Coffee and Contemplation

Coffee and Contemplation of 5e D&D.

A quiet start to the weekend. Coffee and the 5e D&D Player’s Handbook with Ultravox’s Quartet in quietly in the background. One child up, and the rest of the family asleep.

More and more, I’m tempted to run Curse of Strahd with 5e D&D. I'm also realising that a Paladin that has taken the Oath of Devotion would be really useful to a party in this, but they may as well paint a large target on themselves!

South Hams escape

The Creek, Salcombe.

The return to work makes you appreciate the time you have away more than ever. One of my team had kindly (and I mean that honestly) sent me a 'while you are away' summary, so I knew what I was walking back into, but the transition from relaxation to full-on plate spinning always comes as a shock. I think I'm probably 80% there and will be back in the swing in a day or two. I'm not helped that our reporting year runs August to July and we need to submit by 31st latest. The trick will be to keep the memories close and not make it feel like it's years ago.

When the (life) boat comes in...

We spent the holiday in the South Hams, the southernmost end of Devon. It's part of the world that I remember from my youth, as my parents regularly took us there to a cottage outside the village of Marlborough. I introduced Jill to it just before Nathan arrived, and we've been going back since.

Trips into Salcombe were fun-filled opportunities to try to catch crabs with a line and a piece of bacon rind, get sweets from Cranch's fantastic pink and white shop, eat Salcombe ice-cream and maybe even fish and chips.

The Harbour Bookshop, Kingsbridge

I associate Kingsbridge with shopping for toys and, more recently, books at the fantastic Harbour Bookshop. I wholeheartedly recommend this shop, great staff, and a good selection for the whole family. (There's a nice bookshop in Salcombe too, Salters, but I've always felt unwelcome in it.) There are also distinctive memories of my sister throwing up whenever we arrived there on the first day after a journey that started around 3AM in Liverpool as kids. We were there in the '70s when the oil price jumped and I can remember long queues down the hill to the petrol station which has long since disappeared, replaced with flats and shops. We had a lovely last lunch at the Art Cafe before we left on the Friday this year.

Inner Hope Boats

We stayed at Hope Cove again this year, a favourite haunt with great beaches. Inner Hope is fantastic for kids with a kind, gentle beach and reasonable ways for them to body board. Wetsuits are recommended, as I'm not as hardened to this as I was as a kid. The Lobster Pod bistro and the ice-cream kiosk serve the beach well.

Outer Hope, end of the day

Outer Hope is more rugged, but is closer to the Hope and Anchor (a decent pub with food, ale and rooms), The Cove Bar and the Post Office. We stayed just around the corner from this. As ever, the skies over the sea were gorgeous.

A lovely week away, where we all got to relax like my youngest, below.

Relaxing in the Hammock at the Lobster Pod.

Blue Planet: Recontact Quick-start

Gorgeous new cover

I had the privilege of being allowed to run a playtest of the new edition of the Blue Planet RPG at North Star 2019 earlier this year. I mentioned it briefly in an earlier post here on the con, but here's a quick summary.

Slot 5 was the game that had been both filling me with anticipation and terror in the run-up, a playtest of Blue Planet: Recontact with the scenario Trouble in Paradise. The scenario is the kick off for one of the campaign frames in the game. The characters are all part of Red Sky Charters, a family business already struggling to make ends meet. The game opens in media res, with the characters kidnapped by a group of Russian mobsters. It worked really well and the players just went through it. We all had a learning curve to do with the game, but the setting worked for people familiar with all the previous material and for those that had never seen it before. The players were awesome and it felt like the opening of a TV series. I’d have loved to have run a follow up with the same group. I’m pleased with how I GMd this. I was enthused and full of energy mostly. I will do this again. Big thanks to Alison, Tilly, Paul, Dr Bob and Neil for making this such good fun.

There's a counterpoint view from one of the players here.

I was really pleased to find out from Dr Bob on the Tavern this weekend that the Quick-start version of the game that  I ran has dropped as a 'pay-what-you-want' file on DriveThruRPG. It looks gorgeous and I really recommend that you check it out. The streamlined synergy system is well worth a look.

The adventure in the Quick-start comes with four characters. At North Star I was running for up to six players, so I needed some extras. One of the other playtest GMs created some extras, but they didn't completely float my boat (to use a Poseidon appropriate pun), and they aren't mine to share even though I had them ready at the convention. I expanded two NPCs linked to the family, Uncle 'Digger' Jones and Bobby Whalesong, which I've linked to PDFs on Dropbox below if you want to use them.

