Links

Excuse the truncated Links list, Blogger appears to have wiped my old one out with no warning. More to follow.

Rogue Force Friday

The Force Friday launch of new Star Wars toys and publicity in advance of Rogue One is upon us.

I myself have seen some of the classic scale figures, though the only main character in the assortment I saw was K-2SO - I will try Forbidden Planet tomorrow and hopefully get Jyn Erso, preferably in 6” scale.

Fantasy Flight haven’t revealed any Rogue One tie-ins for their games yet. Fingers crossed - it would seem the perfect subject for the Imperial Assault skirmish minis / boardgame or the Age Of Rebellion RPG, and it took them almost nine months to get The Force Awakens RPG intro box set out, and they just previewed the TFA Millennium Falcon for the X-Wing minis game recently. Still, faster would be better...

Wynonna Earp

Wynonna Earp is.... well, it’s basically Buffy with a gun. A young woman chosen to fight evil in a small town, a small support network, a mysterious handsome stranger with his own agenda...

It looks a lot more like Buffy than the original comics, the name and calling being about all they really have in common.

Note that this is not a complaint. As Buffy knockoffs go it’s pretty functional give or take some logic wobbles.

It doesn’t aspire to the heights of humour or weirdness of Buffy, but hey, early days.

Character-wise, Wynonna is a bit closer to Faith, a notorious local wild child with a liking for booze and motorbikes, having to grow up due to her unwanted legacy. She isn’t slayer-level powerful but agile, tough, heals pretty fast and has a magic gun that only works for her.

Her Scooby Gang is mostly her sister Waverly, all read up on the legacy for the early Willow helpful nerdy role. There’s also Dolls, who is not a creepy puppet but instead a government agent with secrets of his own, and the aforementioned mysterious stranger Doc.

Her mission is to re-kill seventy-seven revenants originally killed by her ancestor Wyatt with that same gun, made easier by them all being stuck in a mystic triangle centring on her home town, and more difficult by sheer numbers. This leads to a cold war, though she keeps killing them off one by one, because their leader is too busy with another agenda to just take her down...

To run as a game, stat up the legacy, the gun and what Doc is, and go.

The Grand Masquerade 2016 keynote speech

The official video of the Grand Masquerade 2016 keynote speech with Jason Carl, Bob Ellis, Shane deFreest, Tobias Sjögren and Martin Ericsson.

And the White Wolf Q&A that followed.

2000 A.D. Prog 2000

2000 A.D. hits its 2000th issue, reminding us of its influence in UK geek culture. Judge Dredd has his own games as well as films and other adaptations, while Nemesis The Warlock might have had a slight influence on Warhammer 40,000 here and there too...

Life moves pretty fast...

Elon Musk plans to send people to Mars within a decade.

A baby with three parents has been born.

This is the future.

Need a horror wargame?

Need a horror skirmish wargame? How about some really nice Victorian zombie miniatures? Northstar have them both on the way.

New academic year, new games...

Star Wars... eh, maybe. I have some interest. But can I keep that up? Modern fantasy and horror flow more easily for me. The intro day game going better might have helped.

I aim to see what’s on Wednesdays this year as well. That slot might be a better fit for something with more player-facing rules like Leverage.

An idea of my plan for Star Wars this evening

I decided to call it The Anvil.

Glitterbomb

Hollywood chews people up and spits them back out. In new comic series Glitterbomb, an out of work actress learns to literally bite back. My first thought was it could work in Beast: The Primordial although this is someone being contacted by a monster at a low point.

D Is For Destiny

Destiny has a new spinoff book. An RPG? No, a children’s ABC book. Originally created by Bungie artists for the children of development staff, it seems like a sweet, if odd, idea. And it could be a fun handout...

Scion Second Edition

Scion Second Edition Kickstarter is live, already almost double funded with over 500 backers (I was 501) and aiming to get the Origins rulebook and Hero book printed and into shops. Since this is the first outing of the Storypath System, I am also caring about that.

Arr

Talk Like A Pirate Day may have gotten too commercial, but we can keep its spirit in me hearties.

Dance Magic Dance

Have we ever seen Doctor Strange dance? Because he throws some serious shapes.

The definitive 80s goth club was the Batcave, but really should have been the Sanctum Sanctorum.

Okay, this is apparently Random Idea Week on my blog.

Hand gestures are a classic magic thing. D&D has many spells with somatic components. I once read a review of a system with such customisable magic that you could adjust so you could cast spells with just an arched eyebrow.

So how about a totally somatic powered magician...?

The Undead-Ish

I just spotted this joke at Lead Adventure, and it got me thinking...

A zombie style outbreak where the infection is temporary. Not undead, but crazy or ravenous or mind-controlled or whatever, but it passes in a few days like a bad cold.

Context is important for monsters.

As DailyRich on RPG.net pointed out, the caption makes the scene. 

Some things never change...

Star Wars D6 RPG taster for freshers was reasonably successful, I think, if a bit short due to overestimating just how short the session actually was.

Player: Is there a garbage chute?
Me: Of course there is!
Player: Who wants to go first?
All The Players: ...

Carmilla S3

Carmilla Season Three, ‘act’ one of three, seventeen episodes for binge purposes.

Warhammer 40000 returns to comics

Launching a few weeks after FFG gives up the RPG licence, the comics come from Titan, the first in decades.

A Beaky Marine! Old school!

Blair Witch

How would you run The Blair Witch Project in RPG form... if not as a LARP, as the original film was essentially made?

Do you keep the supernatural offscreen and uncertain, leaving it possible that there’s a mundane explanation? Do you show it, maybe just quickly?

Which system? Something light, but with mental and physical endurance trackers.

Obviously you play in isolation. If a derelict cabin in the woods isn’t available.

Do you use visuals, like handouts? Audio files, if that’s not too much to arrange?

Maybe a map... and trade it for a subtly different map?