the body of Zombie movies out there.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Another Amazon Box Arrives In The Mail
This one contained the Basic Role Playing hardback (the so-called "Gold Book") and the pocket edition of A Song of Ice and Fire.
I normally buy my stuff locally, but I wasn't really jonesing for BRP badly enough to pay RRP and the deals on each of these were so good it was too good to pass up.
I've been using BRP, or one version of it, for about thirty years now in my Call of Cthulhu games. I used to keep a copy of Runequest with me for those times when the Call of Cthulhu version failed to deliver (typically in combat). Runequest was the original game from which BRP was derived.
I started a voyage of discovery about a year and a half ago in which I deliberately sampled many new game systems. GURPS, Savage Worlds, D20, these were the initial focus of my experiments.
Savage Worlds was a spectacular success. I have reservations about some aspects of the system, but the benefits it offers as far as easy adoption and rapid assimilation along with the obvious enjoyment of the players have made his a new favorite with me. I have become known as something of a Savage Worlds evangelist at my LFGS (Local Friendly Game Store).
GURPS was fascinating but scary. Characters take forever to build in this system, but the realism possible using it is incredible and the flexibility of the engine for powering the incredible number of settings is legendary. It seems that Steve Jackson Games is not in the business of Setting books any more - there's only one I'm aware of (Vorkosigan Saga) in a fourth edition, er, edition. In any event, the rulebooks are terrifying to me now. When I was thirty I would have lapped this stuff up. Now, I don't have the time or the mental agility for it.
D20, the old workhorse, has proved surprisingly flexible while at the same time proving that the GM must be aware at all times of the level-based abilities, even in a game where XP are sparse. D20 Call of Cthulhu has proved popular, but I think I may be close to breaking the game because of my earlier carelessness in adjudicating advancement awards. We'll see. I'm not scared of D20, but I think Savage Worlds offers much that D20 does at much less cost in brain cells.
But of late I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about with the Gold Book. The price was right for me to explore BRP in depth again. Who knows where that will lead? As I skimmed the book I found myself pondering different games I could run using BRP...
Maybe I'll do a port into BRP that I was intending to do as a Savage Worlds port.
In any event, I'll post my thoughts here as I browse.
A Song of Ice and Fire was purchased because I signed up for a game just to see what the fuss is all about. I'll let you know what I think after I've had a chance to digest it.
I normally buy my stuff locally, but I wasn't really jonesing for BRP badly enough to pay RRP and the deals on each of these were so good it was too good to pass up.
I've been using BRP, or one version of it, for about thirty years now in my Call of Cthulhu games. I used to keep a copy of Runequest with me for those times when the Call of Cthulhu version failed to deliver (typically in combat). Runequest was the original game from which BRP was derived.
I started a voyage of discovery about a year and a half ago in which I deliberately sampled many new game systems. GURPS, Savage Worlds, D20, these were the initial focus of my experiments.
Savage Worlds was a spectacular success. I have reservations about some aspects of the system, but the benefits it offers as far as easy adoption and rapid assimilation along with the obvious enjoyment of the players have made his a new favorite with me. I have become known as something of a Savage Worlds evangelist at my LFGS (Local Friendly Game Store).
GURPS was fascinating but scary. Characters take forever to build in this system, but the realism possible using it is incredible and the flexibility of the engine for powering the incredible number of settings is legendary. It seems that Steve Jackson Games is not in the business of Setting books any more - there's only one I'm aware of (Vorkosigan Saga) in a fourth edition, er, edition. In any event, the rulebooks are terrifying to me now. When I was thirty I would have lapped this stuff up. Now, I don't have the time or the mental agility for it.
D20, the old workhorse, has proved surprisingly flexible while at the same time proving that the GM must be aware at all times of the level-based abilities, even in a game where XP are sparse. D20 Call of Cthulhu has proved popular, but I think I may be close to breaking the game because of my earlier carelessness in adjudicating advancement awards. We'll see. I'm not scared of D20, but I think Savage Worlds offers much that D20 does at much less cost in brain cells.
