What are y'all up to these days?

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I've wrapped up a semester long game of Mage (20th Anniversary ed) that was successful, now I'm planning something with Colonial Gothic and Lex Occultum. Both are new to me, but CG looks like it uses a more streamlined, lite system (which I am a fan of these days).

I say that then start reading Traveller threads here and now I'm torn! :smile:
 
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I've wrapped up a semester long game of Mage (20th Anniversary ed) that was successful, now I'm planning something with Colonial Gothic and Lex Occultum. Both are new to me, but CG looks like it uses a more streamlined, lite system (which I am a fan of these days).

I say that then start reading Traveller threads here and now I'm torn! :smile:
Ruuun Traveeellerrrr....youu knooow you waaant toooo:devil:!
 
The cat's out of the bag.

Andrews McMeel Publishing is entering the RPG market, and I am leading the effort as Executive Creative Director of Games! I'll be tasked to acquire new RPGs, and to grow the games division. So excited to be embarking on their expansion into a new category for AMU. This also means ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG will be getting a massive boost in business structure, team and scope.

Here's the official announcement: https://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/rpg-expert-forges-new-path-at-amu/
 
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So, since our face-to-face Boot Hill campaign ended, the only things I reffed were 5e D&D and Mothership, but none of my usual sweeping historical campaigns. I won't say I needed a break, but my creative fire was damped down.

But for the past several weeks, I've been catching up on gangster movies - Public Enemies, Road to Perdition, and especially Last Man Standing, Walter Hill's re-make of Yojimbo set in a border town during Prohibition - re-watching Boardwalk Empire, and reading a couple of books, the novel Moonshiner's Gold set in Twenties Panhandle Texas and Cowboys and Gangsters, a history of Prohibition on the US-Mexico border.

Make of that what you will.
 
But for the past several weeks, I've been catching up on gangster movies - Public Enemies, Road to Perdition, and especially Last Man Standing, Walter Hill's re-make of Yojimbo set in a border town during Prohibition - re-watching Boardwalk Empire, and reading a couple of books, the novel Moonshiner's Gold set in Twenties Panhandle Texas and Cowboys and Gangsters, a history of Prohibition on the US-Mexico border.

Make of that what you will.
9035
 
The cat's out of the bag.

Andrews McMeel Publishing is entering the RPG market, and I am leading the effort as Executive Creative Director of Games! I'll be tasked to acquire new RPGs, and to grow the games division. So excited to be embarking on their expansion into a new category for AMU. This also means ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG will be getting a massive boost in business structure, team and scope.

Here's the official announcement: https://www.andrewsmcmeel.com/rpg-expert-forges-new-path-at-amu/

Congrats, hopefully you can bring other talented designers more attention.
 
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Reading a bunch of old Marvel G.I. Joe comics to get ideas for running a mercenary/G.I. Joe sort of game, sort of along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger's team in Predator, likely set in the 1980s, with everyone taking a cool codename like Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Gung-Ho, and Scarlett. Toss in a little Expendables vibe as well. An international team of mercenaries taking on jobs where a country doesn't want to dirty its hands and wants plausible deniability, more or less. Not really sure what game to use yet. Current options are these:
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Recon might be too gritty. For Merc I may have to let players roll multiple sets of stats as it's a game where you can roll poorly enough that you don't qualify for anything. Dogs of War I haven't read yet. Rolling 2d6 and trying to get 9+ to succeed is easy enough to grasp, but I haven't learned the rest to see if it's something we'd like. Ideally the PCs will be competent and maybe just a tiny bit over-the-top in a 1980s action movie way, but not so much that it becomes stupid.
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Today I finished reading RuneQuest Glorantha, and I have to say, It's completely out of my comfort zone.

I don't remember reading a RPG that got me that mesmerized before... At first I was like, "cool, square earth, myth style, nice" but the more I read the less sense it made. So I read more, and than It started making sense again. Runes are awesome, cults concept are cool, spirit World literally is Mononoke style, I have never before been introduced to so many concepts in so little time. It truly felt magical.

