#2: Super Spider-Man and the Titans, Issue 203 (1976)
When I mentioned last time (for object #1, the Corgi James Bond Lotus Esprit) that my parents were ‘enablers’ of my nerdy life, I’d almost forgotten an even earlier moment.
Set the wayback machine to the mid-1970s. Living in my favourite home in my small coastal town with my parents, I was about 7 years old and one Saturday morning my went with my dad to the local newsagents (one that is still there today!). I have a strange memory that the shopkeeper was someone called Mr. Jenner, and it was at this newsagents that my dad had a couple of standing orders. One for a morning paper - the typical tabloid that was full of cheap headlines, and one for an evening regional newspaper.
While there, I think dad was there to pay the monthly bill for the papers, and he said to me that I was allowed one weekly comic. We’d put it on the order, and it’d get delivered on Saturday with the morning paper. I had a look at the comics on offer, most of them were war titles or traditional British action comics. But one really stood out. It was the wrong way up, but had a bright cover with Spider-Man on the front. I’d heard about Spider-Man from when my grandfather had visited (with his wife - who preferred to go by ‘Aunt’ and their son who told me about Spider-Man - he was only a couple of years older than me).
So Spider-Man was the obvious choice.
In the UK, this comic was “Super Spider-Man and the Titans”. A cool landscape format comic that reproduced the US comics in black and white, two pages of the original comic per page. It meant that when you opened the comic, you got four pages in a spread, and they could reprint loads of storylines in each issue.
It wasn’t just Spider-Man in each issue. It included Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Doctor Strange. I loved every darn issue of it. It was amazing. When Marvel decided to print their Essentials range - huge phonebook collections of the old comics in black and white - I had to get the Spider-Man ones, as they were how I remember them. And the black and white artwork was awesome.
It was where my love of Marvel started. It was just as things were getting really serious, and when they (spoilers) killed Gwen Stacey, I was shocked!
I even got to see the Spider-Man cartoon when we went to stay with my granddad in East London (the TV regions ‘up north’ didn’t show it). Just the one episode though, while I was visiting, I remember it had Rhino in it.
My love of this comic continued until, in a truly fickle way that kids are, something new came along. My dad stuck to his ‘one comic per week’ rule, and TV was becoming more interesting to me and I changed to reading Look-In - that strange British hybrid of comic and TV guide. But I soon learned that something bigger and better was out there. I was a week late, but starting with issue 2, I switched over to the powerhouse that was 2000AD… but that’s another story.
Just a quick post this time, don’t worry. This time next week it’ll be Dragonmeet, the UK’s second largest tabletop convention and it’ll be the first one I’ve been to since the pandemic.
Dragonmeet was always one of those cool conventions where I get to chat with loads of really cool creators and publishers. See what amazing new games have been released. And also wish I had more cash to buy all those cool games…
I won’t be on a table.
I did that once before for Cubicle 7, signing copies of Doctor Who… well, signing one copy of Doctor Who… everybody else was rightly there to get their Lone Wolf RPGs and books signed by Joe Dever. I also manned a table at GenCon UK (remember those?) for Eden Studios back in the dim and distant past. Ah, those were the days.
No, I’ll just be wandering around, looking a little overwhelmed as usual. If you see me, come and say hello. I’ll be wearing the same suit/tie combo as my new tarot-style business cards. Happy to chat about anything.
I’m particularly excited this year to be taking my lovely wife with me. It’s her first Dragonmeet, and it’ll be good to have moral support while I’m looking a bit lost. We’ll also be taking one of the players from our regular game group (hey, Fred) and meeting up with Stoo, our usual GM, who printed and published WILD for me all those years ago. Should be fun.
Hopefully see you there!
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In other news, Will Brooks, who did the awesome covers for the Doctor Who RPG books for all of the second edition publications, has teamed up with Alex and Nick to produce a new podcast talking about Doctor Who. They’re watching every episode, and releasing podcasts as they go through. First one is up today on Spotify and Youtube, hopefully reaching other streamers soon.
I’ll be listening to that while I do the cooking tonight!
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Until next time, enjoy having that song stuck in your head. (I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one…)
When thinking about geeky objects that made an impression on me, I struggled to think of what could be the moment that I became a geek.
1977 was definitely the year the world changed for me. So much happened, but the first instance of true geekdom involved James Bond.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but my parents had nerd tendencies. Maybe the term should be geek-adjacent. Nerd enablers.
“That’s a funny word, isn’t it? Enabler?”
My mum introduced me to Doctor Who, as she was a fan of Jon Pertwee from his comedies, but she also had a complete collection of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels - a collection I still have now. She was always an enthusiastic reader, and had a complete Agatha Christie collection too (kinda wish I still had that).
My dad could be just as enthusiastic when it came to some fandoms, but it wasn’t quite so obvious. It just crept to the surface when he got really invested, something that would be most evident in the hunt for a Darth Vader helmet in the following year or two.
