When I tweeted about working on this during the weekend my friend Daniel Perez recommended I write down the 10 most important points of the campaign and allow the rest to flow through the game. I think he called it his less is more philosophy. That is some great advice but like I told him, I used to write 40+ pages introductions to games, so these shorter introductions ARE my less is more.

I typically write introductions to my campaigns, in a way I think my players expect it. Of course they are terrific at writing their own stories based on what I write and adding their own details to the tapestry. I got a great group of players!

Here is the official timeline of the world, the facts known to the general population, not the secret history of the Kindred and other supernatural creatures. I’ll share that on a future post. Hope you like it. I think it can be the timeline for a cyberpunk game without vampire. I think it goes on without saying this is all fictional and expresses no political agendas nor do I desire any harm to befall any real world figures mentioned here, this is just fiction. We don’t need authorities monitoring the blog!

Without further ado, The Story of New Uruk

US Economic collapse (2013-2016)

The US economy suffers a downturn, India, Brazil, the Republic of Ireland and the four Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) emerge as economic superpowers.

The breaking of the EU and the creation of the EIBC (2016)

The Republic of Ireland abandons the European Union, causing fractures and dissension in the organization and plunging the economy of Europe into a tailspin. Ireland joins the Eire-India-Brazil Cooperative Consortium (EIBC).

The African Wars (2017)

President Romney is visiting the African Initiative Industrial Center in the city of Wilmington, Delaware. Built as part of his re-industrialization of America initiative, African natural resources are brought over to the United States of America for processing and manufacture. International conglomerates are perceived as exploiting Africans with the help of its governments. A series of bombs by African rebels and sympathizers cause widespread destruction in the city and President Romney is injured, dying soon after. Vice President Gingrich is sworn in as President and declares war on the rebels. Thus begins the Africa Wars.

The Mexico-Venezuela War (2019)

With more and more US troops deployed in Africa and a worsening oil crisis, oil tankers flying the Mexican flag are detained in Venezuela accused of buying oil illegally. Mexican Special Forces liberate the ships but soon Venezuela declares war on Mexico, dragging most of Central America into the conflict. Aggressions escalate over seven months and after the Venezuelan carpet bombing of Mexico City a Coalition of Mexican, US, Brazilian and Argentinean armed forces invade Venezuela and depose its president. The invading forces remain in the country to assure a peaceful transition, but are accused of exploiting the oil resources of Venezuela. The United Nations does nothing to Intervene and many countries leave the organization.

The first female US President and the Race to Mars (2020)

New York State Governor Yolanda Newman runs a campaign promising to restore the US economy and end the African Wars, winning by a landslide.

The EIBC Space Agency (EIBC-SP) announces their plan to establish a permanent Moon colony as a stepping stone for the eventual exploration of Mars within the next twenty years.

The end of the African Wars and the NYC Pandemic (2021)

Yolanda Newman is sworn in as President of the United States and fulfills her promise of ending the African Wars. By the end of the year as the last POW return home after the armistice the US economy shows signs of recovery and Americans look with optimism at the decade ahead. Then the Pandemic of 2012 begins in New York City. Panic grows and the city is placed under martial law and quarantined by the end of the year. Other US metropolitan areas are quarantined but the infection is controlled quickly in America and Europe.

The year of the Red Plague (2022)

Mexico and Canada are the only other two counties in America which suffer major outbreaks. As tensions grown in quarantined New York unidentified terrorist strike, they release a biological weapon, thought to be the cause of the initial Pandemic outbreak, killing 96% of the remaining population of the quarantined zone. Called the Red Plague because victims hemorrhage massively before dying, it decimates New York City and surrounding areas, millions die, and authorities declare the zone a biological hazard, condemning the city and abandoning it. The economy of the state and its neighbors collapses, causing mass migration and widespread fear.

The Pandemic hits Asia the hardest, with China the most affected, millions die and Chinese prosperity is dealt a devastating blow.

The reconstruction… (2023-2045)

President Newman refuses to let these events define her presidency and launches a massive reconstruction initiative. Wilmington, Delaware is reconstructed and former New York, Connecticut, Long Island and New Jersey residents are all granted incentives to relocate.

The city is rebuilt via a massive federal funds influx, the architecture a mixture of classic and cutting edge, led by the Wilmington Reconstruction Endeavour Director, famed architect of mixed Iraqi and Jewish ancestry, Hassid Rosenberg.

The New York Stock Exchange officially relocates to the rebuilt city, and it becomes a melting pot of many cultures, with a growing Muslim and Jewish community. Following a citizen’s referendum Wilmington is renames New Uruk.

The crash of 2046 and its aftermath… (2046-2060)

The EIBC-SP Moon Base is fully functional and plans for the Mars Mission begin…

Despite the best effort of President Newman and those that followed her, regional conflict across the globe, worsening climate change, a ravaged ecosystem and economic instability bring about an economic collapse that reverberates across the globe. The poor become poorer while the rich become entrenched in the towers of privilege. Many projects in New Uruk remain unfinished and the decay of the world infiltrates the new city. Such in the world of 2060!

Ok that’s the timeline… What you think? I look forward to your input and opinions.

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1. Cyberpunk!
2. Hacking in Cyberpunk games
3. Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition now available at DriveThruRPG

Recently I posted about my interest in running a Vampire the Masquerade game. I’m reading the 20^th anniversary book and all sorts of idea are percolating in my head. One of them is how to bring all the characters together. Games such as Vampire where characters have so many built in conflicts it can be particularly difficult, but this consideration is important for any game. Unless all you adventures begin with “You are all together in a bar…”

For the Vampire game I have been considering various options:

• The characters are all neonate vampires, recently embraced but their siresare nowhere to be found. Then there are two options stemming from this…
  • The characters are all from different clans, adding to the mystery, why would such a diverse group of vampires embrace these people and disappear?
  • Or perhaps they are all Caitiff, maybe even fourteenth generation.
• All the characters share a common benefactor an autarkis who the character’s sires all owe favors. He or she has taken the characters under his wing. But why?

 Those are just two ideas, but by their very definition they will limit the options available for players from the get go. Be it for Vampire or many other games I feel some trepidation when I do this. I understand that limiting character options can establish the tone and feel of the campaign, and if this comes out from an open discussion and agreement between all parties, players and game master, it can be a great thing. But when it’s a unilateral decision it can be frustrating.

Mind you I have done it, and when I play fantasy, which is a genre I play so often and that we have played so much, placing limits doesn’t quiet bother me as much. The players have tried many options in fantasy games. And even then if the player has some really interesting concept that may stretch these limits I’ll consider it.

Let me explain my rationale. I am a firm believer that all parties in a game should have fun, and for many players making the character they envision is part of that fun. Playing just what you want, within the limits of the game, can be terribly exciting and satisfying. If as a GM I limit these options from the beginin, then I am truncating the fun even before the game begins. As a GM I should be able to account for different player styles, interest and character types.

And then there is the fact that when we get to play Vampire it will more than likely be a short mini-campaign, in a game I have not previously run, and which many players have not played. I think limiting their options may shortchange them from the Masquerade experience. So I’ll find a way to bring the characters together without limiting them rule wise. As a Storyteller that will be my responsibility.

How do you feel about limiting player options? How do you go about it? I’d love to know!

PS – I didn’t even notice that my previous post was number 200. Wow how time flies. Thank you all for reading!

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In all sincerity I knew what the quote was about, I remember hearing it back then. The link to Wikipedia above explains that the origin of the “thousand points of light” is from the Magician’s Apprentice by CS Lewis. But the D&D points of light campaign is another matter entirely. When I first read of the concept in the run up to D&D 4th edition I was intrigued. But I have a long running campaign and the idea of the points of light style game really did not mesh well with the world I had created over 20+ years.

Every edition change entails some mechanical changes in ongoing campaigns. If you consider my world was first played in D&D Basic, and then went on to be adapted in AD&D 1st and 2nd editions, D&D 3rd edition and 3.5, you’ll see I’m no stranger to change. However I don’t like hand waving stuff that is an integral part of the campaigns consistency. If dwarves could not be magic users before, why can they be now?

So I like to create in game rationales for this type of changes. The change from AD&D 2nd edition to D&D 3rd edition was easy since the games where set in the same world but in distant continents. Still I created in game explanation for many changes. When D&D 4th was coming out I was fully on board and while I was unsure how the whole points of light concept would carry though I was ready for other changes, tieflings were already in my campaign since 2nd edition, they looked different but that was not a problem per se. Dragonborn where another matter, so even before I made the rule change I began to work a rationale of where the race would come from. I was set! All that was left was for D&D 4th ed to come out.

And then I read the books. Don’t get me wrong I liked D&D 4th edition, I still do. It’s a game with a clear purpose, delivers well what it’s intended to be, and it certainly dared to sacrifice some sacred cows I thought they’d never touch. But I could tell this was a different game, that its feel and game play would be different from what I was used to, so I decided NOT to jump in into my campaign right away and instead do a trial run using the points of light idea.

That turned into our 7+ month D&D 4th edition campaign. We played weekly during that time and went all through the heroic tier and into paragon. Those where some turbulent months, with rebellions at the table over the system, some players disliking it so much they quit the game they have been playing with me for decades, exploring the tools the system provided, and telling a pretty entertaining story along the way. Ultimately we decided the system was not for us and moved on to Pathfinder.

With D&D Next coming up I’m suddenly thinking about adaptations all over again, I am not sure I will switch my campaign if I play it. IF I get to participate in the playtest (WotC pick me, pick me! I only bash you semi-regularly!) I will most thatn likely create a mini-campaign just like I did for 4th edition.