But of late I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about with the Gold Book. The price was right for me to explore BRP in depth again. Who knows where that will lead? As I skimmed the book I found myself pondering different games I could run using BRP...
Maybe I'll do a port into BRP that I was intending to do as a Savage Worlds port.
In any event, I'll post my thoughts here as I browse.
A Song of Ice and Fire was purchased because I signed up for a game just to see what the fuss is all about. I'll let you know what I think after I've had a chance to digest it.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
New Arrival
Bookhounds of London, a Trail of Cthulhu campaign book from Pelgrane Press.
Hardback, with the same production values that have made Trail of Cthulhu the most popular alternative to Call of Cthulhu for the world's Mythos Fix.
Priced at the extreme range of what I'll pay for a setting book these days, $35.
The idea in this one is right out of The Ninth Gate, with the players taking the part of less-than-squeaky-clean types who hunt up Mythos Tomes - to sell them for profit to the bad guys (and occasionally stop them using them)!
This is a nice idea from where I sit. Players often like to explore the ambiguity of their Call of Cthulhu characters, but the truth is that in all the published materials the players are essentially the Boy Scout types, the cavalry that will ride in and save the day if it is at all possible, with the shady characters firmly on the GM's side of the screen.
Not only that, players usually never get to play the really dirty swine on account of they are typically mad, dead or mad and then dead before their morals are truly irrevocably compromised.
I did manage to get some players to sacrifice to a Dark Young a few months ago, but they did it for the good of the community and the players were appalled when I casually pointed out that they were now, in point of fact, Cultists. Cultists were to be fought, killed, stamped out because they are the bad guys!
Bookhounds of London doesn't so much turn this idea around as discard it as irrelevant. There are no bad guys, just customers. Okay, some of the customers need to be dealt with but mostly because they represent a significant threat to the bottom line.
I'm trivializing the great idea at the core of this wonderful campaign, and I urge everyone to buy it, read it and judge for themselves.
There is much in the Trail of Cthulhu line for the trad Call of Cthulhu GM (with a little work) too, though I'd personally urge Call of Cthulhu GMs to look at the Trail of Cthulhu rules with their knee-jerk circuits offline. There was a time - a long time - when I would have sniffed at going "off the reservation", but I know better now.
Hardback, with the same production values that have made Trail of Cthulhu the most popular alternative to Call of Cthulhu for the world's Mythos Fix.
Priced at the extreme range of what I'll pay for a setting book these days, $35.
The idea in this one is right out of The Ninth Gate, with the players taking the part of less-than-squeaky-clean types who hunt up Mythos Tomes - to sell them for profit to the bad guys (and occasionally stop them using them)!
This is a nice idea from where I sit. Players often like to explore the ambiguity of their Call of Cthulhu characters, but the truth is that in all the published materials the players are essentially the Boy Scout types, the cavalry that will ride in and save the day if it is at all possible, with the shady characters firmly on the GM's side of the screen.
Not only that, players usually never get to play the really dirty swine on account of they are typically mad, dead or mad and then dead before their morals are truly irrevocably compromised.
I did manage to get some players to sacrifice to a Dark Young a few months ago, but they did it for the good of the community and the players were appalled when I casually pointed out that they were now, in point of fact, Cultists. Cultists were to be fought, killed, stamped out because they are the bad guys!
Bookhounds of London doesn't so much turn this idea around as discard it as irrelevant. There are no bad guys, just customers. Okay, some of the customers need to be dealt with but mostly because they represent a significant threat to the bottom line.
I'm trivializing the great idea at the core of this wonderful campaign, and I urge everyone to buy it, read it and judge for themselves.
There is much in the Trail of Cthulhu line for the trad Call of Cthulhu GM (with a little work) too, though I'd personally urge Call of Cthulhu GMs to look at the Trail of Cthulhu rules with their knee-jerk circuits offline. There was a time - a long time - when I would have sniffed at going "off the reservation", but I know better now.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
It's a Deja Vu Reboot All Over Again Once More
Okay, time to do some game talk.
