Category: Gaming

6 Inspirations for your Alien RPG

I recently picked up five Aliens graphic novels as I’m a bit hungry for  inspiration for my game. I thought I’d post little quick reviews and recommendations here to guide purchase. The key here is that, as far as the rpg is concerned, these are all pulling from the same canon (six movies), and show a broad set of interpretations of those materials. Mild spoilers here but I’ve tried to stay away from major plot points. I’ve linked all books in the text itself:

Alien 3 by William Gibson

With all the recent uptick in Alien interest, the powers that be went back to the unused William Gibson screenplay for Alien 3 and turned it into a graphic novel and audio play. I remember reading the screenplay itself in the late 90s in the nascent days of the internet and being unimpressed, and I think the feeling is still there. Now, Alien 3 (the actual David Fincher directed movie) is a total train wreck, but the new cut at least pulls it together into something that makes some sort of sense. But for all that Fincher’s 3 does wrong, at least it focuses on Ripley, who is the key protagonist for the series. This makes Gibson’s choice to Anyway, this is still a MUST READ for rpg influence if only because it paints a picture of the UPP and how they might interact with UA forces, as well as WY science vessels. I’ve heard good things about the radio drama of this as well, but for me the graphic novel was easily consumable in an evening, and I was very glad to have that now as a touchstone. Grade A: Highly Recommend

Dead Orbit by James Stokoe

The Heavy Metal vibe in this collection is heavy here and it sucked me right in. The story itself is not that original, but it does put a new spin on the Space Trucker, so anyone planning to run a Trucker game this is a must-read. The art is totally bonkers with a heavy Moebius vibe but also a Dave Gibbons level of detail. I give the story a B+ but the art is A++++. This one is also a MUST READ if you are looking for some new angles on your Aliens game. Grade A: Highly Recommend

Resistance by Brian Wood & Robert Carey

This collection picks up Amanda Ripley’s story after the Isolation video game (which has officially been removed from canon apparently), and is the first part of a two-parter by Wood. I stopped reading comics because I really became attached to a certain style of drawing and I don’t like many overall, but Carey’s art is phenomenal. And Wood carves out a nice little corner of the Aliens universe with this story that involves WY and synths and more bonkers experiments. The story here is pretty clever and could form a whole backbone for any kind Aliens campaign. This one was probably the best of all my reads. So good on so many levels. Grade A+: Must Read

Rescue by Brian Wood & Kieran McKeown

This story is the surprise part two to Resistance, and picks up Ripley’s story for one more go. I am not enamored by McKeown’s art but it’s not bad, just very normal. The story is also not quite as original as Resistance, but since it’s the same characters, there is a strong feeling of continuity. It shows again how WY influence is broad and corrupt, and expands the universe well enough. It’s okay and is not a must read, except that, now that you know you want to read it, don’t you? If you’re going to . Grade B: Solid Copy

Dust to Dust by Gabriel Hardman & Rain Beredo

I am super touchy about using children as protagonists because apparently they’re so hard to do that no one can really do them justice (except Miyazaki, bless him). This story is okay and sheds some dark light on WY’s corruption; it gives some cool flavor to the universe and could even be a cool convention one-shot. But I don’t really like the art, and I don’t like how the 12 year old main character is incapable of actually taking care of himself for most of the story. I would not recommend picking this up unless you’re trying to get everything. Grade C: Only for completists

Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta

This collection came recommended after I bought all the others by the monster that is the Amazon AI, which is funny because it’s a story about AIs and their capabilities. No spoilers here, in order to preserve the surprises, but while there are no aliens, there are definitely powerful AIs that are central to the plot. This black and white comic is well written and even more beautifully illustrated. The story is dark and scary with only humans and AIs, which is the perfect inspiration for your Alien rpg. Grade A: Must Read!

Sun Spots Kickstarter is Finished

Well, it’s been a long haul, but the Sun Spots Kickstarter has finally delivered all its materials to all of its backers. I’ll need to do a debrief of the overall project at some point, but in short I think it went well overall and I was very happy and encouraged by the responses of my backers. They were all great people and very supportive and encouraging. I think Doc would be proud.

