North of the Borderlands

 Last weekend we ventured north, stayed with friends, and experienced the wonders of Tabletop Scotland.

It has been a while since I’ve crossed the border into Scotland. As a kid, my parents loved Scotland, and one of my happiest memories of my entire childhood was a quiet little self-catering cottage in the middle of a forest in the Borders. I hadn’t been to Scotland for over twenty years, but Stoo from we-evolve invited us to join their table at Scotland’s largest tabletop gaming convention, so that I could help sell copies of WILD, and Debs could sell her Goth-gaming wares from Misery Makes. 

Scotland was just as beautiful as I remembered it. Crossing the border on the train all you could see were green fields, epic hills, sheep, and dry-stone walling. It was the highlight of the 8 1/2 hour train journey that was (on the whole) exhausting. 

We stayed at Stoo’s, his awesome partner Rhi (author of the awesome Action Potential, and A Show of Hands, as well as a host of mini games) driving us and the piles of stock to and from the convention every day. (Thank you both for your amazing hospitality). 

Friday, we set up for the ‘half day’ of trading. We got used to the layout, checked out the other stalls, and managed to sell a few things. I saw a handful of things I liked, but resisted the urge to purchase - it was Friday after all. There were two more days of this ahead of us.

I did, however, find the most amazing dice in the world. I instantly fell in love with these dice, and pondered spending monies on them…

I mean, look at them. They are amazing. So beautiful. And readable too!! Especially important at my ancient age. Unfortunately, by midday on Saturday, they had sold, and my hopes were dashed. One day, I’ll find them again, and I won’t be so slow to snap them up… (I found them on a great stand called Trayed and Tested - I’ll be keeping an eye on that Etsy to see if they return)

Saturday was busy. Very busy. As you’d expect! I got to meet face to face with a couple of my work colleagues (and former colleagues) and a few regular convention faces from other publishers - but as with most of these conventions, everyone is so busy I don’t want to bother them with gossip about the gaming industry. 

Sunday, however, was like a veritable ghost-town for the first half of the day. I think everyone was either gaming, or sleeping off the late night gaming from the night before. I mean, look at how busy the aisle we were on was at 12:30pm…

Weird, huh?

Anyway, it picked up in the afternoon, and before you know it, it was all over. I thought about popping up to the gaming floor upstairs where a game of Doctor Who was being played on Sunday afternoon. Y’know, just to say “Hi, I wrote that!” but I thought it may be a bit weird. If you were in that Doctor Who game, let me know how it went.

Ho well… we just about covered our costs, so it wasn’t a complete wash-out, but it was certainly exhausting and before long we were back on another 8 1/2 hour train journey home. 

All I want is some good with my bad…

While the sales were a little disappointing, it was worth going. There were certainly a couple of highlights, and I’m not just talking about getting to chill with some awesome cats…

In addition to getting to stay with some great friends (and their lovely cats), there were a few other good takeaways from the weekend. 

I bought Debs a copy of Be Like A Cat from the fab people at Critical Kit, along with the super-cute dice with little paw prints as pips. 

Debs, in return, bought me an amazing tie with dice on from the lovely people at Witch Hunt Tabletop Treasures. 

Everyone at the stands were especially lovely, and there was some awesome stuff on display. From super-expensive top of the line gaming tables to low price zines. In fact, speaking of zines, Stoo bought a copy of the Mothership boxed set which was an inspiration to us all. 

I mean, I’ve been ranting about how I wanted to do an RPG about the size of those classic Traveller RPG books from the late 70s, and here comes an RPG which does exactly that. In a cute box with loads of cool stuff…

It set the brain whirring while sitting on that stand. Many notes were made… 

Many. Notes. 

Anyway, I thought our stand looked fab, and Debs put a heck of a lot of work into all that stock. 

Next stop, Dragonmeet. While we won’t have a stand there, I think I’ve convinced Debs to come to Dragonmeet this year to experience the UK’s second largest gaming convention - at least it’s only a couple of hours on the train…

Maybe we’ll see you there.

Stay Multi-classy!!

