AI and the Games Master

There's a general backlash against AI in a lot of the gaming space, but I think that it could be extremely useful, especially if you're the GM.

Recently, I've been trying out Google's NotebookLM to analyse text. The T&Cs state that the data you upload isn't used to train the AI and that it remains private. I've experimented with Shadows of Atlantis for Achtung! Cthulhu. I struggled throughout the campaign that I ran because it was very overwritten and some of the editing between editions lost elements. I often found myself hunting for a reference in the text. The natural language queries allowed me to pull out some very succinct summaries. Unfortunately, I found it when I had a two sessions left to run.

More recently, I have uploaded the books for the Traveller Deepnight Revelation campaign (see screenshot). There are 11 books (4 from box set, 6 expansions and an adjacent adventure) and this is a game changer in how you can find things. Think of it as semi-intelligent search and summarising. NotebookLM shows were all the summaries come from so you can check it and you can produce timelines, mindmaps and more.

I got some good use from queries like: 

• Give a summary of the named crew members on the Deepnight Revelation, their motivations and how they impact the plot.
• Give a breakdown of the locations on Alpha in Deepnight Legacy and include the information that can be learned and threats at each.
• What steps should the Travellers take to ensure that they succeed and survive the events of Deepnight Legacy?
• What are the key locations that Deepnight Revelation can use for resupply?
• Summarise the events in the Riftsedge Transit 
• Compare the way that characters can resolve the events of 'Deepnight Legacy' and 'Deepnight Endeavour'.

I think that this would also be useful for large tomes like Ptolus or perhaps the recent Forbidden North OSR tomes. Of course, there's part of me that would love to upload all the Traveller canon to get that searchable like this, but it would break the limits.

I've also seen Tabletop Recorder, which is on Kickstarter at the moment.

https://tabletoprecorder.com/

This is designed to take an audio recording of your game session and produce a summary, cutting the meandering side conversations and allowing you to produce output at a variety of levels. Initially I scoffed, but now I think about it, it would be useful for longer campaigns or more episodic games as a reference. When I think how long I spent taking notes during Curse of Strahd, it makes me wonder if this would have been a useful investment. I suspect that it would have been really useful for Eternal Lies too, with all the threads that has. I may trial back it to see how it works.

The part that will make and break it will be how well it handles names etc and how well it filters out the cruft. I've seen some alpha test output and it looks pretty good.

Have you experimented with some of the AI tools out there? Does anything look like it may change the way that you play or GM?

13 April 2025

First Impressions - Rim Expeditions (Traveller)

Rim Expeditions is a 160-page full colour hardcover for the Traveller RPG from Mongoose Publishing. The hardcover also includes a poster-sized star sector map of Kruse sector. I was attracted to it because of the exploration theme and also because it explores something that has fascinated me since I first read about it in Digest Group Publications' Solomani and Aslan supplement for MegaTraveller, the Solomani Rim Expeditions.

TL;DR: Rim Expeditions is great; it's a very flexible framework to run a variety of campaigns set against the background of sparsely explored space. You can have diplomacy, conflict and pure exploration. However, very much like Deepnight Revelation, the referee will have to put in some hard work here, especially as there are less of the systemising tools that support that campaign. Overall, this has been done well, and could provide the foundation of an ongoing campaign or some fun one-shots based off the various wonders and anomalies mentioned.

The Solomani are the branch of humanity (humaniti)  that stayed on Earth (Terra) while others were transplanted by the Ancients across Charted Space. What would become the Terran Confederation encountered the Vilani Imperium (Ziru Sirka) on their first long distance interstellar journey. Ignored at first as lower technology barbarians, eventually war broke out. A series of interstellar wars were fought, and the Terrans eventually overtook the Vilani in technology, hastening the collapse of their empire. The Rule of Man (also known as the Ramshackle Empire or Second Imperium) was founded, but the inertia of the collapsing Ziru Sirka meant that the Rule of Man did not endure and humaniti was plunged into the Long Night. 

Eventually, the Sylean Federation formed the Third Imperium and started to expand again, eventually recontacting the Old Earth Union which had endured. Humans from Earth had by then become known as the Solomani, and the two powers merged. However, there was ongoing friction as the influence of the Solomani began to reign. An autonomous region was formed, which then declared independence. The brutal Solomani Rim War was fought, and although the Imperium 'won', conquering Terra, it did not defeat the whole of the Solomani Confederation, so an uneasy peace persists with both sides knowing the cost of war.

Throughout this history, the Solomani sent expeditions Rimward towards the edge of the Spiral Galaxy Arm in which they lived. This was in the opposite direction to the Vilani and later the Third Imperium. Waves of exploration and long range missions, some with Slower-Than-Light technology departed. The Rimward Corridor was developed and an ongoing way of colonisation and exploration continues, waxing and waning dependent upon the level of threat that the Confederation faces.

I loved the idea of this, and once worked with a friend to develop a scenario based on this with a lost colony being encountered that had originally departed before the Long Night in an STL ship. This was used to demo GURPS Traveller when that was released and was a lot of fun. So I really like the idea of exploration, wide open spaces and something that hasn't really been explored in detail before. What I saw when I skimmed the Bundle of Holding PDFs meant I wanted a copy of this book and I wanted it to be one of the first that I read.

This isn't a campaign as such; it's a toolkit to build a campaign. Two areas of space are detailed - the whole of Kruse Sector, some six full sectors rimward of the Confederation, and the slightly closer Lubbock Enclave, a subsector only three sectors rimward which serves as a refuge and manufacturing centre to support missions travelling further out.

Unlike the Classic Traveller supplements, there's a fair bit of material that supports the development of a campaign through the book.

The book opens with a discussion of the urge to explore, and an author's note about the Solomani. The latter discusses how to avoid using a cliched "Space Nazis" approach to the culture, which I think is a useful guide and an approach that I agree with. It then follows up with a history of exploration from the Solomani perspective, starting with the exploration of Terra, and then moving into the exploration of interstellar space, initially via sub-light expeditions, and later via jump-drive. Contact with the Vilani led to exploration of the Ziru Sirka, initially via traders and later - as the Imperium started to collapse -  by the Terran Confederation Navy. During the Long Night period, many expeditions departed to establish new colonies, but most were unsanctioned by the government and little was known about their success or failure. The Old Earth Union maintained reconnaissance forces used around its borders, but sanctioned exploration rimward only started again once the Union joined the Imperium. Much of this was done with private concerns, as the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service was focused on the space occupied by the former Ziru Sirka, and later into the spinward region 'behind the claw'. Data was shared as a matter of course, until the split between the Solomani and the Third Imperium. Since it achieved its independence, the Solomani Confederation has pursued a policy of rimward exploration, going so far as to launch expeditions to the Perseus Arm, crossing the gap to the next spiral arm. 

Rimward of the Solomani Confederation (only as far as the Lubbock Enclave)
(Image ©2023 Mongoose Publishing)

Confederation exploration policy is described in some detail. The navy retains responsibility for exploration and astrogation records, and requires any private expeditions to share their data. Much exploration is carried out by warships that have been withdrawn from front-line service, in some cases converted to support long duration operations. However, the ships remain part of the Navy, with the full duties of any other Confederation warship. SolSec - Solomani Security - is also an active part of such missions. Their political officers are responsible for supporting loyalty and morale, providing intelligence analysis and advice in contact situations. Corporations and universities are often represented on military and non-military expeditions. 