It's been a while since I have this feeling of having no idea what my first scenario will be about.
I was thinking about letting the PC's deal with some raiders, but than I remembered It's like the quickstart adventure already starts. So maybe a spirit killing the harvest set by someone on a rival tribe might be a better start point...

At the end of the book we have the between adventure session, and I really liked It. Folks on the web have told me It comes from Pendragon, if Pendragon is more focused on this I will probably give it a chance in the future. Now I see that Crusader and Kings might have some influence from TTRPG's...
 
RQ is a great old system, lots of crunchy bits for combat scenes.

Glorantha as a setting can be totally immersive, it is up there with the great fantasy settings of literature.

The new edition of RQ is pretty good, a few new rules bolted onto the classic RQ rules. I wish that the classic rules could have been streamlined more, but at least the current edition is reasonably compatible with all the old classic resources.

Glorantha is presented beautifully in this edition; it's great to see RQ is back, and done so well :thumbsup:
 
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So, my group is gearing up for my red hand of doom game. I told them very specifically this was a good guy campaign.

Currently we have
  • a minotaur fighter/cleric of Kartikeya, Hindu god of war
  • a changeling paladin of Ganesha, Hindu god of knowledge
  • a edit:human /edit cavalier of an undetermined race
  • a changeling monk
for the love of all that is holy. wow.

i really altered the tone of the game when the paladin said hey I wanna do Ganesha. I decided that Hindu gods were quite prevalent and put in several. then i made a calendar (thank you donjon) and made the days of the week and the months according to several of the Baha'i months. then I put in two moons and used a couple of names for the Hindu god of the moon. Now I think the Empire (they are in the hinterlands, and not a part of it) is China-that-never-was
 
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Besides my free rpg day one shot, I'm going to run last year's one shot for some people on Discord 2 weeks before Free RPG Day. Never got to finish it on Free RPG Day due to time constraints, so looking forward to running the whole scenario this time
 
Reading a bunch of old Marvel G.I. Joe comics to get ideas for running a mercenary/G.I. Joe sort of game, sort of along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger's team in Predator, likely set in the 1980s, with everyone taking a cool codename like Snake-Eyes, Stalker, Gung-Ho, and Scarlett. Toss in a little Expendables vibe as well. An international team of mercenaries taking on jobs where a country doesn't want to dirty its hands and wants plausible deniability, more or less. Not really sure what game to use yet. Current options are these:
Recon might be too gritty. For Merc I may have to let players roll multiple sets of stats as it's a game where you can roll poorly enough that you don't qualify for anything. Dogs of War I haven't read yet. Rolling 2d6 and trying to get 9+ to succeed is easy enough to grasp, but I haven't learned the rest to see if it's something we'd like. Ideally the PCs will be competent and maybe just a tiny bit over-the-top in a 1980s action movie way, but not so much that it becomes stupid.
My guess is Dogs of W*A*R will do the job.
Trying Dogs of War tomorrow. A few rough edges need sanding down but the basic scenario is the start of Predator: the PCs are to be dropped off in the jungle by chopper and are tasked with rescuing some State Department staff (subject to change) from a terrorist group that has kidnapped them, etc. Everybody's doubling up on PCs and selecting one to use for the mission once I give the parameters. Codenames (subject to change) are:
  • Colt
  • Tarheel
  • Jalapeño
  • Icy Hot
  • Morphine
  • Killer
  • Shake-n-Bake
  • Grizzly
  • Ivy League
  • Greaseball
(I don't know if any of those have been used for G.I. Joe dolls but I like most of them.)

Came across this while looking for inspiration:
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That is some serious effort. I'd probably enjoy a G.I. Joe movie if it looked more like that than low-rent sci fi nonsense.
 
Prepping a 5e home brew. Set in a new island in the sea of swords and part of the moonshaes... Sort of.
It was a simple thing that grew into a 150 page setting document that is growing. Lol
 
Prepping a 5e home brew. Set in a new island in the sea of swords and part of the moonshaes... Sort of.
It was a simple thing that grew into a 150 page setting document that is growing. Lol
My setting efforts don't tend to go nearly as quickly. Kudos for taking the time to type it out:smile:!
 
