The Year 2000

Twenty-five years ago, the Y2K problem didn’t shut the modern world down. Because people worked the problem.

Old Men Running The World

A gaming blog from Jim Rossignol and Kieron Gillen (Rock Paper Shotgun, DIE and the DIE RPG) on assorted RPG ideas, systems and styles.

Things Of The Year 2024

Things Of The Year 2024

Film: Abigail

TV series (new): Agatha All Along

TV series (returning): Doctor Who

Album: The Cure, Songs Of A Lost World

Happy birthday Mum!

What If...?

What If... Marvel’s What If...?, a series that could mess with variants forever, could sustain three seasons?

Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter saw a century, and had a hand in making it better.

Terry Robinson

Terry Robinson, co-host of Mage: The Podcast and prolific Storytellers Vault writer, has died.

10 Buffy hooks from the Paramore Eras setlist

Happy birthday Hayley Williams!

Paramore have been supporting Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, so ten adventures from their Edinburgh Sunday setlist, using some titles again but trying not to do the same idea.

Hard Times

The Slayer finds herself yoinked back to the worst day of her life. Can she make it better? And if she changes it, what will that do?

Heart Of Glass

Magically immortal and not a great person. But not so bad he can just have his heart torn out Adam style...?

Burning Down The House

A supposedly haunted house at the edge of town. A big party breaking in. A demonstration that it ain’t just supposedly. Can the gang get everybody out, including themselves?

Still Into You

A Scooby’s ex shows up... the ghost of a tragically died kind of ex.

Forgiveness

A friend of the Slayer or a Scooby’s relative who freaked about the whole magic-is-real thing now wants to apologise... and maybe get something magical working for them.

Brick By Boring Brick

Killing a Slayer is good in the short term but another will pop up somewhere, even if not locally. Putting a Slayer in a secret prison for a long life...

The Only Exception

The Slayer falls in love, for realsies this time. Can she tell this one person?

Misery Business

Demons bottling negative emotions have come to this more-than-averagely-suffering town to get the ingredients they need. Of course if they can make hero types feel crappy as well that’s premium grade sorrow. Now how to do that...?

Ain’t It Fun

Monster hunters from out of town who think this is a good time. And for them it is, and for some of the gang this free and easy life might appeal.

This Is Why

After a hard fight, maybe a painful loss, a reminder of why this has to be done, and someone actually appreciating it.

Well, the Chocolate Orange is gone.

Christmas 2024

Hellos online and on the phone, Doctor Who 2024 and Furiosa on shiny discs, the last of the first three Star Wars: The High Republic books, The Ones, the Scream game, Abigail and Lisa Frankenstein also on shiny disc, a very loud toy Tricorder, soup and air fryer success, a pen in a cracker alongside a thing we can’t work out.

Joy To The World and Vengeance Most Fowl (quite weird hearing somebody you’ve met in a major role in Wallace & Gromit) and the fairly loosely adapted Ghost Story and an opportunity to watch Raiders Of The Lost Ark which of course I’ve been able to watch whenever I want since we got a video recorder but it’s the principle of the thing.

Happy Holidays!

So here it is, Merry Christmas...

Adventure Calendar 2024 24: SLEIGH WARS

Adventure Calendar 2024

24: SLEIGH WARS

SLEIGH WARS: a boardgame from issue 72 of White Dwarf volume 1 about four very different Santas fighting to deliver gifts.

“Mummy, if there really is a Santa Claus, and he always brings people the presents they want most, how come I get landed with schlock like this every Christmas?”

Ever wondered why? Well, the answer is that it became obvious long ago that there was no way that Santa could cope with the increasing volume of deliveries, and so the powers that be advertised for additional franchise holders, with the result that there are now four Santas rather than one.

Santa Claus, Anti-Claus, General Nicholas B. Claus III Jr. and The Ongoing Spirit Of Christmas Where It’s At At This Moment In Time

The trouble is, they all have very different ideas of what the job involves, and of the right presents for people...

What else could it possibly be? A formative RPG magazine issue and the basis of a Ghostbusters adventure...

Several Santas racing to deliver gifts has more recently been done by Ravensburger in the rather more wholesome Santa’s Rooftop Scramble but they’re all multiples of the regular Santa and they don’t have Xmas Pudding Mines..

Multiple Santas and newbies like Jack Skellington who might not have the right idea, heavy backup and other explanations for how Santa can deliver so many presents are common in Christmas media, and you could base a holiday one-shot on the likes of Prep & Landing, but most of them aren’t quite so vicious. Or such a clear warning about the dangers of careless subcontracting.

I hope Santa is good to you this year!

Adventure Calendar 2024 23: 13 Beavers

Adventure Calendar 2024

23: 13 Beavers

13 Beavers: Advance from your dam to Beaver Paradise through guessing higher or lower on cards, banking progress, and dealing with the addition of Danger cards.

A new game I had never heard of until I looked at a few family board game roundup articles for this very purpose.

It sounds like a mix of Play Your Cards Right, Snakes And Ladders, a fishing minigame and the Bank bit from The Weakest Link. But with beavers!

Not to be confused with the live-action Looney Tunes film Hundreds of Beavers. And yes I will be asking which is which in the Conpulsion quiz.

