Category Archives: Roleplaying

#rpgaday2015 day 1: forthcoming game I’m most looking forward to

August 1st, 2015Dune, Empire, LRP, Roleplaying#rpgaday2015, demon huntersYoda

The forthcoming game I’m most looking forward to? Probably Demon Hunters: A Comedy of Terrors. Possibly Beast: the Primordial.

At least if you’re talking solely about tabletop games that haven’t been released yet. I actually have Demon Hunters already – a pre-release copy, but it’s not formally released yet. I’m planning on running a game online once I’ve gone through the book properly.

In LARP terms, I’m looking forward to our upcoming Dune LARP. I’m listening to the Dune audio book, ear out for terms that can influence the game.

In terms of games that are ongoing, I’m looking forward to the next Empire event, but nerves kick me about as well. We’ll have to see.

So, I want to run a game

July 8th, 2015Computer Games, Me, Roleplayingcowboy bebop, demon hunters, fate, orpheus, outlaw star, storytellingYoda

As I’ve posted elsewhere, I’m looking to run a game. What I want to do is be able to run it as and when both my players and I are available/up for it. So some weeks we could play three sessions, and other weeks just the one (or not at all); I want to be able to run without some players and potentially with a completely different group session to session, so I want it to be the sort of game where you can complete things in a session while still having the potential for an overarching campaign. I also want to play it online, without a lot of rules getting in the way of online RP.

Along those lines, I’ve picked out three settings that I like and would like to run a game in.

The first is Orpheus, a game I’ve loved for over a decade – one of the first tabletop games I played. In Orpheus, a cryogenic research company called The Orpheus Group was developing cryogenic technology for medical research, and have developed the first cryogenic process that allows for a stable freeze and thawing of living beings. In their tests of this process, they discovered that their human test subjects reported back having dreams while they slept – dreams that they were watching the Orpheus staff at work. This wasn’t considered particularly noteworthy until one of them recounted incidents that had happened in the lab in perfect detail – incidents they had no way to know about without having been there or being told. Further research was done, and it was established that the cryogenically frozen subjects experienced astral projection and could perceive events around them. Experimentation continued and revealed that post-life entities (PLEs, or ghosts) were also present in the astral state that the sleepers found themselves in. Not only this, but PLEs and the astral projections could wield supernatural power. In a stroke, The Orpheus Group had proven ghosts were real, and that they could affect the world in unknown ways. Studies continued, but this discovery explained every story of supernatural happenings throughout history, and a paranormal investigation division was set up. Orpheus became a paranormal service organisation, investigating and dealing with hauntings for a sizable fee. You, as players, are members of the investigation teams who are either projectors (living people who project their consciousness from their body) or PLEs (ghosts) working for fantastic sums of cash and dealing with the supernatural on a regular basis.

The second is Demon Hunters. I’m never going to explain it better than the guys who made it, so here’s the Brotherhood of the Celestial Torch Orientation Video which came with the field operative training manual (RPG).^[1] Basically, you’re a bunch of misfits who fight the agents of Hell (the Order of the Infernal Sceptre). All the monsters and dark things from your favourite films and TV shows are real, and it’s the job of the Brotherhood to take them down before they get to humanity. On the bright side, you have access to a Warehouse 13/Ark of the Covenant-style warehouse of infinite size that might just have the tools you need for the job – if you can find them. It’s a comedy-action-investigation game, and I have both the original RPG and the playtest version of the new edition (the new edition still being finalised).

The third setting I’m contemplating is essentially Cowboy Bebop/Outlaw Star. Bounty hunters/freelancers roaming human-colonised spaaaaaace in search of enough money to buy fuel, food, and ammunition while they try for the big score that’ll set them up for life (assuming they don’t blow it on an act of charity/abandon it to save someone/give up the treasure for love/die in the process.

System-wise, I’m looking at FATE-based solutions. I’ve got a homebrew conversion for Orpheus to FATE Accelerated, the new Demon Hunters edition is based on FATE Accelerated, and the Bebop-style setting can either be run with FATE or something else. FATE Accelerated should be pretty easy for people to pick up, without getting in the way of the story, and it should also allow people to create characters pretty quickly so they can get involved without a length character creation process.