If you have yet to purchase Sun Spots, it is, of course, up on DTRPG and you can find it here. You can also find the GM Kit here, which offers some digital props to accent your running of the game. The book is definitely large and has a TON of illustrations, especially by Reuben Dodd, who worked his ass off to create a great vibe of the town Red Valley and its residents. But really everyone worked their asses off and the book really shows it. I’m quite proud of it.

As for the future, I already have a number of projects lined up of which I’ll be talking about at length soon enough. Thanks again for checking out my blog, which has been a bit neglected lately. Or maybe it was always neglected. Either way, check back and I’ll let you know what’s going on.

On Providing Choice to the PCs

I started my 5th Edition D&D campaign last week and am very excited for it. It’s been a while (well, two years) since I started a new campaign, but, more importantly, I’ve invited a bunch of close friends to join me weekly on Roll20, with shorter hours (more on this later), which will make it very easy to keep going on a regular basis. With a consistent gaming schedule, I find I can focus my efforts on prepping and running the game instead of worrying about whether enough players will show.

But for me, running a campaign isn’t just about gaming. It’s about taking an opportunity to flex my storytelling muscles at the same time I’m having fun in a game. I can’t help but use the opportunity for running a game to find the story components and engage with those as much as possible. And it’s even more important in a game like D&D, where the story elements aren’t as pronounced as, say, in a Dungeon World, Fiasco, or FATE game (which are more rooted in story out of the gate).

So if I’m taking the effort to learn and explore storytelling in my 5th edition game, there’s no better place to start than at the beginning. And having just begun my game, I want to identify all the places I can get the team working on these elements, and it starts with PC introductions. But it’s not enough just to make the PCs’ various histories important to the game’s present — you need to make it matter with choice. Choice is one of the fundamental aspects of storytelling in that it fundamentally creates characters — when characters make a choice, they show their true colors and instincts. And the harder the choice, the more interesting the story. Does Luke join Darth? Does Frodo keep the Ring? Does Neo take the red or blue pill? Without choice, story is nothing.

For the first session, I came up with a list of choices for each PC (one each) to make that will inform their own personalities and loyalties. Each choice had something to do with the old world versus the new world. In the campaign introduction, the group has been recruited by Lord Silverhand of Waterdeep, but the PCs also have their own factions and other personal allegiances — will they turn their back on their old world connections or move forward into their new futures? Will they accept their new responsibilities blindly or do they second guess why they’ve been hired? How will they approach this new mission in light of their personal backgrounds? These are all interesting choices that give color to characters.

The best games and campaigns are rooted in choice. One of the most classic RPG campaigns of all time — Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu — opens by giving the PCs multiple choices on how to approach the game with a large handful of clues and information. Out of the gate the PCs have agency to determine their own direction in the game and I believe this set of choices (which ultimately follows the group throughout the game) helps cement the campaign as one of the all-time greats.

As a game master, it’s your job to set the tone of your game — the earlier, the better. Yes, we’re playing out of the box 5th edition D&D, but we’re also playing in my game, and I like stories, the bigger, the better. I don’t want to just crawl through the dungeons or wilderness and not give opportunity to let the story be about the characters and their choices. Just giving the PCs these introductory choices — just one quick choice along with one scene bringing them into the world — set the tone and gave each player something to latch onto. I think it was a good start.

I’m interested in all the ways we can actively bring storytelling elements into our RPGs. What other ways can we allow players and PCs to make choices?

Running 30 Minute Fiasco for Middle Schoolers… With No Prep

“I want you to teach my class how to tell a story,” came the original request from my wife, an eighth grade teacher.

My first thought was: “Let’s send them all down to Robert McKee’s Story Seminar for a weekend. That’ll learn ’em.” But no, that’s not what she was talking about.

“I want you to use one of your game systems and help them understand how a story is formed. Can you do that?” Well, yes, of course I can. I can teach them about story and characters, about goals and conflict, about how gaming and writing are similar in that the most important part is the journey, not some destination- “You can have 30 minutes.”

