The Watch House

31: Edge

31. Why does a character think they have an edge?

Often literally when I make them. See my post on Distance for sword guys versus gun guys.

Generally I prefer if players have some way to avoid a single die roll messing up their big moment. This was a system in place by the time I got to Marvel Super Heroes Advanced in the 80s, where PCs had a whole lot of Karma to throw in to guarantee success. Most games I’ve played since with something like that have a more limited pool of “I win” points, but as long as it’s not zero I’m happy.

Ian explains Edge in Marvel SAGA, the game he ran for years in which I played Charity Chance!

Sunday, 30 August 2026

Hunter: The Reckoning V5, summer 2026

A short summer game, a chance to play the V5 version of Hunter: The Reckoning, briefly considered a gun guy for the most basic option, a book-heavy researcher but we have one already, a thief due to the Underground Creed, recreate Cara but would need a lot of Edges and Perks, settled on an idea from Huntober 2022 for The Unusual Hunter and influenced by Ligeia:

Violetta Rossellini

“I hear the voices of the dead. Victims crying out for justice. Can you help them?”

RPGaDAY 2026 28. Devotion

28. Devotion

28. Devotion: Game you have played the most!

GMed - Due to a long history with it and several year-long runs recently probably Vampire: The Masquerade, though Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the longest I’ve run a series, almost six years.

Played - Star Wars is probably up there, mostly the D6 classic but also tried others (and wanted to go back to the D6 classic). Also a lot of the various Star Trek games almost all with one keen GM, up to Star Trek Adventures currently. Longest single games, there’s the four-year Werewolf: The Apocalypse run with that Star Trek GM and about as long with a Silver Age style Marvel SAGA game.

Autocratik - “If you’ve done every day of #RPGaDAY since it began, this is your 400th entry to the challenge. I feel tired just thinking about that!”

Thursday, 27 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 27. Hunger

27. Hunger

27. What do you hunger for most from a session?

What is the game meant to do? I want experience X from game X, Y from game Y - a bit of Z might be a fun addition or might spoil the whole thing for me.

This is a formative preference going all the way back to my first couple of games, where Middle-earth Roleplaying gave me no Tolkien feel and TOON gave me a lot of Looney Tunes feel.

I want my superheroes to be amazing at something, my horror protagonists to be at risk though not necessarily doomed but sometimes doomed works too, my cool vampires to be cool and my sad vampires to be sad, my teenage monster hunters to be badass and funny and occasionally emotional wrecks. I want a moment creating the kind of thing that makes a genre appealing. If it feels wrong, I’m probably not going to play that game for long.

Also, Hunger Dice are the most evocative version of blood use in a Vampire game so far.

Wednesday, 26 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 26. Regret

26. Regret

26. One game you regret not trying?

Having read the full adventure series for Orpheus I couldn’t really play it when offered a chance, though it was a few years later. I’d really have to run it.

And scheduling has prevented me playing Buffy and Adventure! at the Nationals, Alien and Mothership in the last two years at GEAS, and more.

As a GM there are... let’s say a few I’d like to get to the table someday. Including a break from “first chance to play this, do something normal” setups for the games I do run, like high society historical Vampire instead of usually scuzzy modern, or going all-in on the black market and thief setup that didn’t come together last year. Running Trinity Continuum would be nice too.

Okay, Orpheus is a good choice for one, as it’s a reference to someone who regrets looking back. Ha ha.

Monday, 24 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 24. Distance

24. Distance

24. Your preferred distance in any type of RPG conflict?

I’m much more up for playing an in-your-face fighter than a sniper. I want to trade barbs as well as blows, and put myself between opponents and anyone else they might be targeting. It also means not having to worry about tactical positioning and all that kind of thing.

I did recently play a gun guy (who could also do magic, so another distance effect) but this was after playing the kick-down-doors sword guy with the same group.

I mean, I’m playing a sword girl in Mage: The Ascension.

(Though not in Star Trek Adventures. Even I have my limits.)

Saturday, 22 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 22. Grit

22. Grit

22. An enjoyable moment of grit PCs did or did not tough out.

Sometimes it’s fun to play the muscle. Especially when the system and group work to make that feel valid and badass.

Playing the bodyguard for a Rebel cell in Star Wars (d6 Revised) in the hold of a stolen AT-AT full of thermal detonators our pilot was driving towards a recently unearthed Sith temple to blow it up. A Sith Adept with Temple Of Doom style killer hands jumped into the hold to stop us. None of the PCs had any Force so this was not going to be a fair fight. I charged him, grabbed his wrists and bull rushed him back out the open side door, just catching the ledge and hauling myself up. The Adept jumped back up - and that was when he discovered that while I was wrestling him out the cell’s thief had slipped a detonator into his robes.