It's been a while and I've done quite a bit of gaming in the year and a half I've been gone from here.
I started running Masks of Nyarlathotep a newly reprinted campaign for Call of Cthulhu that my wife bought for me for Christmas, but the campaign has stuttered a bit this time through, with players dropping out before I can kill their characters or drive them mad. Oh well. The advantage of running the game in a Game Store is that there is always an audience, and that audience has recently been knocking on my door asking if they can join in. Naturally I say "Hell yes!" I'll be starting a thread for this game and the observations that arise from it from now on.
The monthly Delta Green campaign sessions are as popular as ever, over-subscribed now with eight players sometimes at a sitting. I enjoy running for this group very much. Their buy-in is atypically fervent and they are a total joy to GM. This game will soon be kicking into higher gear and I will be threading this game in it's own subject too. I have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to D20 Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.
The recent (read: end of last year) launch of the Savage Worlds Space 1889 setting and my love affair with all things Savage Worlds has resulted in my convening not one but two separate parallel campaigns, each being an iteration of the Red Sands campaign from the eponymous setting book. I'll be threading these games both together and individually for pontification purposes.
I've also begun playing Solomon Kane, another Savage Worlds-derived game setting (though in this case one that is self-contained and that requires no additional purchase of a Savage Worlds rulebook). It looks to be a very interesting way of presenting a nuts-and-bolts action-adventure/horror game and I love the rulebook.
My attendance at this year's RetCon was a success, with all four of my games subscribed to the right level. I ran a Realms of Cthulhu scenario set mostly in the Peruvian Rainforest, A Deadlands:Reloaded game set in Great North Woods, A Space 1889 scenario set in the Martian desert at the juncture of the English and German fields of influence and a Call of Cthulhu session late on Saturday night which was a shortened version of A Cracked and Crooked Manse. It was a great success and greatly simplified by the decision to this year go with an all-Savage Worlds program (with the exception of the Call of Cthulhu session).
There were some failures to aviate.
Notably, my friend of many years decided that he no longer wished to play Call of Cthulhu since he did forensic paperwork for a living and was not keen on doing it in an RPG for relaxation, and an attempt to start the D20 Conan campaign Trial of Blood fell flat. That was sad because I was hoping the milieu would appeal to my friend so we could game together again, but it was a total non-starter.
Then there was the Paranoia game I tooled up to run only to find that no-one who had said they wanted to play was actually prepared to turn up. Fiasco! drew no players at all in three weeks of advertizing the session.
And a Dresden Files RPG campaign I was hosting every other Friday, and for which I was taking vacation time to be able to do so, eventually resulted in an evening where I and one other were the only people to show up after a dozen sessions.
Lessons learned:
Dresden Files has taught me to be absolutely without compunction when it comes to giving away a players seat if they haven't RSVP'd for the game (all the store's available slots are booked using Meetups). My campaigns sometimes feature a floating cast list these days but I don't get messed around by losers.
Paranoia taught me that people talk a lot on the web but often don't follow through, even if you know them personally. Don't spend money on rulebooks unless you have at least three "I'll be there's".
Conan taught me that sometimes it is just that the right mix of people isn't there and motivated to play. Two of those who did show interest found they didn't like my style and rather than say so simply faded from sight.
But all this has also shown me that the facts of life are that there are four to eight times as many people who want to play a given game than are willing to sit the other side of the screen and run the bugger. The GM in my neck of the woods who is willing to bide their time will end up beating them off with a stick when word gets around (and if he is any good).
My problem now is time. I don't have enough, otherwise I'd be playing in at least two more games (One Ring and Eclipse Phase) and running even more, like Deadlands:Reloaded, and Slipstream, and Sundered Skies, and The Laundry, and Amber, and Traveller, and Dresden Files - which I dislike the complexity of but feel there's a great game in there struggling to get out - and that doesn't even mention the board games
It's been a while and I've done quite a bit of gaming in the year and a half I've been gone from here.