This all gets back to MY points of light eventually… My ruminations on the matter made me dig out the little document I created as an introduction to the campaign when we started playing D&D 4th edition. Coming from a game where I handed out a LOT of long documents and complex handouts I tried to keep it short and simple, asked each player for a two sentence description of their character and to bring an image to the game. I then handed each of them a piece of paper with a secret their character knew. Nice and simple…

Here is the text of the handout I gave to the players that fateful night in 2008. I’m not reproducing it exactly as I gave it to them since back the I used some art I found out there in the Internet and I have NO idea who the artists are. But there is a small old-school map I made for the game. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful, or at least fun. Let me know what you think…

The Town of New Crosspointe

The town of New Crosspointe was founded upon the ruins of the old town of Cross Point on the 84th year of the rule of the Osterios Family, settled by missionaries from the Temple of Dawn on a crusade to retake the northern half of the valley from the goblin and orc tribes that controlled it since the Autumn of No Crops. The walled town sits north of the Aumvell Forest; bordered on the north-west by the Istir River, over sixty miles north of the ruined Wall of Forts that once demarcated the northern border of the Duke’s Holdings.

Built upon the ruins of the old settlement, it receives its name from the large bronze plaque set by the cross roads near the old market square, marking the place where two ancient roads of empires long past meet. The remains of these roads still form part of market road and hunter’s way the two main streets in town. The plaque itself is round and some 15 hands across. Carved upon its old faded surface is what seems to be an astrolabe and runes of unknown origin or meaning. Some four paces from the plaque there is a pedestal, overgrown with ivy, weatherworn and cracked, traces of a statue remain, a leg and pieces of a foot, and a lonely single inscription in Draconic. Those that read the language say it simply says “Cross Point”.

New Crosspointe has thrived and over the last 28 years it has grown as many pious pilgrims, those who seek their fortune, and those who want to leave their past behind, move to the frontier of the civilization in the valley. Brisk trade with the elven hunters from the Aumvell and solitary trappers further north has benefited the town. Most goods are traded with the various Halfling families who dare the dangers of the lower Istir River and the occasional merchant caravan from south of the valley.

The recent establishing of the Dougren Forge and Ironworks in town, by descendants of one of the clans that ruled over Griffon’s Cliff before the goblins took control of the fortress city, has been a boon for New Crosspointe. Loggers have recently been attacked and some have disappeared, causing great concern. The lord mayor has sent emissaries escorted by his men and some elven scouts into the deep Aumvell to negotiate with the eladrin of the Fey Pool and has assured the Town Council no further incidents shall be tolerated.

The northwestern part of town sits upon a small cliff overlooking the Istir River and flanked by two ancient towers dating from the original settlement of Cross Point. Upon the cliff as well stands the Temple of the Dawn rebuilt to its original glory. The town slowly slopes down to the south east towards the more populated districts and the Temple of Dusk where the original town cemetery still stands.

The town’s defenses are an amalgam of old and new stone walls connected by wooden walls covering the areas were the old walls crumbled, or where new construction has yet to begin. The southeast wall is itself composed of smaller wooden portions connected with wooden watchtowers, as the broken terrain in this area has made the construction of more permanent battlements difficult. The lord mayor keeps his dwelling, as well as the barracks for most of his men in a fort with its own wooden walls built upon the face of the southwestern wall.

Environs of New Crosspointe

A small branch of the Istir veers off south towards the cliffs of the town and forms a small bog there. Most halfling families traveling the river berth here when trading in town. Beyond the Istir River to the north various farms dot the landscape slowly giving way to the wild. There are some old manors from the time of the original settlement and further upriver a large riverside tower with diverse buildings around it in various stages of decay. According to legend and rumor the tower has been the seat to local lords, home to dark cults and hideaway to bandits at various stages in its history.

To the south, beyond the Hunter’s Gate, hunter’s road becomes the Duke’s Way, bordering the Aumvell Forest and descending into the south of the valley. The road is dangerous and fraught with peril. Many bandits and brigands plague this area. West are the wilds were goblins and other dangers still abound while east the wild gives way to the Ice Peak Mountains that surround the valley and the other myriad dangers that lurk there.

People of New Crosspointe

The population of New Crosspointe is composed mostly of humans; dwarves and halflings are present in considerable numbers, many living permanently in town. Elves from the Aumvell Forest trade often in town and some have settle for some years. While they seldom stay for long, a few of their offspring, half elves, can still be found in town. Two families of tieflings, related by blood to the Airenai, one of the five remaining bloodlines of the Seven Lords who support the Duke, live in town. One family is dedicated to the mystic arts, masters of Cilder Tower, renowned arcanists and seers. The other family is heavily involved in commerce and trade.

No dragonborn lives in town, one renowned member of the Duke’s Cresthelm Guard retired some years ago to a cabin half a day northeast of town. He frequently travels to town to trade on market day. While he always comes alone, rumors abound of others of his kind visiting, or training with this old warrior. Eladrin are seldom seen in town but loggers in the Aumvell Forest have seen them and on some full moons, when it is said that the Fey Pool can be found by all who seek it, some eladrin wanderer have left the Feywild and come to town.

Faith and the Pious

While all benevolent faiths are worshipped in New Crosspointe, only two large temples are present in town. The Temple of Dawn, whose missionaries resettled the town, is located north in the small cliffs. There the faithful of Pelor, Bahamut and Moradin gather to honor their deities. The Temple of Dusk is an older temple, still not completely restored to its former glory, which stands in the same grounds as the old town’s cemetery. Originally dedicated to the Raven Queen, it now has altars to Ioun and Erathis as well. It is not as well manned or attended as the Temple of Dawn, a fact that has not escaped the Lord Mayor who worships here.

A stone shrine, much more ancient than old Cross Point, is southeast of town, beyond the walls and overlooked by Cilder Tower. The shrine is dedicated to Avandara, Corellon and Sehanine, and many who travel into the forest stop here for a prayer. The dragonborn living near town is said to be a devout follower of Kord and willing to share his knowledge with the pious and brave.

The Tenedal Valley

The Tenedal Valley, usually simply called the valley by its inhabitants, has been the ancestral holding of the Osterios family for over two hundred years. Located in the northern regions of the Norath Empire in what used to be considered the frontier. At one time or another, the region was claimed by the empire of Bael Turath, the dragonborn of Arkhosia, and other older empires. The valley is surrounded by the Ice Peak Mountains, with only two viable accesses, Ghost Wail pass to the west and the Raven Hills to the south. While there are other routes these are small, inaccessible, or both. There are tales of tunnels running from Griffon’s Cliff beyond the Ice Peak Mountains, but if they exist, they are in control of the goblins who rule the former dwarven stronghold.

The valley was once covered in wild forests but was slowly cleared by logging and farming in the southern half. The north was less populated and remained inaccessible for many years until the headway made by the establishment of New Crosspointe and others that have followed. In the north reaches of the Ice Peak Mountains an active volcano bellows dark foreboding smoke and has in recent memory trembled twice, the tremors felt as far south as New Crosspointe.

The Sual’Li who live in the desert south of the valley have reestablished trade with the Duke after his father’s actions almost cost the valley their sole remaining ally beyond the mountains. To the west of the valley by the Boiling Lake there are still ruins of a dark ancient empire whose name no one seems willing to acknowledge, except to speak of its follies and the dangers that lurk in the ruins they left behind. Beyond that little is known, some merchants arrive to the Duke’s seat with tales both grandiose and often contradictory, and if rumor is to be believed, as dangerous as the valley may be, beyond the mountains things seem to be much worse.

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3. Hinterland

Despite being primarily a Game Master during my years gaming, I was never a Storyteller for a Vampire game. One of the things I enjoy the most is playing my homebrewed world, and at this time we were playing AD&D 2^nd edition. If this was the golden age for Vampire and the World of Darnkess, it was not for AD&D. I worked at a FLGS and whenever I talked about my AD&D game with some RPG fans I got this weird condescending look, as if I was still playing child’s games instead of engaging in immersive storytelling. I felt disdain for the game I played. I don’t know what your experience was but I felt a lot of World of Darkness gamers were snobs, their game was better than anyone else’s.

This turned me off somewhat. Still my close friends and acquaintances were not like that; they continued to play my AD&D 2^nd edition game and invited me to a few Vampire games. The one I probably enjoyed the most was a short lived chronicle run by my friend Karlo, who based the game here in Puerto Rico, and I got to play this bloodthirsty Gangrel biker. Great fun!

The other Storyteller I knew that played a regular chronicle was Ray. He was a very popular WoD Storyteller. Everybody wanted to play with him and that was a problem. His sessions had hundreds of players! Ok that’s an exaggeration, it might have been ten or twelve, or at least it seemed that many. And Ray was a great Storyteller, giving each player time in the spotlight, his games allowed people to explore the plotlines that interested them BUT there were just too many people playing. I once spent an entire night with the group and only got to play for about 30 minutes.

The other thing I did not like was plethora of WoD characters. The group had Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, even a Highlander-like character from some supplement I can’t remember. With such a diverse group motivating all this disparate characters, some that hated each other, was a daunting task. I really did not stick around for the chronicle.

Despite all this stumbling blocks I still had the desire to run the game. What was my biggest deterrent? The metaplot! Most of the people I knew who wanted to play were HEAVILY invested in the game, knew all the plots, read all the books. Of course you’ll say “It’s your game, ignore what you want, make it your game!” But this is easier said than done, to many of these people part of the fun WAS the metaplot and jettisoning it a turn off. This is not a problem exclusive to the WoD, it can be just as hard to play with Forgotten Realms hardcore fans who know every NPC ever published.

So I put away my plans for a Vampire game and went on with my gaming life… I got the New World of Darkness books and kept abreast of the changes in the game, I just never ran it.

Then last year they announced the anniversary edition of Vampire the Masquerade and my desire to run a World of Darkness game came back.  The Vampire as a literary and cultural icon intrigues me. I am a fan of Bram Stoker and while I am NOT a fan of Anne Rice (I can hear the cry of heretic and the mob with torches and pitchforks at my doors), I do like the mythology White Wolf established in the Masquerade. While I really liked Werewolf back in the day, Vampire was always a better fit for my style of play, intricate plots with lots of politics and backstabbing. I resisted the urge to get the collector’s edition due to the price, but when the PDF became available I jumped at the opportunity.

I loved it; it was a wave of nostalgia packed into an awesome product. Well worth the price even if it was steep for a PDF (like Michael pointed out in his post about VtM20). I considered finally running a Vampire game, and some of my players like the idea.  But I knew that with just the PDF it would not be feasible to run the game (or at least that was the excuse in my head) so I caved in an ordered the POD version. The full color, two volume one; the books are not yet in my hands, I just got the notification that they shipped, but the gears are already turning.