Uncle 'Digger' Jones (PDF)
Bobby Whalesong (PDF)

I can't really say enough how much I recommend this game.


26 August 2019

First Impressions - A Town called Malice [UPDATED]

Nordic Horror

I saw A Town called Malice and instantly the idea hooked me. Several of my gaming friends said that they'd looked at it and immediately thought of me. I've been waiting patiently for the PDF to become available this August, as I've offered it as a game at the Furnace RPG convention in October 2019. Unlike many other games, the publisher delivered it bang on time and I've enjoyed the chance that the break away from home has given me read it.

So what is 'A Town called Malice' and does it hit the sweet spot for me?

The game is set in the small, isolated community of Malice which is struggling to survive. A significant event is coming, one that the people of the town hope will turn things around. But then a body is discovered, with a Darkness lurking behind, threatening to snuff out the hopes of the community. Players take the roles of key characters in Malice, archetypes with complicated and messy relationships that threaten the ability of the community to pull together. The weather and isolation mean that the community must find its way to overcome the threats against it without external help.

Each character introduces a location into the town, with a related Civilian (NPC). The players flesh out the locations and the civilians at the start and more details can be developed through play. The game encourages you to intermesh relationships with the civilians as hooks for the story to develop upon.

Malice differentiates itself as a story game rather than a roleplaying game. It describes this difference in that individual characters do not have stats that influence the game engine, and that a gamesmaster is not necessary to play. The story is broken into two Acts before the final denouement (three Acts if there are more players). Action is developed through structured scenes that come to a conclusion based upon the narrative and the player's roleplaying. In each scene, one player is in the Spotlight, with narrative control. The outcome is ultimately determined by rolling a pool of d6 built by the characters against an opposition pool based upon the stage that the story is at. Each dice has a fifty-fifty chance of success, with the players winning if they gain a win or tie in the number of successes against the pool.

There are three pillars that drive the game; Body, Event and the Darkness. Each has a number of dice associated with it. The Body pillar is the immediate focus, as the players try and establish what has happened and ultimately reveal what the Darkness is that they are facing.

Scenes can address any of the three pillars, a character's personal agenda or the relationships between characters. Addressing personal agendas gains the player character points which can be spent to introduce elements into the story; locations, civilians, and special items. This is the only scene type that does not need a dice roll to resolve. Addressing the Body pillar reduces the number of dice that it has, and allows the Spotlight player to either strengthen the Event pillar or diminish the Darkness threatening them. Once the Body pillar is reduced to zero, the nature of the darkness is revealed. Addressing the Event allows it to be strengthened, but failure will harm it. Likewise, the Darkness, except a failure will allow it to Manifest further either in the form of something threatening or with the death of a Civilian causing a further body being found.

At the start of the game, each player establishes a relationship between their character and the characters of the two players sitting either side of them. Half of the total relationships in the game will be negative ('Kult') and half positive ('Heit') at the start. The final type of scene is to address the negative relationships, with the outcome being a character point and the opportunity to shift a Kult relationship to Heit. This is important because the Kult relationships will oppose the success of the Event at the end of the game.

In the normal two Act structure, each player will have the Spotlight twice per Act. It is expected (but not mandatory) that the Body pillar will be investigated and resolved during the first Act. The second Act starts with the Darkness growing in power.

At the end of the final Act, the players build two pools. One is to support the Event, which is opposed by the remaining Kult dice. The other is to oppose the Darkness pillar's dice. Each player adds their own dice to the pool that they feel is most appropriate. Unspent character points can be used to add more dice to the pools. Any remaining body dice are distributed in opposition to the players. The pools are resolved and the players build a montage scene to describe the outcome. It is possible for the Darkness to survive yet the Event succeed and vice versa.

The game comes with two playsets; one is set in the Canadian North with the logging town of Malice threatened by the storm of the century. The other is set in the Arctic north, with the settlement of Malice threatened by the stability of the glacier above it. More playsets are promised by the publisher thanks to the Kickstarter stretch goals.

Overall, I think that this should work well with the right group of players. I'm looking forward to bringing it to the table at Furnace.

This is based on the initial PDF release which is 130 pages long, clearly laid out with great and atmospheric illustrations.

