TravCon 2025 - After Action Report

The first weekend of October brought the second of the relaunched TravCon events, set once again just south of Peterborough in the south of the UK. It was a little problematic for me because I had Furnace the week after, so it cut into prime organising and preparation time for that convention. Fortunately, I didn't have to do too much on the convention organising side beyond prepare my games, but I did make a bit of a rod for my own back in suggesting what the attendees could get as a gift for attending.

Prep for the games was pretty simple; I offered to rerun two published scenarios that I had run back in May 2025 at North Star, Deepnight Legacy and The Hunt for Sabre IV. I've talked about North Star in other posts, but suffice it to say that if you are a Traveller fan, it's a SF dedicated roleplaying convention that's definitely work a look at (full declaration - I am involved in organising it).

I described how I prepared the scenarios in the previous North Star 8 post, so I won't repeat that here. All I needed to do was to reprint the characters and also a few of the handouts.

TravCon was located about 15 miles south of my workplace's head office, and I had an all-day face-to-face audit booked in there for the Friday, so everything seemed to have aligned nicely. I could drive down with work, recharge the car (I now drive an EV) on the chargers there, then trundle off to TravCon at the end of the day. Well, bizarrely the audit got moved to Teams, but I still headed down. The A1 was mostly fine.

It wasn't too late when I rolled into Redwings Lodge in Sawtry (picture a downmarket version of a Travelodge) which was the residential base for the convention. Once again, the gaming was taking place in  Alconbury Memorial Hall, about 5 minutes drive away. I caught up with my Garricon co-conspirator, Graham, and we joined the second sitting at Royal Spiceland's buffet. It was nice catching up with people that I don't see that often, but Derrick Jones' absence was notable since he passed away earlier this year. I didn't stay up late, and went to bed instead. It'd been a long week and I wanted to be prepared and refreshed.

Graham and I shared a lift the next morning, and we arrived at the hall. Richard T had done a fine job organising the whole event, and very quickly things were away. I was beaming like proud father when I got given a copy (number 01 of 50) of the book I'd produced for the event. This was the aforementioned. 'rod for my own back'.

Both sides of the Double Adventure.

We'd kicked around some ideas for the convention gift, and were struggling for something original, when I  foolishly suggested that as I was already updating two of the BITS scenarios that I'd written to get them back into print, perhaps I could do that and create a double adventure book in the style of the old Classic Traveller adventures. This means you turn the book upside down to read the second adventure. Doing this needed me to update the interior text to Mongoose Traveller 2e (2022), complete the layout (Andy was originally going to do this), size reduce the output to A5 from A4, then rotate the second book. Overall, it worked really nicely. I went with a refreshed inverted cover idea I'd first pitched over a decade ago and it looked really nice in print. The adventures were 'Delta 3 is Down' and 'Cold Dark Grave'. They'll be released as print-on-demand singles sometime later this year.

TravCon has four gaming sessions, and my first session was run by Neil McG, an old friend who I met through BITS. I got to play through the very rare kick off scenario from 'In Search of Angels' where we successfully carried out the recovery of a merchant vessel lost in the Fifth Frontier War. Before we started properly, there was a minute of silence held in memory of Derrick, which was lovely, especially as his cousin and cousin's son were there.

Surely the diagram makes this 'In Search of Angles' rather than Angels?

There were a few puzzles to solve (where the ship actually was, how we could get permission to carry out the mission, and actually lifting the vessel). We managed - somehow - to get the job done without resorting to anything illegal!

The second session, I ran Deepnight Legacy. This played out somewhat differently to the previous outing, with the players managing to avoid the base and risk of infection very carefully, before ultimately adopting a similar approach to the previous crew that tried this. It's a fun scenario and definitely works well on riffing on lots of classic movies that SF fans will have seen. There was a sense of paranoid worry throughout, but it kept them alive and with minimum risk of infection! Well played.

The evening session was run by Richard T, and was called 'Second Sons'. We were the heirs (both male and female) of Vilani nobles who wouldn't inherit, and we had become involved in what could only be described as a Vilani supremacist movement. Deeply unpleasant folk with a chip on their shoulders. Our cell was tasked with 'rescuing' and 'liberating' an ancient Naasirka symbolic encryption key, and it was suggested that we carried out a daring heist to do this. However, we had a group of devious and paranoid conspirators and it felt like a set-up where we would become martyrs, something we definitely didn't fancy. We went full political and approached the scenario in a way that give Richard lots of new areas to consider. I was the 'Black Sheep Enforcer', a rejected family member with connections to the underworld (not a Yorkshire Pub Bouncer), and it was great fun.