However, they both were supportive, and liked introducing me to cool things. Many of which will appear on this list. From the comics that were subscribed to at the local newsagents that introduced me to the worlds of Spider-Man, Captain America, and Doctor Strange, to the beginning of a lifetime obsession with Star Wars.
Bonding with my Parents
My parents liked movies and TV. I guess that’s where I got it from. I have distinct memories of being taken to the cinema as a child. My earliest memory of this was being taken to see The Three Musketeers, the 1973 Richard Lester movie that starred Michael York and Oliver Reed. It was good swashbuckling fun, but I must have only been about six years old so it didn’t really have much of an impact on me.
The next cinema trip was The Man With the Golden Gun. It came out around Christmas 1974, so I must have seen it in 1975 towards the end of its run. Cinema trips were always a big deal and usually on quieter days for the movies. My mother was paralysed from the waist down by polio as a child, so moving around wasn’t easy, but thanks to metal callipers she could walk about. Add to this that the local cinema was fifteen miles away in the city, a place my dad didn’t really enjoy driving, you realise that the movie had to be something really special for them to venture out to the cinema.
I remember sitting on the back seat of the car, a big estate car so that it could carry my mother’s wheelchair, and asking my dad where we were going. My dad had a wicked sense of humour, and for the whole journey (what seemed like forever, but was actually only about 45 minutes) he insisted that we were going to see Gary Glitter. A joke that has aged particularly badly looking back on it now…
We entered the cinema - I was still confused as to what we were going to see - and my mum had to make her way up the many stairs to the screen itself. (Something that would put a pause in her cinema attendance in years to come, until cinemas became more wheelchair friendly). And, then, on came The Man With The Golden Gun. My mum was suitably enthralled - not only did she love James Bond movies and books, but it also starred Christopher Lee, and she was also a big fan of his Hammer movies.
I was hooked from that opening sequence in the funhouse arena Scaramanga had created. Of course, I’d not seen a Bond film before, so had no idea of the relevance of the dummy at the end of that sequence, but I soon caught up. It was great, and we discussed our favourite parts on the way home in the car. Of course, at this time I must have been about seven years old, so I just liked the car chases, the action, and the gadgets. A lot of the plot was lost on me, but it was great.
Cars & Gadgets
As I mentioned at the start, the real revelation of both mine and my parents’ geekdom really comes in 1977. We had another cinema trip between to see Disney’s The Rescuers, but it was probably late 1977 when the next James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, became quiet enough at the cinema to warrant a trip to the movies.
I was older and wiser, and knew a bit more about Bond by then. My mother had told me all about the books, telling me stories about how the plan was to kill Bond off at the end of the first book (something I believed for years - I don’t know if this is true), and letting me watch Bond movies on TV. After all, they were (and on some channels still are) the traditional bank holiday movie on TV.
The Spy Who Loved Me was more over the top, more guns, gadgets, girls, and introduced Jaws, the legendary Bond villain with the steel teeth. However, the standout moment in the movie was the introduction of Bond’s new car, the Lotus Esprit. It was cool, white, and best of all, could turn into a submarine when necessary.
It was so darn cool. I could see my dad’s eyes light up at the moment it dove off of the pier and the fins came out. And that’s when the hunt began…
Still from The Spy Who Loved Me, with the Lotus diving into the water
We left the cinema and dad got it into his head that we needed to buy the Corgi James Bond Lotus Esprit right there and then. Dad always had a thing for toy cars, collecting vintage cars and even those partwork James Bond cars right up until he died. We tried shop after shop in the city, but alas, no sign. We started the journey home, even stopping at a couple of tiny independent toy shops on the way, but still nothing.
Dad tried a few more shops over the next couple of weeks, eventually coming to the conclusion that we’d missed the opportunity and they’d sold out everywhere. He came home one day from work with the Corgi Stromberg Jet Ranger helicopter, like the one piloted by Caroline Munro in the scene, but I could tell dad was a little disappointed.
Corgi Stromberg Jet Ranger - image from 007Magazine.co.uk
Swapsies
Remember the old days of being at school and swapping stuff? Trading cards, stickers, even toys. I remember a friend of mine called Darren had the Lotus Esprit, and he’d already become bored of it, and offered to swap it for something of mine. I honestly can’t remember what I swapped. I do remember he was slightly obsessed with the “Little Big Man” I had, Palitoy’s miniature version of Action Man… it may have been that. Anyway, swap done, I took the incredibly battered and bashed up Lotus home and my parents were suitably confused and slightly concerned.
I do remember there was a phone call, and Darren’s mother came around with him, and we told both of our respective parents that neither of us had stolen anything off of the other, it was a swap, we were both happy with the arrangement.
Of course, dad wasn’t happy with that. The Lotus I’d gained was very beaten up. No box, some of the missiles were missing, and the fins had a tendency to pop out when you least expected it.
The Hunt Is Over
Finally, many, many month later, long after the movie finished its run in the cinema, dad managed to get a pristine and new Lotus Esprit from one of our local stores.