21 August 2019

[UPDATE] 
My blog gets syndicated on the Tavern, and one of the readers felt that the impressions above weren't clear enough. Here's take two:

Essentials:

• The players are all characters (archetypes) of roles in an isolated, small community that is struggling to get by.
• Each character has a relationship with two others.
• These are positive (Heit) or negative (Kult)
• Half the relationships at the start are Heit, half Kult
• Characters can get character points which give them a mechanical advantage (extra dice).
• An event is going to happen that the community hopes will change things for the better.
• A body is found; the body links back to a Dark threat (which may or may not be supernatural)
• The game is set at the scene level, and each player's character will get a turn in the spotlight.
• Usually, the game has two Acts over which the characters will have 4 spotlight opportunities
• The players co-create the locations and the civilians (NPCs) that are found at them.
• There are three pillars which reflect the state of the game
• The Body - the state of the investigation
• The Event - the preparation and planning for the event
• The Darkness - the strength of the evil
• Each scene can change the state of these pillars, or push a character's personal agenda, or affect a relationship.
• Each scene is resolved with the spotlight player rolling a pool of D6 against an opposition pool.
• 4,5,6 is a success
• equal or more successes mean the scene resolves how the player wants
• failure will negatively impact the Event or Darkness
• Act 1 is mainly about understanding what killed the Body and what form the Darkness takes
• Act 2 intensifies and draws towards a conclusion
• The final confrontation plays out as a result of the scenes the players were in earlier
• The Event pillar is resolved against the remaining Kult (negative) relationship dice plus any character dice
• The Darkness pillar is opposed by character dice
• Both player pools can be boosted with the send of character points
• It's possible that the outcome will have a success in either pool but not both
• The players take the results and do a final montage scene that wraps things up.

23 August 2019

First Impressions - Curse of Strahd

I finished my read-through of the 5e D&D take on the classic Ravenloft setting this morning, and overall I am impressed and looking forward to running it later this year.

Curse of Strahd is presented as a 256-page hardcover, with maps inset at the back endpaper. Key maps and handouts are also available to download at the Wizards of the Coast website and you can buy high resolution expanded versions of them from Mike Schley's website which include player versions without locations. The book is full colour throughout and beautifully illustrated. It is clear and easy to read with good cross-referencing between sections.

Gorgeously presented

The module (campaign) presented is nominally fit for levels 1 to 10, except it isn't. It's really made for levels 3 to 10, as it recommends you play a prequel / introductory adventure called 'Death House' provided in the appendices as an introduction. Once your first level characters complete this, they become third level. Progression within the game is meant to be driven by completing key milestones, rather than a combat grind.

Curse of Strahd is structured as a large sandbox style campaign, with much more similarity to the original I6 Ravenloft module than the 2e Domains of Dread approach. The realm of Barovia has a mix of factions and locations who can help and hinder the characters. Some can do both. There are classic gothic horror elements here; zombies, skeletons, werewolves and twisted, corrupted people. There are few innocents left. What few joys the people of Barovia have are threatened, and the players can standby and watch them fall, or act against the darkness.

Castle Ravenloft itself is presented in similar detail to the original version, and could easily be used more than once in the same campaign. I can envisage a situation where characters enter the castle to gain information or artefacts rather than to kill Strahd. The maps are well done. Unwary players will lose characters easily without the Vampire Lord having to show himself.

Beyond the presentation, the biggest change from the original is the expanded detail about Barovia, with locations added that can both reveal the roots of Strahd's power and give the character's advantages in their battle against him. There is a lot going on in this campaign. I do like some of the NPCs who can be allies, rivals or enemies depending on how the characters engage with them.

I'd have liked to see some kind of graphical representation of the needs and relationships links as there are a good number of moving parts here. I'll likely produce that myself when I read it through again to run.

The only negative I see is the attempt at humour with some names which seems to want to pull the module to a more Tim Burton-esque place. I honestly can't remember if these were there in the original.

Working through the text, it's apparent that certain spells will be critical for the campaign; restoration, knock and dispel magic to name a few. I need to work through how I will address spellcaster progression in a closed realm with limited options before I run this.

I'm not certain about Death House. It's definitely gothic horror but I'm not sure that it matches the rest of the campaign in feel. I'm going to ponder a bit more before I decide whether to use that to start off my campaign.

Overall, I'm impressed with this reimagining of the original. Remakes of movies are always fraught with risk, and classic roleplaying scenarios are no different. This takes the original work and builds upon it to create an impressive and expanded view of the original. It feels like great care has been taken so that Curse of Strahd feels like a worthy reboot of I6 Ravenloft.