I started running Masks of Nyarlathotep a newly reprinted campaign for Call of Cthulhu that my wife bought for me for Christmas, but the campaign has stuttered a bit this time through, with players dropping out before I can kill their characters or drive them mad. Oh well. The advantage of running the game in a Game Store is that there is always an audience, and that audience has recently been knocking on my door asking if they can join in. Naturally I say "Hell yes!" I'll be starting a thread for this game and the observations that arise from it from now on.
The monthly Delta Green campaign sessions are as popular as ever, over-subscribed now with eight players sometimes at a sitting. I enjoy running for this group very much. Their buy-in is atypically fervent and they are a total joy to GM. This game will soon be kicking into higher gear and I will be threading this game in it's own subject too. I have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to D20 Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.
The recent (read: end of last year) launch of the Savage Worlds Space 1889 setting and my love affair with all things Savage Worlds has resulted in my convening not one but two separate parallel campaigns, each being an iteration of the Red Sands campaign from the eponymous setting book. I'll be threading these games both together and individually for pontification purposes.
I've also begun playing Solomon Kane, another Savage Worlds-derived game setting (though in this case one that is self-contained and that requires no additional purchase of a Savage Worlds rulebook). It looks to be a very interesting way of presenting a nuts-and-bolts action-adventure/horror game and I love the rulebook.
My attendance at this year's RetCon was a success, with all four of my games subscribed to the right level. I ran a Realms of Cthulhu scenario set mostly in the Peruvian Rainforest, A Deadlands:Reloaded game set in Great North Woods, A Space 1889 scenario set in the Martian desert at the juncture of the English and German fields of influence and a Call of Cthulhu session late on Saturday night which was a shortened version of A Cracked and Crooked Manse. It was a great success and greatly simplified by the decision to this year go with an all-Savage Worlds program (with the exception of the Call of Cthulhu session).
There were some failures to aviate.
Notably, my friend of many years decided that he no longer wished to play Call of Cthulhu since he did forensic paperwork for a living and was not keen on doing it in an RPG for relaxation, and an attempt to start the D20 Conan campaign Trial of Blood fell flat. That was sad because I was hoping the milieu would appeal to my friend so we could game together again, but it was a total non-starter.
Then there was the Paranoia game I tooled up to run only to find that no-one who had said they wanted to play was actually prepared to turn up. Fiasco! drew no players at all in three weeks of advertizing the session.
And a Dresden Files RPG campaign I was hosting every other Friday, and for which I was taking vacation time to be able to do so, eventually resulted in an evening where I and one other were the only people to show up after a dozen sessions.
Lessons learned:
Dresden Files has taught me to be absolutely without compunction when it comes to giving away a players seat if they haven't RSVP'd for the game (all the store's available slots are booked using Meetups). My campaigns sometimes feature a floating cast list these days but I don't get messed around by losers.
Paranoia taught me that people talk a lot on the web but often don't follow through, even if you know them personally. Don't spend money on rulebooks unless you have at least three "I'll be there's".
Conan taught me that sometimes it is just that the right mix of people isn't there and motivated to play. Two of those who did show interest found they didn't like my style and rather than say so simply faded from sight.
But all this has also shown me that the facts of life are that there are four to eight times as many people who want to play a given game than are willing to sit the other side of the screen and run the bugger. The GM in my neck of the woods who is willing to bide their time will end up beating them off with a stick when word gets around (and if he is any good).
My problem now is time. I don't have enough, otherwise I'd be playing in at least two more games (One Ring and Eclipse Phase) and running even more, like Deadlands:Reloaded, and Slipstream, and Sundered Skies, and The Laundry, and Amber, and Traveller, and Dresden Files - which I dislike the complexity of but feel there's a great game in there struggling to get out - and that doesn't even mention the board games
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