When I think about it long and hard, our group has a lot of games in the backburner. Our current Mutants & Masterminds Dawn of a New Age campaign, returning to our Pathfinder RPG swashbuckling campaign, an unnamed sci-fi game using Savage Worlds… Add to that Vampire the Masquerade. Yet I conceive of the Vampire game as a short campaign, perhaps eight to twelve sessions long, taking no more than 3 months.

From what I learned in all those WoD games long ago, here is how I will do things:

• The players will only play vampires. This is easy since only the Masquerade has been updated, but there is always the temptation to go and pick a Garou or a Mage. It’s challenging enough to get vampires form different clans working together, so no characters from other books. All characters will be vampires or vampire related characters, ghouls for example.
• The players must have some pre-game connection. They don’t all have to be friends but they must know at least two other characters in the game. Be it friendship, a relationship, a common mentor, the connection can even be one of friendly competition but not animosity or rivalry.
• Keep the group manageable. There are currently seven official players at my table (one misses a lot of games for personal reasons and another one arrives late due to work sometimes) but more often than not there are seven people playing. This may seem like a lot to some of you, but we already do a lot of role-playing and manage time so that everybody feels included so I think the group can manage. I just can’t add another player to the mix. (Or my players will kill me!)
• Jettison the metaplot. With experience and more confidence as a GM I can bring myself to say the heck with it and be done. With time people are not as invested in the books and stories they knew and I believe will embrace (pun intended) my concepts.

Not on that list, since I don’t think it’s a decision that would make or break a campaign, but it’s a personal choice, I will only use the Camarilla. I know many people adore the Sabbat but the secrecy and politicking of the Camarilla seem more interesting to me. I’m not saying the Sabbat will not exist, only that at the beginning all characters are in the Camarilla.

I will also advance the timeline a couple of years into the near future,  making it still recognizable, but getting rid of some real world pre-conceptions ,and giving it just a little cyberpunk/Blade Runner edge without making it sci-fi. Here is my pitch for a future Vampire the Masquerade game:

In 2020 after the last POWs of the Africa Wars had returned home and the celebration of President Yolanda Newman’s inauguration the United States looked with optimism to the new decade. This was not to be… The plague struck in New York and soon panic grew. Fearing a pandemic the city was placed under martial law and quarantined. Other major metropolitan areas were also quarantined but the infection was controlled quickly. Not so in New York. Millions were trapped inside the quarantine zone. Riots erupted, chaos ensued, more and more people died, and then the terrorist struck. A bacteriological weapon, believed to be the original cause of the plague, was released in the city and killed 96% of the people inside the quarantine zone. The city was declared a hazard, condemned and abandoned.

The plague was soon controlled and Mexico and Canada where the only countries with significant outbreaks. The US economy suffered a great setback, but President Newman’s initiative to rebuild the city of Wilmington in Delaware after the bombing of 2017 was a success. Soon the New York Stock Exchange moved to the rechristened Wilmington and the once almost dead city became New Ubar.

What the people don’t know, not even some of its leaders, is that the events leading up to the destruction of New York, the plague and the raise of a new metropolis in the eastern seaboard of the US were all the machinations of the Kindred. Specifically a member of the Camarilla, he created the plague, that did kill many humans, but also decimated many Sabbat gathered in New York through his machinations. The Cainites  have driven back the Garou who fight to save a dying world. The Mages have disappeared, but whether this is the action of their enemies or a sign of impending doom is unclear.

Come to the new city built by the triumphant Camarilla as they plot to impose their rule upon all the children of Caine… But in the bowels of the shinning new city a man stirs, he cannot remember his name, but his return foretells of dark time ahead.

That’s the gist of it; this would be the beginning of a short chronicle. I realize that this is my second post about a possible campaign, one after the other. I won’t bore you with further details, if there is interest in reading more about the planes for the game let me know, I may just follow up with another post.

PS- I fear there is some vitriol in this post, WoD fans as snob, dismissing Anne Rice… None of it is meant to insult everybody, I am not saying EVERY WoD fan is a snob, I just ran into some of them, just like I know hardcore D&D 4^th edition fans… But those have no excuse!

I kid my friends, all in good fun; enjoy the game, whichever one you play!

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The Compact

The children played near the long wooden tables where the villagers had dinned not long ago. Sundown was coming and they ran down the field towards the crops. The celebration meant that harvest was drawing near and many of these children would soon have little time to play. Their cries of joy were suddenly silenced when they saw the old man. He stood a few feet from them, seeming to have come out of the corn, his beard wild and unkempt, and his frame thin and frail, tanned by the sun. But it was his eyes that scared the children. They seemed to dart to and fro, always looking at things unseen. His laughter crackled and one of the younger boys sobbed.

The older children had been taught to respect the elders and some of them picked up the younger scared ones and tried to leave but the old man would have nothing of this. “No, stay children, stay… Come sit here in a circle, now in a circle… Let me tell you a story, a story of the time before the valley, before the community, before the war.”

Despite the hesitation and the fear gossip might have installed on the children, none of them could pass up such a story. It was rare indeed for any of the adults to speak of this. Even the scared ones wiped away their tears and sat in a circle around the old man. The sun was setting beyond the corn fields, beyond the mountains ringing the valley, and it painted the sky red as the old man began his tale…

“I remember the time, the time before the war. We lived in villages of glass and steel, much larger than the eighty odd houses huddled around the town hall and the great house, and there were many more of us. Well not all were like us. Some looked different, spoke differently or believed in different things. Not only where there horseless wagons dancing around the houses of glass and steel, but great metal birds made by man flew across the sky and travelled beyond the clouds to the stars.

And then there was war, the skies were sundered and the seas burned. The great villages of men were torn down and the survivors killed each other for the scraps. And there were worse dangers, things we had forgotten about…”

The old man suddenly fell silent, night had come and the children were all mesmerized. Under the moon the old man’s eyes and hair seemed to glow. He mumbled something, sat down among the children and snapped out of his daze. “The cold came soon, and the darkness that would not lift. The founders all came together and decided to leave it all behind. To seek refuge in the wild, the forgotten lands, and came here to the valley. We all gathered and signed the compact, agreed to come together in the great house and select those amongst us best suited to lead. We plowed the fields mined the hills beyond the swamp and in the end reaped what we sowed…”

He rose with a jump, startling the children. Agitated he began to speak faster and faster, almost incoherently. “We tried to hide, to leave it behind but they would not stay away and then they were tempted and the compact, the compact was broken and remade, sad, and the light the blue light…” The distant night sky flared up, blue as if lightning was coming from beyond the mountains and the old man began to laugh. But the laugh was tainted with sadness and desperation, and a few of the children though they saw his tears as he ran back into the corn fields.

The idea behind this campaign is a little different; it’s less Mad Max and more The Village. The players are the younger members of a community of survivors that hid in a valley and created a sheltered community. They cultivate the fields; make ethanol fuel to run simple generators, make gunpowder for the weapons they manufacture and the leaders of the community enforce order under the authority given to them by the compact, a document signed by the community founders. All is not well, for reasons unknown to the players some families left the compact some time ago and took over the far side of the valley, taking control of the mines. But something has happened to them and they are spoken of only in hushed tones.

There are limited medical supplies and the community relies on a healer whose craft he or she passes down to their apprentice in secret; the sick are treated in the great house in the utmost secrecy. The great house is also the place where the elder members of the community gather around the book of the compact and make the decisions for the village.

This is my basic concept for the game, it still needs to be fleshed out, establish some specifics, but that’s what I‘ve got so far. What do you think? Have any suggestions? I hope to post more about it soon…

Related posts:

1. More details on my new campaign
2. Campaign Inspiration
3. Campaign Primer Ideas! Part 1

The next step will of course be character creation. When I know what kind of characters my players want to play and more importantly what their goals are, I can put some more work in the world itself. But instead of fleshing out everything, I’ll focus on what I need to run an interesting game suited to my player’s characters and their goals.

I also decide that instead of running a pure sandbox game I will probably use what I call the “Elder Scrolls method”. The Elder Scrolls computer games are basically sandbox games at their heart with a main plotline tacked on. So while you can explore the world at your own pace and set your own goals there’s also a plot to follow. The Elder Scrolls also differs in another aspect from a pure sandbox game. Some events only happen when they are initiated by the player. I will probably use this approach, too, mainly because both my players and I are not too familiar with sandbox gaming and a more plot-based approach may make things easier for us until we are comfortable with this mode of play.

The campaign world – which still lacks a proper name –  was inspired by many sources including Imperial Rome, the Elder Scrolls computer games, the works of H.P. Lovecraft and even – don’t laugh – The Sims Medieval. It might not be as unique as some other campaign settings out there, but I think it’s interesting enough to play in it. The focus on the campaign will be the Imperium Turelium, which is loosely based to the Roman Empire. Other important nations are the Barbarian Realms to the north, the nomadic culture of Akilah and the mysterious Dragon Islands which are supposedly ruled by a cult worshipping entities from beyond the heavens.

Yesterday evening I actually started transferring my notes into a campaign primer that I want to give to my players so that they better understand the world we are going to play in. Here’s a short excerpt from the history section:

Some say that the world has been doomed from the beginning and that everything humans have built over the millenia will inevitably turn to dust, everything we have learned will be forgotten and the one who has been cast from the skies will rise again and turn the world into hell.
Long before humankind walked the earth the gods cast out the Great Old One Tornasuk also known as Cthulhu from beyond the heavens. He now lies dreaming, deep below the waves of the Mare Tranquillitatis, in the city of R’lyeh, waiting for the day when the stars are right and he can rise again and rule over the world.

Yes, Cthulhu and some other Mythos entities will play a major role in that world. And even though I cited the Elder Scrolls series as one of my inspirations, this will not be a high fantasy campaign. The magic level will definitely be lower and the overall tone is much darker and more gloomy than in a regular fantasy game. But the players will be able to make a difference if they wish to do so. This is not Call of Cthulhu after all.

As soon as I have turned more of my notes into a proper campaign primer, I’ll post updates here on the blog. And if there’s enough demand I might even release the whole setting in PDF form later this year. But I first need to sit down and draw a map now. You can’t have a proper sandbox game without a map, or can you?