21 August 2019

Curse of Strahd - a retrospective on Ravenloft

Count Strahd von Zarovich awaits

I'm just starting to read Curse of Strahd for 5e D&D in preparation for running the campaign online, probably starting in October 2019. As I've dug into the book while I'm away on holiday, it's bringing back fond memories of my past history with this module and setting.

The Original... and best?

My introduction to the Count and his minions came, like many others of my age, when I ran the original I6 Ravenloft module by Tracy and Laura Hickman. It was back in the 1980s, while I was still at secondary school. I'm pretty certain I ran it using 1e AD&D the first time that I dropped it on unsuspecting players. I think that it was during a 24-hour roleplaying charity event. If memory serves me well, the characters prevailed, just. We ran the whole module as it was meant to be run, straight out of the text as written. The set up was randomised with the Tarokka deck, and I recall several situations where the characters (and players) were pretty scared.

I10 - like most sequels complex and disappointing

I later ran the I10 Ravenloft II - The House of Gryphon Hill sequel. My recollections were that it was messy, confusing and disappointing, especially after the effort I had gone to in finding it. I think that this was 1e AD&D again, but there's a chance I may have hacked it into 2e.

Realm of Terror

Despite the disappointment, I couldn't keep away, and I bought the Ravenloft: Domains of Dread setting soon after it was released for 2e AD&D. This was a massive retcon-ing of Ravenloft as originally conceived, but I kind of liked it. 

Metaplot and no recommended levels!

I ran the RA1 Feast of Goblyns adventure for my group, once I'd got around the confusion of what level it was aimed at (answer - no guidance was given). I don't think we finished playing it though as it was towards the natural end of the group's lifespan.

I did roll out I6 again, hacked into 2e AD&D for another 24-hour charity event when I was up in Cumbria on my year out working as an engineer at Sellafield. It went down well and it's a scenario I'd happily bring out again.

I picked up I6 as a PDF once it became available and have fondly looked it several times, but D&D moved on to 3rd edition and beyond and I moved away from it until Dungeon World triggered nostalgia in me for the style of play. I started to look at porting it to the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, but then I discovered The Black Hack. Graham Spearing's focussed take on this, Heroic Fantasy, looked like the way to go.

Returning to a more recognisable form

I'd mentioned my love of this setting to Dr Mitch in the bar last Furnace, and he told me he'd love to try it. The recent arrival of Curse of Strahd for 5e D&D made me determined to get a group together and explore this sandbox full of horror, especially as it draws much more on the original scenario than the subsequent iterations. As I start to prepare, the lure of the electronic version of the module using Roll 20 is calling and I may end up using 5e rather than Heroic Fantasy as originally planned. But first, I need to read the whole book completely.

What keeps on drawing me back? I think that the darkness and tragedy at the heart of the setting, combined with an intelligent and powerful villain in a setting that draws on recognisable tropes lies at the heart of it. The setting looks very clear in its differentiation between good and evil, but the reality is so much more shades of grey. How do you accommodate the darkness of a realm controlled by a supremely powerful and present creature? As a GM, you have the chance to allow the players to have their characters hold a candle up against the darkness, or chose to embrace it.

20 August 2019

First Impressions: The Midderlands

The Midderlands

The Midderlands is an OSR fantasy RPG setting that draws upon a weird alternative history version of the Midlands in the United Kingdom around the 15th and 16th centuries. Gunpowder weapons exist but are rare. The world is dominated by green; a pathway is open the underworld below and many strange creatures exist. Many different goblin types exist and even work for the human populace.

The book presents a gazetteer of towns and villages, forests, lakes and other points of interest, all with hooks for the GM to build upon. There is a section on artefacts that could be found and the flora of the area. The creatures section is delightful; it presents the creature as a monster, and then playable rules under Swords and Wizardry to use them as a character class. The real inspiration comes from the description of an individual that could be used as a non-player character or an opponent, or the heart of a plotline. The end of the book rounds out with an example scenario and plot hooks followed by useful random tables to support the game.

The feel of the setting is very British, with shades of White Dwarf in its glory days, and more than a hint of Warhammer FRP. I'm pretty certain you could use this with some work with that game as well as D&D variants.

The book is presented beautifully; a small hardcover with high-quality full-colour printing, fantastic maps and excellent illustrations, including a size chart with silhouettes somewhat reminiscent of early editions of Call of Cthulhu.