Kudos for taking the time to type it out:smile:!

Psychologically, I can't take my own work seriously until I've typed it and have it saved in at least two places. The possibility of losing handwritten notes blocks my ability to run anything from them (unless we're talking about a total throwaway).

I think of when guillermo del Toro lost his hand-written/drawn notes for Pan's Labyrinth in the back of a cab and immediately decided the project was over. It only resumed when the cab driver went the extra mile to track him down and return the book to him.
 
Psychologically, I can't take my own work seriously until I've typed it and have it saved in at least two places. The possibility of losing handwritten notes blocks my ability to run anything from them (unless we're talking about a total throwaway).

I think of when guillermo del Toro lost his hand-written/drawn notes for Pan's Labyrinth in the back of a cab and immediately decided the project was over. It only resumed when the cab driver went the extra mile to track him down and return the book to him.
I've had to restart some projects several times due to losing the notes:smile:!
 
Found a nifty G.I. Joe card generator. Made a few just for fun. Resizing the images is a pain. Poor Jalapeño...the card generator erases the Ñ and makes it "JALAPEO" because it rejects the tilde. (These are not the actual PCs; I'm just seeing how it works with dummy information.)
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This weekend my "new" gaming group is celebrating one year of (mostly) consistent weekly D&D sessions! Our party is adventuring in Critical Role's Tal'Dorei setting, and currently our characters range anywhere from 7th to 9th level. I just ordered the special edition of Art & Arcana as a gift for our DM from our group, to show our appreciation for running an awesome game AND hosting every week for a year.

Still working on a rules set for my space opera noir setting, writing a novel based on it as well. The epic fantasy setting is on the back burner; two big projects at once is enough.
 
One of the interesting things about Larry Hama and G.I.Joe is that he based every character off a real person, usually always friends and acquaintances.
 
How do you like it? It looks very plain to me.

Tal'Dorei has a lot of adventure hooks to work with, and our DM is making good use of them. He's running a sandbox campaign and we've *always* got a full plate. We've got more quests and side quests than we can finish at the moment, and deciding which ones to handle first has sometimes been difficult. All of them are challenging; some of them are definitely in the "wait until we're higher level" category" but we can't put them off too long.

One thing this campaign isn't: dull. Not for a moment.
 
G.I. Joe cards have just enough space to serve as character sheets for Dogs of War. They helped everyone picture the PCs and get in character and making them was a ton of fun:
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Been running a Manimals adventure using Everywhen and my Manimals supplement. It's been a blast and felt very original TMNT.

Also, now I am actively writing again, I am finishing up Alien Empires for ION Guard and converting it all to Supers RED.
 
Mexico's last president's name being misspelled as Enrique Pena Nieto always made me chuckle.
Oddly enough, it allows accent marks in the fields for real names while rejecting them in codenames. Poor Omertà and Jalapeño feel a bit discriminated against.
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Everyone had two PCs...creating faux-Joes was a blast so we'll probably enlist additional team members just for fun even though all the bases are pretty well covered.
 
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and converting it all to Supers RED
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Friday game went off without a hitch. Everyone is playing counter type
  • my heterosexual life partner/edgelord is playing the minotaur flighter/cleric. he's better at using a shield than a spear, though he's the best in the party at any weapon. he's a cleric of Surya, Hindu god of light and protection, and has taken it upon himself to defend the...
  • elven evoker, being played by the berserker or rogue player. he's not tooooooo far out, since evoker is still big numbers, and I know he loves that, but playing a wizard is way out of his space. he managed to get off a lightning bolt and not hit the...
  • changeling monk, who was caught by a member of the monestary and told "join or punishment". we are doing some tuning on his character because I'm not super happy with the monk rules. Still, not any more tuning than is being done than on the...
  • changeling paladin of Ganesha. he's very excited for his character i think. very out of place for him as he's normally the bard/scoundrel sort of player, and frequently likes to hide. He did his job and stood in front, unlike the...
  • dragonborn thief/acrobat, being played by my resident "i should be playing paladins but I keep resisting it" guy.
the super "i swear i didn't read dragonlance, but I certainly did" guy playing a heavily mustachioed cavalier couldn't show due to a family thing (how dare you leave early the next morning to go to vegas with your wife without the 3 kids under 5).