Ah. Well then we’re playing Fiasco.

Fiacso, if you don’t know, is a collaborative role-playing game where a group of 3-5 players builds characters in a setting, then gives those characters certain ill-advised desires. Play begins with the PCs building their plans but usually poor impulse control gets in the way. These plans get built up over one act, then come tumbling down over another act, as the poor impulse control leads to worse and worse decisions until the bottom falls out. It’s a game that’s modeled after Coen Brother movies like Blood Simple and Fargo, but can be put in just about any setting where ambition and greed intersect (I have written a Fiasco playset for The Man in the High Castle — more on that in a later post).

To me, the best part of the Fiasco game comes from the setup, where the group builds out four categories of information to use during the game: Needs, Relationships, Objects and Locations. Because it’s a collaborative game, everyone builds these together, which does an amazing job of giving everyone stake in the game; the Needs and Relationships build out the foundation for the story, giving the characters immediate agency and action; building out these factors fresh every game allows amazing portability and replayability; and designing the setting like this is just plain fun.

I explained Fiasco to my wife, how all of these elements come together to provide a fun experience that actually does a pretty amazing job of teaching the fundamentals of story-telling. You learn how to create interesting characters and settings, then give those characters conflicting desires and goals — conflict brings drama. And drama is just life with all the dull bits cut out, to quote Alfred Hitchcock. Drama is interesting. Drama gets us coming back for more.

She nodded to all of that and wanted me to wrap all of those core ideas into a snappy 30 minute presentation. I explained how I could run a setup with the class, then take them through a couple scenes to give them a grasp on how “easy” it is to pull these elements together, once you know how it works. Great, great, she said, just do all of that.

And so that’s what I did back in December, when I showed up with just a smile and a love for stories and games to share.

Teaching kids Poor Impulse Control

The class of 26 13-14 year-olds was mostly eager and attentive. I got one of them to play scribe and then explained what we were going to do: the game would be set at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (a nearby coastal amusement park); I would get different parts of the class to figure out the different elements of the story we were going to tell (Objects, Relationships, Locations and Needs); then I’d call up four volunteers to role-play the game with some help from the crowd.

While I am not professionally a teacher, I have found myself in a teaching role frequently in my life. I was a technical writer for years, which is teaching via written manuals. These days I’m a software consultant that is often teaching both concepts and specific technical details. And I like to both play and run games, and am often in situations where I am the only one who knows how to play games. These situations require at least a fundamental understanding of both explaining and teaching. I think I do a pretty okay job of it.

After covering the core concepts and getting the class to collaborate on the details for the game, we jumped in to the actual role-playing part. I brought up two boys and two girls and gave each set one of the needs. We really only had time for six scenes, so we would be just doing a quick setup before I threw in a twist of some kind and then we’d have two more scenes. We talked about how desire unmet is the core to any interesting story and that two of our characters had some sort of unmet need. Hey look, there are the needs right on the board.

It didn’t take much to get through the scenes. One of the boys was trying to ask one of the girls out, and boy howdy do I not miss adolescence. True to his character, he could not figure out what to say in the moment, and so we roleplayed his anxiety and indecision as it happened. Frustration and a little embarrassment added to the tension as we moved onto the next scene.

We had another two scenes, where we brought the characters together by playing off the other needs, and used the locations and items to center the story on the same items that were introduced at the beginning. Everyone was ready for the climax, and we soon came to the end scene, where one question loomed large — could the boy summon the courage to ask out the girl?

There was a beat, a moment where it was unclear. But then yes! He took a deep breath and asked if she would go to the dance with him! The class thundered with applause and a sheepish grin came over the boy. Object of desire achieved!

I sent the kids back to their desks and explained what had happened, how the boy’s embarrassment and anxiety had created distance from his goals, how that distance had created tension, how that tension had created interest in the story. We talked about how some of the story elements might have come together differently if we could go back and alter them; if we were writing fiction, we could add and subtract elements until the story was just right.