Determined workers dealing with various setbacks as they try to build a megastructure could be pretty gameable in any way from the Doozers in Fraggle Rock to The Wages Of Fear, and if you make them small animals it works in a TOON-y or cosy style.

What If...? Season 3

What If...? the animated series has largely avoided the comics’ frequent fallbacks of everything returning to the sacred timeline or everybody dying, but the short time does result in the other issue of huge changes out of too little change. Mech Avengers versus Kaiju Hulk Offshoot feels more like a whole variant setting.

On the other hand, I did F YEAH at the end of the trailer.

I thought Hollywood Agatha got too much Eternals in my Agatha All Along, but did appreciate having the Hollywoodland sign and then not destroying the “land” part in the supers battle.

And then the first dramatic episode has the Celestial emergence break the world... and then goes to Ironheart versus Mysterio. (Did like the relentless slow silent Vision.)

And then that F YEAH trailer moment is... not the basis of an episode.

Adventure Calendar 2024 22: Codenames

Adventure Calendar 2024

22: Codenames

Codenames: Two teams compete by each having a “spymaster” give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. The other players on the team attempt to guess their team’s words while avoiding the words of the other team.

A recent addition to geeky friend and family gatherings, and hunting spies is pretty gameable.

Being nice and fast, the method of working out codes could work as a puzzle albeit again with player skill rather than character skill.

Adventure Calendar 2024 21: Carcassone Winter Edition

Adventure Calendar 2024

21: Carcassone Winter Edition

Carcassone Winter Edition: Place tiles, build features and put down Meeple followers to build medieval towns. But in winter. With a few other tweaks to the summery base game.

Gingerbread Men optional.

The simplest wintry idea - how does your regular setting get through the cold times?

This could be anything from a chance to get festive or the mild inconvenience of the cold adding to a regular adventure, up to a setting-defining issue. Ever run a game all about winter?

Midwinter

Low the tide, low the light

Comes the sun again

Thea Gilmore, Sol Invictus

Adventure Calendar 2024 20: Apples To Apples

Adventure Calendar 2024

20: Apples To Apples

Apples To Apples: Everyone starts with a handful of red noun or descriptor cards like “apple pie”, “caffeine” or “Humphrey Bogart”. One player per round draws a green card with an adjective to compare to, like “American”, “bold” or “cranky”. Everyone else plays one of their descriptor cards and typically argues for why it’s the best comparison, and the green card player judges the winner. (While it can be played without table talk, entertaining arguments for bad matches can win out over actually good matches.) Judging goes around the table until someone hits the required score, a timer runs out, or everyone has had a few turns.

If you can try "as American as Saturn" you'll go far.

The fourth common family board game that should go here is probably Trivial Pursuit but I don’t have nostalgia or an idea for it and while I’ve only played A2A with friends I do like it and it’s celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary so here we are.

Could this work as a game mechanic? Insert joke about arguing for the relevance of FATE Aspects here.

How would this work in an adventure? Maybe a spell needs a sympathetic magic component, or a fairytale king demands a suitable tribute or, hey, Christmas present and the PCs have to bullshit their way around it like The Emperor’s New Clothes, or that time Bugs Bunny was the main ingredient in a royal banquet.

Adventure Calendar 2024 19: Cluedo

Adventure Calendar 2024

19: Cluedo

Cluedo: A classic country house murder mystery where players have to identify who killed the victim, where, and with which weapon. Motive is left vague.

You can probably figure out how a gamified version of the country house murder mystery could be the basis of an RPG adventure. Hence the spinoff gams with the same case, the film, TV series both game shows and fully narrative, books and plays.

As well as versions for a wide variety of licences including D&D and Critical Role (but weirdly still not Scream).

See also murder mystery parties and related sorta-LARPs.

And RPGs just for this, like A Weekend In The Country.

Cluedo is a pun on Clue and Ludo. Known in the US simply as Clue, but I always think of Clue as the film, a classic dark comedy with a rising body count and three solutions that (I think) all work.

I hated her SO MUCH it - it - the - it - Flames - Flames -
FLAMES... on the side of my face...

Getting the PCs to investigate while they’re also suspects might be the tricky part. You could follow the example of some of the licenced games where they change the central mystery as the characters involved wouldn’t go around murdering each other.

Or follow the example of the 2019 D&D version where one of the PCs is a doppelganger, but secret-monster RPG sessions often get a bit more like The Thing in their solution.

Adventure Calendar 2024 18: Scrabble

Adventure Calendar 2024

18: Scrabble

Scrabble: Place letter tiles from a random selection on a board (with spaces that increase point values) to make words, including letters already laid down as the game proceeds.

One we’ve actually played around here. May lead to some arguing about proper word use (assuming nobody learned the official dictionary... possibly for languages they don’t actually speak) but has a nice clear end point probably within the hour, can be a bit strategic, and can be educational too. Now has a cooperative version, which might result in less arguing... or more.

And you can play it IC.

Spelling words is a classic puzzle but can mix up player and character skill - Indiana Jones is established as knowing Latin and Greek, but does his player? And as Ash Williams knows mispronouncing a spell is going to cause problems too.