I got back to Redwings and no-one was about to play Mag*Blast, so I went to bed. Would have loved to have played it as Derrick loved a good battle with it. Maybe some other time.

Sunday only has one session, and I was running the introductory adventure from Mysteries on Arcturus Station, The Hunt for Sabre IV. This was the prequel to the famous Classic Traveller adventure Murder on Arcturus Station. The players took to their roles as corporate troubleshooters with gusto, and split the party up very successfully. I tried to build tension by cutting between scenes but they very effectively followed the clues and established what had happened. They even avoided the final battle option, leaving that to the police. Some clever advocacy work meant that they dodged the sting in the tail with the terms and conditions from the company hiring them, which was even more inspired. The only downside was the realisation that they'd really taken the side of 'the man' against 'the little people', enforcing corporate authority and oppression. But hey, they made Cr250,000 profit!

TravCon wrapped up with the usual 'Ping-F***-It' and Starburst for Extreme Heroism awards for attendees. Mongoose ran a playtest of Pioneer during the slot I ran Deepnight Legacy, and that was apparently good fun. They didn't do a keynote, but after the tone of the questions last year, that didn't really surprise me. Then again, it was a weekend and Matt may not have had time to do something like that. It was great of them to support the event though.

There was a small bring and buy, mostly dominated by BITS towels and a lot of Derrick's Traveller books which were free to a good home.

TravCon will be back next year. The majority of attendees asked for something closer to the old March/April slot, but Andy almost dismissed that when talking about it as being too soon. That's disappointing, as I'm probably not going to come if it's so close to one of the other events that I run. It just adds another level of stress I don't need. It'll be a shame to miss it, but if it's the week before Furnace, I don't think that I will do it. There was also talk of a new venue. I know Richard has been scouting them but nothing concrete yet.

I really enjoyed catching up with folks, and it was great to spend a weekend playing my forever game with them. It was also lovely to meet people I knew from forums and Facebook groups but have never met face-to-face before (waves at ADnD Steve). A fun weekend in the Far Future.

19 October 2025

Furnace XX (2025) - After Action Report

Last weekend saw me back at Sheffield for Furnace's twentieth anniversary, something that my co-conspirators Elaine and Graham had tried to make a little special. As usual, I'll talk a bit about the organisation of the convention and then my experience at it.

Organisation

I'm not actually sure when I started to become involved in organising the convention, but Graham has been there from the start, and Elaine got involved a year before me. I know it was around the time that most of the original committee stood down, and I think it's at least fifteen years ago. The thing is, we've been doing this for a while now and it pretty much runs on rails because the various mechanisms have been developed and put in place. However, we do love to try and respond to feedback from our attendees and improve the convention each year, so there are always changes.

This year, we made two substantial changes; we moved the lunch and dinner sign ups for the Garrison Hotel online, and we added in a large new space that allowed us to increase the number of games and attendees. There was always a worry with the latter that it may change the feel of the convention, but the initial feedback from attendees has been really positive. It did feel that the hub of the convention moved from the upstairs room where the majority of the gaming had taken place, which was different. 

The new space, which we referred to as the 'Mess Hall', replaced the somewhat remote and musty Armoury and gave us somewhere with lots of space for the traders (once again, Patriot Games from Sheffield and All Rolled Up) and eight tables of games. Net, it allowed us six extra tables, so realistically somewhere between thirty and forty-two extra attendees). We ended up about twenty-five people up on previous years, with a number of drop-outs over the last few days, otherwise we'd have been in the middle of that range. So just short of one hundred people.

We also had, as Graham called it, "merch". We'd decided to give the attendees a gift from the convention to celebrate the twentieth year, so started to look at what was possible. In the end, we focussed down onto either a bag or a dice tray. From a budget perspective, we realised that we couldn't really afford to get both, and that high attendance would potentially make bags very expensive. In the end, we gave everyone a dice-tray and made a route to get subsidised messenger bags available via All Rolled Up. These were usually over £30, and we made them available for £13 each to attendees.

We refreshed the convention recently (partly because we wanted to give it a slightly more modern look, and partly because we lost access to the original files), so we combined the logo with a fantastic stock image of a steel furnace for the bags. It looked even better than I hoped when I saw them for real on the Saturday. I think, as I write this, we have a single bag left from the run, and they seemed to be very popular.