The Confederation maintains active surveillance operations up to 20 parsecs beyond its borders (although this is done covertly in hostile states such as the Third Imperium), and does look for expansion opportunities. Medium range exploration is focused on setting up chains that link valuable hubs / clusters. The Confederation focuses on the value it will get from a world rather than claiming every system that it charts. Some operations into Gateway and Crucis Margin sectors near the Imperium near the K'Kree, Hivers and Third Imperium as much about showing the flag and supporting friendly powers as they are about exploration and survey.  

The general process for exploration is described, as the level of effort used will vary depending upon the speed of advance wanted and the level of science and exploration required. Rapid advance effectively means minimal science, typically being used in known space. Exploratory advance is significantly slower and will involve searching systems in detail, exploring the system and perhaps making contact with the natives. There's a discussion about the implications of long duration operations on starships, but this is not at the level of detail that Deepnight Revelation has.

A variant method is presented for the generation of star systems, minimising the need for the referee to produce significant amounts of detail unless it is needed and definitely meeting the map only as necessary principle. This starts with the presence of stellar bodies (but there's no method for determining which kind are present), then gas giants, then a main world, before other bodies. The World Builder's Handbook would be a good companion to go with this section. The different types of planetary environments are described, outline the kinds of challenges that they present Travellers, hopefully giving the referee ideas and situations that can be used during the game.

This is followed by a section describing 'finds and points of interest'. This starts with a random table that a referee can use for inspiration, with details of the various results following. They range from stellar anomalies (such as jumpspace reefs) through to encounters or echoes of other beings, along with interesting aspects of star systems. I'd probably use this as a reference and pick one rather than roll an encounter. After this, there's a discussion on how to deal with aliens and populations encountered, including consideration on whether they have FTL capability and how they obtained it if that is the case.

The Universal Research Mechanic is described, a method of conduction scientific and investigative research. Progress is tracked using a 'Breakthrough Index', which measures how much is known about a subject. Tasks such as remote reconnaissance, theoretical research and planetary surveys can be carried out to raise the level of the index, typically linked in some way to the effect of the roll made. A Breakthrough Index (BI) of 0 means that nothing is known, with full knowledge needing a BI of 10. A table gives an example of the kind of detail that each level gives in terms of Interstellar Exploration and Survey or Scientific Investigations. Frustratingly, you've got to dig into the text to find the effect of each kind of activity on the BI; it would have been good to have had a short summary block for each kind of activity on the same or adjacent page to the master table. However, this seems to be a very effective mechanic for handling scientific investigations.

After these sections, the book starts to detail the regions rimward of the Solomani Confederation. The information about these areas forms the bulk of the book.

The area closest to the Confederation (the Close Rimward Region, the space within 200 parsecs of the Confederation border) is described quite lightly at sector level (see the map above for an example). Details are given on which areas are on travellermap.com and what can be considered canon. There are close trading links with the systems up to about ten parsecs from the border, and much information is known about that area of space. Beyond that, details are much more sketchy. The Confederation maintains the Rimward Corridor, a route from which exploration is staged. This can be as much as six-parsecs wide, and traffic is steady in this area, but typically much more heavily armed. The Confederation doesn't operate a policy of annexation, and has not sought to bring the nearby star systems under its control. However, around a hundred parsecs out from the border, it has established the Lubbock Enclave, a secure and settled base for operations established in the 750s before the Confederation split from the Third Imperium.

The Enclave acts to deter the territorial ambitions of the Aslan, and comprises twelve star systems. Military assets are based here, typically second line vessels and those of former Imperial design. The Enclave can support Tech Level 13 vessels but has limited capacity, so Tech Level 12 designs such as former Imperial Scout Ships are often used. The key subsector where the Lubbock Enclave is located (Horden/Lubbock) is detailed, including short write-ups of Avebury (the capital of the Enclave) and Hallstat (a system that was settled in the Rule of Man, but has subsequently collapsed and regressed to the equivalent of the Iron Age). There's a short section giving some ideas of what kinds of missions could be carried out in the Lubbock Enclave.

The Rimward Corridor has been scouted out for a further two hundred parsecs, but information beyond the corridor is limited. The next significant Solomani Confederation presence is in the Kruse sector, where a dedicated Forward Base as been established to support the exploration of the anomalies in the Ruthless Veil, Darkly Veiled and Strange sectors. The base has limited capacity and is a long way from home, so will be careful around local powers.

Kruse was originally settled in the Long Night, around -1750 Imperial, and the remnants of those missions now comprise two pocket empires; the Interstellar Republic and the Sovereignty. There's also a smaller polity - "The Rule of Man", established by a slower-than-light colony ship which departed in the early Second Imperium and only arrived after the Solomani started to agitate for independence from the Third Imperium. Presently at Tech Level 9, the colonies are on a slow path of technological development; they do feel entitled to the technology that the Confederation has (as they see it as a successor state to themselves) but it is reluctant to transfer advanced technology to them. 

There is an alien race, the Rammak, who can be found trailing and spinward in the sector. Humanoid egg layers, it is unknown whether they have expanded beyond Kruse. They have been star travellers for at least a thousand years, most likely on the back of technology recovered from a Rule of Man vessel.

Finally, Solomani commercial interests have established a de facto independent polity known as the Eberhardt Corporate Republic. The Confederation has condemned the state of affairs but any action against it has been deferred thanks to large donations of resources and declarations of loyalty to the Confederation.

All subsectors in Kruse are described in detail with the usual points of light approach to a few key worlds. There's good detail here to run a campaign from.

Next up is the Midrim area of interest, the destination for missions from the Lubbock Enclave. Ruthless Veil ad Darkly Veiled sectors contain Hoydell's Veil, a nebula and the infamous Hoydell Chaos, an area of space where jump drives are unreliable, misjumping in some form be it by distance or extended-duration. Both astrographic features are named after the commander of the first expeditions in this area who was posted overdue in 1002. Cautious exploration continues, trying to understand the phenomenon and its extents. 

RimReach and OutReach are being explored to understand potential threats. RimReach is considered potentially seriously dangerous with all ships entering and leaving meant to go through a quarantine and science base in OutReach sector. The reason for this caution is the presence of a polity that seems to comprise humans (and potentially other species) infested by some sort of parasite that both controls and kills its host. 

The Strange region comprises two sectors, partly dominated by the Flous Nebula. There are many protostars with some at the T-Tauri stage without planetary bodies. Experiments are ongoing with interstellar ramjets to harvest hydrogen for fuel. The region beyond the nebula is known for its astrographic anomalies, unique ecosystems and the ruins of what appears to have been a slower-than-light star-faring civilisation.

The Rimward Corridor continues onward, currently terminating some 400 parsecs beyond the Confederation in the Xuanzang sector. At typical travel speeds, it will take a ship around four years to reach the end of the corridor. The Forward Base in Xuanzang is building up its industrial capability to remove the need for full rim runs from the Confederation to supply key parts and equipment. The government is encouraging emigration to both the Lubbock Enclave and Xuanzang, with some key systems between on the Rimward Corridor also gaining colonies. Xuanzang was first settled in 907, part of the Rimward 3 project. However, the project lost some momentum during the Rim War, and there is the beginnings of an independence movement if things don't improve. 