They got ambushed by some hobgoblins, who frankly had trouble with their armor. however, a few got away, and will be reporting back that they need to bring arbalests.

One of the highlights was a thing I made up - you get 2 rolls on the "rank 1" magic item table and 1 roll on the "rank 2" magic item table. every person. they could trade after, and a result of "cursed item" was treated as a null (i'm not that mean, though maybe I should be). it turned out to be pretty fun, though a little long due to potions and scrolls. but someone did pull a necklace of adaptation (way more useful than they think, the first dragon is a green one), a peltast shield +2 (i got a frowny face for it being "merely" a peltast shield, but then they saw it was quite a bit better and were happy, and it went to the F/C), and a ball and chain of giant slaying (there are giants coming, so handy) that went to the guy who went off with his "ball and chain".

other than a little tuning, I think it went very well. the Ganeshan's horse is a meaty clydesdale sized thing that moves like an arabian.
 
I just met IRL a player from another city. Amusingly, I met her* at an English language forum, though we're both native Bulgarian speakers.
She had never used a system in her life, and in fact had some issues imagining how the whole "offline playing" worked:tongue:.
So I took it upon me to show her how to play RPGs offline, and what those number things were for:devil:
So, she wants to play urban fantasy? Have no fear, m'lady! I've got just the game** for it...accidentally, it's on my phone***, too!

So of course we rolled her a character, or rather I rolled her and gave her the numbers, so she started with an urban witch (her choice) fashioned after one of her favourite characters***** in a NY-based series. And off we went, with her getting her first random event******: "You share the drink of a character from a non-human race, and learn that race's magic".
In this case, I decided to give her not a new kind of magic, but +1 Magic and the ability of Fey Sight.
And off we went...first scene: the spirit of a murdered guy comes to her and asks her for help finding his body. Why? So he could pass Beyond, of course!
He'd lost conscience when being knocked out, and so lost track of his body. Which was dumped somewhere after he dropped out of it, because it was no longer alive.

I think she was intrigued. We'll see if I can teach her to run RPGs The Right Way over the Internet, so I could direct people from her city to her...
If not, I'd have to find her a group. Shouldn't be too hard, there were quite a few groups from the same city last I checked!
Admittedly, that was a couple years ago, but still. The only reason I'd rather have her run games is because I think she might be a better Referee that way:gunslinger:!

*She PMed me upon noticing a post where I mentioned where I live.
**"Now forget those numbers until I say we need them! The essence of playing is thus: I tell you what the situation is. You tell me what your character does. I tell you what happens, and if I've got any doubts, we roll. That's where the numbers come into play: the higher, the better your odds of pulling it successfully in a tight situation."
***Cepheus Modern, if anyone doubted me:grin:!
****Believe it or not, it was an accident. Of course, I've got Cepheus Engine, Cepheus Light, Cepheus Faster Than Light, Adventurer1-3, Worlds Apart, Classic Traveller, and a few supplements for those two (like Fast Magic, Low Tech Weapons, and the fantasy, pulp and nor supplements)...so NOT having Cepheus Modern would have been weird!
*****The main character from Sex and the City. I don't judge...but I'd note that nobody has mentioned Sex and the City in the "things you like" thread, yet:evil:!
******Rolled using the Worlds Apart table.
 
We wrapped up Masks of Nyarlathotep yesterday. It took about 10 months, playing mostly weekly. Lauren did a great job running it, with lots of great props and roleplaying. Definitely, the best Cthulhu Mythos game I've ever played. My character hit 0 sanity right at the end as we were facing down M'Weru and Nyny. It's going to be hard to follow something that epic. Either I'm going to be running Beyond the Wall or Matt will be running Deadlands.
 