I've rated this four-stars; it's borderline five stars but didn't quite push my buttons enough to make me want to go and prepare a scenario to run straight away. A gorgeous book and well worth the investment. Definitely get the maps as well as they are beautiful. I have the next two books in the series and am looking forward to reading them.

19 August 2019

Update (4 May 2020): I've now reviewed the second Midderlands book, The Midderlands Expanded, should you wish to read it.

Books in July 2019

It's taken a while to get this written, but here's last month's book list.

Of Books, and Earth, and Courtship (Dominion of the Fallen 0.6) (Aliette de Bodard)
A short story which explores love, magic and power in the Dominion of the Fallen setting. Just leaves me more determined to read the trilogy it links to.

The New Accelerator (Anthology Book 1) (Aliette de Bodard)

I bought this for the Alienate de Bodard story and was pleasantly surprised to find an Ian Hocking tale set in the Deja Vu universe as well. An enjoyable mix of very different SF shorts. Some humorous, some verging on horror, some even B-Movie as well as the more serious stories. Entertaining.

Sword Destiny (Andrzej Sapkowski)
The second collection of shorts in the Witcher series. I've never played or touched the video game, but some clips of cut scenes on YouTube put me onto this. The setting very Mittel-European and reminds me a little of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. We follow the Witcher, Geralt of Riva, as he passes through the world, nominally plying his trade of slaying monsters. However, that isn't the most interesting part of the stories; what I really enjoy is the interaction with the people he meets, and a cast of reoccurring characters such as Dandelion the Poet/Bard and Yennefer the sorceress (with whom he has a complicated on/off relationship). Sometimes the tales are quite cleverly structured, as they switch perspective and have flashbacks that aren't always signposted initially. The hints of the truth behind the monsters and other races that he meets whet the appetite for more, and often I found the feeling that humanity was far worse than the simple behaviour of monsters and the different societies of creatures such as Dryads. I look forward to the rest of the series, which I have owned since it was on the Amazon big deal a few months ago.

Red Sparrow (Jason Matthews)

I decided to read this before I watched the film as I'd picked up the three books in the series in an offer. The story has two main protagonists: Dominika Egorov, a young Russian SVR agent, and Nate Nash, likewise a young CIA operative. They are linked by hunts for moles in both Russia and the USA and their missions put them on a collision course. I nearly wrote 'on both sides of the Iron Curtain' there instead of 'in both Russia and the USA'. It may not be true anymore, but the feel is very much like a Cold War thriller. Tradecraft is reasonably believable and the plot gathers pace well. The protagonists find their faith in the systems they have been brought up in challenged and there is sexual tension between the two agents aimed at each other. Very enjoyable; I will be reading the others this summer.

The King of Dungeons RPG (Baz Stevens)

See the separate blog post here.

A Visit

She sits bravely in the table, chatting and flashing her smile, cheerfully polite.
One of her companions dozes, the other tries to stir to a conversation with the attendants.
Her face lights as we enter the room.
Hugs, kisses and a struggle for the walker.
We cross the gulf to the armchairs and she settles, gracefully relieved, into their embrace.
"How are you?"
"Did it take long to get here?"
"It's lovely to see you"
Never "How long are you here with me?", the unasked question.
The little lies of family.
The body betrays. Shakes and twitches involuntary.
Sliding down, risking a fall to the floor and more bruising.
But, today, the mind is sharp, trapped, hungry to know of her children and grandchildren.
Missing her other half, yet knowing he needs time to sleep and recover.
Bravely missing him, seldom apart in the last fifty years.
Smiles and cheerful happiness as the youngest grandchild entertains with his cheek.
Hugs, and meaningful quietness.
Hand held.
Time flies, yet the clock hands seem to crawl around their perimeter.
Rain beats down, and the journey beckons.
Slowly we rise, reluctant.
She follows us with a train of attendants to the door.
Embraces, kisses and farewells. we tear apart again.
She waves, smiling, bravely, happily, before returning to the chairs.
We drive off into the rain, wondering if she'll be there next time we visit.
Wondering whether the Lewy Bodies will have stolen her mind from the treacherous shaking cage.
Hoping she can be home.
The rain masks my tears, and the journey lulls me with the promise of a beach.

__
Visited Mum on Friday. She is in respite care while my Dad tries to get his batteries recharged. She bravely resists the Parkinsons. We were fortunate that her Lewy Body dementia was minimal when we saw her. It was lovely and hard to see her.