Travelers with one 'L'

(Disclaimer: This post initially appeared on my Substack on 25th August)

We’d just finished our particularly epic TTRPG campaign of Aegean (though playing as mythic Vikings, rather than Ancient Greece) and the question arose of what to play next in our weekly game. Our GM is a big fan of a sci-fi TV series called “Travelers” which is thankfully on Netflix, and said he had been wanting to run a game based on the series for a while. 

So the group, at varying speeds, have all watched the series over the last couple of weeks, and I must admit to being surprised.

The basic premise is a bit like Terminator. The future is well and truly screwed, and an AI known as The Director is trying to save humanity from itself by sending ‘Travelers’ back in time to the 21st Century to try to prevent all of the major disasters from happening. However, they can’t come back to the past physically, they can only upload their consciousness into a host body which effectively kills the host. As this has terrible ethical problems, the Traveler is only uploaded into a host that the Director has identified as dying in the past. Once the TELL is determined (Time, Elevation, Longitude, and Latitude) the Traveler is transmitted in, overwriting the host personality, in what would be their final seconds of life. They arrive with the knowledge of the host’s death, so they can avoid and rectify the situation and take over the host’s life, having memorised their life through internet records and social media that has survived through to the future.

It’s a bit bleak, and I remember sitting down to watch it about five or six years ago, watching it on my lunch break at work. The doomed future, the doomed characters and their mission to save humanity from itself just was a little dark for me first time around and I only got a couple of episodes in before I started on something a little lighter and completely forgot about the series. So when the GM suggested we played it as an RPG, I was a little skeptical.

However, we fired up the first few episodes, and pushed on through.

Each Traveler team consists of five members - A Leader (FBI Special Agent Grant MacLaren, played by Eric McCormack), a Medic (Marcy Warton, played by MacKenzie Porter), a Tactician (Carly Shannon, played by Nesta Cooper), a Technician (Trevor Holden, played by Jared Abrahamson, and a Historian (Philip Pearson, played by Reilly Dolman). Each would have come to a suitably nasty end (pushed down a lift shaft, attacked by thugs, killed by an abusive boyfriend, too many head blows in underground fighting, or drug overdose), so you can see why those first couple of episodes can come across as being particularly gloomy. The characters pick up the pieces of their hosts’ lives, discover why they were in such a bad place, and try to get on with things while awaiting orders from the Director for a series of missions to save the world.

It takes a bit to get going, but it’s the time the series takes over the struggles of these characters that makes it so compelling. The first real mission they undertake is quite a small one, and it doesn’t happen until the end of episode 2, but it leads into something bigger that’ll make sense by episode 6. Things develop, there’s another faction of travelers (called, simply, ‘The Faction’) who believe the AI Director is wrong and humanity should choose its own fate. And there’s a slightly psychotic first Traveler (0001) who was supposed to die during 9/11. But these missions seem unimportant compared to the struggles of the characters in their real lives.

There are a whole set of protocols that they have to adhere to in order to preserve the timelines, including ‘don’t reproduce’ (Protocol 4), ‘don’t take a life, don’t save a life, unless otherwise directed to’ (Protocol 3), and 'in the absence of direction, maintain your host’s life’ (Protocol 5). 

In each case, Protocol 5 becomes the what makes these characters special. Agent MacLaren has a suspicious (and slightly paranoid) wife who falls pregnant. Marcy falls for the social worker who was looking after her (David, the social worker, played by Patrick Gilmore, is easily my favourite character in the whole series). Carly has to deal with an abusive boyfriend (who is also a cop) and the constant threat of having their child taken into care. Trevor may be a teenager, but the Traveler within (0115) is one of the oldest living humans, while Traveler 3326 has uploaded into the body of Philip, a heroin addict. 

Together they work through their problems, fall in love, overcome the threats, bond, develop further problems, and as an audience, we grow to love every single darn one of them. To the point that when bad things happen to them (and they happen a lot) we’re so invested in these characters that you can’t help but get emotional. 