Related posts:

1. Map for my Dungeonslayers campaign
2. Ask the Readers: One campaign, several GMs
3. Superhero Campaign Questionnaire (and about the Virtual Book Club…)

Even though we have held lots of activities we rarely do purely social activities. With the exception of a movie night all other group activities have centered on gaming. You’d figure since the group centers around role-playing games that’s a given, BUT I really appreciate the friendships I’ve made through the group and I want to spend some time with them away from the game… Is that an oxymoron?

We originally had planned to meet in the Old City of San Juan, but we missed one small detail. Yanni (yeah, Yanni at the Acropolis, Yanni) was holding a concert at the San Felipe del Morro Castle so we did a last minute change of venue and settled on The Office Traditional Irish Pub (yes there is one on Puerto Rico). We gathered there last Saturday and had a terrific get together. Great beer was drunk, I met up with old friends, made new ones, someone dressed in a kilt and someone else hustled games of magic for free beers. What can I say, geeks do it better!

Looking back I realize I am grateful for a lot of things this year. The highlights include the growth of Puerto Rico Role Players, my participating here in the blog, going to Gen Con and meeting so many new friends, the people I’ve met through Stargazer’s World and social media. The year also had some difficult times, the health of elderly family members took a turn for the worse, I worked too much and rested too little, suffered for it and found myself not spending time with my loved ones and doing the things I love. But as this year closes I have a new job, the support of my loved ones and I once again have time to do what I love!

So looking back I want to thank everybody who was part of this year in my life. To all those who read my posts, whether we met in person or virtually, thank you. The gaming community is truly a wonderful place. Here is looking forward to the upcoming year. No matter how, or IF, you celebrate the season, happy holidays everybody, thanks for reading!

I’ll finish this post with my affirmation for the upcoming year: Being a Geek is my lifestyle choice… I am proud to be part of the Greater Geek Nation!

Related posts:

1. Confessions of a Gamer: In the Beginning
2. RPG Blogging 101: Let’s start at the beginning
3. Happy Holidays from Stargazer’s World!

In Austria, southern Bavaria and South Tyrol young men dress up as Krampus in the first week of December to participate in so-called Krampus Runs (Krampuslauf) where they roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells. Usually these runs are in the night of December 6th (Krampusnacht).

During the Inquisition attempts were made to stamp the tradition out. Dressing up like a devil-like creature was actually punishable by death back then. And even in the early 20th century the practice was discouraged by the Austrian government.

But what if there’s a deeper reason why people try to stop these Krampus Runs? What if the costumes and the runs are actually part of a cannibalistic ritual from the dawn of time? Thinking about this for a while gave me a few ideas for a Call of Cthulhu scenario.

An adventure could start by a group of investigators coming into a remote village in the Bavarian Alps. There have been rumors of children disappearing during the first week of December. While most of the families are concerned, a few influential families downplay the whole affair.

Looking closer into the child disappearances, the investigators realize that they all vanished during the Krampuslauf and some witnesses claim they have seen someone in a Krampus costume carry a large sack into the woods.

The investigator’s job is now to find out what actually happened and – if possible – save the children before it’s too late. What the cult does is up to the GM. Perhaps they sacrifice the children to summon a horrible creature, or they use an evil ritual to transform themselves into the mythical Krampus. Another possibility is that – when the stars are right – the young men actually transform into the Krampus unwillingly and have to consume the flesh of children. When they awake the next day, they don’t know what they did.

Of course I am sure that the actual Krampus celebrations are perfectly harmless. The worst thing that could happen to a celebrant participating in a Krampuslauf is probably a hangover after drinking too much Krampus schnapps. I wouldn’t rule out a few broken bones either. But when you look at it through the eyes of a Call of Cthulhu game master, things are much more sinister than they seem at first glance.

This post is part of the Nevermet Press Krampus Christmas Carnival. The artwork used in this post was created by Steven Austin especially for this event and was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. More details on the Carnival can be found here.

And before I forget it: Happy Holidays!

P.S.: And when you’re at it, check Corvus’ post “The Mythos is Everywhere” on more ideas how to introduce Lovecraft’s nightmares into … everything!

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Let’s look at the most obvious ones. I read a whole lot more because of gaming. I was already an avid reader before discovering rpgs, but the games introduced me to all sorts of different authors and influences I might not have discovered where it not for the game. I became a better storyteller and developed both my oral and written communication skills due to the game, during face to face interactions as part of the game or when I sat down to write a handout or other game related document.

I can’t say I learned English because of games, I already had a pretty decent grasp of the language, but I know many friends who improved their language skills thanks to gaming. On a recent discussion in the Puerto Rico Role Players group we were talking about how being a good Game Master had much in common with being a good teacher and how that has helped me in my line of work. I really believe that my interpersonal skills, something I rely on daily in my line of work, are better because of the game.

Then there is the ongoing learning… I find myself researching ideas and concepts for my writing (game related and otherwise) all the time. My creative endeavors (and role-playing games is a big chunk of that) mean I am constantly searching for ways to learn more, and more effectively. Readying articles on Wikipedia still seems odd to some people (probably the same ones who thought it was odd to read the encyclopedia for fun!), but recently I have been using the Kahn Academy more and more.

The Kahn Academy is a non-for profit that has existed for a while now (and you can read all about it on this Wikipedia page), and while I knew about it, I had not really used it that much. Then I ended up going to it to look at the Brain Teasers videos thinking I could use some of them for my games, but ended up watching many more videos, and it the process learning about many new things, some I had little interest before.

There are a lot of math and science videos, but even those can be useful for a gamer, specially if you are working on a sci-fi game, I particularly like their History section, great for giving context for historical games for your history-challenged player who might know the timeline of Krynn but might not know if the Wall Street Crash of 1929 happened before or after the Vietnam War. And that anecdotes my friends really happened!

So that’s a recent tool I’ve used to brush up my knowledge, much being applied to my current and future campaigns, such as the Cosmology and Astronomy area for my upcoming sci-fi game. What tools do you use for research when you game?

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1. Learning to say no…
2. Fighting the good fight…
3. It’s a good time to be a supers fan!

No wonder hardcore fan-folk (and I use the term meaning no disrespect) often take this to the next level when it comes to the things they are passionate about. Be it the TV series they were really invested in and the networked axed, or the endless novel series whose author passed away before completing it. There can be righteous indignation in such occasions.

It’s no different with fans of role-playing games when a game they love is cancelled, or an adventure series they enjoy is left unfinished, but we have the very particular characteristic that what we enjoy is not solely dependant on the actions of others. If a TV series gets the axe, or a novel series is never finished, well there is not much we can do about it. We can petition and protest and that sometimes has a result, but that’s usually not the case. Some people write fan-fiction and present to the world how they think the story would have ended. But we never get to know how the original creator (be is a sole writer or a production company) had planned for the story. We just won’t know…

Enter our hobby. True some people only play pre-published adventures, but even those who do end up modifying or changing the story by the mere act of playing it, even if they use pre-gens and the GM sticks pretty close to what’s written. Our hobby is not passive; we are the weavers of the tales we tell.

So it is no surprise that when a campaign is not finished we get the same feeling of being let down. No let’s call it what it is, the sense of FAILURE when a campaign we began with such gusto just peters out and dies. As I mentioned this line of thought on Twitter last weekend (follow me as there as @Sunglar) @NookHarper listed the reasons this happens.  He correctly said some reasons include players leaving, new games starting, starting games full of enthusiasm but with little or no planning, among others.

And I agree those are among the common causes that campaigns die. Some will say that’s why they don’t play campaigns, that they prefer one shots or short adventures, and I say, more power to you, to each and everyone his or her own. Play what makes you happy! Me? Well I just love campaigns, the possibility of telling a long term story, the nuances developed as characters interact with the world, be it for a hundred sessions, or just ten. If you have never played a campaign I recommend it, it’s a different experience and well worth the work and aggravation (and there will be a little bit of both I assure you!).

I have finished various campaigns, some years long. I tend to stick to something until the end. I, like any other human being, am a completist. Logically you might now expect my advice on how to make sure that campaign keeps going, tips on how to reach the finish line. Well no! That’s not what this post is about, on the contrary, I will go ahead and say it. That campaign you are sorry you did not finish, well it might be a good thing it never did.

Before you get offended and think I dismissed your campaign, let me tell you why I say this. Have you always been happy with the way a story ends? Be it novel, television series or movie. I can tell you the finale of LOST was one of the most disappointing TV watching experiences of my life. Oftentimes when we like something a lot, there is no way the end is going to be as good as we thought it would be. True with campaigns the attentive Game Master can tailor and shape the flow of things to meet player lies and expectations and hopefully come to a satisfying conclusion. But I have the nagging feeling that more often than not the ends of campaigns happen after some measure of fatigue has set in and they are either, rushed and feel too premature, or dragged out to long and disappoint. I will admit that, while some campaign closings have been successful, some of my campaigns have suffered from the abovementioned ills.

Maybe the campaign wasn’t that good to begin with. It could have been fun but not as entertaining as the GM thought, we are no perfect after all. But maybe it was really good and it ended for reasons beyond your control. When a campaign is just left unfinished and players keep talking about what could have been, all the possibilities, sometimes its better to leave it like that. Specially if a long time has passed. You will probably never be able to recapture the enthusiasm, the thrill of the original games. Better to live of the memory and what if, than to try to go back and end it…

It’s not easy, but I am trying to come to terms with the idea. I fear George RR Martin will die without finishing A Song of Ice and Fire. I’ve made my peace with it. I’ll read the novels as they come out, I’m along for the ride, if I get to the end that will just be s plus. The same with other media I enjoy.

This line of thought came to me as I ponder the end of the current storyline in my Mutants & Masterminds campaign; which will go into hiatus as its proven popular enough with my players to merit a return to it eventually. We have not played out swashbuckling Pathfinder RPG game since last December and as much fun as we had I know not all the players were equally enthusiastic by the end, and we ended it abruptly because everybody wanted to play supers. For a moment I thought, perhaps its time to let it go…

Well I’ll be a stubborn ass and I think I will disregard my own advice and try to retake it. I have some specific plans to overhaul the game, switch the focus and discuss with players the necessary changes. Well see how that goes… I’ll let you know if I was successful or if it should have remained unfinished business.