The sector has a crablike sentient species, the Vdknwbo, who have a past history of slower-than-light travel and are found in two systems. They're presently around Tech Level 6, but have enthusiastically embraced working with the Xuanzang Enclave. There's a map and details of the Moksadeva subsection where the Enclave is located.

The book then moves on to the history of Solomani Rimward Extremely Long Range Expeditions which began before the Third Imperium as the Old Earth Union pushed out into the Rim, partly because of the Aslan Border Wars. The next big push came before the Old Earth Union joined the Imperium, and focused on updating the charts for the Close Rimward Expedition. The First Frontier War and the subsequent Imperial Civil War resulted in resources being pulled into the Imperium rather than outward into the Rim. 

The establishment of the Solomani Autonomous Region led to a resurgence of interest in the frontier, with the Lubbock Enclave being established, with further work going on the establishment of a Forward Base in Kruse. Once these facilities were established, a new push began to create 'Lubbock 2' in Xuanzang. Part of the focus was to enable the exploration of an area of low stellar density known as the Spinner. 

The Rim War stopped exploration, and when it restarted there was a focus on getting a return post war, and also a quiet war against the Aslan to spinward of Lubbock. A project ('The Great Backfill') exists to bring charts up to date and visit systems that have not yet been properly charted. Project Perseus is mentioned, an ambitious project to cross to the next spiral arm, but remains the subject of speculation as it is highly classified. There have also been significant missions both to spinward and trailing, with one heading towards the mouth of the Great Rift towards the gravitational anomaly  QX-07012. There are rumours that the Imperial Deepnight Corporation is preparing a similar mission, and the Confederation wants to gain the knowledge first. There's also a well-funded private expedition with significant investment aimed at 'Object Venturi', but much of the details aren't in the public domain. 

The book then discusses some of the wonders and mysteries of the Rim. Some are astrographic, some are about aliens and others ruins of past civilisations. I won't describe these for risk of spoilers, except to mention Point Cetus, 200 parsecs spinward-rimward of Xuanzang Enclave, on the edge of the spiral arm. There is a Solomani base here, perhaps the launch point for Project Perseus. They're all good ideas to frame a campaign around. It's apt that this section rounds out with a discussion on how to run a campaign using this setting. 

The book then wraps up with a High Guard section, detailing unique Solomani technology for the design sequence followed by a selection of small craft and starships. These include a support ship and a light exploration vessel built off the same hull and the Tenzing class exploration vessel, a 2000-ton explorer. There's also a 20,000 ton explorer converted from a light carrier, the Michigan class. Finally, there's a selection of all-terrain vehicles and an index.

I think this book is great; it's a very flexible framework to run a variety of campaigns set against the background of sparsely explored space. You can have diplomacy, conflict and pure exploration. However, very much like Deepnight Revelation, the referee will have to put in some hard work here, especially as there are less of the systemising tools that support that campaign. Overall, this has been done well, and could provide the foundation of an ongoing campaign or some fun one-shots based off the various wonders and anomalies mentioned.

Recommended

12 April 2025

First Impressions - Otherscape RPG (City of Mist Engine)

In this first impression, I'm not going to use my usual approach of going section by section, but rather discuss the significant changes that I see from Otherscape's predecessor, City of Mist*. These observations are based on having read the game through twice, along with Tokyo:Otherscape, and having run the game at Revelation this February. 

*I previously reviewed City of Mist here.

Once again, Son of Oak have delivered an extremely high quality package with glorious artwork and well written text they have taken the learnings from producing the City of Mist Starter Set and baked them into the core rulebook. As a result, you can run the game having read a minimal number of pages. I had all the quick reference pages printed out as a handy guide at the table.

Mechanically, the game shows the same roots as City of Mist, a love-child of Powered by the Apocalypse and FATE. However, it's now stepped a little further away from its original inspirations. The core mechanic remains rolling 2d6 and adding the power rating you get from your characters relevant tags to the result. A roll of ≦6 is a failure and a roll of ≧10 a complete success. In between, a roll of 7 to 9 means that you succeed but with a complication. Your power tags come from the three themes that define your character plus some extras you can draw on from your inventory and your crew theme.

Rather than the two theme types that City of Mist uses for characters, Otherscape has three. You have two that equate to the mythos and logos (called 'Self' in Otherscape) themes in the original game, but also a third one called 'noise' which is your cyberware and technology.

Both books are full-colour hardbacks with high quality artwork that evokes the setting that they are describing. Metro:Otherscape is 368-pages long and Tokyo:Otherscape is 320 pages long. A third book is included, the action database. This is a full colour 106-page softcover full of examples of the effects that you would use with different actions. The boxed set also came with status cards, dice and a GM screen in a large box, along with the trademark A3 double-sided dry-wipe character folios which instantly give you a feel for the game.

 

Having run Otherscape, there are a couple of things that stand out for me which are distinct improvements from the City of Mist. The most significant of these is the change from PbtA style moves to choosing the effect that you wish to achieve from the action you take. This was the standout change for me at the table, as you no longer have to search for the most appropriate move when you hit an edge case. Instead you have to ask yourself, "what am I trying to achieve from this action?", and then match that to one of twelve options (see the right of the image above). This works really clearly and quickly at the gaming table, albeit at the cost of extremely tailored moves.

I am pondering whether it will be possible to roll this back to City of Mist. Some of the discussions on the Discord forum for the game indicate that there may be some challenges with tailored moves used in theme progression that make this more difficult.

The other notable change addresses some of the perceived weaknesses in City of Mist where players overuse power tags. Otherscape makes it very clear that you cannot use tags again to face danger if they have already been used in the initial move that made the player vulnerable. Having recently reviewed the City of Mist core rules to produce an updated quick reference sheet, I was surprised to find that this is actually in them but not so explicitly or obvious as it is here. That may be on my own head, as I came to the game having use the starter set for quite some time.

I'm not certain about the need for the action database, but I did find myself referencing it when considering how I may tailor the response to certain player actions. Part of me felt that this should've been included the core rulebook, but I can see the case for splitting it out; the book would be massive if it was included. I don't think it'll be referenced as much, and I believe that there is a plan to create a digital version.

I loved the game in play, but it hasn't yet given me the same spark and passion that City of Mist does. I think this is a me-problem rather than a Son of Oak problem. I've never really been that much into Japanese cyberpunk, so the Tokyo book doesn't excite me the way I'd hoped. It is written really well, but it failed to give me the GM tingles. The core book, Metro:Otherscape, drew me in more. I wish the example Berlin setting was developed further. However, what's present is more than enough to run a generic myth-fuelled cyberpunk setting. I'm tempted enough to explore the forthcoming Cairo setting, but if that doesn't press my buttons, I suspect I'll be selling this off to someone else who loves it more.

Overall, Otherscape has rolled a 7-9 result for me, a 'yes-but'. That's more about my engagement with the setting than the mechanics, artwork or presentation. If you love Japanese-style cyberpunk and anime, then I wholeheartedly recommend this game. If you like the idea of a myth-fuelled cyberpunk setting then the core book will work for you too.

Recommended.

Edit: One thing that I forgot to mention above is the status cards and how tiers are now managed. It is far less fiddly and much more intuitive than City of Mist. I do suspect that it may mean that characters are a little more fragile, but I'm not certain, and it will work both ways. 