As I said, I’m looking to run things online. Thoughts are to use Google Hangouts for communication, and maybe use Roll20 as well (this will involve me learning Roll20).

I’ve had a few people express interest, but I’ve not had any indication of a setting preference. If you’re interested, and have a preferred setting out of these three (or have an alternate idea I might be interested in), let me know.

Featured image choice is solely because Outlaw Star kicks ass, and I have to watch it again.

Footnotes [ + ]

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The orientation video along with the original films are now available to everyone on the Dead Gentlemen YouTube channel. Incidentally, go watch everything they and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment do.

#rpgaday2015

June 16th, 2015Roleplaying#rpgaday, #rpgaday2015Yoda

I intend to take part in #rpgaday2015, a continuation of last year’s #rpgaday. Basically, it’s a list of topics which you write about (one a day) over August. The list is available on the Facebook page, but also below in a non-image form as while all the fancy graphics in the world might look nice, nothing beats text for readability and ease of grabbing the topics.

I’ve already seen some flak come up about the chosen topics, and I think there’s a lack of clarity in some of them, or that some have been added just for buzzwords. “Revolutionary game mechanic” being one of the prime examples there, as it’s the sort of term that could be used in derision of the idea, or even just to mock every new game system for using the buzzword in their press releases.

Still, I appreciate a topic list to work to, and I can build these up over time as well.

Footnotes [ + ]

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I was just looking over my notes and realised that this said “RPGing”. Who would say “role-playing games”-ing? Even “role-playing gaming” sounds wrong. It’s just roleplaying, and I’ve amended as such.

Summarising World of Darkness

April 14th, 2015Isles of Darkness, LRP, Roleplayingchangeling: the lost, mage: the awakening, vampire: the requiem, werewolf: the forsakenYoda

A friend of mine was looking for summaries of the core new World of Darkness games that he could share with someone he was persuading to play in the Isles of Darkness. There was a dearth of responses, so I wrote something for him to use. They’re not brilliant – they’re written from one person’s perspective and my memory for exactly how everything works isn’t best when I have the books in front of me, but they do the job I think. Continue reading Summarising World of Darkness →

Straight Razor Cabaret

March 20th, 2015Isles of Darkness, LRP, Roleplaying, Writingcharles morganti, vampire: the requiemYoda

My new Vampire: the Requiem character for the Isles of Darkness is more than a little based on a character I created for a PBeM Vampire: the Masquerade game.

One of the main differences is that my Requiem character is male, while the Masquerade character was female. One of the things I did to solidify that character in my mind was write the following fiction piece. Some people may prefer not to read it due to triggers or just plain unpleasantness, so I’ve placed it under a cut.

I’m not sure how well it would stand up to being gender-switched, which may be a flaw in my writing – not that I’m going to claim excellent ability at writing in the first place.

For those who might recognise it, some of the character inspirations come from Aurelio Voltaire’s songs, specifically Straight Razor Caberet and Cathouse Tragedy. Continue reading Straight Razor Cabaret →

#rpgaday – Day 4 – Most recent RPG purchase

August 4th, 2014Books, Me, Roleplaying#rpgadayYoda

Demon: the Descent – Heirs to Hell. Having backed the Demon Kickstarter, I thought I’d also pick up a copy of Heirs to Hell – and it was rather cheap on DriveThruRPG.

Well, that was rather short and sweet.

I think Demon: the Descent might be the most recent system I’ve picked up as well, rather than just a supplement… Nope! I lie. The most recent RPG I’ve “purchased” is Timewatch, a game about time travel with intelligent time-travelling velociraptors.

I say “purchased” because as with many things these days, I acquire them through Kickstarter.

#rpgaday – Day 3 – First RPG purchased

August 3rd, 2014Books, Me, Roleplaying#rpgadayYoda

Strangely enough, given my previous post, it’d be a Fighting Fantasy book. I strongly remember it being Ian Livingstone, but not what book it was.