17 August 2019 

Alien RPG - Roll 20 character sheet available

Following finishing my first run out of the Chariot of the Gods storyline at PlayerCon4, I discovered that there is now an Alien character sheet available on Roll 20.

Select settings for your game before you launch it.

Settings option on lower right

Then scroll down to the character sheet template selector. When you click on it, search for 'Year Zero Engine' and you'll see the character sheet so you can select it.

Click the dropdown selector and search for 'Year Zero Engine'

Once you've done that, you're all set.

Alien RPG - Playercon4

Second Running

This afternoon I ran my second session of the Alien QuickStart, with a different group of players at a small online gathering. It went generally well, but I'm now certain that the introductory adventure is probably 4-8 hours of play, not a convention length game.

I'd implemented the changes that I realised were necessary from the previous game and overall I'm feeling that I am getting far more familiar with Roll 20. I still found the tokens side a bit of a pain, but fortunately one of the other players gave me some sound advice (thanks J0rdi).

The scenario works really well to get people into the tropes of Alien, but this time the dreaded party split happened. This presented a challenge because the characters also delayed the big close out of Act 1. I ended up heading towards two separate climaxes, and we would have just concluded Act 1 after 4 hours of play had we continued. Instead, we decided to abstract out the ending with some survival rolls, a hint of double crossing and we left the surviving crew members adrift on an EEV heading back towards the Network, hoping to be picked up.

This was the first session with combat; it was very interesting and scarily brutal. I managed to not get a single 6 when rolling 8d6 3 times in a row. The players realised that xenomorphs shouldn't be fought with pistols or shotguns (although the Bolt-gun and incinerator units are pretty effective). The quickstart is missing images of some of the key creatures, but we worked around that. I'm sure the full book will have them.

Talents came into play a few times and worked well.

The stress rules worked a dream, and it was pretty funny when the players realised that the chance to rest up and lose stress was unlikely to happen anytime soon. One of the characters really suffered in effects, but it worked out well dramatically.

It felt like an Alien film. It played well. It was just too long for the slot.

Things to do better:

• - A couple more markers for the rules I referenced
• - See if I can find more images that are useful
• - Make sure the changes I did with Roll 20 are rolled back to the first game.
• - Work on my skills with Roll 20.
• - Still a lot of chopping and changing between location descriptions and plot. Fortunately the flowcharts I've done helped.

Thanks to J0rdi, Jiminy, Dr Mitch, Rich and Jules for a fun afternoon.

10 August 2019

Alien RPG - First session

I started the Alien RPG quickstart introductory adventure with Graham, Tom, Jag, Darren and Neil tonight as an online game using Roll20 and Discord for audio. It seemed to go well and we ended after 2 hours or so of play near the close of Act 1.

I've learned a lot about Roll20 this week. Using cards (having to build a deck), managing handouts and multiple pages for characters.

My mistakes I've noted so far:

• - I handled tokens for characters wrong in Roll20, creating a lot of work for myself
• - I forgot to upload the Chronus as a handout rather than a location page.
• - I forgot the stunts table and interpolated the success levels. I'll nudge myself on that next time.
• - I should have explained Story Points and their link to Personal Agendas at the start.

I still need to work out how to upload audio.

Biggest issue was Safari refusing to talk to the network as we started, so I ended up running Discord on my Chromebook and Roll20 in Safari on my Mac to ensure it was stable.

Great players, looking forward to the next session in September. The system from Fria Ligan is simple and effective.

Only one grating moment which was when I realised the quickstart describes Helium-3 as highly flammable; it's an asphyxiant, an inert gas and likely to cause cold burns when released from compression but it isn't flammable, which is painful in a hard SF game.

One thing I loved was the way the characters got stuck into day-to-day life on the ship, especially Tom's character doing the cooking and cleaning and bitching about management.

Now I need to double-down on the learnings as I have a full session to run this on Saturday at Playercon4 online.

6 August 2019

Migration Step 3 underway

I've tried to use RapidBlog 3 to allow me to import the old blog into Blogger, but unfortunately that doesn't work (the import menu is missing). Rapidblog 2.06 crashes with both Rapidweaver 5 and Rapidweaver 7 when you try the operation.

However, I can cut and paste across between the two; it may mean some images get lost but the links seem to be preserved. If you see any screwy formatting, please let me know. So migration is underway, manually cutting and pasting, a few posts at a time. Apologies if this spams your feeds. I'm hoping it won't as the entries are in the past...

1 August 2019