We also had a custom dice tray made. We decided early on that we wanted to get a hard dice tray rather than a neoprene one, and had discussions with two vendors through Etsy. One had a yellow octagonal design with the logo vinyl printed on it in black, and the other had an orange square design with the logo laser engraved. We went for the latter, and they arrived promptly and looked great. The vendor has some other great looking gaming items, which you can find here. They seemed to be well received and were in use across all the gaming tables that I could see.

Aside from those changes, the biggest difference was the increased number of attendees. This meant that Elaine needed to level up her cat-herding skills for the game choices and allocations, and I got to chop and print a lot more attendee badges.

Preparation

As usual, I offered two games at the convention. Both were games that I'd never run before, which does up the challenge somewhat. However, I'd played the first game many years ago, and played and run the related games to the second one repeatedly, which removed some nerves. Of course, TravCon ended up being the week before Furnace, which was pretty awkward as, combined with a lot going on at work, it reduced the time that I had available immediately before the weekend for preparation. This was the second year that TravCon was so close to the event and I may end up not going to it if it happens again, as I've been feeling the after effects the last week.

My first game was In Nomine, which came out in the late 1990s. I'd played in a fantastic mini-campaign set against the backdrop of the Northern Ireland Peace Process at the Chester Roleplaying Club run by my friend Ric (I suspect that Steveh may have also been in the game). That was probably close on thirty years ago, and it was a memorable experience, enough that I've always had the game on my mind. I picked up a copy of the game second hand (before I realised that it is still available new via Amazon POD) and read through it. The game has you playing Angels and/or Demons, fighting out the war between Heaven and Hell on Earth. The subtitle of the game really says it all: "Good & Evil, Life & Death, Rock & Roll". 

It's a surprisingly simple engine at its heart - you roll a d666 (3d6 where two dice are looking at rolling under a target number, and one dice gives the quality of the result -  but if you used the full rules around combat it shows its age and has lots of fiddly mods. Needless to say, I didn't use the fiddly bits. I went digging to see if I could find a decent introductory scenario, and ended up using S.John Ross' Feast of Blades, which is very much an investigatory chase. I printed the PDF version from Drivethrurpg out spiral bound, and spent some time preparing, trying to get a feel for the interconnectedness of the plot. Some of the routes forward really resolved around a single clue, so making sure that it was available was key.

During my preparation, I realised that the game was now effectively in its third edition, and the current PDF/POD had errata corrected, plus updates and clarifications. I ended up printing myself a custom hardcover of the current PDF with a recreation of the original cover on it, as I really don't like the current front cover of the game.

The final hurdle was the characters; I'd hoped to steal from existing introductory scenarios or from material on the web, but I soon found out that most of the characters in the introductory scenarios were one of two specific Choirs of Angels, and that although there are many links to In Nomine resources on the Steve Jackson Games websites, many of them are dead now. I spent an evening creating a character sheet in Word, then making five characters. The existing PDF sheets aren't form fillable, which is why I went with creating them in Word.

The second game I offered was Tales of the Old West, a game set in the Wild West. From the moment I heard about this, I was interested in it. The game takes Fria Ligan's Year Zero Engine and uses it to deliver a gritty Western experience. Nothing occult. Nothing weird. No horror (beyond that of humanity on a lawless frontier). Perhaps for the first time, I had access to a game which would let you play through situations like those you see in Clint Eastwood movies or series like Lonesome Dove. I'd missed the Kickstarter, so my friend Remi kindly picked up a copy for me from UK Game Expo.

Reading through the book, I quickly found a plot hook I liked, so I fleshed that out. It was the usual build out some options for routes through (keeping in mind the five room dungeon principle for the number of steps you're likely to get through in a session) with a variety of challenges. Because time was compressed, I chose just to reference NPC stats from the QuickStart ("QuickDraw") and the core book rather than spend time creating custom stats. I used the characters from the QuickStart as well, as they were nicely set up to riff off each other. 

Finally, I spent some time on the internet and scrubbing through internet to find images I could use with at the table for characters. It's amazing how much easier it is to give a feeling of menace when you show a picture of Lee Van Cleef as a bounty hunter who's blown into town, or the Young Guns riding as the gang with the notorious reputation.