Thursday, 20 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 20. Promise

20. Promise

20. Have the characters kept or broken more promises?

Overall, I go for characters who keep their word, with the power to make plans and promises and act on them. I don’t play helpless or struggling very often, and when I do they rarely have much of a chance to promise anything.

As a GM do I especially punish treacherous PCs? Hmm...

Currently in the captain’s chair in Star Trek Adventures, and I keep offering to negotiate with Romulans invading our side of the Neutral Zone. Hopefully they’ll listen one of these times since the game is set just before Nemesis.

Tuesday, 18 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 18. Directness

18. Directness

18. A fast introduction of a new PC or player?

If I know players are likely to come and go I’ll try to have onboarding options and avoid cliffhangers. Emphasis on try.

Some games and settings are better for this than others, mechanically and narratively.

Overlooking the old “why do we trust this total stranger walking up to us in the middle of a secret mission?” and the magic power of the PC Glow...

D&D style fantasy calls it “West Marches” when every session begins and ends with the PCs in their base and venturing out from it. That cuts off things like multi-session dungeons and heavier ongoing plots unless you use the old un-narrative kludge of teleporting PCs in, but it’s a good idea for an open table.

Star Trek (a setting where characters can just teleport in and out mid adventure) would do this if it were realistic about its Luxury Space Communism and faster-than-light travel. Ha ha. Star Trek Adventures makes you pay player resources to get specialist NPC crew to go on camera, which is the model-the-show way of dealing with this. Star Fleet Battles RPG Prime Directive goes the other way and has a completely different command structure for its variant universe.

Mission: Impossible on TV started with selecting agents with relevant skillsets. I’ve seen someone suggest pregens in dossiers before.

(Note that the films acquire a consistent team as they go along, leading to narrative issues like needing something for both the computer geniuses to do.)

Last academic year I had a large amount of player turnover in Vampire: The Masquerade and that isn’t ideal for it or how I run it. Even then, if I’d known I could have tailored the chronicle setup to PCs being part of a group that could explain PCs coming and going and make sessions less serialised. Not ideal for personal horror or slow unravelling of mysteries but I could give it a go. Hmm.

My most setting-of-the-week one-and-done game is Doctor Who, which also has fast character creation... but following the series model really expects the PCs to be the one point of consistency.

If I want to go full “jump in any session” open table, I might go with a light superhero game like ICONS with a big team. Fast character creation, largely self-contained adventures. I’m sure threads would reappear at some point, but I can juggle and improvise so we don’t end up with too many “this should be a Penguin adventure but Batman’s player isn’t here” situations.

A large kitchen sink also helps if I want to come up with a largely standalone adventure every week.

Hey, Buffy is a light superhero game too! Albeit one that also expects a consistent Scooby Gang.

Monday, 17 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 17. Integrity

17. Integrity

17. A satisfying example of a character’s integrity.

Matthieu Lasalle, doctor turned street medic for the French Revolution turned vampire, died fighting for the rights of the people twice.

Alternate word:

Intensity

I suppose my games are fairly chill usually. I can dial it up for horror and the like, but usually have space for a tension breaker.

Sunday, 16 August 2026

RPGaDAY 2026 16. Composure

16. Composure

16. One thing that will cause a character to lose their composure?

Paris in Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels would love it if she could go a week without discovering some new atrocity being committed by somebody who’s supposed to be on the same side as her.

(So we’ve had questions about breaking Resolve and losing Composure now. How very Chronicles Of Darkness of us!)

Tuesday, 11 August 2026

V5: City Of Angels 40

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 40

After a summer hiatus. Paris went to what she thought was the least dangerous of three things she could do that night, found that was pretty wrong, and thanked someone she hates for finding a key piece of information and thus stopping a plan to make a deal with someone she hates more. So, ups and downs.

RPGaDAY 2026 11. Tact

11. Tact

11. A character made great by having or not having tact

Giles: “Cordelia, have you actually ever heard of tact?”

Cordelia: “Tact is just not saying true stuff. I’ll pass.”

Buffy The Vampire Slayer 2.18 Killed By Death

One of my Mage circle Didi’s main weapons is distracting opponents often by confusing or annoying them. She once defeated a probability-altering chaos mage by shouting obvious lies at him. “It’s Wednesday! Your shoes are untied!” Including ones she hoped he’d accidentally make happen. “I just won the lottery! I’m Mrs. Ryan Gosling!”

And after more than twenty-five years, still do I fondly recall the story of a campaign of British indie horror game Principia Malefex that ended early with one of the players having their character knock on a suspected cultist base door and ask “Excuse me, are you a cultist?”