5 April 2025

First impressions - Traveller - Deepnight Revelation Core Box Set (some spoilers)

Deepnight Revelation is an epic campaign for Traveller, presented as a core box set with a further six hardback books that expand the detail available plus one adjacent adventure module as part of the Great Rift set's supporting material. 

TL;DR: Deepnight Revelation is a grand, sprawling epic space-exploration campaign, the likes of which Traveller hasn't seen before. It provides the start and end of the journey, plus the mechanics to run the steps in between. However, there will be a significant amount of work for the Referee to do for that journey, unless they purchase the expanded material. Highly recommended.

The box set is presented with a picture of a former Imperial Star Cruiser approaching a singularity, represented with a version of the striking image of a black hole that scientists have recently achieved. Inside the box are four perfect-bound full-colour soft-back books and a double-sided poster map which shows an outline of the journey of exploration on one side and a layout of the Deepnight Revelation on the reverse.The box has a ribbon to allow you to lift the books out of the box easily, and there is space for additional material to fit inside. I've added the Great Rift adventure that links to this campaign - Deepnight Endeavour - into the box. Illustration and layout is good and there are a refreshing lack of typos.

Deepnight Revelation is a truly epic campaign, with the characters embarked on a voyage of exploration that will take them the best part of ten-years to reach their destination. They'll travel along the edge of the Great Rift, beyond Charted Space and into places the Imperium has not reached, then they will find a way to cross the Rift, before proceeding to their ultimate destination, a unique and unusual gravitational source at the edge of the spiral arm. The route chosen avoids crossing other potential hostile polities such as the Solomani Confederation and the Aslan Hierate. This is a voyage of discovery and exploration the likes of which we haven't really seen in Traveller before. The campaign has links to the Ancients, but it goes much further back than that, with an Entity that has existed from the early days of the galaxy at the heart of the story.

I do feel that there are echoes of MegaTraveller's Arrival Vengeance in style, which is a good thing, but this is something different. Obviously, in concept there are also echoes of Star Trek - The Original Series, but only in the sense that this is a long duration voyage into the unknown. If anything, the Deepnight Revelation is going much further than the Enterprise ever did, in a manner that's far more exposed. There are no subspace communications in Traveller and no-easy way to call for help or rescue. This is a journey far beyond the frontier, and it is entirely possible that the Third Imperium will never find out the fate of the ship if things go wrong*.

*Followers of canon will also know that there are a series of events coming in the timeline which mean that the Third Imperium will likely have changed significantly by the time the ship makes its way back with the coming of the Rebellion and Virus.

The Deepnight Revelation is a decommissioned Element Class Cruiser, converted for use on a long duration scientific voyage. Deckplans, ship details and more are all provided.

The first book, Deepnight Legacy, is a prequel to the campaign and gives a reason for a group of Travellers to be recruited or seek employment with the Deepnight Corporation. You could also use the Great Rift Adventure 2 - Deepnight Endeavour as a gateway to the campaign. The book is 32-pages long, and presents a scenario where the characters are part of an emergency mission responding to a supply starship that is overdue returning from a mission to a refuelling station in the Great Rift. They take one of the sister rift haulers of the missing ship and jump nearly 20 light years into the emptiness of the Rift to a planet orbiting a lonely brown dwarf failed star. 

The adventure is presented is a sandbox investigation which has strong horror themes. There is a useful but basic map but it would have been nice to have a world or region map to go alongside the base map.  There are statistics and deckplans for the Rift Hauler. There are also a number of NPCs to interact with and find out what is going on.

If the Travellers are successful then they will gain some insight into the threat that the Entity presents and its location, information that will make them natural recruits for the Deepnight Revelation expedition. 

The Campaign Guide is 112-pages long and provides the key elements to set up the campaign (unsurprisingly). It starts with guidance on how to integrate existing Travellers into the mission and the roles that they could take. I do think that an opportunity was missed here to provide some guidance on troupe play more explicitly. There is a get out clause to bring the existing Travellers into key roles, by having them part of a Special Advisory Group because of prior experience.

The guide follows this section with an outline of the whole voyage, starting with the opening journey to Marshalling Point Demnan, a journey of 30 months or so. This is a previously established base of forward operations, and the last chance for crew members who change their minds to turn back. 

The guide then gives some key background information for referees on the mission and the nature of the Deepnight Entity, including the risk of infection and the threats that will be faced as it develops. After this, there are eighteen pages of background about the ship itself, including isometric deckplans (the poster map has a more traditional top down view). This is followed by a discussion of the crew and the Travellers' role in it. The ship, a decommissioned Element Class cruiser, does retain her spinal particle accelerator for scientific purposes, but other weapons have been reduced.

The crew section includes departments, operational structures, ranks, quick crew member creation (skills and naming) and, interestingly, factions. Broadly, the crew is split into three factions; the Imperial faction (do what's best for the Third Imperium), the Deepnight Loyalists (do what's best for the company) and the Researchers (science, baby!). Other factions can develop over time; the glory hounds, the disaffected, and potentially mutineers. The chapter ends with a set of six NPCs with short biographies; all a pretty interesting and can add in extra threads to the campaign.

There is an understandably large section (25 pages) on the craft and equipment carried by the Deepnight Revelation, especially as once the ship passes Point Demnan, that's all they have. Details are given ranging from Scout Ships to ground and grab vehicles, from crew uniforms to armoured exploration suits, and from translators through guns to nuclear demolitions charges.

After this, the book has a section on the preparation for the voyage (in which the players get a choice to outfit and supply the ship, and flavour how the crew is). This includes setting the initial Crew Effectiveness Index, the related modifier to that index, and the related departmental effectiveness. There's also a morale rating. These are explained in more detail in the Referee's Handbook, but in summary are used to abstract resolution of tasks at a ship or departmental level.

The penultimate chapter covers the initial stretch of the voyage with opportunities for diplomacy and getting the crew into the right place. Travel is planned in reaches, and this one is outlined in detail. The initial journey takes them to Tobia and then on to Point Demnan. This example section gives a good idea of how the campaign should play out. There are deliberate vague points and the Referee is encouraged to map only as necessary.

The final chapter discusses the expansions of the book - broadly the key things that should happen in areas of space but you need to buy the extra books to flesh these out, before describing two space dwelling creatures; Leviathans and Leachers, both adapted to life in space.

The third book, the Referee's Handbook, is 96-pages long guidance document for the campaign. It covers how to handle large scale resolution, including setting up a resolution cycle for each reach. This is effectively objectives and a set of orders for each stage of the reach. There's detailed guidance on how to resolve this, with some suggestions for events and points of interest. Missions within a reach get broken down into stages and are resolved as needed. This give opportunity to zoom in and out as things happen. Incidents can, especially if the ship has been flying for a long time without major maintenance, result in a crisis which could prove catastrophic. This encourages the players to think of when to replenish and maintain. The ship has been modified and carries the equipment to overhaul itself, but this is a time consuming process. Supplies are critical, and a simple system is given to manage this. Similarly, maintenance has a simple set of mechanics to manage.

