Currently reading this history of the music hall, the British counterpart of vaudeville and precursor to variety. My favourite RPGs tend to be things like "Call of Cthulhu" and "Forgotten Futures" with a strong Victorian to Georgian (George V, that is) tone and history, but I often feel that the popular culture of the time is ignored when it should be a vital part of the world and the characters. NPCs ought to be playing records, going to the pictures, whistling the latest hits, referencing movie stars and stage actors, encouraging the PCs to read a new novel they're enamoured with—or recommending they avoid one they dislike.
A few sentences here and there, a name dropped, an encounter when shopping for sheet music or looking at the posters advertising coming acts… it doesn't take much to add to a great deal of flavour to the world and make it feel alive, rather than like those cheap cartoons where the only people moving or even present in a scene are the PCS.
Möchte was neues starten. Die Frage ist #BeyondTheWall, #Dragonbane oder #DieVerbotenenLande ? Alle drei Systeme sind super (auf dem Papier). Wie ist denn deine Erfahrung mit diesen Systemen, liebe #pnpde Bubble? Muss ich etwas besonderes beachten?
...Mystic Quest in Europe. Sword of Mana was the fifth release in the series. 🏹
The gameplay of Sword of Mana is an expanded and modified version of the original gameplay with elements added from later games in the Mana series. ⚔️
🕹️ Trivia about the game consoles of our childhood
"Magic-users are unwelcome in any village or meadhall. Feared by the superstitious peasants, mistrusted by warriors. Only the power of the lord they serve will protect them, but for sorcerers even that may not be enough."
Magic as something genuinely uncanny and dangerous is too rare in fantasy games, most of which follow D&D's lead of wizards being power fantasies and spells being items on a shopping list. Again, Wulfwald builds tension and conflict into the setting itself. I'm very much liking what I've read so far.
The original game Fantasy Wargaming: The Highest Level of All (or just Fantasy Wargaming in some editions) was a 1981 book by Bruce Galloway, a clear variation on Dungeons and Dragons, based on Galloway’s home rules. Unlike it’s competition it was not afraid of using actual historical concepts like astrology and occultism in it’s descriptions, although it also was written so densely it was hard to make sense of it in any shape or form by someone not already familiar with roleplaying games. And, well, it was called Fantasy Wargaming.
Which made this a problem, as the game was published both in the UK and the US by mainstream publishers obviously trying to break into the nascent TTRPG market. The most available version was most likely the one published by the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club, which made the game available to many people who did not have any experience with roleplaying games before.
Unfortunately one has to say, as the game’s size (300pgs) and conceptual denseness made parsing the book quite a feat, meaning if people used this as an introduction to roleplaying, it might not have been very successful.
The Story of Fantasy Wargaming goes into this, and into the development of the game. It could have been a bit more thorough and a bit more critical, but for what it is it’s a nice look into the environment that created it. And well, it’s free.
(I learned about this book from an episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast which had the author on and talked about this project. Well worth a listen)
Issue 3 of Wanderer Bill’shttps://lkh.sdf-eu.org/wandererbill/grenzland/ just landed in my mailbox yesterday, with, among other things, an NPC class written by me (“The Anointed of Abyssal Slaughter”). It mostly was me combining the given topic of the issue with an interest in NPC classes a while ago.
The ‘zine also contains a one-page dungeon by Alex Schroeder (“The Crown of Neptune”), a game report (“Schiffbruch”), rules for sailing ships (“Salt’n’Tar”), and another scenario (“Eingekerkert”), the latter three all by Wanderer Bill. The ‘zine is a mix of German and English, and you can get it for the phenomenal price of free at the website.
(he does have a few more physical copies for 7 Euros left over though)
I was flipping through the Old School Essentials box set with my 5yo son and 8yo daughter. They were particularly impressed respectively by the dragon turtle and the gelatinous cube... and now they're playing dragon turtle vs gelatinous cube.
And with that… I’m done with Octopath Traveler 2. I know there’s some post-final chapters epilogue story and boss, but after 80 hours, I think I’m done. I’m beat.
Score: C+
Good: Combat and graphics.
Bad: Random battles, short dungeons, 1000 boss fights, fractured story lines, & annoying party management.
I'm a Learning Specialist, Head of Science and Teacher of Physics, and Science at Castlemaine Secondary College in Victoria on
Dja Dja Wurrung (Djaara) Country
I listen to, play and record a range of mostly instrumental, atmospheric improvisational guitar music including with my band Make-Shift
I spend a lot of time listening to and watching nature including Birds, Butterflies, Clouds, Trees, Wildflowers, and Rocks
I am often obsessed with fantasy/sci-fi/role-playing games (e.g., D&D)
I hope for a more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive society
Finding interesting people on Mastodon has been my biggest challenge 😅, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. If you're an author, aspiring writer, book lover, fantasy reader, tech lover, roleplayer, tabletop gamer, or anything in between, feel free to follow me! I'd love to connect and follow you back 😄📚🎲 #Mastodon#fantasy#rpg#ttrpg#gaming#tech
Still feeling a little unnerved that the party appeared to make some progress in our Cthulhu Eternal investigation last night. We may be on the wrong track, I suppose, but the usual Whartson Hall method is to rope a red herring and ride it erratically into the sunset, whereas @RogerBW seems to have put his finger on a highly plausible possibility (given weight by the traditional Lovecraftian investigation marker: it prompted a handout from the GM).
HEARTLODGED Announcement Trailer (youtu.be)