Going back to the idea of proper RPGs, it’s a little trickier. I’m not sure which I bought first – Orpheus or Witchcraft.

I suspect it was Orpheus, as Witchcraft was out of print, and I had to order it from America. Admittedly, that may still mean I bought Witchcraft first, but Orpheus was almost certainly in my hands first.

I now own all of Orpheus, including the short stories book. It’s one of the only games I own in its entirety – may in fact be the only game. I’ve only skimmed some of the later books in the vain hope that someday I might get to play in a proper campaign and knowing all the metaplot would spoil things a bit.

#rpgaday – Day 2 – First game gamemastered

August 2nd, 2014Books, Me, Roleplaying#rpgadayYoda

The first game I properly ran was a Witchcraft game. It didn’t go so well, didn’t even really go anywhere. I think we managed a couple of sessions at best before it fell apart – something that seems a common trait in my games when I’m feeling down.

The next game was a Vampire: the Requiem game as I recall – that actually went on for a while. The bit that stands out there was the ghouled cat called Twinky who ended up being better than most of the characters in a fight – when she could be bothered to take part. Rule 1 of ghouling – never let them know they can do it without you. Okay, so I was bending the rules with letting a cat do it independently, but it amused the players no end.

Then there was the old World of Darkness game that was actually a feint into a new World of Darkness game – the Apocalypse was changed by a cabal of mages who cast a ritual to remake the world in their image – setting themselves up as the Exarchs and removing everyone else’s memories. For some reason, the players could recall who they’d been, but had lost their abilities; they were just mortals stuck in an insane asylum. In the Old World, they’d been vampires and werewolves, and now they were just human. One of them found Malkovian in the asylum basement and got themselves ghouled – nowhere near as powerful as the vampire they’d once been, but still useful. With that, they managed to break out of the asylum and escape into the real world. Things didn’t go too far after that, but I thought the concept worked rather well.

#rpgaday – Day 1 – first RPG played

August 1st, 2014Books, Me, Roleplaying#rpgadayYoda

I figured I’d join in on the #rpgaday theme for the month. The first topic is the first RPG you played.

That I can remember? One of Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy books. I don’t remember which one, but I’ve probably still got it somewhere…

Of course, if you’re meaning a true RPG, it was a modified version of the West End Games Star Wars system as part of the Imperial Order (a Star Wars gaming fan-club that had a roleplaying wing at the time – Warbird Wing for life).

The first RPG I actually played around a tabletop was Witchcraft. I joined a game in first year, and that was an interesting game. The first of two PCs named Pyro (after the MegaTokyo character, but with actual fire abilities like the Marvel one). The second Pyro was in the Orpheus game I also played in first year. They died within a week of each other as I recall. My notes on what they could do were quite extensive – I’d handwritten out all of the relevant rules text into notebooks with coloured tabs to keep it all organised; I never do that any more.

So that’s a brief look into where my roleplaying habit started.

Old sayings

February 16th, 2014Me, Musings, RoleplayingYoda

There are two phrases I said in university that stick out in my mind even now. One of them is behind the naming of this website as I noted on the about page.

The other went something along the lines of “I code in 8 dimensions”. I said while I was trying to figure out a tricky iteration loop, to try and describe the visual mindset I get into when I’m “in the zone” with something. I don’t know why I said 8 dimensions, but it seemed apt at the time.

I still kind of think that I think differently from other people. That I visualise things much differently. Not that anyone really thinks alike, but I think my mental processes are quite a bit different from what is considered the norm. I can’t simply turn my mind off – something which troubles me occasionally – it doesn’t relax.

It comes into my roleplaying as well – I get times when I’m not just pretending to be someone else, it’s more like I assume their personality. I don’t need to think about what they would do or say, I just do it – even if that’s at odds to something I would normally consider saying or doing. It’s a natural process – something I couldn’t analyse if I tried, and after having a couple of roleplaying characters make comments in my mind on something I’ve seen outside of a game, I have tried somewhat. Times like that (and like this) that I wonder if I have a mild form of schizophrenia.

Still, I can face the world.

Drunk on Caffeine

The highs and lows of a long-term caffeine addict