Heck, David’s speech at the funeral of one of his clients as a social worker is incredibly powerful, and many of the scenes afterwards are absolutely heartbreaking. The poor team hardly gets a break, and it goes from one emotional gut-punch to the next before the series was unceremoniously cancelled with Season 3. Though, the storyline is perfectly wrapped up with the opportunity for a follow up.

On the whole, it’s highly recommended, but be prepared to be dragged through the wringer emotionally by the end. 

Will it work as an RPG? Can we bring the same emotional attachment to our characters as the TV series? I doubt it in my case, but we’ll see. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY THIRTY-ONE: Game or Gamer you miss

 

It's the end of #RPGaDAY2024 and for the final post, it's a poignant one about a Game or Gamer you miss. We've lost a lot of people, and I don't want to single anyone out. So I'll go the easy route and go with a game I miss...

I miss the old Mage game we used to play - so epic it was, it evolved into Kult, and then CJ Carella's WitchCraft. I kinda miss those old urban fantasy horror games that seemed to iconic and typically 90s. 

That's about all I can think of really. 

-

Well, that's it for another year. I'm going to go back to the normal posts now, and stop with this barrage of #RPGaDAY posts. Next year we may see different hosts, different co-hosts, and maybe a different format. Who knows? As always, I'll keep you up to date before next August. 

Many, many thanks to everyone who took part this year, and in previous years.Without you all taking part this would just be me shouting into the void and it'd all be kinda pointless. Thank you.

In the meantime, keep playing, keep reading my blog if you like, and above all, stay multi-classy. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY THIRTY: Person you'd like to game with

 

Day Thirty of #RPGaDAY2024 and we're asking about a person you'd like to game with. I mean, there are some crazy and out-there ideas I could suggest. Many years ago I heard tell of a legendary tabletop game of Deadlands with Bruce Campbell taking part. I mean, if that's the bar that has been set, what could you imagine?

A game of Scum & Villainy in the Riddick universe with Vin Diesel? 

A Ghostbusters RPG session with Dan Aykroyd?

A Conspiracy X game with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson? 

A game of Doctor Who with David Tennant? 

The possibilities are endless. Especially, with movie and TV companies seeing the potential for RPGs to help define their worlds. If Free League can do an actual play set in continuity for The Walking Dead Universe RPG, maybe they could get one or two of the actors in to play their characters if they cross over? 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-NINE: Awesome App

 

For Day Twenty-Nine of #RPGaDAY2024 we're looking at 'awesome apps' and there's only really one I've used (which is pretty cool), and that's the dice rolling app created for use with FFG's Star Wars RPG (and X-Wing, etc.) 

Not only does it look cool, but you can change the background of the dice tray, and it makes Star Wars noises when you roll! 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-EIGHT: Great Gamer Gadget

Day Twenty-Eight of #RPGaDAY2024 is all about great gadgets. Again, not really too relevant for me as we don't really use cool gadgets or accessories. No dice towers, or fancy apps. The closest thing we have to a cool gadget is one of those fold-up dice trays. 

Sorry! Hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Marvellous Miniature

 We're down to the last few prompts now, and unfortunately this is another one that isn't too relevant to me - I don't really use miniatures, but there have been a few recently that have really stood out as being incredibly tempting.

The ones that really leap out are all from Crooked Dice Game Design Studio - they do some really cool minis that are heavily influenced by some great genre movies and TV series from my past. One that really got me far to overexcited was when they announced their "Alien Invaders" range of humanoid aliens (that may secretly be lizards if you know what I mean) and their iconic red jumpsuits. I have fond memories of playing West End Games' 'Price of Freedom' RPG only with the Soviet forces switched out for the same lizard-like humanoid aliens.

So when they showed off the range of minis that included this little beauty...

.... oooooooooh. How cool. And it's not a bad price either at £30. Considering it's in scale with their little characters. 

The other one is this little beauty... They do one of the flying thingies (which I won't name) as well as the tanks...  Flippin' gorgeous. I'd want some cool glowing paint for it though...

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-SIX: Superb Screen

Day Twenty-Six of #RPGaDAY2024 - don't worry, there are not many days left! Today's prompt is about superb screens...