But most importantly I talked about how these elements, and the game of Fiasco, help bootstrap us into building a coherent and interesting story, and that they can be used both in and out of a game context. If, as a writer, you can understand how the concept of unmet desire is fundamental to story (and humans, really), then you understand what goes into building good drama and interesting characters. With that, my 30 minutes were done.

And that’s how you run a 30 minute Fiasco game for middle schoolers with zero prep. It works for a reason.

My First Published Call of Cthulhu Scenario

Back in 2007 (nearly 10 years ago, mind you), I promised myself I was going to work as hard as I could until I finally (Finally!) published a Call of Cthulhu scenario. I made two distinct efforts to make this happen: one, I responded to an ad from Keith “Doc” Herber to write a large scenario for his Outer Gods book; second, I responded to a request for materials written for an upcoming companion to the classic Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign for Call of Cthulhu. And while I wrote and wrote and wrote over the next couple years, producing at least 50k words for those two project, neither was ever published.

Well, as you know, Sun Spots will finally see the light of day (pun ultimately intended, after a few minutes of thinking about it) next year after my Kickstarter last October. And the latest posts from SixtyStone on the Masks Companion say that its actual publication is eminent. But still, neither of those has been published. So, as of the end of November 2016, I still had not seen my name associated with a Call of Cthulhu publication.

Oh yes, there was He Who Laughs Last, something of which I’m very proud of, and I do not diminish in the least. But it is still not a Call of Cthulhu scenario. However, back

wrath
Here are the grapes – and here’s the Wrath!

in the summer of 2014, I was first asked to pitch a Call of Cthulhu scenario to Golden Goblin Press for their upcoming Tales of the Caribbean book. So I pitched, then wrote and playtested, and finally rewrote and handed-off a scenario about evil under a volcano, all under the guidance of Oscar and Lisa, who kicked my ass to write the best possible scenario.

And so, finally, nearly 10 years after I made up my mind, I finally have published my first Call of Cthulhu scenario. And it’s out before both the Masks Companion and Sun Spots.

What’s more, it came out under the guidance of Oscar Rios, who has dozens of published CoC scenarios to his name. Many of the people I’m working with now are in the same boat, with plenty of published gaming materials to their names. The last couple years have been amazing as I’ve worked with more and more of these people, and become friendly and friends with some of them. Even across continents and oceans, I’m building relationships with a small circle of very talented, imaginative, and really sorta crazy people. It’s really been fantastic.

I was first published in the Oregon State University Daily Barometer sometime in 1990/1. My first story (a 300 word piece about some committee’s decision) was a brutal, drag-out affair that took me hours to write. I had never done anything like it and I was so thankful that my second piece took half the time to produce twice as much. After college, I wrote for other newspapers, and as an intern wrote for ComputerLife magazine (RIP). So being published is nothing new.

But this piece is something else, and I wanted to pause and reflect on my journey. I’m very proud of the work I did for the Masks Companion, and clearly am excited to help Sun Spots finally get published. But Wrath of the Sulfurer will always be my first, and I thank all the readers and gamers who supported the project. I can’t wait to write some more.

15 Kickstarted RPGs I need to Play — Part 2

When last we spoke, I was rambling on about a bunch of great RPGs from Kickstarter that I was dying to sink my teeth into. But that list didn’t even touch on the horror/Cthulhu genre, which is near and dear to my heart, and has really been for years my go-to RPG genre. (I have been finally branching out though, really.)

Obviously Cthulhu Kickstarters are important to me, and I back and track them fairly regularly. But for all that we, as the collective Cthulhu-minded RPG industry, have done, we continue to raise the bar on ourselves for both quantity and quality. I have all these books on my shelves, except those yet to ship, and I could really be running RPGs twice a week from here until I die, and still not keep up. Inevitably, just as I think “Well, that’s it, my shelves have no more space,” someone very cool gets on Kickstarter with an amazing project that I at least must back in PDF form.