Related posts:

1. My take on “unfinished business”
2. The RPG Blog Alliance is now open for business!
3. Letting go of that NPC

If you speak Polish or if you are not afraid of using translation software you can find a whole plethora of great adventures, adventure ideas and other material for your roleplaying game there. Robert is currently trying to raise money on IndieGoGo to make the switch to English.

Without further ado, here’s “Hunters in the Dark”, a scenario idea written by Robert Oglodzinksi:

Hunters in the Dark

modern warfare horror adventure idea

Somewhere in North Africa. Present Day. The players are soldiers or combatants in a modern day civil war. It does not matter which side of conflict they support. Their mission is to intercept enemy reconnaissance.

Setting

A medium-sized village on the front line. There is an old, destroyed (probably by bombs) school in the village.

Problems

1. A large unit of enemy troops has it camp near the village (around 10 times bigger than players party).
2. There is a cease-fire in effect, and the players have to be very discreet.
3. The villagers are tired of the war. They don’t support either side, but they may cause problems for the players if encountered.

Game

On the way to the village, the players find a mutilated human body. After a short investigation they are pretty sure, that the victim was killed by some large predator. Big, strong and hungry.

The players arrive at the village during the night, probably looking for shelter in the ruined school. They are unaware of the enemies’ patrol routes.

During the night they hear strange screams from the enemy encampment. Tortures? Execution?

On the next day a boy from the village visits the school. If the players catch him, he tells the legend of an old beast wandering the area. It’s said that every several dozen years the beast strikes, it kills people and animals for some time, then disappears without a trace.

What’s next?

• The players may try to hunt the beast.
• They may try to get in contact with their enemies to cooperate
• They may also ignore the ”beast story”, and try to accomplish their mission.
• There is only one issue: in the total darkness of the night, who is sneaking towards the players: enemy scouts or the mysterious predator?

Please post your feedback on the adventure idea in the comments below. Any comment is highly appreciated.

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I hope you like it!

If everything goes as planned I will post semi-regular updates on my progress. As with all my other games it will probably be freely available under a Creative Commons license. If you have any more questions about this game, feel free to post in the comments below.

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2. My NaGa DeMon diary #1
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That being said I have enjoyed sitting on the other side of the screen form time to time. Since I usually talk about being a GM I thought it would be nice to turn the table and talk about being a player for a change. This is not a post about an NPC (although you could certainly turn him into one) but an actual character concept I developed for a game.

One caveat, I remember the character concept but the exact moment it materialized is lost in time. I recall the concept, not all the fiddly bits of how it germinated, so I apologize to my friend Luis who was there when the concept emerged if I mix up the memories. This is the story how I remember it.

Back in the days of AD&D, 2^nd edition I believe, we were preparing for a new campaign. We were supposed to roll up wet behind the ears, young, potential heroes living in an out of the way village, whose life would change when adventure came their way, in the end, the typical cliché. As much as I wanted to play this campaign I balked at the idea of another young farmer or blacksmith’s apprentice turned hero. I began to think, what other option do I have? And this is what I came up with.

I decided to play the town’s old drunk! The permanent fixture in the bar night after night, slovenly, perpetually inebriated, telling stories of past glories and conquests no one believes. Little respected, often derided, willing to humiliate himself for a drink. No one takes his stories seriously, but little do they know this old man was once a great hero!

I had not fixed on just what his past glories might have been. Perhaps he was once a powerful adventurer that amassed great wealth, maybe a soldier of renown who lead armies to victory and was hailed as the savior of a city of small kingdom. Knowing specifically WHAT he did was not necessary; it was enough to know he wasted his money and drank himself to poverty and disgrace. Leaving behind the people and places that reminded him of his failures he simply wandered off, forgotten and dispossessed.

Along the way he had lost the skills and vitality that had once made him a great warrior. As the campaign began, when this sleepy little town would face dangers unheard of in a generation (I was not sure what it would be but it only made sense), would this broken old man rise up to the challenge?

My idea was to roll up this character as a 1^st level character, representing not so much his inexperience but more his lack of practice, the ravage of time on his body, the effects of drinking on his health. Since AD&D had rules for older characters I asked if I could modify the character for his age. Of course it would mean a reduction in his physical attributes, but his mental attributes would get a boost.

I wanted to play him as a broken man, with little self control or sense of worth. Faced with hardships and new challenges this would be his chance at redemption. Would he make it? That was part of the challenge. As I envisioned it, as he went up in level, it would represent him regaining his abilities thought practice, honing his skills back to the way they used to be. Finding out if he would make it or would fail along the way would have been half the fun!

You know what the sad thing is? I never got to play this character. I don’t even remember the name I gave him. The GM never ran the game and my character concept was unused. Thinking back now I like the name Adophus de Ruvan, simply known as Old Adoph around town. I need to find a way to play this character…

I would love to make him for the Pathfinder RPG, Savage Worlds or even Warrior, Rogue & Mage… I can see him is three stages, as a beginning character, old broken inexperienced because he has lost all he was. As a mid level character, having recovered some of what he was, not as strong or nimble as he was in his youth but wiser, smarter but still hunted by his vices and doubts; and then as an experienced character, a warrior living his last years with dignity and the skills that once made him great, fighting the good fight, perhaps for the last time…

How would you stat Adoph? I would love to see our readers take on the concept, for any system you’d like to stat him up, any takers? You can either post him in the comments or send it via e-mail at sunglar@hotmail.com

If someone takes me up on the challenge I’ll post your versions in a follow up post! Thanks for reading.

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Before I had a smart phone I had downloaded and listened to the odd podcast, mainly something featured in an internet post, and the first gaming podcast I ever listened to was Fear the Boot and it was their first Ryan Dancey interview. I downloaded a few more episodes, but listening to them on the laptop didn’t work for me, I always had something else to listen to. When I got my smart phone I began to explore the podcasting options out there.

The first one that really got me was The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack. I was really into it for a while, but with the bad taste the end of the series left in my mouth (let this be a lesson to you, never lick your TV, no matter how good the series is!) I quickly stopped listening, they have some other themed podcasts but they never caught my fancy.

Then I dipped my toe into gaming podcasts when I joined a gym and once again began to listen to Fear the Boot. Alas going to the gym didn’t last too long, and neither did my podcast listening days! Flash-forward a couple of years and in the middle of the hectic year I’m having podcasts have made it back into my life.

The first tentative steps were taken with This Just In… From Gen Con. But recently I’ve been traveling a lot for work, spending almost two hours on the road (yeah it’s a LOT to me, that’s island living for you!) every day; after a couple of days talk radio seemed to be regurgitating the same topics so I decided to dive back into podcasts, and I am so glad I did. 

Since I’ve been writing for the blog I’ve discovered many fine podcasts and through the blog and social media I have been lucky enough to interact with some of the fine podcasters out there.  In a way it’s a different perspective…. So what have I been listening to? Glad you asked!

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This past Sunday Puerto Rico Role Players held its very first GM Workshop. We’ve had some other activities before, Geeknics, miniature painting workshops, model building, but a friend and fellow member suggested we needed to do something to help Game Masters. So new people get excited about running games, newer GMs can learn from others that have been at it for a longer time, and even those that have GMed for some time learn from others. Thus the GM Workshop was born.

We had to reschedule it once (mea culpa!) but we eventually made it to a local burger joint in the Guaynabo area called John Doe’s, had some burgers, some sodas, some beer, and talked about games. About 26 people made it out to the workshop and we had a semi- formal plan with a group of GMs chiming in about topics such as how to put together a group, whether to use pre-packaged settings or creating your own, and even round robin GMing.

We had a nice mix, a younger newer GM, some old farts; I mean experienced GMs, and everything in between. I hope we get more newbies next time; the more GMs there are the more groups get created and the game community keeps growing. And now you know my nefarious plan!

I was amazed at all the good ideas; I shared some of my experiences and was really excited about all the new strategies and tools I heard about. Some I will use in my game tonight! I would like to thank all the friends, old and new, that made it. The group keeps growing, we are at over 350 members already, and I look forward to future activities together. We have more activities planned, the next Geeknic, a possible Christmas dinner, and people have suggested another minis paining activity, maybe even a terrain building seminar. So many games so little time!

I encourage you to try it in your neck of the woods, get together, exchange ideas and help other GMs become better at what they do. I know I certainly will be thanks to all my fellow GMs who participated in the GM workshop.

Related posts:

1. Puerto Rico Role Players: spreading our wings… And our horizons!
2. The State of the Game: Puerto Rico
3. Ask the Readers: Do you know of any gaming supplements where Puerto Rico is mentioned?

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Especially in autumn or winter I love to run horror games and what could be more blood-freezing than combining H.P. Lovecraft’s work with the cold war? I think I’ll pitch the idea to my players and if they show some interest, I’ll start working on that project as soon as I have enough free time.

The question that remains is what system shall I use. The simplest solution would probably be Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu. The system is easy enough and allows adventures from the 1890s to modern day with ease. Another possibility would be Realms of Cthulhu by Reality Blurs. Especially if the campaign should feature a good amount of action, it’s probably the best solution because it uses the Savage World rules. Last but not least Trail of Cthulhu by Pelgrane Press comes to mind. This game normally uses the 1930s as its setting, but as the adventure Castle Bravo has shown, it can be used for later centuries, too. Castle Bravo also combines the Mythos with atomic horror, so it can probably be used for inspiration, or even be run as part of said campaign.

Currently I think it would probably the best to set the campaign into the 1950s or 1960s. Most characters might have actually fought in WW2 and may even had their first encounter with the Mythos then. I also think that the McCarthy era in particular could form a great backdrop for such a campaign. Perhaps the players start as FBI agents following some leads on a group of Communists that are in fact cultists worshipping some Mythos entity.

