by SteamCraft

by pdzoch

QOTD SEP 27: Have your characters ever grieved or mourned in a game? If so why, and how did that play out? Do your characters ever suffer bouts of sadness, depression, or similar emotions?

by pdzoch

Have your characters ever grieved or mourned in a game? If so why, and how did that play out? Do your characters ever suffer bouts of sadness, depression, or similar emotions?




Do you have a question you want asked as QOTD? Post here!
And if you want to find an old QOTD: The big QOTD Summary and Subscription Thread Volume 3

by Lux_Bux

There's some really good stuff on that collection. Takes me back to my days of buying concert bootlegs at record fairs; the sound quality varied, but there was always something interesting to listen to (and how else were we going to hear The Sisters of Mercy covering Dolly Parton and Abba songs?) 😄

by Mark Chaplin

Here's some news in no particular order:
*My house sale is finally completing next Tuesday, the 29th. I can finally, literally, move on. I've been staying in my late sister's granny flat while all of this has been going on - RIP - so getting all this over the line feels like the closing of a very long, very strange chapter. There have been a lot of false starts and delays, so I'll believe it on Tuesday.

*My stuff is all still in storage, except for a small slice of cool things: ALIEN, DELTA GREEN, SPACE: 1999, LAST FLEET, HOSTILE, and PLANET OF THE APES RPGs, plus a dozen or so board games. Everything else is currently sitting in the storage facility, patiently waiting for me.

*The job I have now is the best, most interesting job I've ever had, and the best paying. I'm now working for the Ministry of Justice, and (perhaps most importantly) it doesn't require any bandwidth from me outside of work. And because of that, I've been able to get back to writing RPG scenarios in my spare time, which has been an absolute joy (I've written 2 fantasy adventures for Warlock!, and have notes for a coastal town scenario, ending my brain-commitment to fantasy adventuring at this point with a nice trilogy. I finished a Planet of the Apes RPG adventure, and am writing its sequel, and had a blast writing a SPACE: 1999 scenario, and have started a sequel to that, but in both cases, I feel like 2 adventures for each fringe sci-fi RPG is enough for me, from me, for now). I didn't realise quite how much I'd missed simply sitting down and making wild shit up for the enjoyment of others. I even created two RPG expansions for games I didn't design (there's something quite liberating about doing that). You might wonder why I, uber-ALIEN fan, haven't written an adventure for the role-playing game, and I also join you in wondering why I haven't. I have made some notes, but I didn't have a hook that appealed to me to pen a 20-page scenario, but I feel like I should (first-edition-only boy here!). Like everything I do, I like to give it a bit of wild spinneroo. I want to be surprised, more than anything, even during the writing. I have 2 ideas: ghost facility on an ice world, and a near-asteroid-field facility inspection by WY auditors (PCs are the audit team).

*My daughter and ex have a great new place, and that gives me a lot of comfort. The split was not acrimonious, which I'm genuinely grateful for. That doesn't mean it didn't absolutely kill me, or that I didn't lose a ton of weight in the process. I absolutely do not recommend the breakup diet! lolz. Though as they say, "smooth seas don't make for a good captain."


If there's anything I'd say to anyone reading this, it's don't take the person you're with for granted. It's very easy to assume that because someone has always been there, they'll always be there. Sometimes life has other ideas, as John Lennon said. You don't have to agree on everything, but appreciate what you've actually got while you've got it. Maybe some of what happened to us could have been avoided if we'd both remembered that.


I've also been thinking about the possibility of taking the game's existing elements and using them, piecemeal, as the basis for an RPG. It's almost an RPG already, to be honest. I've sat here pondering at the sheer amount of material I've accumulated: the rule system, artwork, star maps, planet surfaces, derelict starship maps, electric toothbrushes... and realised I'm basically sitting on a dragon's hoard of material. I've seen games sold hugely with massively less content than what I have here. One possibility would be to convert the main rules into an RPG and then treat each star map, planetary surface map, or derelict map as an individual scenario. Or perhaps there's a hybrid approach: part RPG, part solo experience, part gamebook, where each piece of the original game becomes its own little adventure.
The more I think about it, the more the piecemeal approach makes sense. It's cheaper, more manageable and, importantly, immediately achievable. Rather than trying to somehow resurrect the entire monster in one go, I could take what already exists (all REAL art and craft by humans) and turn it into a series of smaller creatures that can actually see the light of day.

Anyway, just a thought. I'm not making any grand announcements here - it's simply something I've been mulling over.

It still pleases me enormously that nothing really comes close to the scale of what was done. There was something slightly mad about the whole undertaking, and I think that's part of why I still love it. Maybe it was a lack of restraint. Maybe it was a lack of common sense. Maybe it was just a slightly deranged belief that of course I, Monsieur Chaplin, could build something enormous from scratch.
Whatever it was, I'm glad I did it.
And perhaps the funny thing is that, after everything that's happened over the last couple of years, I'm finally in a position where I can start looking at all of it again, and that's actually quite a nice place to be.

by NormandyWept

An item RPG Item: Ghost Stories has been added to the geeklist The Between: A Study in Sapphire - Hunters & Threats

by havoc110

Star Trek comic #1 is out. There is a linked series about Captain Raffi out in a few weeks

by DoOverAgain

An item RPG: Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game has been added to the geeklist DoOverAgain's SOLO RPG Actual Plays

by DoOverAgain

Related Item: Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game Core Book

Nice! I like your 'jump right into it' approach with AI. I have plenty fun with AI GMs.

In August I started using the Official Solo rules here with the Starter Set adventure.
I had to approach it similiar to Gloomhaven board game, where each session I added in another layer of the solo process/tracking, in order to learn the game.
I'm kind of bummed I haven't had a chance to play for over a month. I really like the mood/atmosphere of Blade Runner combined with running an investigation heavy game.

Hope to see more from Maya.

by Landry

Related Item: Herald's Call

I just check back on your poll. No dithering there. Looks like a good, clear result for question 1. (Of course time may tell.)

by fatandy

Weird coincident listening to Nick Cave Collected Broadcasts 4CD as I type this currently on CD2

by Lagnis

Michael Hopcroft wrote:

bclayj wrote:

I like to think it is directly related to the popularity of Carl Barks' Donald Duck comics in the Nordic countries. Donald and his extended family are much more popular than Mickey in Europe in general, and the Dutch, Swedes and Belgians in particular were and still very much are huge duck fans.

I don't know whether he is Norwegian or Swedish, but I believe it was the frontman for Nightwish who wrote and produced an album inspired by the classic graphic novel series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Which is fascinating listening — and the book is fascinating reading. (I don't know if this is the place to link a music video, but I love the video of "A Lifetime of Adventure", with Don Rosa drawing the album cover on camera, his expression showing the sheer joy of creation).

But that would explain why the Mallard in Dragonbane tend to come off better than the Ducks of RuneQuest. I've read later editions of RQ claiming that everybody hated the Ducks and welcome them being completely wiped out.

Mickey may be as popular as Donald in the US, but Donald's shorts receive greater admiration these days. Mickey is almost too nice to be interesting, but Donald's hair-trigger temper is comedy gold. But in terms of comedy value of their shorts, both take a back seat to Goofy, as many of the best Disney shorts of the 40s and 50s take place in a world populated with variations on Goofy.The shorts in which Goofy is used to explain various sports or other concepts are worth seeking out. (In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the titular Roger tells the Toon-hating Eddie Valiant that Goofy was the one Toon all other Toons admired.)

Tuomas Holopainen, so Finnish. 😄