My stack of digital RPG books is nearing the size of my physical books, and as I would rather back an RPG for a PDF than not back it at all, I don’t see this stopping anytime soon. So the evidence is right in front of us that our industry is growing in both quality and quantity. Sites like DTRPG.com and Kickstarter have accelerated the growth of the industry and removed the barriers between idea and publication. Despite claims otherwise, I think the hobby is thriving — it’s just going through massive shifts in how its audience interacts. Look at how Monte Cook is trying to break down how people interact outside of the table, shifting the paradigm (or at least attempting to) is one more step in moving from old to new. And the numbers back this claim up — RPGs grew in 2013 at 67%! And that was before 5th edition D&D came along.

So despite any claims otherwise, the industry is doing great, and once again the proof is in the pudding. So here’s my list of Cthulhu Kickstarters that I really, truly must find some time to play:

  • Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man — This was one of the first projects I backed: a Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands campaign by Dennis Detwiller? Sign me up. And while it unfortunately hit a serious case of scope creep that delayed its delivery date well past the December 2012 deadline, the finished product is a great looking product that stands up to its potential. Funny thing about how the industry changes — this project launched 4.5 years ago and funded at just about the same amount that Sun Spots did (~$15k). The way the market has changed, Arc Dream would probably double that amount today, certainly. So this book holds the illustrious title of Kickstarter RPG Sitting Unplayed on my Shelf Longest.
  • Shadows of Atlantis for Acthung Cthulhu! — At one moment, suddenly came two WWII Call of Cthulhu games on Kickstarter: Achtung Cthulhu! and World War Cthulhu. For a while I didn’t understand the difference, but after some research it’s easier to delineate: AC! is the pulpy brother to the darker, brooding WWC. AC! drops PCs right into the war against zombies and Nazis and dark magic, with an overt pulp look and feel to the whole campaign. This was another of my early backed projects, and they rolled out a whole product line over the course of the subsequent years. Now I have this large Shadows of Atlantis campaign sitting on my shelves, waiting to be run. I love the idea of lost civilizations and this campaign has received great reviews for its content.
  • World War Cthulhu: Cold War — On the other end of the WWII spectrum, WWC is about working for a secret British government organization to fight the Mythos before the Allies lose WWII. And while I didn’t pick up the original WWC books (because I still have AC! to run), I couldn’t resist the porting of WWC to the Cold War as a full boxed set campaign setting. Guh — can’t resist. This project has only delivered the core PDF so far, and we’re still waiting for the whole boxed set to be delivered. Agents of Cthulhu in 1970s Berlin? Sign me up.
  • Horror on the Orient Express 2nd ed. — AKA The Kickstarter That Almost Ruined Chaosium. Really, I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time: release a deluxe reprint of the most coveted of CoC campaigns. Except the campaign was overrun by its own success and nearly failed in delivering its product, only to be saved in the 11th hour by Chaosium’s new management. Whew. That was close. And the new campaign, while full of amazing content, still has some inconsistent plotting and holy smokes the books look like they’re straight from 1995. But still, it would be so fun to run this game. I still have the original that I’ve never run. I better get a chance to run the second.
  • Delta Green RPG — Remember back in 2012, when Arc Dream ran the KS for SotSoHM (see above) and I said they would do so much more if they ran now? Well, Delta Green is them doing exactly that. Like $362k exactly that. This campaign, with its new rules and campaigns and scenarios and art, is the perfect example of how to understand your audience and run a KS campaign just for them. Mostly, though, it’s an opportunity for Arc Dream/Pagan to free themselves from the bounds of Chaosium and run their own show, and it’s about goddam time. Really, this project and game system is less about a new set of rules and more about letting the DG guys do their own thing. Just the raw amount of PDFs is enough to back the thing, and that includes a 1960s Gumshoe version of DG written by Ken Hite. Like I said: these guys know their audience. The first books and screens are out and word is good. Can’t wait for the rest of the materials to be released.
  • The Things We Leave Behind — Stygian Fox is just getting rolling, with a handful of their own Kickstarters to show. TTWLB was released recently to very positive reviews, and I would love to run any and all of these modern day scenarios. Modern horror is so much more tangible and takes a clever mind to pull off well. These scenarios look to put grave and dark twists for the players to unravel, and sanity will surely be challenged. Looks good.
  • Tales of the Crescent City — The stack of Golden Goblin Press books on my shelf continues to grow. Oscar and crew are hitting stride and somehow able to create unique gamebooks that all fill a needed niche. TotCC sets the PCs to New Orleans, which is a great place to investigate (as one of the many settings of HPL’s original Call of Cthulhu) with its dark and mysterious history. So one more great books of adventure that I have yet to run.
  • Tales of the Caribbean — As a contributor to this final entry, I am surely looking to read and run this book, set in the Caribbean islands. But here’s the thing about this scenario book that makes me want to run games from it more than any other on the list: I have a first hand experience on how the book was edited, and knowing that every scenario was held to a level of quality like mine was means that the book truly rises above. The whole thing has got to be great. Seriously.