Execution

Furnace is the only one of our conventions that I come to the night before. It's just too busy on the day to rush set up unless we do a stupid early start, and I like the chance to catch up with people the evening before. This year's convention had brought back a wide range of people that hadn't been since COVID hit us, and it was lovely have a pint and a chat in the bar.

Graham had landed earlier in the evening and checked out the gaming spaces, and stashed the merch. The hotel did a fantastic job; they'd set up tables and put up the shower curtains we'd bought in the upper windows of the jailhouse. 

"Shower curtains?", you ask, with a quizzical look. 

Well, there's a story. The hotel refurbished the upper spaces and as part of that the heavy red velvet curtains were removed but not replaced. At certain times of day, the sun can shine directly through the windows making it very hot and bright. We spent two years improvising around this with me teetering on top of a chair taping baking paper to the windows as a diffuser. This year, we bought some shower curtain poles and curtains that let us do the same job in a more professional manner. They're stored at the hotel and we arrived to find that they'd already put them up for us. They do the job nicely.

Morning started earlier than usual, because the Mess Hall space was shared with the restaurant, so breakfast had been moved an hour earlier than usual. Once we'd had the usual lovely food, we moved into setting up. The traders were quickly ready, and we got all the signage, QR-codes to the schedule and merch ready. 

The convention opening went on longer than usual, as we had to hand out bags and dice trays. Graham gave one of his best speeches, but unfortunately I only got about half of it because I managed to catch the stop button on the phone during the speech. Frustrating. 

I think the gist of the message was 'Enjoy yourselves, be kind, give us feedback and grab us if you want help'.

Slot 1 - Traveller - Calli's Heroes

The first slot saw me playing JohnO's game of Traveller. We've spent lots of time in the past geeking out about SF, and I was really happy to final get a chance to play with him again. The scenario was 'Kelly's Heroes' inspired, with us playing characters in an Imperial Army recon unit that gets a chance to make a big score against the backdrop of the Fifth Frontier War. The game was full of classic Traveller references with Vargr, Zhodani and Ancient Artefacts. I absolutely loved this, partly as I rarely get a chance to play Traveller's and partly because the characters were so well written and the scenario so well presented. JohnO is an illustrator and designer and all the maps and character images were fantastic.

My apologies to my fellow players as I was late getting into the game because of the set up and then a GM who I needed to find a new game for when a couple of the folks hadn't turned up due to illness.

Lunch was from Morrisons, and I took advantage of the break to go back to my room and re-read some of the In Nomine material so it was fresh in my head.

Slot 2 - Blade Runner - If You Prick Us, Do We Not Bleed?

I've long been impressed with Fria Ligan's Blade Runner adaptation. It feels like the setting and the dice mechanics mean that you have characters that feel more competent than the usual YZE engine characters. Gray was offering a game, and I jumped at a chance to play. I did have to admit just how much I loved the setting when he asked what knowledge we have of the setting (yeah, I've seen both films, and Black Lotus, and read the graphic novels...) but everyone there had a good knowledge of the setting.

I loved the way that Gray gave us some index cards with a short description of the characters available rather than dropping loads of stats on us at the start. He also did a good safety introduction.

I ended up with an Deckard like Inspector, who I named Evander Edelmann. Our team comprised three humans and two Nexus-9 replicants. The story and plot was all of Gray's own creation, and it was fantastic. I think that we could have spent double the time we had on the game, especially as we got into the roleplaying aspects of interviews and interactions, but Gray skilfully lead us to a satisfying ending. Would love to play more of this!

Dinner was via KFC and we had another meeting of the Garrison Book and Film Society. Well, it's not as formally as that, but every Saturday night at the Garricons we tend to head to KFC and have a good natter about what we've read or seen since the last convention that's worth following up.

Slot 3 - In Nomine - Feast of Blades

In Nomine was really fun to run. The players very quickly got into roles of Angels, and we opened in an airport just before Christmas with them waiting for a relic to arrive, which they'd been told to recover. They gave aid to those in need, dealt with wrong doers and got into a fight with a demon. Then the aircraft that they'd been waiting for crashed and things started to escalate. They managed to get ahead of the curve and brought their mission to a successful conclusion, avoiding the need for the potential big-fight, but missing the chance for a chat with a Demon Prince.

Overall, I think it went well. I only had one moment with a wobble over the rules, and I think the scenario worked well (although the open nature of it had me thinking on my feet). Unfortunately, one of the players was very tired and had to go to bed part way through. I was worried that they weren't enjoying it, but they caught me the next morning and apologised for leaving and thanked me for the game which lifted my concerns.

