Looking ahead

Happy Hogmanay! A time to reflect on endings and beginnings as well as a year’s achievements.

I would like to be optimistic for the year to come. Better than this year would be something.

Chris Hadfield helps put some things in perspective. (Mental note - add a reference in a Trinity setting detail somewhere.)

Sometimes bad guys make the best good guys

A lot of urban fantasy stars cops and detectives - this lets them in to investigate weird murders and the like, naturally. But currently watching Leverage has me thinking along those lines - as the creators note, thieves and con artists have to be detectives in a way too. (It also solves the problem of why the PCs don’t call the cops if they’d get arrested if they did.)

If an organised crime cartel gets taken over by monsters, who is better set up to notice and do something about it than another bunch of criminals?

Thinking back, the Blood Brothers adventure Oath Of Blood for Call Of Cthulhu involves this. So, hey, precedent!

Visual inspiration

Jealous of the Strix, the God-Machine built its own.

Compliments of the season!

Thoughts on Doctor Who on the other channel. Off to watch make sure my new Marvel movie discs work.

Happy holidays!

Want For Christmas

A Vampire: The Requiem Christmas story, which is not even by me. :)

Also, Carmilla. With multiple camera angles!

io9's short films of the year

The end of year list includes Wanderers of course, but more besides. Utopias, dystopias, comedies, horrors, wonders, and of course plot hooks, all packed into just a few minutes.

Vampire: Red Nativity

About to use the last plot hook from my previous Vampire Christmas Special post so I thought I would write it up for others.

Red Nativity 

In which a vampire is horrible at Christmas.

Now on the current-ish RPGnet list of seasonal adventures, some of which are hopefully a bit more... festive.

Die For You

Inspired by the Carmilla series, Rose Bailey made a game this afternoon.

3D Printed Custom Minis

CreateYourMinis on Kickstarter. Seven dollars for one figure is starting to get competitive (although shipping one mini dents that pretty badly) compared to fifteen or twenty-five depending on material from the last 3D printing minis company I checked out. (To be fair, that one had more options and a slider for expressions which was nice.)

A game in the style of Tolkien?

A pretty thorough examination of how to GM something Tolkienesque. Includes advice on themes, naming, symbolism and inclusivity.

Tales From The Black List

The annual roundup of unproduced screenplays, as usual, includes some interesting genre ideas alongside historical dramas and stories ripped from the headlines. We may see them on screen some day, but in the meantime, the short blurbs are adventure ideas ready to grab.

Trying to talk a smart house into helping you? A film with deadly subliminal images? A murder investigation whose key evidence is a stone tape?

Sadly, Shadow Run is not what you might think.

Carmilla, college comedy

Carmilla is a fairly extreme example of adaptation across genres, a light-hearted webseries told to camera by a potential victim of the legendary vampire.

I would read this AP.

Adrian Tchaikovsky blogs about DMing the new edition of D&D for, among other, gnomish monk Paul Cornell. I would so like an Actual Play here.

A song of ancient Babylon

A musicologist and singer sings ancient poems. The quiet minimalist lyre that sounds kind of like a bass makes it oddly bluesy.

The retro bubblegum cards of your game

And now I have to add “retro bubblegum cards” to the list of things I make for my RPGs. Hats off to the Star Wars Episode VII promo people, that is just beautiful.

Wild Days

Just back from going out in pretty bad weather (not quite as severe as advertised, but still) and thinking about how easily something like that could disrupt the best-laid plans of mice and PCs. Of course if it isn’t randomly generated it looks like the GM dropping obstacles as acts of god...

The father of video games

Ralph Baer, designer of the first home video game console, has died.

Dragonmeet 2014

(Or 2015 as a presentation slide at the diversity panel insisted...)

New venue - bigger, loads of room for stalls, got 80% of my remaining Christmas shopping done in one room. RPGs are all tucked away in rooms, which I was not so keen on. One good seminar room, one with... a non-mobile dividing wall issue. Charity auction felt squeezed in the Bring And Buy side space. Still, not a huge list of issues, especially for a first-time run in a new place by a new company. Being able to get a room in the attached hotel also right nice.

Good mix of panels. Looks like a fair bit of organised play. Did not see a full list of RPGs. Since various spaces were available in the evening and there was a cosplay contest I was a little surprised nobody put on a LARP. (Isles Of Darkness had a stand, too.) This may be my Conpulsion-y bias showing there, but I imagine a drop-in like Ruin Raiders doing well if there was a suitable location.

Hanging out the day after also very nice. Should really consider staying until Monday if  do this next year so I can see everybody.

What would go into the video game of your setting?

Like creating a trailer, or a film poster, this is another chance to look at what the essentials of a setting are. Kotaku asks what the next Assassin’s Creed game should have in its Victorian London setting (apart from fixes to ongoing complaints of course!) and in so doing provides a good list for a Victorian adventure. This also applies to quick visits like a one-shot or an adventure in a game that jumps times or realities.

What are the key plot possibilities, landmarks and personalities of your setting? What should someone coming to it fresh see? And to carry the analogy on, what kind of game should it be? An Assassin’s Creed game suggests stealth to kill villains in positions of power, of course, but also speedy action, intrigue and betrayal, and chances to see the highs and lows of a setting, the palaces and slums in turn.