There is a large section on using the Crew and Departmental Effectiveness Indexes, forming teams, impact on morale, and how Travellers can rise or fall in esteem. The latter could be very important if factional squabbles develop. Fatigue is also addressed; like the ship, the crew need rest and recovery beyond what they can get from the ship itself. This can be mitigated by taking time to give people reduced duties, success on missions, or seeing wonders, along with wholesale rest and recuperation on a planetary surface. 

There's guidance on using different aspects of star systems in making interesting environments. The book does recommend using the quick system generation rules from the Great Rift campaign, but you can get by with the guidance in this book and the core rules. As this predates the release of the World Builder's Handbook, there is no reference to that volume. 

The book then discusses how shipboard life will typically work, with watches, duty stations, security, in-system operations and deep space operations, plus small craft and planetary operations. After this, there is a chapter on exploration; how to survey systems and plot your routes, plus how to carry out planetary exploration with surveys and expeditions. Science and research is covered with a route to research and make breakthroughs. These chapters are followed by one that talks about the types of world that can be found and the related ecosystems. The book concludes with some brief guidance on contact with aliens. This is fleshed out some more in the final book and also in the expansions, several of which deal with first contact situations.

Terminus Point (72-pages) is the epic conclusion to the campaign and dives back into detail. The book has more detail on the Deepnight Entity and the place that it resides. This includes the challenging final deep space transit to Terminus Point, and what they find. The conclusion is epic and deadly, but there are many ways that the Travellers could succeed. If they fail, they ultimately will put the rest of the galaxy, not just Charted Space, at risk. I'm not going to say any more as it would be a huge spoiler, but I do think that the journey will have been worth it; there will be moments of awe and terror and chances for heroism and cowardice. 

In conclusion, Deepnight Revelation is a grand, sprawling epic space-exploration campaign, the likes of which Traveller hasn't seen before. It provides the start and end of the journey, plus the mechanics to run the steps in between. However, there will be a significant amount of work for the Referee to do for that journey, unless they purchase the expanded material. I was impressed enough to start picking up the additional material, as this is more my kind of campaign than Pirates of Drinax, fantastic though that is. 

Highly recommended.

5 April 2025

Books in March 2025

March was a very focussed reading month, with a lot of science-fiction and a lot of the Traveller roleplaying game. I read 2,900 pages and twelve books, bringing me to 34 books in the year, and a total of 8,424 pages. The reading streak is at 814 days.

I'll start with the roleplaying books. I worked my way through the epic Traveller Deepnight Revelation campaign, which comprised four shorter books. This is very much a taster for the campaign; there's enough here to run it and give you a good understanding of what is going to happen, but there's a fair bit of work for the referee. The start and finish of a truly epic campaign are covered in detail, and the mechanics are given for developing the road trip between. I suspect that most referees will be tempted to pick up the extra books that Mongoose have written that flesh out the journey between; I know I will.

I also worked my way through three books which will support my next campaign; Mongoose's Bounty Hunter, and Moon Toad's The Bounty Hunter Handbook and The Jägermeister Adventure. The latter two complement each other well. The Mongoose book is shinier & glossier, feeling more like The Mandalorian with lightweight mercenary tickets. The Moon Toad book is gritty, detailed & realistic, feeling like a procedural TV series, and edges it in my preference. I've detailed The Jägermeister Adventure elsewhere.

I also finished Conflict by David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts. This was a good overview of how conflicts have developed since 1945. I enjoyed the book, but found the difference between the chapters written by Petraeus and Roberts jarring. Petraeus' sections were much more detailed but lost the big picture and key themes that are throughout the rest of the book.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud was an interesting read. I found it more like a thought experiment in a first contact situation. It also cleverly threaded three different perspectives together. I did find it hard going in parts, but it came to decent conclusion.

Caimh McDonnell's A Man with One of Those Faces was an enjoyable crime romp, with a sharp wit and use of language set in Dublin. A case of mistaken identity spirals out of control. Recommended and I'll be reading the next book.

I read Max Barry's Providence which follows the crew of an AI-controlled space warship in a ware with an alien species. The quirk is that the ship is so automated that the crew are almost there for PR purposes. We get to find out their quirks, and how things play out when everything goes sideways. I enjoyed this.

Finally, after a gap of perhaps 40 years, I returned to Michael Scott Rohan's Winter of the World series, with The Anvil of Ice. This is slow-paced but well written fantasy novel about a young thrall who becomes a Smith capable of wending magic into that which he creates. We follow the start of his journey, as he is apprenticed to a dark and mysterious Master Smith, and then his story when he leaves. I really enjoyed revisiting this, and look forward to reading the next!

3 April 2025

Public Service Broadcasting - York Barbican - 27th March 2025

Gargarin!

Thursday night saw me returning to see Public Service Broadcasting for the third time and the second time on this tour. The eldest was meant to be with me but was ill, and I didn't find anyone else who could come along at short notice. This was the second leg of the tour that I went to earlier in the year, so very much focused around The Last Flight, plus a great selection of favourites.

It was a bit of a crazy day; a work event had been arranged after I bought tickets, and I ended up heading back up the A1 from Rutland, hoping that there wouldn't be an traffic issues. Fortunately, there weren't. A quick hello to the family, a bite to eat then off to York.

The support act - She Drew the Gun - were excellent. An all-all woman band from Liverpool, the singer caught my attention from the start with the powerful poem that she used to introduce between songs. The words landed, and the songs were equally good. I've subsequently checked out more of their music and I really like it.

This was the poem, in case you're interested.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/2A5KcbwpPRs84k3XEH6QxZ?si=eafac211bcf946f5

They played:

1. Origin Song
2. Washed in Blue
3. Mirrors
4. Howl
5. Behave Myself
6. Poem
7. Panopticon.

EERA was with the Public Service Broadcasting again, and really added something to the performance. Her mike was turned down a bit low at some points, unfortunately.

That was the least of the worries; when the introduction for PSB was drawing to an end, there was a huge crackle and the whole stage went dark. JF Willgoose appeared on stage with a tech, and the audience took it with good humour. We restarted 15 minutes later. 

 

Everyone got into the concert quickly, relieved that it was just a short delay. And then, third song in (People Will Always Need Coal), everything went pear shaped again. Fortunately, it was just a quick restart. After than, there were no visible issues and I think that it got the crowd behind the band.

It was a great performance. They played 18 songs, one less than planned due to the technical issues. The track we lost was 'If War Should Come', which should have been before Spitfire. Here's the setlist:

1. Electra (with EERA)
2. The Fun of It (with EERA)
3. People Will Always Need Coal (with EERA)
4. Progress (with EERA)
5. Der Rhythmus Der Maschinen (with EERA)
6. E.V.A.
7. Night Mail
8. The South Atlantic (with EERA)
9. Arabian Flight (with EERA)
10. Monsoons
11. A Different Kind of Love (with EERA)
12. Spitfire
13. The Other Side
14. Go!

Encore.

1. Blue Heaven (with EERA)
2. People, Let's Dance (with EERA)
3. Gagarin (with EERA and She Drew the Gun as the Cosmonauts)
4. Everest (with EERA)

  

This was the first time I stood for the concert. I was about four rows back from the front, and it was a great atmosphere, but I felt it in my legs after. I only took a few pictures (you can see the rest) as the band asks you not to at the start (and certainly not to spend the whole concert watching through a 4" screen). I didn't want to take that many, as the energy and fun on the floor was more than engaging enough.