I just met IRL a player from another city. Amusingly, I met her* at an English language forum, though we're both native Bulgarian speakers.
She had never used a system in her life, and in fact had some issues imagining how the whole "offline playing" worked:tongue:.
So I took it upon me to show her how to play RPGs offline, and what those number things were for:devil:
So, she wants to play urban fantasy? Have no fear, m'lady! I've got just the game** for it...accidentally, it's on my phone***, too!

So of course we rolled her a character, or rather I rolled her and gave her the numbers, so she started with an urban witch (her choice) fashioned after one of her favourite characters***** in a NY-based series. And off we went, with her getting her first random event******: "You share the drink of a character from a non-human race, and learn that race's magic".
In this case, I decided to give her not a new kind of magic, but +1 Magic and the ability of Fey Sight.
And off we went...first scene: the spirit of a murdered guy comes to her and asks her for help finding his body. Why? So he could pass Beyond, of course!
He'd lost conscience when being knocked out, and so lost track of his body. Which was dumped somewhere after he dropped out of it, because it was no longer alive.

I think she was intrigued. We'll see if I can teach her to run RPGs The Right Way over the Internet, so I could direct people from her city to her...
If not, I'd have to find her a group. Shouldn't be too hard, there were quite a few groups from the same city last I checked!
Admittedly, that was a couple years ago, but still. The only reason I'd rather have her run games is because I think she might be a better Referee that way:gunslinger:!

*She PMed me upon noticing a post where I mentioned where I live.
**"Now forget those numbers until I say we need them! The essence of playing is thus: I tell you what the situation is. You tell me what your character does. I tell you what happens, and if I've got any doubts, we roll. That's where the numbers come into play: the higher, the better your odds of pulling it successfully in a tight situation."
***Cepheus Modern, if anyone doubted me:grin:!
****Believe it or not, it was an accident. Of course, I've got Cepheus Engine, Cepheus Light, Cepheus Faster Than Light, Adventurer1-3, Worlds Apart, Classic Traveller, and a few supplements for those two (like Fast Magic, Low Tech Weapons, and the fantasy, pulp and nor supplements)...so NOT having Cepheus Modern would have been weird!
*****The main character from Sex and the City. I don't judge...but I'd note that nobody has mentioned Sex and the City in the "things you like" thread, yet:evil:!
******Rolled using the Worlds Apart table.
Update to the above: it seems she liked it and would like to learn the rules. Sent her a link to Cepheus Modern.
We'll see how it goes and work from there:devil:!
 
Chilling a bit at the moment. LARP games still running but we're down on numbers (combination of it being high LARP season here and the fact that the students are starting to go home for the summer).

Doing some boardgaming over the summer, running Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor next acadmmic year.
 
Had to cancel two ongoing campaigns. Too busy with rapid preparation for a job application that will change my life.

I decided that I greatly dislike running games via Roll20 + Discord. I just... too many complications, surprisingly. I prefer in-person. Hence Monday nights are done, sadly. Very good group. I will miss them.

The other group was great, been playing for about 2 years with them at a local shop. But I'm just tired of all the effort with little in return. Plus not sure if they like me very much outside of the game. That's fine, but it's getting awkward knowing these guys for 2 years, seeing every week, and still getting excluded from their "extracurricular" get togethers. Especially when they're talking about it in front of me. Like, I get the hint: you don't really like me outside of gaming, I get it, don't worry, I won't follow you to the bar afterwards. I'm not obtuse, I just haven't figured out WHY they don't really like me...

On the horizon: hacked Labyrinth Lord/Beyond the Wall for my son and some other kids. Very excited about that!
 
*****The main character from Sex and the City. I don't judge...but I'd note that nobody has mentioned Sex and the City in the "things you like" thread, yet:evil:!

If applying a supernatural template to your favorite TV series character is wrong, I don’t want to be right! (“OMG Jake Peralta from Brooklyn 99 is such a Malkavian.”)

Also, congratulations on bringing in new blood into the fold! One of us, one of us...
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