Annoyingly, I forgot to take any picture at table.

After the game, I had a pint in the bar with JohnO and others but made sure I wasn't late for bed.

Slot 4 - Dragon Warriors - A Box of Old Bones.

This was a delight of nostalgia. Jon, the GM,  has written for the game and had put a huge amount of work into preparation with lovely handouts and lots of material to support. I'd read the scenario years ago in a White Dwarf and the fact that I had remembered it meant it was one that I'd liked. Dragon Warriors is very much a game of its time (the mid-1980s) but I knew what I was getting into and had a really fun game with a great bunch of players. I played a Lady Nina of the Grey Sycamore, and got to use 'Dragonbreath' and set villains on fire. I even managed not to burn the Abbey we were staying at down. Great fun.

There was a lovely moment in the game when Graham drew my attention to the room full of people playing, having fun and reminded me that this was why we do it. He's absolutely right.

I also got to feel old; I can remember when Dragon Warriors was released and realising that it's 40 years old this year was... uncomfortable.

Lunch was Morrisons again.

The raffle went well, and was boosted by Chaosium sponsoring the convention so there were lots of books to choose from.

Slot 5 - Tales of the Old West - Sins of the Past

I really enjoyed running this; a fantastic group of players made a memorable game. Neil, who also blogged about the convention here, has lots of experience running this game and was super-helpful during the game. I realised that I'd made the right choice with the pictures I'd printed when I saw how the players reacted to the 'bounty hunter'. It quickly started to feel like the genre, and the players were very clever in the final scene where they managed to get the drop on the gang they were hunting and avoid going into full combat. The theme underlying the adventure was one of the chance of redemption and community versus paying for your crimes of the past. The party went for redemption and community, which was lovely, because they could have chosen to either hand in or get the bounty for several of their neighbours had they wanted to. My only other reflection was that I was probably a bit more sweary than usual when I got into character for the gang but it felt appropriate. I don't think that I offended anyone, but if I did, I apologise. 

I loved running this and I can see it coming out at a convention again.

Conclusion

And that was it. Some minor tidying up to do. Thanks to the traders, hotel staff, attendees and my fellow organisers. Furnace XX was a great celebration of twenty years, and the twenty-first event is already booked.

18 October 2025

Books in September 2025

Last month saw my reading step up in pace, with 9 books and 3,251 pages, definitely above average, although a little behind last year. Year-to-date I've read 87 books and 23,011 pages, and I'm coming up on having read for 1,000 days in a row.

This month's mix included one non-fiction, one short-story magazine and seven novels.

The non-fiction book was Sarah Wynn-Williams biography covering her time at Facebook (now Meta). She was a key member of the policy team, and it's a fascinating read about a toxic culture. At the start of the book I found her really naive and annoying, but by mid-way through you see her starting to realise what the place that she really wanted to work in is truly like. The title, Careless People, really says it all and it's no surprise that Meta are trying to suppress this. Definitely worth the time.

The short-story magazine was Clarkesworld. I've been getting this for several years and been very sporadic in how I've read it, so have made a commitment to myself to read it each month. As ever, it's a mixed bag, but there was nothing I disliked in it and much to like.

Speaking of commitments, in an effort to broaden and discover what I'm reading, I joined Elle Cordova's SF Book Club (worth it for the end of the month videos alone) and that led me to read one novel I'd never considered and one that I bought quite some time ago. The one I'd never considered was  Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, a tale about the life of an artificial person (an AI robot designed as a friend for children). There's a note of sadness though this but it was really enjoyable. The book I'd had for a long time was N.K.Jemison's The Fifth Season, which is part of an award winning series that collected Hugos and Nebulas. The latter felt closer to fantasy than science-fiction but it gripped me all the way through. It was fantasy in the sense that the technology involved in some areas was akin to magic (and could well have been magic). However, you need to be prepared for a multiple viewpoint multiple timeline novel that's part of a trilogy. I enjoyed both, and this month it will be Lem's Solaris.

Mick Herron's Clown Town was fun, but not the best of the Slow Horses books, and I felt that there was an element of forced ambiguity at the end which didn't work brilliantly for me. I also read two Kevin Wignall thrillers, The Story Starts Here and These Days Will End. The former starts with a student being expelled from school for 'drug dealing' and escalates rapidly, and the later is best described as being akin to an Agatha Christie story, set in a hotel in Italy. There's a murder, and one of the suspects and residents start to investigate. I like Wignall's writing, it carries me along nicely.

