Sunday, 22 October 2023
WODtober 2023 22. Heart Of The Forest
WODtober 2023 22. Heart Of The Forest
“Why are you here, dead man? You would ask us for help?”
Cat People 1982 reference entirely deliberate
Here my heart, so filled with loving
Cried out and told of wonders that I feel
VNV Nation, Tempest
Saturday, 21 October 2023
WODtober 2023 21. First Bite Tastes Best
WODtober 2023 21. First Bite Tastes Best
“Of all the things God says we can’t eat any more, wouldn’t you make an exception for apples?”
Just how deep do you believe
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Nine Inch Nails, The Hand That Feeds
Friday, 20 October 2023
WODtober 2023 20. Night Road
WODtober 2023 20. Night Road
“My mother told me never to do this.”
The Hitcher
I’m giving you a night call to tell you how I feel
I want to drive you through the night, down the hills
Kavinsky, Nightcall
Loki 2.02: 1893
Love an old-timey piano version of a theme.
Is causing the Bootstrap Paradox ever a good idea?
Is this the last we see of Jonathan Majors? Apparently not yet, but hopefully soon.
On the other hand, more of Mobius geeking out about time travel.
Thursday, 19 October 2023
WODtober 2023 19. Companion
WODtober 2023 19. Companion
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
I drive on her streets ’cause she’s my companion
I walk through her hills ’cause she knows who I am
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Under The Bridge
The Watch House at twenty
The first session of my longest ever RPG series The Watch House was this evening in 2003.
Based on the then recently ended Buffy The Vampire Slayer which I cam to a new society looking to run the game of with one player guaranteed, and swiping its premise from a game called The Night Watch by Steve Dee, it was about trainee Watchers and other young people they had to keep an eye on studying at Cambridge - as opposed to Steve’s use of Oxford, so I got a few M. R. James jokes instead of Tolkien jokes.
I wasn’t expecting it to go much past a semester, as my games usually did, so I was a bit surprised when we got to season seven after five and a half years. I’d set the game starting in 1998 because the Watcher power structure got hit by the plot in Buffy season seven so I didn’t want to run it in the aftermath and I joked that we’d have to deal with that when we got there... and then we did. Of course the main effect of the period setting was knowing which songs we could reference when the characters were listening to music.
It ran so long because we had an enthusiastic group of players, the Buffy system didn’t get in the way, the setting let us do all kinds of weird ideas, and the series’ sense of humour meant that we could often have the kind of geeky referencing and undercutting of villains common to RPGs become in-character dialogue.
The college setting and children of Watchers expected to take up the family obligation and inheritors of other obligations too meant it developed an actual theme too, the freedom of student life versus the responsibilities and expectations of home.
And since I was running at uni and we were generally in our twenties when we started it also got a bit autobiographical at times for a lot of us. I apologise again to everybody who sustained my personal in-my-twenties as a result.
There are things in-game I’d do differently too – if I’d know he’d be playing the same character five and a half years later I would have let David make his own, Jamie’s character was revealed as a werewolf early because another player couldn’t let it lie out of character, and we really could have dialled down the attempt to recreate Buffy season two when Derek’s character became a vampire. But all things considered, not a lot.
The show’s season structure definitely helped for that long run, letting different characters take up more or less of the spotlight as they faced a variety of Big Bads. The session more-or-less as episode format gave us some focus as well. It sometimes led to long sessions that ended in the pub after we got shooed out of the student union, and sometimes to walking home and chatting through the night as we did. And to ‘plotting and scheming’ meetups between sessions, which for a while turned into taking the piss out of that week’s episode of Torchwood while sharing a bottle of wine.
And it let us get experimental and weird with the format at times too. We spent weeks planning the “behind the scenes” episode where most of the characters were revealed to be actors playing them on TV, with John and David playing the unaffected characters given only a small clue this might be an odd session. This is the kind of thing you can only do if you know the players will have fun with it, and Cat prepared a get-out in case it didn’t work.
And I got surprised as well - I dropped one of my possible plots because Stu had his character’s envy fuel a magic spell that meant we could no longer take the possible villain seriously. Wanting the crush to see the handsome confident guy making moves on her as he did while grumbling about how handsome and confident he was led to her instead seeing him as a superhero called “Captain Rugged - the man with the face!”