I am not entirely sure about the details yet, but my plan is that things on Earth get increasingly worse during the campaign. Instead of stopping the coming apocalypse the player characters should be uncovering the events that lead to it. This is a big gamble. My players may actually hate it, because they can’t fight the inevitable. But in my opinion that’s what a combination of the Cthulhu Mythos and the cold war should be like. There’s no way out. The bombs will fall, Cthulhu will wake, humanity will be destroyed. But the way there can be quite exciting and even fun to play!

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3. I AM CTHULHU!

So my group grew from 3 to 5 players and when talking about what kind of campaign setting they wanted to play in, we finally settled on a Mass Effect campaign. In my opinion Mass Effect fits SBA’s style perfectly. The only thing I have to do is add some rules for Mass Effect’s tech and biotics powers. But I am sure I can come up with a couple of skills and stunts during this week, so we can finally start with character creation next week or so.

Using an established universe has some advantages. It not only saves me a lot of time, but I can also just point my players to the Mass Effect Wiki if they want to read up on the background.

Currently I am thinking about two possible campaign models. The first is pretty close to the computer game. The player characters are in charge of a Systems Alliance vessel out on patrol, or doing search and rescue missions.  As an alternative I was thinking about an ExoGeni Corporation campaign, where the players are prospectors, researchers etc. looking for suitable planets for colonization or mining at the edge of colonized space.

While I let the the players decide what kind of campaign they prefer I’ll have some time to prepare the biotic and tech rules and come up with a few stats for space ships and alien species. By the way, if you have already run a Mass Effect game using FATE, please share your experiences in the comments below. Any advice is highly appreciated!

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3. Starblazer Adventures: Biotics

I am not one of these people. To me, a blank space is a challenge. I rely on seeds to kickstart me. (This is probably why I am a fan of what has been called “remix culture”, taking existing things and making new things out of them, often by combination with other existing things.) My creativity works more from adaptation to constraint than from limitless possibility. My gaming projects are often alterations of or expansions of existing products, such as Arcane Secrets for Michael Wolf’s Arcane Heroes, or Resolute, Adventurer & Genius. I have multiple projects on my hard drive that arose from a Game Chef-like creation contest on the RPG.net forums; these projects were detailed on my old blog, Polyhedral Dreams. I also have a retro-clone that has been creeping toward completion for a few years now.

Blanks spaces do not inspire me; they intimidate me. So it is that when confronted with the popular trope of an ever-changing landscape, a world that shifts constantly around the characters, I instantly lock up. I have a hard enough time describing landscapes as it is. Coming up with new features on a regular (or even irregular, but continual) basis is right out. The Dreaming from oWoD’s Changeling, its Exalted counterpart known as the Wyld, and the shifting lands of the Maelstrom from Maelstrom Storytelling are three example implementations of this trope. I’ve never had any success with them.

When confronted with the game ingredient “seasons occupy distinct locations” from one of the Game Fu challenges, the key was inserted into the lock and my creativity ran rampant… and for some reason immediately went right for a trope I had no personal luck with. For what became my Seasonalis world, the all-encompassing Winter was realized as an ever-changing winterscape, always cold and snow-bound but shifting from hills to forests to mountains around anyone wandering through it. This was how it was supposed to be, I realized, even though I would never be able to properly describe the continual changes. I hoped that someone else might find the setting entertaining and do what I felt I could not.

Seasonalis languished. Perhaps I would get around to writing up a full setting document, I thought. Some day. But then, a few weeks ago, as I was going through old posts looking for what I felt were my best articles, I reread what I had posted about the setting and realized I still wanted to do something with it. I have felt for a long time that Seasonalis would make a wonderful Everway campaign, but on #StargazersWorld, we had been talking about Warrior, Rogue & Mage, and I got the notion that WR&M might be a great compromise between Everway and a heavier game like D&D. I even got the idea that I would like to run the game, something I rarely do.

The Winter, however, still stood in my way. I could come up with a wonderful “island” of Spring, Summer and Autumn for the characters to live in and explore, but the true adventure in Seasonalis is in the Winter, and I would be forced to confront my weakness. I waffled. I considered using art, in the manner of Everway’s Vision Cards. But eventually, I came upon the self-referential idea of using seeds to kickstart my creativity: simple charts I could use with dice rolls.

Since WR&M only uses the d6, I wanted to keep to that. I originally considered using a “d66″ (two six-sided dice read individually, rather than added, for a total of 36 equally-likely results) chart, but in the spirit of the Wyrm system I eventually settled on a set of simple d6 charts that would give me ideas for how the Winter landscape would lie at any given moment. I’m still planning a d66 chart of “special” features, one-shot events or unique discoveries to add spice to things. The idea is to be able to rely on the charts when I need ideas, rather than trying to cover every single conceivable possibility.

The charts include a starter indicating how many different features to check for (with indications on the extreme ends that the local Winter is either relatively stable, and will change less on the next check, or unstable, and will change more) as well as charts for each of six basic “landscape” feature types (hills, forests, mountains, caves, water and ruins). The d66 “special” chart will include all manner of random little images that can be blended with the landscape features and used as inspiration for important events or little side jaunts on adventures.

The use of charts to help make decisions on the layout of the environment isn’t new, of course. The first edition AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide included charts for designing dungeons (a feature that really should have been carried over into every edition since). These could be consulted at any time, if the DM wanted to add something new on the fly, and could easily have been used for a game in which the environment kept changing. Mongoose’s version of Traveller includes charts for creating worlds which are also simple enough to be checked at-need. But the idea, for some reason, had never occurred to me before. The fact that the Winter in Seasonalis is constant in at least some respects makes the task a bit easier. Something like the Dreaming would involve a broader base of seed ideas, since anything is possible there, but if you’re not afraid of charts, or really want them to help out like I do, a small folio to consult would be brilliant.

Now that I’ve got the charts to help me overcome the difficulty of the Winter, I’m ready to move on with detailing a small section of that universe to play in. I’m eager to see how well they work in play.

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Wanted Poster (Western Style)	Wanted Poster (Harry Potter Style)
Newspaper Handout	Behold the Great Cthulhu

I am sure you can come up with even more creative uses of PhotoFunia’s effects. Enjoy!

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I have heard variations of the idea, but it basically boils down to the concept that an able (and what THIS constitutes can be a whole other subject open to discussion) GM can make any system entertaining. In effect a good game master can turn a turd into a gem! I have been guilty of saying this myself, often without giving it much though. If we think about it, this is not completely true. There are some systems that are really not salvageable. Be it because they way the rules are written (the intent or the actual use of language) makes them incomprehensible, or the mechanics are so confusing or nonsensical, that no one can really play the game. And I’m not discounting attempts at humor or parody in RPG form, which may not be meant as actual games at all, and can be fun.

Thankfully I think these examples are few and far between and are mostly games someone clobbered together on their own and then inflicted on the rest of us via the wonders of the internet. The majority of published games, be they physical books or in digital form, published for profit or as free games, maintain a minimum of quality that makes them playable and enjoyable to at least some gamers. And I this is the point really, what may be a great game for me, could be a terrible game for you. What makes a great game is so subjective… I think as a community there may be some consensus on certain games, but just visit any old message board or blog and read the heated discussion on editions, game versions and their merits. To quote the late Human Torch (He is still dead right?): “Flame on!”

So once we’ve established that what constitutes a subpar game is subjective, let me approach this from my perspective. I have been a proponent of the GM makes the game idea before, so I’ve decided to put it to the test. I want to pick one of those games I swore I would not play and try to run an enjoyable adventure using them. Why am I being a masochist you ask? Well it’s not so much being masochist, but proving to myself if I can make this work. If what I’ve repeated often enough is just a platitude or something I can do.

So once I have set my mind on this experience all I have to do is find the system to do it. I stood in front of my game collection for a while. I’ve played a lot of games in my life, and read many more. While I have gotten rid of a few, most are still there on the shelf. My first thought was The Babylon Project; the first RPG based on the TV series Babylon 5. I have not actually played the game, but upon first reading it I disliked it so much I put away the RPG based on my FAVORITE TV series and never used it (and I had purchased two copies). But thinking about it, this would not be a good fit for the experiment since B5 would bring with it a whole other set of expectations, most of my players are as passionate about the series as I am, and that might hinder the experiment.

Then I thought of World of Synnibarr, but sadly I got rid of that game. You must be asking, what possessed me to part with that gem? Shortsightedness I guess, but alas it’s not available.  So I may have to settle for the next best thing, RIFTS!

Ok before you cry foul, I did say this represented MY personal taste. I am sure there are plenty of RIFTS fans out there who enjoy the game and continue to play it. Good for you… I played them all, starting with Robotech as a teen and young adult, but along the way realized the system was needlessly complex, and not in a good way, for me and my group. I stopped playing RIFTS and Palladium games long ago. Despite all controversy and the things you read on the net, when I briefly met Kevin Siembieda at Gen Con 07 he seemed like a nice enough guy, and I wish him continued success with whatever endeavor he undertakes.

RIFTS is a game we stopped playing long ago and which most of us agrees is not what we expect form a game. So this might be the perfect rule system to try and prove my point. I plan on running a RIFTS adventure with my players, without telling them and see if they enjoy it…

I know there are flaws to my plan, maybe RIFTS has too much baggage, or they will figure it our t right away and simply throw their hands up, or worst of all I am conceited enough to think I am a good enough GM to pull this off! This is just in the planning stages but I will keep you informed.

So in a way this is the turd into a gem challenge… (No disrespect to any specific game!) Who’s with me? Who’s willing to choose what they think of as a subpar game and try to run a great adventure with it? Who thinks I’m delusional, that there is no such thing as a great GM making a bad game good?

PS – While writing this post I discovered the website of Raven c.s. McCracken, creator of the World of Synnibarr, in his bio he pokes a little bit of fun at his creation! Enjoy…

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I had a lot of toys as a kid. I was never into toy cars, model kits or sports paraphernalia. I liked board games, later electronic games, but my favorites where action figures. Most people my age remember the Star Wars Action Figures, GI Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Transformer and the myriad other toys of that golden age of action figure and TV show synergy called the 80s. But I am old enough to remember some older toys, like the larger GI Joes and the Mego dolls (yes boys played with dolls!). In that transitional period from the larger doll type action toys and the supremacy of the smaller action figure there were one set of toys I was particularly fond of, the Fisher Price Adventure Series.

