And this is why I keep running Buffy

I have a terrible idea for a Sounds Like Hell episode. It must happen. If the player involved approves.

Princess Of The Universe 3 live draft

Rose Bailey and divers hands at RPGnet look at Princess Of The Universe and a new update.

The Cars That Ate Your RPG

Where Are All The Car Monsters? asks Lewd Beholder on RPGnet. Some interesting mechanical reasons - vehicle rules are different than monster rules in many games.

I’ve considered a haunted car but don’t think I’ve ever done it.

I have been summoned

Someone just asked for ideas for low-level powers and sources characters could have in a Buffy RPG.

I typed quite quickly for a few minutes there.

RPGs with music in the mechanics

I bring up music in my RPG thinking pretty often, mostly to set mood but also lyrics providing ideas and bands as PC groups, but some RPGs use music as part of the system.

This RPGnet thread looking for examples brought up some I didn’t know. I myself mentioned VOID 1680 AM, a solo journalling game where you play a late night DJ and compile a playlist, and on the other end of the interactivity level LARPs based on musicals that can include performing, which sounds like one of the rooms in my personal Hell but I have friends who’ve played and run them.

31 Days Of Horror Film 2025

Here and on socials and RPGnet for most discussion.

RPGaDAY 2025 29 - Connect

#RPGaDAY2025

29 - Connect

I got online in August 1999. Before that the little text-based gaming I’d done was play-by-post with actual post, with stamps and everything. After that, I got onto forums like RPGnet and into games like the official World Of Darkness chat New Bremen. I’m still involved in the RPGnet play-by-post subforum over twenty years after it started. I’ve made friends for life through online RPG spaces.

And some thoughts on players and characters connect. Some games offer more advice than others, and some systematise things like how each PC in some Powered By The Apocalypse games feel about the others. And this on top of NPC connections like allies.

And on PCs being in constant contact. Being reachable by phone lessens the instinct not to split the party, and PCs can talk in and otherwise affect a scene they’re not physically in - see Steve D’s thoughts on this in Leverage and how it affects play in modern settings.

And I’ve seen this feature retroactively in modern media, like the importance of walkie-talkies in Stranger Things compared to their rarer key appearances in original 1980s Kids On Bikes stories, and the extreme example of Sending Stones in Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves. Some things made now only work with a phone in your pocket, even if it has to be brought in by magic.

And due to the phones in out pockets usually being connected to the internet, how to solve the problem of PCs looking everything up. Sadly these days Google solved that problem themselves.

Elastica reference goes here.

29a - 3, 2, 6

Where, Nostalgic, Art

The PCs find an old letter, seemingly placed for them to discover. Does it reveal a secret from someone’s past? Or is it addressed to them from a hundred years ago, a la Back To The Future?

Runeslinger

90s Superhero Name Generator

A 90s Superhero Name Generator, following a request for help by Colin at RPGnet leading to Thomas T making, yes, a random assembly of ever so 90s naming!

Beam Scream! Heavy Cat! Arcnado! (That one is admittedly more a 2020s joke.) Wraith Ghost!

And just now getting the link, Witch Scream! Might actually use that one.

#RPGaDAY2025 day one east of here

My semi-traditional RPGaDAY post on RPGnet ahead of August starting here in a few hours.

Most badass fight scenes in RPGs

A query on RPGnet. And yes, I summarise that Star Wars story.

Today is my birthday - give me genre-switching retellings!

Today is my birthday - give me genre-switching retellings! on RPGnet.

Sounds Like Hell 1.06

My Buffy play-by-post game just got to the end of an episode which took two years to play. Feels a bit weird.

Final Destination: Dead In The Water

How much am I a Final Destination kind of person? This much.

Still sad this one-shot PBP fizzled while most of the PCs were still alive. We didn’t use the game system (Cinematic Unisystem for convenience) much after the opening when it determined who died when.

Glad I got to throw in some twists on the formula, like the saved second victim being So Pissed at the seer for not having another vision to save the first, the FBI getting involved with the theory of an untraceable serial killer and offering / threatening protective custody, someone approaching the seer after hearing about this somehow to ask her to read his sick daughter’s future...

And the second post-vision death was at the first victim’s funeral, where I coined the phrase “runaway gravestone”.

Still proud of that one.

If we’d finished I had a sequel plan involving a cult kidnapping the seer...

Sounds Like Hell disc two

My Buffy PBP at RPGnet has reached 5000 posts so needed a new thread. Very aware that we’re still in episode six.

#RPGaDay2024 17 - An engaging RPG community

#RPGaDay2024

17 - An engaging RPG community

I’m an RPGnet Forums stalwart. Been there, done that, and literally got the T-shirt recently. The Watch House sits there in Actual Play transcript format, I’ve been doing play-by-post games there since that started twenty years ago, and I try to help with things like the birthday idea requests.

NERD!

17a - Community

It’s hard to create a sense of community including the PCs and NPCs from the start. It’s more likely to come with time. Games based in one location like a city will have a bit more than games that travel all over, because you’re likely to see the same NPCs more often. (Note that one of the most traditionally one-city series of games is Vampire, where the community is far from welcoming.) There are games that do it, but that tends to be a major focus - Beyond The Wall has a lifepath system where every option connects or relates to your home town, but it only has so many options.

17b - A.I.

Actual A.I. could be a wonderful thing. Don’t let plagiarism algorithms steal the name too.

David Chapman on RPGaDay

Runeslinger

Games I would run and not play?

Via Chikahiro on RPGnet: There are plenty of games I’d play but not run, but not many the other way around. If I’m invested enough to GM I’d probably be up for it. Perhaps horror games with specific lines.

Today is my birthday - give me entertainments!

Today is my birthday - give me entertainments! on RPGnet.

Demon: The Fallen character art

Laura Foster is a thin brunette who dresses like she feels cold most of the time.

Haamiah of the Neberu, principle of Truth and advance guard of the Crimson Legion, is like a starfield on a clear autumn night.

Her eyes are the cold blue of the clearest day.

V5 Siren Song cover

Vampire: The Masquerade - Siren Song PBP at RPGnet

Based on this photo by Michael Aleo on Unsplash.

V5 PBP: Siren's Song

Recruitment and development thread.

Maybe going with a proven-to-work hook will help.

Siren’s Song

A city home to millions of people and haven for hundreds of vampires. A string of clubs Kindred investors use to lure victims. But also others where the Damned can go to feel free at night. A music scene with vampire and mortal bands.

Personal issues, getting and playing gigs, petty or serious rivalries with other Kindred and connected artists...