Which also led to one of several examples of using actors as visual references for player and non-player characters for the “show” that was either prescient or skill in typecasting - Captain Rugged! was “cast” with Henry Cavill after his first shot at playing Superman but years before he got the role.
(And don’t get me started on how many weird one-shot episodes Supernatural did after us. Okay, sure, we in turn swiped them from comics and other TV shows and realistically that’s where they stole them from, but still...)
It led to me making my first video edit for a game, a laborious but thrifty Christmas present for the group, as well as customising action figures which was laborious but also not thrifty, and miniatures for the final session in the spring of 2009.
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| Milli by Storn Cook |
I also typed up Actual Play reports, back when you had to type that kind of thing, which led to us having fans!
Something else I’d do differently if I’d known we’d go so long, I would have recorded the sessions... though typing does mean you don’t get to hear how often I’d say “uh...”
Of course its biggest legacy is that it’s how Lucy and Doug met, so it’s the only game I’ve run that helped lead to a marriage and children.
Wednesday, 18 October 2023
V5: The Crowded Streets 1.02
Made a new vampire’s first hunt super awkward. Not proud.
Okay, actually proud.
Conpulsion 2024
Conpulsion 2024, March 30-31st.
Easter!
Quiz picture round might be about bunnies in RPGs as a result.
WODtober 2023 18. Weapon Of Choice
WODtober 2023 18. Weapon Of Choice
“They called it the Peacemaker. I always liked that.”
With thanks to the prop team for Near Dark.
Don’t be shocked by the tone of my voice
Check out my new weapon, weapon of choice
Fatboy Slim, Weapon Of Choice
Tuesday, 17 October 2023
WODtober 2023 17. Object Of Desire
WODtober 2023 17. Object Of Desire
His old friend seemed to like this one. He wondered if he knew what she was.
Desire, desire
Storm of the heart
Zola Jesus, Desire
He was Iron Man
In the midst of celebrating the return of everyone taken from us by Thanos five years ago, we must take a moment to mourn those who sacrificed everything to make it happen.
Part of the journey is the end.
Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, is reported to have died in the campaign as well, but we have no confirmed date.
Our thoughts are with their family, friends, fellow Avengers and all they saved and helped.
The World Below
The World Below, dark dungeon fantasy using Storypath Ultra, now at Backerkit from Onyx Path.
Gargoyles
Stone by day, warriors by night - live by action? Gargoyles seems pretty animation-specific and like it would have to change a lot to work in non-animated form.
Monday, 16 October 2023
WODtober 2023 16. Animal Instincts
WODtober 2023 16. Animal Instincts
“Kitty! I’m sorry, she’s usually fine with strangers...”
Instinct keeps me running
Iggy Pop, Instinct
Sunday, 15 October 2023
WODtober 2023 15. Dark Schemes
WODtober 2023 15. Dark Schemes
Jonas looked suspiciously at his opponent. Why let himself fall into check so easily?
Does my prayer fit in
With your scheme of things?
David Bowie, Word On A Wing
Boys From County Hell
31 Days Of Horror 13
Boys From County Hell (2020)
Trailer that sort of sets the tone, contains an impressive number of F-bombs for under two minutes, shows one of the twists and gives away my favourite joke
In a dead-end town whose only claim to fame is a local legend that might have inspired Dracula, the source of the legend is about to be knocked down to build a bypass. The general description and the trailer make it sound like a Tremors / Grabbers gory comedy take on vampires, but while that’s generally true it’s not so raucous throughout as there’s a much darker subplot in there too.
The medium: A Film4 Film Fear premiere, and presumably judging by the trailer it’s on Shudder as well.
Saturday, 14 October 2023
WODtober 2023 14. Lines Drawn In Blood
WODtober 2023 14. Lines Drawn In Blood
Mo’s friends helped her find her sire, and let her decide what to do with him.
They’ll tell you I don’t care anymore
And I hope you’ll know that's a lie
’Cause I’ve found what I have been waiting for
But to get there means crossing a line
Mike Shinoda, Crossing A Line
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