And then it was time to go, and I headed off very happy and  slightly deaf (the Apple Watch kept on giving me 90dBA warnings), having had a thoroughly good evening.It did take nearly 30 mins to get out of the Q-Park carpark though!

An updated City of Mist Cribsheet

I've long been a fan of the one page moves cribsheet for City of Mist presented in the Starter Set, using it at conventions in laminated form. 

However, it does have a significant weakness; there are missing moves. The two key missing moves are 'Stop.Holding.Back.' and 'Look Beyond the Mist', which are often referenced in scenarios. The key downtime moves are also missing.

I spent some time recently doing an updated sheet in the style of the Starter Set which includes the following changes:

Added moves:

• Look Beyond the Mist.
• Stop. Holding. Back.
• Downtime Montage (cinematic).
• Flashback (cinematic).

Guidance on making moves:

• Making a move.
• Determining Power.
• Tag Invocation Rules.
• Burning Tags.
• Statuses.

All areas are cross referenced by page number to the relevant pages in the Player's Guide.

You can download a PDF copy here.

I recommend that you print it double-sided, short-edge binding and laminate.

City of Mist is copyright Son of Oak and all their rights are reserved. This cribsheet is intended for personal use only. Buy the game, it's fantastic!

23 March 2025

Airecon 10 (2025) - Harrogate - After Action Report

Airecon in my local gaming convention, but I've never been properly*, mainly as it is very boardgame focused. However, over the last few years, that has been changing. One of my fellow Garricon organisers, Graham, has been helping to organise a roleplaying section to the event. This has been growing steadily, and had 18 tables available in each organised slot, with 16 games offered consistently throughout the weekend. 

*I did pop in a couple of years ago for an hour (which cost me a full day's ticket) to catch up with Graham and Tom and was really impressed at the scale and shear organisation.

Graham asked me to run some games, so I pitched two City of Mist and one Traveller scenario for the Saturday and Sunday. I deliberately picked the four hour slots as I know I most comfortably run games around 3.5 to 4.5 hours. However, the turn around between slots was small so there wasn't really scope to overrun. Saturday was the City of Mist day, with my forever game Traveller on Sunday. I'd run all the scenarios pitched at conventions before, so I knew they worked fine.

I had this mad idea that I'd take the bus from home to the convention, but that fell by the wayside when I realised that there wasn't a bus late enough for the Saturday evening slot (finishes at 23:00, last bus around 22:40) and that I'd finish gaming on Sunday and not be home for another hour and a half (on a twenty minute journey). So it was parking at the local multi-storey carpark for the day. However, aside from food that was my only real expense for attending, as you get a free ticket if you are running.

Preparation for the convention was quite gentle, as I'd run the games before. I spent a bit of time pulling together an updated City of Mist cribsheet  (the one from the starter set evolved to have all the critical moves and some guidance), and then just checking I was happy.

I arrived in Harrogate just after 10:00, and was in the venue queue shortly after. As entry requires a bag search (every day) it was slow but steady with two doors open. I had a clear slot, so I wandered towards the trade hall to have a look and coincidentally bumped into Graham, who had already had a full day of being the Roleplaying Tsar.

 

The trade hall was heaving. Fortunately, I wasn't there for any boardgames. The roleplaying vendors were limited in number, but did have a good selection. However, there was nothing I was especially after and I managed to talk myself out of any new Mothership material or the Ronin Mork Börg hack. I did grab a new hard dice tray, as my existing neoprene ones have all developed creases. I said hello to Fil and Paul at All Rolled Up who seemed to be very busy (which is exactly what they'd want).

After my initial reconnaissance, I headed off to find the Queen's Suite, where the roleplaying games were being held. I resisted the Bring and Buy as there was a huge queue of people looking for bargains and dropping off games, and passed the Chaosium stand. Lunch was a sandwich from one of the many food stands. Airecon has a great selection, and even if the food hall is a bit of a trek, the food on offer is worth a look. 

And then it was time for games. I set the table up, and as ever, City of Mist looks really impressive on the table. 

My first game was 'The Uninvited Guest' (the 'Unwanted Guest' in the Local of Legends book) which I'd run recently at Revelation. I'd originally got three sign ups that Graham was aware of, but people were signing up until right before the sessions so you had no idea whether you'd have a full table or not. As it happened, I needed up with two people as one had dropped out. That pushed us towards a more initimate investigation, probably a bit more like the genre (which I describe as Netflix Marvel) that the game emulates so well. I gave the players a few experience bumps (three each) to compensate, and we explored the scenario. It never fails to amaze me how differently different groups of people approach the same problem. It's one of the fun things of running the same scenario again as a GM. 

Characters in play: Declan L'Estrange and Bassie.

Ultimately, they prevailed, and seemed very happy with the outcome. One of the players went away happy, as they'd wanted to understand how to play the game as they had it, but didn't quite grok it.

I dived out from the gaming area and grabbed a pizza in the food hall. The guy making it was worried I'd be disappointed, as it was on the gluten-free base, but it was just what the doctor ordered. It was nice to catch up with an old friend over the meal.

My second game was 'The Maestro of Chalk', which was also from the Local Legends book. I'd previously run this at Revelation in 2024, and it'd presented some challenges with character selection that I'd taken onboard. I'd addressed this for both games by pulling out the pre-generated characters that were a bit too focused for the scenarios. This worked well, and I don't think that anyone felt that they were limited in choice.

I had a full house for this game, five players, several of whom I knew from other conventions. They seemed to click as a group, with lots of interplay and zing at the table. I had a lot of fun as part of the opposition they faced could beguile people, and face danger rolls kept on getting failed and people kept on giving the opposition lots of updates on their investigation. They faced down a very dangerous threat which could cause a lot of damage, and worked out its weakness. It was amusing to see a monster taken down by spraying it with a one litre bottle of mineral water! Overall a fun game!

Characters in play: Detective Enkidu, Lance Sullivan, Mairead Conroy, Flicker, Scarlet 

Then it was back to the multistorey and home.

I didn't rush in on Sunday morning, as I wasn't running again. Arrived, cleared through the bag checks and had a wander around the trade hall and then a look through the bring and buy. Picked up a boardgames on spies (City of Spies - Estoril 1942) which looked intriguing and cost a whole £10. The bring and buy seems magnificently organised.

Quick chat with David Scott on the Chaosium stand. We've not talked for years and it was nice to see him. Sadly, most of what Chaosium produces isn't my cup of tea these days. 

I had a good natter with Graham as he was diligently signing thank you cards for GMs, then we went and hit the street food. I had a lovely lamb, couscous and salad dish.

My final game was the misleadingly titled 'A nice and easy in and out' for Traveller. Nominally, I was using Cepheus Universal, which is functionally Mongoose Traveller 1e (and not that far from 2e), but it all faded into the background.

Some more drop outs and I had two players arrive. I started setting up and explaining how the game and characters worked, then another player walked up and asked if they could join as the game they were in wasn't running. I welcomed them to the table and passed them the remaining characters to check out, and started my introductory spiel again. And then another person came up and asked me if they could join in. They were a volunteer but weren't needed right now. I welcomed them too, and started to do the introduction again. 