These were toys, according to the promotional sheet that is the first illustration on this post, designed for the growing child from three years of age into the early grades. They were play sets of real life professions, adventurers and other exciting activities. There was a safari set, ambulance, scuba divers and motorcyclists among others. Real life adventure heroes! Typically they had vehicles with two or more action figures with only 5 points of articulation. They were simple and fun and I spent hours playing with them, eventually amassing a large collection of Adventure Series figures and vehicles.

By now you may be thinking, what is this guy doing writing about toys in a role-playing blog? Well amazingly many of the games and storylines I played as a child have inspired me later in life either as themes for stories I have written, games plots or even entire campaigns. Others are still undeveloped waiting for the right time to become a campaign. This is the story of a weird little hybrid experience and how the toys of my youth inspired me. If you want the story of how I imagined this read on. If you just want to go to the details of the actual game scroll down the page, I’ll be sure to let you know when we are back on topic! (See this is almost like a “choose your own adventure” but only in post form).

BACKGROUND STORY (full of childhood reminiscing but no actual gaming involved)

The metaplot of the Adventure Series

The storyteller in me was active from an early age, even if I had no concept of what RPGs were or truly understand my love of telling a good yarn. This disparate set of Adventure Series action figures became a large group of interrelated people, with familial ties, relationships and antagonists (the effects of too many Latin American soap opera on a young impressionable mind!). At first my favorite was the Safari Set and the father of the group (I assumed he was the father, the woman dressed in yellow his wife and the others their kids) my “hero”. He was the protagonists of the stories and he and his family were usually aided in their adventures by the characters from the other sets. That’s how I eventually decided the two divers in green swimsuits were related to the safari family. The blond diver was their older daughter and the guy her boyfriend. The other two divers (actually a recolor of the same two diver figures, but with yellow swimsuits and the woman had brown hair) were the sister and husband of the safari mom.

But my adventures took an unexpected twist when during an outing to Kentucky Fried Chicken (back when it was not simply KFC and they only served chicken) I dropped the safari dad action figure and an employee sweeping the floor put him in the trash. I was devastated; I had no hero, what was to become of my Fisher Price adventures?

(Small aside here, I didn’t manage to replace safari dad for years, it wasn’t until much later when I managed to buy the toy in single card, and by then I had stopped playing with these toys much. But I did take them out to play out the return of the long lost father. But I’m getting ahead of myself, back to the story…)

I played around with my Adventure Series toys for a while and eventually found my new protagonists, the motorcycle guy. What made him the hero? Well besides the fact that he rode a motorcycle (which to me seemed like the coolest thing back then), he had two extra points of articulation, he could bend his knees! I soon renamed him Frank (again the name seemed cool to my young impressionable mind), he was an orphan who became a champion motorcycle driver that fell in love with the safari family’s older diver daughter, who left her boyfriend for him and all the animals the safari family had captured in their trips became Frank’s pets.(Does that mean as a child I wanted to be a motorcycle ridding guy with lions and other wild animals as pets? Back to the post…) The Action Series crew became a troubleshooting team lead by Frank. I eventually got other sets like a space shuttle and green robot figures so the group traveled all over the world, even to space.

The island of Rodan!

(SPOILER ALERT, read no further unless you want Christmas ruined!) At this age I would await the arrival of the big store Christmas catalogs with gusto. At five I had figured Santa Claus and the Three Kings, the major gift givers in the Puerto Rico holiday season mythology, did not exists and all the loot came from family members. So when the catalogs arrived I would flip to the toy section and begin circling all the toys I wanted. That Christmas while perusing one of the catalogs I came upon a mysterious toy… (END OF SPOILERS, safe to go back to reading!)

I discovered a Rodan toy and I wanted it! You can see the picture in this post. Which self respecting child would NOT want that red pterodactyl like creature perched on his arm? (The kid on the picture further down looks a little disturbed I know, but I did not get that subtlety back them). I had no idea who Rodan was, not having seen the “classic” Japanese movies, but I knew it was cool. So it went to the top of my Christmas loot list and the waiting began.

With some months to go I could not stop thinking about Rodan. I wanted to play with the toy, but since I could not I did the next best thing; I worked him into my stories. Frank and his Action Series crew were soon contacted to explore this mysterious island out in the middle of the ocean. When they arrived they discovered they were trapped, just like others before them. The island was populated by many other people (i.e. other toys) who had travelled there, and just like Frank and his team, were unable to leave. They also discovered the island travelled though time and to other worlds, so unless they found a way home soon they might never be able to leave. (This may sound strangely like LOST, but I was a big fan of Verne’s The Mysterious Island which my grandmother had read to me and the Mystery Island TV show, so those may be seen as more appropriate inspirations)

Frank and his crew began to investigate the island and learned about a mysterious being called Rodan. He lived in a volcano in the middle of the island and he was responsible for keeping everybody trapped. So Frank being the adventuresome fellow that he is gathers his crew and begins the trek across the islands jungles, mountains and rivers, to find this Rodan and escape. In their journey they met other people (again different toys) some that helped them and others that tried to stop them, one of the robots (yes there where Action Series robots) was corrupted and became a spy for those working to protect Rodan, some in the team decided Frank was not helping them escape but instead putting them in more danger and some even decided to stay and sabotaged Frank’s goals.

Months passed and Christmas was around the corner, by then Frank and his team, along with some allies they had picked along the way, where close to the volcano. They approached it the day before Christmas. I was ready for the next morning when I would open up the box, take Rodan out and play out the final confrontation. To my great disappointment the Rodan in the box had a broken wing… So my grandfather explained to me the toy would have to be sent back and I would eventually get a replacement. I was devastated, I had other gifts and it did NOT ruin my holyday season, but I wanted to keep playing with my then favorite toys, and I had been doing all this build up for nothing…

The best laid plans…

So I improvised. When Frank, his friends and allies enter the volcano they found a giant statue of Rodan but not the creature itself. Instead they faced and were captured by an evil scientist (the action figure of Doctor Hans Reinhardt from the Black Hole movie), as any good villain will oft do he explained his evil plans. Like all the others he had arrived in the island and become trapped, puzzled by the islands effect he travelled to the volcano and discovered machines that caused the islands erratic traveling across space and time. This apparently was a side effect, as the machines had been created to trap Rodan inside the volcano.

The evil scientist deciphered how the machines caused the islands traveling and took control of them; he made the island appear where he wanted to gather the specimens he desired for his experiments. And he was also Frank’s father! (Cue dramatic music… Too much soap operas I tell you!)

The group escaped, hid from evil scientist absentee dad (if you psychoanalyze me through play I’m sure this all would be telling) and plotted to stop his scheme and destroy the machines. This was all a delaying tactic on my part. I was just bidding my time until the replacement Rodan arrived.

When it did I was ready to finish this month long adventure. Frank and his friends defeated evil scientist dad and destroyed the machines causing the island to reappear on earth. As they were getting ready to leave the volcano begins to erupt. From the bowels of its lava prison emerged that terrible creature RODAN! They fought the beast, defeat it but it escapes the island and Frank’s team remains together to hunt and stop the destruction caused by releasing Rodan upon an unsuspecting world.

Looking back that seems like an awfully complex storyline for a child’s game, and I am sure in putting it in adult terms I have made it seem more mature than it was, but I had a vivid imagination and my family played with me a lot so I got their input and help as I played; and the ending? What a downer… I’m pretty sure my players will tell you thats the beginning of my obsession with endings where the good guys never truly win.

Back TO GAMING (or something nominally related…)

Inspired by my childhood games

Years later, when in college I wanted to play a modern game with a twist, a game were players would begin the as regular folk and them be thrown into an unexplained and dangerous situation. At the time I played a lot of Palladium games (Robotech, RIFTS, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, TMNT, you name it!) so it seemed like the logical fit for my game.

Round 1…

I actually had two aborted starts to this game. In both instances I asked the players to create “normal” people, scientist, soldiers, and law enforcement officers and put them in weird situations. The first time around I attempted my adaptation of my childhood games with two players. I think one was an FBI agent and another police detective, both working the scene of a terrible train wreck. They were few survivors, but when they begin to investigate they realize the survivors were NOT passengers on the train. In included many famously disappeared people, including the crew of the Mary Celeste and some supposedly dead persons such as Christa McAuliffe, the teacher that died in the explosion of the Challenger Space Shuttle.

(A very important caveat, by using her as an NPC I meant no disrespect on her memory. It was a reference I knew both players would immediately get and be shocking, that’s all, sorry of anybody finds that disturbing. It was NOT my intention!)

When they interview the presumed dead teacher they learn the crew of the Challenger did NOT die in the explosion. They instead found themselves transported somewhere else. There they joined other people who seemed to be likewise taken from Earth and other places. They fought evil and secretive overlords that kept them isolated in different regions of a larger landmass, each region separated by nearly insurmountable mountains. These overlords would pit one group against another through manipulation and deception. The people that arrived in the train wreck were a group of rebels who used a portal to escape.

When the PCs examine the devices the escapees from this “other world” brought along with them they discover they are emitting a signal in a hitherto unknown frequency (yes I know how implausible that sounds, but it is after all a game!). Soon after an island appears in the middle of the Atlantic, the media begins to call it Atlantis and the players were in route to investigate, and that was that. We never played that game again. They were supposed to get there and get lost in an island travelling through space and time.

Round 2…

I tried the idea a second time, with a larger group including the same two players that had participated on the first version of the campaign. Again I used the Palladium system, but this time around I planned a little more. I asked each player to create a real world person, any profession, but someone who would be one of the top people in his or her own field. I also asked them not to create loners, I wanted fully fleshed out persons with families and responsibilities. All the better to tie them to their real lives and motivate them to try to return once they became trapped in the island.

They were all gathered by the US Government and flown to a ship in the Pacific Ocean. There they were briefed on the sudden appearance of an island in the middle of the ocean. The island had appeared 72 hours earlier and while satellites confirmed its existence they could NOT gather any data as they went haywire over the landmass. The team had been put together to go in and explore, determine where it came from and if it posed any danger.