In closing, I’ve been thinking about this post and all my unplayed games for a while. I really don’t know what to do about it, especially since I am not really playing ANY of it right now (and 2017 isn’t going to get better, trust me). But I could see myself getting a group together down the road a bit and picking one of these to run on a consistent basis, maybe getting through a few of the scenario books. Of course, by then, there will be plenty of new materials to stack on top of my list. If nothing else, it’s a good problem to have.

15 Kickstarter RPGs I Need to Play — Part 1

We are truly in the golden age of RPGs (never mind board and card games, which are having their own renaissance). Since I joined Kickstarter in 2011, the RPG market has fully grasped and exploited the crowdfunding platform, resulting in millions of dollars in funded table-top RPGs. One just needs to look at the recent success of Invisible Sun by Monte Cook to see that not only are RPGs thriving on Kickstarter, but they’re now trying new things and breaking down traditional game mechanics.

However, all these amazing games present something of a problem (a problem which, strangely, Invisible Sun tries to fix). Basically, there are too many games to play. Let’s leave the still growing popularity of D&D off the table for the moment and just look at everything else. Actually, let’s just look at those games that I have backed in the past few years, forgetting all the good materials that are still available after decades.

These are the non-Cthulhu based RPGs that I have backed on Kickstarter, some of which are systems and some just campaign settings. I’ve got a hankering to run each of these for a particular reason:

  • TimeWatch RPG and Behind Enemy Times Campaign — I’ve always loved time travel, and the first RPG I ever wrote was a time travel variation on Gamma World. Kevin Kulp and team wrote extensive materials for this Gumshoe-based system, and I can’t wait to try it out. What’s more, The Book of Changing Years is an amazing in-game resource that posits an anonymous author writing a “official” timeline as a background for the campaign — fantastic and hilarious book.
  • Dracula Dossier Campaign (for Night’s Black Agents) — Pelgrane took its “vampires versus Jason-Bourne” premise for Nights Black Agents and doubled-down to bring us the Dracula Dossier, yet another in-game resources that bases the whole campaign on the idea that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a highly redacted, factual account of British agents gone bad. The PCs find a marked up copy of Dracula, along with other indicators that something is amiss, and must unravelled the conspyramid before undone themselves. It’s an amazing premis for a game, and the materials (by Ken Hite nonetheless) speak to how Pelgrane seems to keep setting its own bar higher, and then reaching it. Quality game.
  • Night Witches RPG — While we’re on the topic of publishers who keep setting and breaking their own records, Bully Pulpip’s game of WWII women fighter pilots is a unique take on a setting that’s seen its share of cliches — a setting that somehow mixes the visceral thrill of using WWI biplanes to drop railroad ties on German Panzers with the drama found in trying to survive back the drama found at living on the airbase during the war. Driven by the Apocolype World engine, Night Witches shows how an RPG can bring perspective and insight to another world, important in so many different ways.
  • Numenera — This game kinda started a whole thing on its own, and now that it’s out in the published world with a whole bunch of adventures and supplements really speaks to how well Monte Cook understands contemporary RPGs. I was a huge fan of Heavy Metal magazines growing up, and this game world appeals to me greatly. It’s amazing that Cook was able to carve out a whole new unexplored genre to himself. But more importantly is that Cook has used Kickstarter to generate millions of dollars for his company and create his own publishing monster starting from Kickstarter. A great example to my point.
  • Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure (for Dungeon Crawl Classics) — Not only are we in our own RPG rennaisance, but the fantasy genre itself has undergone its own revival, where gamers want to look back from the flash of the latest D&D/Pathfinder editions to bring back some of the old school aspects found in the early fantasy games of the 1970s. This revival (called, appropriately, OSR or Old School Revival) aims to expand on the early days of Fantasy RPGs by combining modern publishing and game systems with the orginal influences of D&D. This is how you end up with Hubris, a very weird campaign setting for my favorite OSR game, Dungeon Crawl Classics. Just a perusal through the Hubris Kickstarter page should be enough to show you how weird people like to get with their OSR. I would love to run an ultra-weird, down in the dirt DCC campaign using this setting; like some strange mix of Gamma World and D&D.
  • The Complete Roslof Keep Campaign — The other part of the OSR that keeps getting revisited is what’s called the “old school dungeon crawl.” These large scale dungeons were the stuff of legends, and now people are bringing them back in true form. This whole campaign can be used for both 1e and 5e, though I’m sure it could easily be converted to DCC. That I could run this massive dungeon crawl with such beautiful, contemporary design is the sort of opportunity that keeps me up at night. Looks so good.
  • Judge’s Guild Deluxe Collector’s Edition — Or, if 21st century production values aren’t your thing and you really yearn for an RPG experience straight out of the 70s, you could go straight to the source. Recognizing that they formed the OS in OSR, Judge’s Guild went back and reprinted all their original campaign settings in a restored form. When I discovered D&D in 1980, I would go down to Arthur’s Toy Town where, at the back of the store they kept all their RPG materials. Lacking both the funds and understanding of what I was looking at, I would peruse the shrink-wrapped Judge’s Guild books and just imagine that one day I would have the money and friends and understanding to run these games. Well, I do have the money and friends now, just not the time. The Tegel Manor book on its way and I am sure the 10 year old me will be happy to have it finally in his hands.

So these are just the non-Cthulhu games I have backed and don’t have time to play. Some of them I’ve read, some are still on their way to me. After pretty much gaming Cthulhu only for many years, and totally ignoring the fantasy genre altogether, it would be highly remiss of me as an RPG author to ignore all of these amazing books.

Next up, all the Cthulhu gaming books I don’t have time to play.

High Castle Playset for Fiasco Under Development

One of the best parts of living in our Golden Age of RPGs is that the choice of systems to use provides an unprecedented level of game design flexibility. Recently I was watching the Amazon TV show Man in the High Castle thinking how much I liked the story as possible RPG setting. While my first impulse was to develop some system and setting out of whole cloth, I quickly realized that the setting was the perfect candidate for a Fiasco playset.