It was that point where I realised that I had a table of players who had never played Traveller before and wanted to find out about the game. It always makes me nervous, as I'm showing them my forever game and I want them to love it! I was also conscious that I was running a scenario that didn't really showcase the Charted Space setting. However, I knew that it had worked well at TravCon 2024 and I've been running Traveller for over forty years so the system isn't a challenge for me.

The scenario is a simple heist and double cross, which seemed to go down well. There was a bizarre moment when one of the players started laughing, then explained that the warehouse map I'd just opened had been used in another scenario that they'd played the previous year on the Sunday. I guess it's a small world and the Loke Cyberpunk battlemaps are really good. I used some of the tricks from TravCon, stealing the Legwork and Alertness clocks concept from The Sprawl again.

The player who had arrived last dropped in and out of the game; I wasn't sure how much they'd enjoyed it but at the end they had a really enthusiastic and animated chat with me which suggested that they had. Another of the players had a skim of the Mongoose 2e rules on my iPad and liked what they saw. I'm hoping I've won another few people over to the game, if not the setting. 

Then it was time to go, and I headed out from a convention hall that was being packed up without a care in the world and no need to check everything was okay. I should do more cons when I'm not in charge! I intend to return to Airecon next year. 

23 March 2025

First Impressions - The Jägermeister Adventure (Cepheus / Traveller)

A printed out copy of 'The Jägermeister Adventure'.

The Jägermeister Adventure is a 127-page mini-campaign for Traveller/Cepheus by Moon Toad Publishing, which should give around six sessions of play. It is available as a PDF only at the moment - I printed a hardcopy for use at the table shown in the image above because I plan to run this with my gaming group next.

The Jägermeister Adventure has the characters as a bounty hunting team who end up in pursuit of fugitive who may ultimately threaten the well-being of tens of thousands of people. However, when they start the chase, all they know is that the individual, Eric Voss, was on the defeated side of a war that ended with a strategic exchange of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, a war which rendered the planet Valkos a Red Zoned radioactive hell-hole, and that he is wanted for theft of documents from the Grand Imperial Library of Kahn. Lethal force has been authorised and he is believed to be armed and dangerous. 

The book is set in the Minerva Cluster, somewhere on the fringes of the Imperium. Key maps and background are provided for the star systems, planets and locations likely to be visited during the campaign. These are all produced to an excellent standard. There are deckplans, illustrations and statistics for four different starships including the Jäger-Class Bounty Hunter vessel that the players will be using as they take their roles as shareholders of Assured Couriers GmbH, a courier and package retrieval (aka bounty hunting) service.

The various worlds that the campaign visits are all very distinct and a degree of wits will be needed to succeed in the hunt for Voss, if only because they have limited legal authority. The campaign is not shy about presenting hard moral decisions or showing the realities of the aftermath of total war. Although Voss' motivations are understandable, it doesn't make them palatable and the consequences of failure are high stake.

The book repeats some elements of Moon Toad's Bounty Hunter Handbook. I'll be reading that and the Mongoose Publishing Bounty Hunter book over the next month as I prepare to run the campaign. There are references to a couple of other ships that Moon Toad have released as supplements, but they aren't key to the plot so you don't need to own them (but may well want to).

Written and illustrated by Ian Stead, Tom Price and Neil Grant, this is the kind of Traveller adventure I like, grounded and gritty, but with spaceships and the future.

Overall this seems excellent and I look forward to trying it out at the table.

1 March 2025

Games in February 2025

 

RPGs so far this year

I didn't post anything on the roleplaying games I'd played in January as there were none, but things took off in February. I had 10 game sessions in total, five from regulars and five from Revelation which I have covered in another post earlier.

The final picture from Shadows of Atlantis as we wrapped up.

The regulars were two sessions of Trail of Cthulhu's Eternal Lies and then three sessions of Shadows of Atlantis for Achtung! Cthulhu. Those were the last sessions of the Atlantis campaign, which came to an end after 28 sessions having started back at the end of 2023. Overall, I enjoyed the campaign but I've no hunger to run any more of the setting and system, so I've started to sell it off (just the core rules left now). I'm working out what to run next; Traveller is leading the list.

Eternal Lies in full flow.

Eternal Lies continues to delight, and it is the most intense roleplaying that I have done, and something I look forward to. I feel disappointed when we have to postpone sessions. We're 52 sessions into this campaign, which has slow burned as we started it in 2021!

I'm drawing on face-to-face versus online this year. The online is either Roll20 or Zoom at the moment.

A good gaming month.

1 March 2025

Books in February 2025

 

Cover Collage for February

February was a month with lots of reading; twelve books and 3,039 pages which is higher than my usual. Three roleplaying game books, one graphic novel and the rest were a mixture of fiction. I have also been working my way through an audiobook which is around the nineteen hour length but I didn't quite finish that in the month.

The graphic novel was the latest compiled volume in Titan's Blade Runner line, called Tokyo Nexus. It didn't add a lot new to the canon, but it was an interesting perspective of a city and culture that I haven't seen before in this universe.

One of the roleplaying games, Comrades, was a re-read as I ran it at Revelation 9 this month. If you fancy a game which gives you the chance to play a revolutionary cell against an oppressive regime, then it may be the Powered by the Apocalypse game for you. The other two books were both supplements for the Traveller roleplaying game, my forever game. I read Solomani Front, the sector guide book to the region of space that includes Earth, a literal frontline. Lots to go at in this one and it definitely gives a different perspective on the Third Imperium (as an occupying power). I also read Rim Expeditions, which is focused on the exploration missions far to rimward that the Solomani Confederation is staging. Again, a useful and different addition.

On to novels; I ended up reading more crime based novels than usual. There's no real reason, but each book I read tends to be a reaction to the one before.

Satu Rämü's Grave in the Ice and The Clues in the Fjord are the first two of four (so far) Icelandic noir crime thrillers, and very enjoyable reads too. Bizarrely, the English editions have dramatic titles whereas the Icelandic editions use the names of characters in the books instead. The stories relate to the work by the only detective in a remote part of Iceland who is partnered by a Finnish intern officer. I will continue reading this series when the next few drop.

I also read The Undoing of Violet Claybourne which I thought was going to be some kind of cozy manor Agatha Christie style manor house tale but it was so much more. The tale tells of two young girls, one from a privileged background (think Downton Abbey but down at heel) who meet at boarding school. The less privileged one is invited to stay for Christmas and she is drawn into events and her loyalty to her friend is put to test by the friends older siblings. The repercussions get followed through to the Second World War and beyond. It was done very nicely and a touch more brutal than I expected.

Full Dark House is the first Bryant & May mystery from Christopher Fowler (who I first encountered with Roofworld). It follows the first and last jobs of a pair of detectives who lead the Peculiar Crimes Unit. The Blitz is underway and there is a murder in a theatre which them must solve. Cutting to the modern day, Bryant is murdered and May must uncover the links back to their first case. This was a steady paced delight, and I'm glad I picked up a good few of these recently when they were promoted at 99p each.

I dived in the British noir of Ted Lewis' Get Carter. It's a long time since I saw the film so this was a delight to read and I note that there are at least two others in the serious (although at least one appears to be a prequel).

I read the third of the Damascus Station books by David McCloskey, The Seventh Floor, which seemed to wrap things up for the agents involved in the earlier books. Enjoyable and engaging, it is as all spy-fiction must be, a tale of betrayals both political and personal. Recommended (but only after you've read the first two).