The Gnomes of Lychford is the latest from Paul Cornell, set in a town which has become the gateway between our world and magical realms. The story is really a warning about why you shouldn't have garden gnomes. Fun, but again not the best of the series. I rounded the month out with Christopher Fowler's Seventy Seven Clocks, the third of the Bryant & May mysteries. This was complicated and fun and very enjoyable.

Overall, a good month of reading.

1 October 2025

First Impressions - Dolmenwood, an initial view

After quite some waiting, Dolmenwood has arrived. This epic fairy forest of adventure has long fascinated me from the times that it was a humble zine (Wormskin). I've written this very much as a first impression; I think there's a good month or so of reading needed to digest this properly, and at the moment, I'm focused on convention preparation for TravCon and Furnace.

Along the way, it has morphed from a supplement for Old-School Essentials to a standalone derivation of that OSR classic. So if you know how Basic D&D plays in its B/X variant, you'll know how this plays. Of course, it's tailored and unique.

The package that arrived was huge, spread across two boxes; the heart of it was the core player's book with the rules, a book of monsters, a large campaign book and an accompanying book of maps as a quick reference.

And that's just the beginning! The second box incuded two cloth maps, dice, a dice bag, miniatures and a GM Screen. Oh, and a patch*. There are also four adventures in small hardcovers, reminding me of Ladybird books in some ways.

The books are beautifully illustrated, and very clearly laid out. This is a sandbox setting par-excellence, with factions, plots, fascinating and evocative locations and space for a campaign to grow into something truly unique. It's the kind of book that you dip into and really want to run a game from the ideas that it gives you as you read it.

In truth, I have far too many large campaigns, especially in the OSR space. However, this is definitely a keeper. I've just got to decide what's going to go to make enough space on the shelves. 

On what I've seen, I recommend this wholeheartedly. I certainly don't regret backing it, despite the delays. It's a classy production.

27 September 2025

(*) What is the current obsession with stickers and badges to go alongside games? I really don't get it. Perhaps I'm too old. 

Traveller - The Jägermeister Adventure - Ep 6 - Pursuit of the Hirondelle (Spoilers, AI)

 

We returned to the The Jägermeister Adventure this week on our third attempt (as the holidays intervened) and the session ran without technical issues. We did choose to run audio via Discord, but keep video on Roll20. I used tabletoprecorder.com as usual. Andy wasn't available so we covered his character between us.

Characters.

Saul Emzer (Graham) - the only professional bounty hunter in the group, a guild member well aware of his own shortcomings. Saul knows his aptitude is the down and dirty part of the missions. He isn't the brains, and he certainly can't fly a ship, but when the trouble goes down, he's a man of action, and of stealth when needed. Saul has brought the rest of the team together to support him and fill out the skill gaps. He doesn't like to think of himself as the leader, but he's the one with the official guild membership. He's made some big scores in the past.

Gibert Chang (Andy) - hailing from the Meriden system's Harmony habitat, the home of an obscure religious sect, Gilbert sought freedom by joining the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service. He grew up with good understanding of space construction and has supplemented this with a wide range of technical skills, becoming a professional spacer. He describes himself as the potential getaway driver, but is officially the ship's engineer,  and he comes with a broad (but not deep) range of experience and a well-used but cared for vacuum suit called Nadia.

Arturo "Lucky" Javed (Paul) - Lucky's life has been a lot of ups and downs, probably more of the latter than the former. He aspired to be an intelligent agent but was kicked out of that career early on following a serious injury. He then took to a life of petty crime, struggling to make do and stay out of trouble. Eventually, a role came up on a Merchant vessel, but he kept his hand in with the underworld to try and make some money on the side. He knows Gil of old following a job that went sideways. Lucky is the one who is likely to make contact with any criminal elements that the group may need to deal with.

Pen Gata (Neil) - has spent his life in space, with a broad range of spacer skills that means he's the pilot and astrogator. Once again, he's a broad specialist rather than a deep expert. (The character was built with package generation so has a less developed life path).

The Jägermeister - a 100dT Jump-2 streamlined courier capable of 6G thrust, the ship is also their home and Assured Courier's GmbH's main asset. The crew mostly live aboard, as it's a lot more pleasant than the desert world of Ikeran where they're officially based (and have a rented office). The ship is usually located in one of the downport's long-term parkways. She's armed with a single triple turret with beam lasers and a missile rack. 

