by leroy43

I first became aware of the perfidy behind a puppethand’s staging
while observing a ramrod poppet show on Barbican Way in
Guilder Square. The sketches were pedestrian, but the poppets
were intriguing. Halfway through the show, the poppet heads were
revealed to be naught but jars of shinebees covered by cloth. Once
unveiled, the swarms began to ensorcell the crowd!

Wikipedia tells me "Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets." Punch and Judy may well be the most well known example of such a thing, but that sci-fi series The Thunderbirds with its marionettes is also a form of puppetry.

This slim 16 page zine is a companion to A Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City (Rainy City), a neutral but thoroughly whimsical city setting for fantasy role playing games. Ownership of the Rainy City is not strictly required for this zine, but a lot of the humour and jokes will be lost. For instance, the Rainy City and the two miscellanies are narrated by a Thaddeus Flott, but this one is narrated by Jack Sands. The Easter egg, or inside joke, is the section named Flott's Manikins.

As I noted in the Rainy City review (cf.), although this set of guides are system neutral, the designers had Steve Jackson's The Fantasy Trip (TFT) experience and design ethos in mind when designing this environment. The zine opens with a section on creating puppethands with three stats from 3-18 that are analogous to the three stats from TFT.

The zine does have the heft of research behind it. While not prescriptive on the art of puppetry and puppeteering, the tables of how to create a puppet show, how to create puppets, and how to craft puppet show stories all speak to solid knowledge of the craft.

The visual guide to various puppet styles are rendered in the lovely woodcut style art that has been constant and consistent in the series, and are also tied to the districts of the Rainy City, adding one more layer of culture and background for the GM.

The most useful section, possibly, is the final section of zine with notable puppeteers, complete with plot hooks you might be able to weave into your campaign. Even if they're just a background act in another scene, they can suddenly be pulled in as a main story line.

A new episode has been added to the database: Year 1 | Ep. 45 | Nine More Mistakes

A new episode has been added to the database: Game Master Sins

A new episode has been added to the database: “The Myth and Reality of Mental Health” - Perry Clark & Sekayi Edwards Interview

A new episode has been added to the database: S7:E12 - The Birds and The Cheese

A new episode has been added to the database: Lone Rider

A new episode has been added to the database: A Deal with the Devil...and Another...and Another

A new episode has been added to the database: 967 - Burn the Gaspee 01

A new rpg item has been added to the database: By Endurance We Conquer

by Lowell Kempf

Humble Bundle recently offered a bundle of select Maigret novels, a series I had never heard of. And that ended up being a fascinating rabbit hole for me to go down.

George Simenon wrote 75 novels and 28 short stories about Detective Chief Superintendent Jules Maigret between 1931 and 1972. The series is considered to be one of the first, if not the first, police procedurals. The series has been the subject of theater, movies and more tv shows in more languages than I can easily figure out.

Basically, Maigret is a big deal. And I had somehow never heard of the series.

Honestly, it’s because it wasn’t originally written in English. (It is popular in the UK, though) It’s like The Invention of Morel all over again for me. I find literature that is important and worth reading that my American provincialism kept me ignorant of.

Anyhow, I found several volumes at the library so Humble Bundle didn’t get my money this time.

I decided to test the waters by reading Maigret and His Dead Man, which I read was a good way to try the series.

Published in 1948, Maigret and His Dead Man is around the middle of the series (All the mysteries are standalone so no big deal) and is supposed to be a strong example of the procedural element of the story.

I am not going to bother with spoilers because you already know someone commits a murder and Maigret figures out what’s going on.

Short version: it’s good stuff.

Maigret is not a genius who basically serves as a one man police department. Instead, he is a dedicated professional, an important cog in the overall machinery of the police department. He actively works with his colleagues, and they are an important part of the investigations.

Someone once told me that, in one of the Colombo Taco movies, someone asks Colombo if he isn’t at a disadvantage if he is dealing with a murderer who is a genius. Colombo response, no, because the genius is still an amateur and Colombo is a professional who’s been dealing with murders for years. That quote came back to me as I read this book.

Maigret is not a genius like Sherlock Holmes or a wise guy like Sam Spade. He’s empathic, thoughtful and values his colleagues. He is profoundly human and engaging.

At some point, I want to read some of the earlier books. The book I read felt very developed and completely apart from genres like the hard boiled detective or the cozy mystery. I am very curious to see how the series started out.

And, while I am not planning on doing an exhaustive read of the series, I do want to keep on reading.

A new episode has been added to the database: Ep 106 - Just desserts

A new episode has been added to the database: Perils & Princesses | Session Zero