Two science-fiction books rounded this month out; Adrian Tchaikovsky's Walking to Aldebaran, and Gareth L Powell's Future's Edge. I've had the Tchaikovsky for a while, as he continues to write faster than I can read his books. The story tells the tale of an astronaut who's the last survivor of a mission to a strange object found beyond Pluto. A good book but suffers from the fact that I didn't really like the narrator in it. The Gareth L Powell is the story of an archaeologist who has been infected by an alien nano-virus but may now hold the key for saving all the sentient races in the local area of the galaxy as some very deadly foes have started to emerge. I really enjoyed this and read it over two evenings.

Best of the month is hard to choose, but if I take it on ratings then it would be a toss up between Future's Edge and The Grave in the Ice, with The Seventh Floor just piped at the post.

Onwards.

1 March 2025

Revelation 9 - Convention After Action Report

A weekend of Powered by the Apocalypse games

The ninth Revelation was revealed this past weekend at the Garrison Hotel. Here's my reflections. 

We nearly didn't have this convention this year, as numbers were short for a long period of time. Part of the fault for this lies with the committee (hangs head in shame) as we didn't get this out there as previous years and probably didn't promote as well as we could have due to a variety of real life issues. There's a big thanks owed to several people in the community who really wanted this to happen (Neil, Guy especially) and promoted the convention. I also tried a variety of online groups to promote this who I hadn't talked to before (eg Magpie's Discord) to try and get some interest. We had around 20% new blood so it seemed to work.

For a while, it looked like were were going to struggle for games and I ended up offering three; City of Mist (my perennial game at this convention), :Otherscape (City of Mist's new Cyberpunk sibling) and Comrades.

The run up was more gentle than I thought; for once I managed to read and re-read all the scenarios by the weekend before and I took Friday off to prepare everything including the con badges, signs and QR codes for the timetables. Naturally my printer decided the cyan toner was running out, but a good shake made it last out.

I drove up on the morning of the convention met Graham and Elaine (my fellow organisers) in the main function room. We were a little startled as the room was nearly perfectly set up for us by the Garrison staff based on Graham's earlier guidance. Usually, we need to fix things up a little. The only thing we ended up doing like that was taping greaseproof baking paper to some of the windows to diffuse the sun which was shining straight in. For some reason, the curtains in the rooms were removed in the last refurbishment.

Original: https://youtu.be/lSTIUWbHqvY

Graham kicked us off with his usual speech, which has been honed to near-perfection over the last 35 conventions. With so many new attendees, we try to make sure that we don't make assumptions at the start!

Metro: Otherscape

The first slot saw me running Metro:Otherscape, the base setting from the Son of Oak team's new Cyberpunk game where myth and technology are mixed. The game saw me playing with a group of folks who I've gamed with many time before. I really enjoyed this, as Otherscape is a honed version of the City of Mist engine. The big change is that it replaces moves with effects. You look for the outcome that most closely matches what the characters are trying to achieve. The scenario was the introductory one from the book, which I worried may have been a bit short, but as it was the shortest slot of the con (at 3 hours) it worked out pretty well. We overran a little bit the players successfully extracted their target, without the need to apply duress. 

Lunch was Morrison's finest. My bring-and-buy materials were selling nicely.

Mind that tentacle, Mr Gumshoe!

Slot 2 saw me playing Penda's Monster of the Week game. This was a system and game I'd bounced off and I wanted to have another look at it. It was a fun game of weird body horror where we somehow managed to prevail. I suspect that things were made easier by Elaine picking a ghost as her character, which made her near invulnerable to the big bad.  Enjoyable fun.

Dinner was KFC and the latest instalment of the Garricon Book Club. Keary & myself (long standing members) were joined by Jenny and Tony and we had fried chicken and talked media (books, films, TV) and games.

Revolutionary Comrades.

Comrades was written as a reaction to the first Trump presidency and the general feeble nature of the left vs the right of politics. In some ways, I was pleased I didn't choose the modern day New York setting; instead, the characters were a revolutionary cell / party in Krescht, a fictional state near Poland and Russia in 1915. This was as close as to what I'd see as pure Powered by the Apocalypse as I went this convention, with full on co-creation of the party and the locations. I had a few beats but never needed to use them as the players embraced the setting. That said, it was very weird to spend a hour doing preparation, only for Elaine's 'Professional' to blow themselves up while making a bomb and she needed to get a new playbook!

Elaine checks the rules after Sasha's demise!

She had a move to prepare a bomb, and the failure aspect meant it could blow up, and that would mean certain death. Naturally, she failed. As GM, I told her that Sasha, her character, could run away or try to stop the fuse. Running away would succeed but the consequence would be huge explosion wrecking the safe house and their fellow travellers. Stopping the fuse would save the day, but any failure meant sudden death and similar consequences for their allies. There was a moment of confusion and Keary said 'roll the dice'. Elaine did, rolling a miss, and Sasha was spread across the city. Fortunately, Elaine took it with good grace. 

The party plotted and schemed with plan to blow up a prison and free the political prisoners. However, they also found out that the local fascist party were holding a demonstration outside the prison to have the leftists hung. Two of the group decided that the leader of the fascists needed to be disposed of, so they planted the bomb in a different place to planned. The bomb went off, the fascists went on a rampage through the city, their leader escaping death, and the prisoners escaped. Udo's priest, the party leader, welcomed the people he rescued hoping to recruit them, but on returning to the city found out that his love had been killed when the soup kitchen she ran was stormed by the rioters.

Overall, a great game, but probably best as a campaign.

I ended up with an unintentionally late night as I foolishly finished the novel I was reading.

Sunday brought the fantastic Garrison breakfast and some good chat, then I went back to the room and had a little bit of preparation time.

Hutt Cartel

My first game (slot 4) was Hutt Cartel, which Will kindly ran. I'd first met Will last year when I ran the Berlin Hack for Cartel, and he'd offered a return favour. It was great fun. I chose the Crime Boss as my character and it ended predictably badly for me as the Imperials, Pikes and Black Sun tried to take over my territory on Coruscant. Fantastic game of backstabbing nastiness.

Lunch was Morrisons; I'd toyed with the Garrison for a roast dinner, but the service the day before had been slower than usual and I was planning to run. The raffle went well, but Cillian may be stopped from drawing the tickets as he managed to select pretty much anyone except his parents!

City of Mist - all the Bling

The last slot brought City of Mist and a scenario from Local Legends (The Unwanted Guest, but I renamed this The Uninvited Guest as I'm a Marillion fan). City of Mist was like comfortable shoes and Overscape had served as a good warm-up. The crew investigated and the scenario ended in a confrontation at a funeral in a church; fortunately the player's prevailed. I did have some sub-plots which never really got into action, but overall people seemed to have a great time and I was asked to give some of my friends who I see far too little of a heads up if I ever run this online.

City of Mist has some fantastic supporting material and the feel is very much Netflix Marvel in power, Noir powered people. I enjoyed running and the players seemed to enjoy playing. Several had done previous sessions with me and this is one of my most run systems.

And then I tidied up (Elaine and Graham had to go earlier) and it was all over, another great convention. I was surprised I didn't play any Forged in the Dark, but I guess that sometimes that's how it happens.

Revelation will return.

25 February 2025