I haven't used a screen for many years - mostly because I haven't GM'd for many years. I do remember the sudden realisation and revelation that screens were no longer 3-panel portrait, but 3-panel landscape, and that just blew me away. All of the information you need on a sturdy screen (like those produced by Modiphius or Cubicle 7) in a format you can easily see over, while still protecting your notes. Brilliant.

However, when it comes to superb screens, the winner has to be the one our DM (and current DM for our D&D game) used back in the 1980s. Made from two panels of what must have been 3ft x 3ft chipboard, the screen towered over the table and completely obscured any of the notes and maps that he wanted to keep secret. When he wanted to check on rolls, he'd have to stand up or lean around the screen to see what was going on. It was so sturdy, and so secretive, that one of our players (I think it was 'Crud' - not his real name) hacked away at part of the screen to try to see through it, using a propelling pencil. Over many months, he eventually broke through, like the Shawshank Redemption, only to discover the following session that the hole had been filled by a mass of Araldite epoxy resin that set in a mass of weird Giger-esque forms. The screen was completely impractical as a way to communicate with the players, but perfect for keeping secrets, and will always be firmly fixed in my mind.

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-FIVE: Dice, Dice Baby

 

Day Twenty-Five of #RPGaDAY2024 is all about desirable dice. I love dice. I have far too many dice. I went to a games convention yesterday and saw some of the most beautiful dice I have ever seen - a deepest blue that was like gazing into the very heavens themself, with accents of the most remarkable gold. They weren't cheap, but they were amazing.

However, the problem is, I'm old, and lazy, and I'd just settle for some nice coloured dice with the most incredibly clear numbers on them so I don't have to pick them up and squint at them to see the result. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-THREE and TWENTY-FOUR: The clock is ticking Jack Bauer...

 

Just a week to go after today for this year's #RPGaDAY, and I'm once again slipping behind. Time for a quick catchup...

Day TWENTY-THREE is about a Peerless Player. Tricky, but I'll answer that with a couple of responses. One would have to be my lovely wife. Debs doesn't like rules and can't be bothered reading them, but when something doesn't work or could be made simpler, she lets me know and that's a valuable resource for play testing. The other answer would be the partner of one of our regular players. I won't embarrass them by naming them, but she's really big in the LARP scene and plays in loads of games (LARP and TTRPGs). We played a game of The Walking Dead RPG near New Year and her approach to gaming is far more 'in character' than how we're used to playing that it really stood out how cool and in character she was. Kinda blew me away and I don't think I could ever be as cool as that in a game. 

Okay, Day TWENTY-FOUR is Acclaimed Advice, and I really can't think of any great advice that I've been given. I guess back in the late 80's I received a great response to my first submission for a game adventure for the Ghostbusters RPG published by West End Games. It wasn't advice in itself, but it was an encouragement to keep writing, keep trying, and keep submitting stuff. I never forgot that, and I kept trying. When my teachers told me not to bother going to university (I still went, after a couple of intermediate courses), when the opportunity to write for another company (Eden Studios) appeared, I remembered that letter from West End Games and just went for it. Thank you to those who told me to try, and not to give up.

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-TWO: Notable Non-Player Character

Day Twenty-Two of #RPGaDAY2024 is all about Notable NPCs - one that really comes to mind is Daraka the Rodian engineer and splicer from our FFG Star Wars games. For some reason, Daraka (stop autocorrecting it to Dark, Google) was always eating. It may be a hint of Sung Kang's character, Han, from the Fast franchise in there... (C'mon, let's face it, Han is the best character in Fast)... but he was always eating Cheetos (or a Star Wars equivalent). 

Those cool little sucker-fingers were perfect for working the tech, and also for extracting orangey snacks from the bags. It did mean that during any covert operation against the Empire we had to ensure that the little orange spice-dust wasn't all over the control panels and screens. 

Daraka became so popular in our group (along with Lumsk the Trandoshan) that we played a side-mission with Daraka as a PC. I can't remember if he survived or not... poor Daraka. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAYS EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY, and TWENTY-ONE: Ketchup!