There were a couple of wrenches thrown into the mix, one of the NPCs was a supposed psychic who had predicted the islands arrival, but he was in fact a psychopath serial killer contacted by the island’s mysterious masters to bring people to the island. Also the military team providing support for the exploration team had been infiltrated by an agent of the island’s masters.

The teams arrived on the island by boat and soon discovered the jungles were populated by dinosaurs (a nod to Jurassic Park, it was BIG back then). After capturing a few specimens and making camp the team got to testing them. The military support noticing movement out in the jungle deployed out only to be betrayed by the mole and ambushed. So the team was left without their military back up and soon was under attack from bipedal evolved dinosaurs commanding cybernetic velociraptors.

This was another game idea we never played after the initial session. Some of the players were not excited about the execution other simply were uninterested. I had planned for them to meet the evolved dinosaur men who would be the antagonists during the first few session, they would learn that they were trapped in the island, about the secret masters and find the first clues that would take them to other regions in the island. In a way it would have been a multi genre game, like TORG or RIFTS, except the rationale behind WHY all this disparate genres would be meshed together would have been different

Final thoughts

I still have hopes of running this game. I think as a campaign it has a lot of possibilities. I think the system I chose back then was a bad fit. Something more conductive to storytelling, perhaps Fudge or FATE, or even Savage Worlds which I think my players might prefer over those other two. So this is a crazy campaign I hope to tackle some day, maybe at the old role –player’s home.

Like I said before this may sound a lot like the LOST TV show but it all happened long before the show was aired. I’m not claiming I created LOST before there was LOST, like many things we create we are burrowing ideas and tropes from those that created before us. A lost land, filled with wonder from which you cannot escape has been the subject of many stories before and will likely be again.

There are many other sources of inspiration to this campaign idea, some more obvious than others besides my childhood games. The Riverworld series by Philip José Farmer and the Dungeon series of books, my love of Jules Verne, and some other stories like those of Burroughs, all jumbled in with my childhood games. But ultimately the idea for the campaign is for a group of people trapped in another place, doing their best to escape and return to their normal lives. I hope I can play it someday…

PS – I do not have ANY pictures of the toys I talked about above, all the images were scoured form across the internet, I hold no rights or ownership over any of them and use them to merely illustrate the posts, and hopefully mildly amuse you with the captions.

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I found it especially amazing that the creators of this game series also included a lot of background information on topics that don’t even have any impact on the games story. But that is what makes the Mass Effect setting so believable and deep.

In addition to that the game cleverly uses familiar science fiction tropes that help players to get into the story quickly without the need of long explanations. But instead of just presenting us with a overly clichéd universe, there are a lot of interesting twists that keep things fresh. I think you can tell that I love these games.

Recently I preordered Ashen Stars, the latest Gumshoe-powered roleplaying game written by Robin D. Laws. Like Mass Effect it’s a SF (or rather Space Opera) game that makes use of classic Space Opera tropes but cleverly combines them with more modern elements like cyberware and a more grim and gritty outlook.

The Gumshoe system was designed to support investigative campaigns and is surprisingly versatile. When I first read about a Gumshoe SF game I was wondering how an investigative Space Opera campaign could work. But it’s actually pretty easy. Just have a look at a random Star Trek episode: something mysterious is going on, the crew investigates, gets clues, there’s some combat or plot twist, the clues are put together and the mystery gets solved, end credits.

And when you think about it, the story in Mass Effect shares a lot of similarities with this. The protagonist Commander Shepard is on an investigation, trying to find out more about the mysterious Geth/Collectors, and the Reapers they are working for. There are a couple of plot twists and combats, but in the end the clues get put together, the Commander kicks some alien butt and the universe is once again saved.

I have to admit I haven’t read the Ashen Stars preorder PDF that thoroughly. It’s over 300 pages long and in its unlayouted form its not that easy on the eyes. But from what I’ve seen, almost everything needed should be there.

In my opinion the sapient species from Mass Effect should be the easiest to convert. Ashen Stars already contains some guidelines for playing Nonstandard Character Types that could be used to build turian, asari, quarian, salarian or krogan characters easily. Ashen Stars also has rules for starships and starship combat, in case you want this to play a mayor role in your campaign, too.

The only aspect of the Mass Effect universe that could pose some problem are the bionic and tech abilities. In Ashen Stars the Vas Mal species has some psi abilities, that are basically special skills. These could be used as a basis to create bionic and tech abilities, but that probably takes a creative GM.

So what do you think? Could a Gumshoe-powered game be a good fit for the Mass Effect universe or am I on a wrong trail here?

By the way, you still have the chance to preorder the special “Ashen Stars Stellar Nursery Edition”. If you’re a fan of Space Opera RPGs and if you have a soft spot for the Gumshoe system, you should at least consider grasping that opportunity, especially since you get a hardcover copy of the final game signed by Robin D. Laws himself plus some very nice extras for the regular price of the book. You can’t beat that.

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The 220-paged book contains 11 horror short stories written by Clark Ashton Smith, who was one of major contributor’s to the so-called Cthulhu Mythos. The stories included in this book are:

• “The Ghoul”
• “A Rendering from the Arabic”
• “The Hunters from Beyond”
• “The Vaults of Abomi”
• “The Nameless Offspring”
• “Ubbo-Sathla”
• “The Werewolf of Averoigne”
• “The Eidolon of the Blind”
• “Vulthoom”
• “The Treader of the Dust”
• “The Infernal Star”

The book concludes with detailed notes on each tale, which give the reader some interesting background information.

Especially when you are already a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s work you definitely should read Clark Ashton Smith, too. In my opinion this book is the perfect introduction to his work. Stories like “A Rendering from the Arabic” or “The Infernal Star” are classic Mythos stories, that feature everything you would expect from one of Lovecraft’s work. What actually surprised me that Clark Ashton Smith also set several of his tales on Mars. “The Vaults of Abomi”, “Ubbo-Sathla” and “The Eidolon of the Blind” are all set on the red planet and would work perfectly as inspiration for a Space 1889 game with some Lovecraftian twist.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to any Mythos fan. And since Smith’s stories are not as well known as the ones written by Lovecraft himself you have a good chance your players don’t know them. That makes using them as inspiration for your games much, much easier.

I got my copy of the book from Amazon.de, but I am sure you can easily get it through your local bookstore or any online book seller. The regular price is $14.95. Or you can order it directly from Chaosium.

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When I first got into gaming the first place I remember seeing RPG related books and boxed sets was a small quirky book store in Old San Juan, The Book Store. The owner sat behind the cashier and knew almost all his clients, they had a small sci-fi section in the back and under the shelves holding these books were some baskets holding the aforementioned books and boxed sets along with several assorted war games.

When my mom brought me the red box Basic Set I got it at this place. I remember it being dimly lit and musty smelling, which added to the mystique of getting the game. Later I learned that a local hobby shop which mostly carried models had a shelf with RPG modules and books piles together haphazardly in the back. Likewise the local K-Bee Toy Store had a bunch of books there hidden among the board games. I was soon rifling through these stacks to get my grubby little hands on them. And then I discovered the gaming sections in B. Dalton Booksellers and Bell, Book and Candle (a local book store) with their organized well stocked gaming sections. I was in nerdvana!

And for the longest time these were my main sources of games. I went there every month to get my Dragon magazine, and in the back of that fine publication were ads for game catalogs. They promised access to games I had never seen, so I sent out for the catalogs. A couple came in and I devoured them, and then came the granddaddy of them all. Printed in newsprint it read like the classified ads peppered with the black and white small image of a cover or miniature. The Wargames West (click on that link to see I’m not the only one who remembers them fondly, and see some nice pictures of the catalog itself)  catalog changed my life. It was there that I read about the Robotech RPG for the first time, or Mega Traveller, and where I got the games I could not get in the local book stores.

Every time the Wargames West catalog would come in I would sit down and examine it. I would circle every game and miniature I wanted and then add it up, realizing my allowance would never cover the hundreds of dollars I wanted I would be forced to trim down. I remember sending in my orders and waiting with bated breath for the package. It was then that I discovered the hellish nuances of shipping, especially if it came via UPS. My relationship with UPS has improved and now they are greatly efficient, but back then it would be impossible to get the package delivered properly.

So went my life for the longest time, until comic store and game stores began to pop up in Puerto Rico. Soon I was ordering my games at the same place where I got my comics. I loved comics so much that I was soon working at a comic and games store. These were dark times for my income. I was the perfect employee, the kind who would get his paycheck and give it right back buying stuff. It was a wolf watching the sheep situation, but I was the sheep!

Back then I got most of my games at the store I worked, and even after I quit working there I was a faithful client. All through this time whenever I would travel to the United States one of the first things I would do was look for the yellow pages and search for game stores, make a list and try to see how many I could visit. I would use these opportunities to get games I could not get back home.

Somehow that happened less and less often. Distribution got better, I could get most games locally, and after the arrivals of big chain book stores games were even more accessible. As this was happening I was also becoming more and more comfortable with online purchases and embracing the idea of digital books. That last step was totally embraced when carrying the books around became viable, first with laptops and now with readers and smart phones. I had gone from the thrill of searching for the unknown in small mysterious book stores, to embracing the idea that getting a book in PDF is almost just as good as getting the real thing. It’s been a fun ride; I wonder where we’ll go next?

These days I get lots of books in digital format, get most of my RPG related books via online stores or retailers, and buy miniatures from specialist sites or even e-bay. Sometimes if I have a coupon and they have the book I want I may get it at a large chain bookstore. Occasionally I get game books at my friendly local gaming store, I still believe in supporting them, but mostly big releases from major brands. They seldom carry the independent or small press stuff and I understand why.  There is a proliferation of smaller local stores catering to the CCG crowd, but branching out into games. I feel the desire to support them and help the local market grow so I’ll be visiting them soon to try to put some of my money where my mouth is and hell the local gaming scene grow. I’ll let you know how it goes…

So now it’s my term to ask, how do you get your games? How did you use to? Has your experience been similar to mine? I look forward to your comments…

Related posts:

1. Games I was sad to see go away…
2. Gen Con 2011, a retrospective… Part 1: Role Playing Games
3. Time to Speak Out with my Geek Out… Role-Playing Games in my case!