category: RPGs

Hypertellurians is beautiful. It’s a lovely book, with wonderful evocative art, and a bunch of really interesting “features” to stack on top of “archetypes” (like classes but more thematic and less capability-based). I won’t go through the book because other people have done it better. Having prepped and run a single game, though, how was it? ...

Finally, finally, I pulled the trigger and tried running a Hypertellurians game. This was done in Discord, with three players. It took about three hours, including us all learning the game. We used Avrae for rolls and I made a Google sheet character keeper but we ended up using the provided pre-gens on the Mottokrosh website. Unfortunately, this means no pictures. ...

I like a spooky Halloween game. Now unfortunately, I have not found a good way of actually setting a creepy tone over the Internet. I normally use something like Dread or Ten Candles to do that for me, but both are very physical games. The former uses an actual Jenga™️ tower and the latter uses ten actual candles as your strength against the metaphorical as well as physical darkness. Well, COVID has fucked that. 😷 So, instead, here’s the next best thing, a pumpkin-themed 1st-level one-shot. As usual all arts and assets are from 2 minute tabletop. Ironically not the adventure they’ve published this year, 2020, but from a few years back (I think). Pumpkins because of course. ...

Time for another impromptu game of The Quiet Year! Much like last time, I offered it into a roll20 session when we realised we didn’t want to continue a campaign without one of the players. Steampunk guinea-pigs need water and coal.. ...

BEHOLD! Marvel at the majesty of the Barrowmaze! Gaze in awe at its breadth, its depth! It has hundreds of rooms, leaving years of material to play in!!! The party triggered a trap in room 2, and died, fleeing, in room 1. As a GM, not my finest hour. Again. This is the same group that I killed before! ...

I wasn’t enthused about the third adventure in the Bree-land Region Guide — but saying that, I haven’t run it. Also, I wanted to keep doing something with Berelas, as at least one party member was quite attached to her, and there’s no further published material on her, to my knowledge. So, instead, I asked the group where they wanted to go (ahead of the session), and then offered some hooks. Berelas wants to go to Radagast, which is quite a trip away. The players offered to escort her, and I prepped a long Journey and had some vague ideas for some things to do in Rhosgobel when they arrived. Although, hmm, how to get there. ...

Finally, finally started a UVG game! 💜💜💜 This is mainly running as a play-by-post on Discord for the moment, although we’ve had some short live sessions: To say “hi” and discuss Slovak culture To have an encounter lick some rocks I didn’t really intend to start a new long-form game, but I couldn’t see a good one-shot that would still use the travelling mechanics for more time than it would take to introduce them. SEACAT as a pure encounter engine for me does not hold the same appeal. ...

This post contains spoilers for the named adventure in the Bree-land Region Guide for Adventures in Middle Earth, by Cubicle 7 🙈. ...

Short post here, here’s the games in my “to-play” pile, sorted by immediacy. I thought it would be a nice way of keeping track of stuff that’s caught my eye. Games I’ve not played yet: Beak, Feather & Bone - An IRL friend bought me this. Not only do I therefore want to report back, but it is a short story-telling game and thus ready for dropping into a blank session. And it has bird-people. Need to import an image into roll20 for a game. Ultraviolet Grasslands - Love Luka’s art, getting ready to start a play-by-post of this. My games always end up a bit grim, so I really want an excuse to make a cheerful gonzo game with a Mad Max bent. Hypertellurians - For some reason I just really want to play this atomic raygun RPG. I’m not even sure why but I have it in PDF and physical and it looks like a laugh and relatively light. Mind you, so does a lot of stuff I already own! DELVE - A solo dungeon-building game. I’m waiting for the physical book for this one. It might be a bit fiddly compared to a pure story-telling game as it involves some light cellular automation of rooms to cover invasions and water flow and stuff. Worst case it would be easier on roll20 or similar where I don’t have to pack it up. Ex Novo - another story-telling map-building game that was in the Racial Equality bundle. It can be played solo and I definitely want to give it a go. Humblewood - a 5e campaign that’s finally arrived across the Atlantic. It’s very beautiful, and I will save running it for post-pandemic. For completeness it’s worth noting it’s available on roll20 now… ...

I played the ENNie award-winning Thousand Year Old Vampire. The story is that you’re a Vampire that can live for Thousands of Years. This game is the Ronseal (™️) of RPGs in that sense. Consider it Highlander, the RPG. TL;DR It is great. ...