If you’re not familiar with Fiasco, it’s a GM-less RPG that revolves around high ambition and poor impulse control. Originally seeded as an opportunity to play out a Coen Brother style session, it has evolved into an RPG engine that can provide amazing gaming sessions in myriad different genres, tones and depth of story-telling. The writers of Fiasco have open-sourced the playsets it uses to allow anyone to create a Fiasco session in any really anyway, anytime, with all sorts of interesting gaming levers to pull.
So instead of going and designing a new game based on The Man in the High Castle (both the TV show and novel, both of which I like immensely), I just decided to build my own playset. And, quite frankly, it worked out quite well. This last weekend, at BigBadCon in Walnut Creek, CA, I ran two separate sessions of Return to the High Castle, a Fiasco game set in the world of The Man in the High Castle. My game description was as such:
Canon City, Colorado, 1962: Sixteen years after the Nazis bombed Washington, D.C., the Greater Nazi Reich rules Eastern North America, while the West is governed by the Japanese Pacific States. High in the Rocky Mountains lives the remains of the USA, those unwilling to submit to the will of the totalitarian state, those hiding secrets and their past, and those who are still willing to stand up and fight. The Resistance has a move to make, something to hide and sell, but there are spies, moles, and double agents everywhere. Time for plans to fall apart. Time for a fiasco. Loosely based on the Philip K Dick book and Amazon TV series “The Man in the High Castle.”
I will be writing more on the playset, but for now, I wanted to note some of my thoughts on the two sessions and some give feedback for myself on where to go next with the playsets. Most of my feedback drops into one of two buckets:
1. The Setting Can Be Really Dark… or Not: So just running a game with Nazis and Imperialist Japanese with a modicum of verisimilitude creates problems right out of the gate. Basically, these were horrible fascist regimes that did horrible things to many, many people. The impact of what was done is still being felt today and will be felt for a long, long time. So much so, that there are a lot of stripes to fascism that are still in our public conversation today, in discussions on race relation, immigration, and, oh, I don’t know, the fact that Aleppo, Syria today looks like Berlin in 1945. So yeah, those are still fresh scars.
The first key here is, then, to just talk about it. We had an open conversation at both tables, though one was far more thorough than the other, on where we might cross boundaries and how we were going to talk about it if we did. One observation is that, for both sessions, we limited the action in the game to just the city and area around Canon City, which plays a central part of the TV show. My playset is set there because it represents the perfect arena for plans to come undone, but we also found that no one wanted to play in the either of the occupied parts of the former USA, either the West/Japanese or East/Nazi occupied lands. Not playing in these areas allowed us to stay away from most of the really dark stuff that might come up. We were playing in what was, ostensibly, the remains of the USA, which allowed us freedom that might not be available in the occupied areas. It also kept us at arm’s distance from the fascist regimes that might be able to easily crush the freedom that we, as players, needed to exercise in order to avoid some of the darker topics.
The key component of a good Fiasco game is high stakes in imperfect plans that come tumbling down, usually in a tragic manner. Keeping the action to Canon City, and away from the darker parts of the setting, allowed us to set up some dark comedy and tragic plans without needing to pull in the really, really horrible stuff.
2. Dick’s Split Reality: One of my favorite parts of any Philip K Dick story is his playing with reality and perceptions. All the best PKD stories have characters punching through the veil to realize that things are not really as they seem. It’s very Dickian for the High Castle stories (both novel and TV) to have people realize that their reality, in which the Axis won WWII by dropping a bomb on Washington DC, is not the only reality, and that a reality exists where the Allies won (aka our reality). Not only do the characters realize it, but they travel to that reality at some point, as well as have artifacts (film and book) come from one reality to another. So it’s key to any PKD-inspired story to have shifting realities be a part of the narrative.
Well, in the first game we played, this was only hinted at when one of the PCs (mine) came across a USA flag with 50 stars. Not only is the the flag banned contraband but the USA of the High Castle reality would have never reached 50 states (with Alaska and Hawaii both gaining statehood in 1959). So 50 stars on a USA flag is something strange but not reality shaking. In our second game, as we attempted to raise the stakes, one of the PCs encountered what seemed to be a Nazi listening post (much like the Japanese one in the High Castle TV show), that implied that every place the PCs had been was tapped. This had serious implications for the narrative. Well, we just ran with it, and came up with a very Dickian story with double and triple realities, possible time travel, and maybe even androids posing as PCs. So yeah, Dickian.
Lots of different avenues to investigate then with this playset, and I was amazed and overjoyed with the sessions. Of course, it helps to have high quality players, and I was blessed with eight amazing gamers who jumped in with both feet for this unusual and somewhat risky endeavor. But the session bouyed my intuition that the High Castle is a valid and interesting setting for RPGing, especially in the Fiasco realm. The possibilities and details providing in the playset were more than enough primer to help build a unique, interesting, and most importantly fun Fiasco session.
There is still work to do on the playset, some tweaking and some open questions on organization that need to be answered. I aim to provide this playset free of charge, so we’ll see how that whole thing works out with Intellectual Property and all that. More soon with further developments.