 

Yes, I've been a bit slack with #RPGaDAY2024 at the moment. My meds have really kicked me in the guts (literally) over the last few days and I've been using what little energy I had left to do my day job. But things seem to be improving a little, so let's take this opportunity to catchup with where we were in this year's #RPGaDAY initiative!

DAY EIGHTEEN: Memorable moment of play - I think this would probably be either the Tales from the Loop game we were playing a while ago where we got into a very moral argument between the characters (and the players) about how far we should go to test if someone was a robot infiltrator. It would probably be a tie between that session and the recent Aegean game where our druid turned herself into a mouse and jumped into the mouth of a particularly despicable tyrannical Yarl (we're playing as Vikings rather than Ancient Greece), and then turned back to human form. It was gross, explosive, and certainly one of the most memorable moments of play!!!

DAY NINETEEN: Sensational Session - I always have fond (if I can call it that) memories of GMing Kult with my current gaming group, though this was easily 25 years ago... the tension in the room was almost tangible, and I can't even remember what was going on. All I remember is that everyone was very involved with their characters, the stakes were high, there was some weird time-magic going on, vampires, and something, but it was absolutely buzzing in the room. I don't think I'll ever capture that feeling again.

DAY TWENTY: Amazing Adventure - Rather than talk about a home-brew campaign or adventure, I'm going to rave about a game I was involved in making, but had very little creative input in. The recent Doctor Who Second Edition Starter Set has an amazing set of adventures in it - The Timeless Library, which leads into the longer Echo Chamber, and then the Hermit's Lantern (which sets up the party with their own time travel device and lets them continue in the Doctor's universe). I remember getting the manuscript back from the writer, Eleanor Hingley, and being simply blown away. I think I got a little emotional when I read it. The plots, the NPCs (and there are loads of really cool NPCs) and the way it all is structured to introduce new players to the game. It's just awesome. Eleanor really got the brief, and really understands the message behind Doctor Who. 

DAY TWENTY-ONE: Classic Campaign - I've not really played any big published campaigns. All of our longer campaigns have been multiple shorter adventures strung together, though I guess the Blade Runner boxed adventures are supposed to join to create a coherent campaign. As I haven't really played in any big published ones, I'm going to mention one that I really want to play, and that is Call of Cthulhu's Masks of Nyarlathotep. I really want to play that. Or run it. Maybe that's what gets me back into GMing again. That or Horror on the Orient Express. One of those big Cthulhu campaigns. Maybe I could run it as modern day? Hmmmm...

Okay, that's me back up to date.

Stay safe everyone, and stay multi classy!

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY SEVENTEEN: Engaging with the Community

Day Seventeen of RPGaDAY2024 is all about an Engaging RPG Community, and I can't think of a better one than the RPGaDAY community. Thank you all for taking part again this year!!

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY FIFTEEN and SIXTEEN: Catching up and Catching Ghosts

 

Starting to slip behind on #RPGaDAY2024 here, but hopefully I can catch up now. Okay, so Day Fifteen asked about Great Character Gear and Day Sixteen asked about games that are Quick to Learn... and my answer for both of them is Ghostbusters. 

There, that was easy. I mean, West End Games' Ghostbusters RPG is still a work of genius. The way equipment worked was by having the equipment on cards, and you could carry as many cards as your Muscles Stat (if I remember correctly, it's been a while) which was kinda realistic, because by the time you'd strapped that Proton Pack on, you really couldn't carry much else besides a PKE Meter or similar. It meant that each member of the team, much like in the movie, carried something different, whether it was a trap, Ectogoggles, or even the legendary Beach Gear with its oversized boombox. 

It's something I tried to replicate in Doctor Who, and the first edition of the game even had equipment cards (mainly for those cool gadgets like your psychic paper or sonic screwdriver.

When it comes to the rules, there are so few rules in Ghostbusters you can pick up just about everything you need to know in a few minutes. Heck, in the first edition boxed set there was even a rules summary sheet for quick reference, though I don't think anyone needed to look at it after the first session. Super-simple and easy. And just great fun...

I still love that game... one day, when I get that lottery win, I'll bring it back in all its glory, first edition rules, new adventures, updated to the new movies...