Corgi James Bond Lotus Esprit - image from 007magazine.co.uk
Thus ends the story of the first of the 100 Geeky Objects that really define my sad, little, nerdy life. It’s strange, but I loved that car, loved that movie, but the enthusiasm my dad showed trying to find it made it more special and certainly more memorable. I think I still have it somewhere, though the missiles are long since lost, and while it has the box, I don’t think the inner cardboard with the submarine printed on it, or the black plastic clips that kept it in place have survived. And I don’t think the little 007 sticker on the bonnet survived either. In my pre-teen head I probably wondered why a spy would advertise their presence on their own car.
If you want to keep up to date with the other objects, be sure to subscribe to my Substack (there will be other things on there as well, don’t worry).
At least, we can hope! I thought I should do a new, almost introductory, post on the Blog as there are a load of people migrating from what we affectionately call 'The Hellsite' over to its logical replacement - Bluesky.
I'm David F Chapman, but you can find me online on most platforms under the name AUTOCRATIK. I'm a game designer/writer (having worked on Conspiracy X 2.0, Buffy, Star Trek Adventures, and designing the Doctor Who RPG for Cubicle 7, as well as my own game of dreamshare technology called WILD). I've talked about them loads, and you can see all the books I've worked on in my "About Me" page - just click the link at the top.
But what's on this blog? Why look?
Most of the time on here I talk about games and what I'm working on at the moment - at least as much as my NDAs will allow. If it's not bound by contracts and stuff, it'll be on here.
I also talk about movies and TV shows - I'm such a massive nerd that I do get a bit carried away with cool media. I used to write reviews and do previews/interviews at press things for various online blogs, and went to press conferences in the heyday of Marvel, when Avengers was just about to come out, through to Guardians of the Galaxy... (after that, the invites kinda dried up. I guess when the movies are that huge, you don't need to drum up interest!)
But I love all that stuff. I love Marvel movies, Star Wars, Star Trek, cool genre shows, and I'm still absolutely obsessed with The X-Files and Twin Peaks. So be warned, there is likely to be a lot of that sort of stuff being discussed here. (I'm actually watching The X-Files again as I'm typing this... season nine at the moment in my current rewatch).
My love for genre movies and TV is probably why I'm such a massive fan of licensed games. Always have been. When I started tabletop roleplaying, the first game I played was Traveller, but I really just wanted to play Star Wars (which was why Star Frontiers was the first game I bought). My favourite RPGs as a teen were the West End Games Star Wars and Ghostbusters games. There's just something about getting to play around in the worlds that I love...
I hope, one day, to merge my obsessions once more.
There we go. I thought I'd pop something a bit more positive at the top of my blog for a bit - especially as there were possibly some newbies taking a look to see what I do.
I listened to a rather enlightening theory recently known as the “Dead Internet Theory”. In it, it discusses the fact that the ‘content’ we put online, is lost in a sea of replicated and AI generated crap, designed to tick boxes that are read by other bots and AI routines. It speculates that over half of the users and activity on the internet these days is automatically created or tailored nonsense designed to appease algorithms to get it promoted. That means less than half of the world’s users of the internet are actually people.
What does that mean for artists and creators?
It’s a dangerous time indeed. If you’re a writer, artist, blogger, journalist, game designer, film maker, etc. you can put your heart and soul into something and put it online only for it to be lost in a sea of generated crap just because you did something different and didn’t appease the algorithmic gods.
It’s like this post. This post is about creativity and writing. But if I don’t add an image, it’s not going to get seen. So I add an image.
Me, when I worked for the council’s archaeology department as an on-site illustrator (circa 1988-89)
By adding an image, even though what I’m writing doesn’t need it, I’m appeasing the algorithm. Sooner or later, we’ll all be doing it. You write a post and it doesn’t get as much engagement as another post, and so you start customising what you’re writing just to get more views. Just so you get noticed in the sea of content that’s out there.
It’s like the TV series “Dead Pixels” when Nicky is just making the spooning action just shovelling ‘content’ into his face. We’re surrounded by so much content at the moment that it’s hard to get anything noticed without appeasing the algorithmic gods.
A feature on BBC news today interviewed a Michael Fortin about the state of Hollywood and how streaming has impacted film and television, and it’s just the same - there’s simply so much ‘content’ out there, the big producers are struggling to get their products seen. So they assume it’s no good, cancel it, and try something else. Or remake something that was successful before.
And that could be my problem. There’s just too much to see, too much to read, and algorithms are hiding half of it.
Tabletop Scotland didn't help - wandering around the halls and looking at the hundreds of cool games on display and I just felt "why am I bothering? No one's going to see anything I make with all these cool games out there".
What's the solution?
You Do It To Yourself, You Do...
To paraphrase Radiohead, going back to my earlier post about where the name "Autocratik" comes from, the only solution I can see is to do what other creators have done. Do what you want, and don't give a monkey's.
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.
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…
(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.
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.
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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.
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?
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!
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