Session notes.

This was the aftermath; the crew had captured Edric Voss but didn't have the data package. His crew were fleeing on the Hirondelle and decisions were needed on what to do next!

It's worth noting that players did spot a route to exit the campaign (taking lesser bounties on Voss' actions in local systems where he'd murdered people) but, thankfully, they decided to carry on!

I'll drop the summary below. As usual, the tone and summaries from tabletop Recorder don't really hit what I want, but they're useful. I'll do a nutshell summary at the end.

Summary of the Session (lightly edited AI synthesis of the transcript).

In the bustling starport of Bulari, the adventure began with the crew aboard the Jägermeister facing a critical decision. The narrator described the scenario, revealing that their current mission revolved around capturing the elusive Voss and potentially retrieving a valuable data packet to fulfil their contract fully. Pen questioned the location of the data packet, suspecting it might be on another ship that could be escaping their grasp. Saul and Arturo, wary of missing any detail that could lead to Voss's secrets, contemplated whether the bounty was hidden within Voss himself, hinting at the need for a more invasive search. Their musings on using medical scanners or more crude methods set a tone of urgency among the crew. As the conversation furthered, the idea of interrogating Voss came up, but no definitive plan was set as doubts about the data packet's location lingered. 

Under the harsh realisation that returning incomplete results to their employers at the Great Library of Kahn could forfeit their entire reward, they pondered their next move. Saul detailed the contract's strict terms: Voss, the data, and all materials must be recovered to receive payment. Pen noted another opportunity involving the Imperial authorities at Bulari who offered a reward for Voss due to an unrelated crime, considering it a lesser, yet viable option. 

The crew discussed their need for thorough planning, as escaping the starport without alerting authorities could prove challenging due to their recent involvement in a hangar incident. As they deliberated, the urgency to chase down the ship containing the data packet intensified. Chang and Saul were keen on ensuring they could refuel and take off while evading the defence mechanisms actively thwarting flights due to an ongoing incident in orbit. 

Pen skilfully negotiated with the port authorities, emphasising their role as licensed bounty hunters crucial to resolving the orbital conflict. This exchange led to a strategic, if reluctant, approval for their departure, contingent on signing a waiver that absolved the starport of any responsibility for their safety. Once cleared, the crew skillfully navigated their ship, avoiding space debris and laser defenses, exiting the atmosphere while maneuvering towards the site of the ongoing conflict. The chatter over the comms revealed another ship, their rival Headhunter, in distress, tumbling due to a manoeuvre drive failure after it had taken a lucky hit from the fleeing Hirondelle. 

The crew swiftly shifted their focus to a rescue operation, showcasing their skills and solidarity amidst the unpredictable perils of space bounty hunting. As they stabilised the distressed ship, they prepared to confront the escaped ship, all while dealing with the interpersonal tensions and histories that colored their daring exploits among the stars, especially those between Saul and Aoife Scarlock, the captain of the Headhunter. 

Amidst the thick tension and buzzing of control panels within the Jägermeister, the crew found themselves grappling with the nuances of their equipment deficiencies. With Gil designated as the most suitable, though admittedly not skilled, at manning the sensors, the team attempted to make sense of their situation. The vessel Hirondelle had kept their attention, suspected of escaping with the important data and Voss's team securely onboard. 

Pen, negotiating channels of communication and information, coordinated with Port Warden De la Cruz from Bulari to explain Jägermeister’s activities involving the Hirondelle. The interaction was tense, as they also discussed the unauthorised use of beam laser weapons by Hirondelle within the starport vicinity—a further complication adding to the vessel's trail of crimes. 

Meanwhile, Saul, without the specific skills of a professional bounty hunter but with determination, geared up for an impromptu interrogation boosted by guidance from Arturo, who sagely offered legal pointers. Though slightly unskilled, the duo managed to navigate the interrogation intricately, aiming to extract useful insights from Voss without resorting to overt coercion. The crew learned of Hirondelle's likely trajectory towards the Red-zoned world of Valkos, and tactical discussions ensued. 

They pondered Voss’s potential connections and upcoming manoeuvres whilst considering their own strategic moves which involved a decision between pursuing Hirondelle directly or setting a cautious wait in orbit around Minerva to possibly intercept. As plans solidified about their travel and the potential perils that lay ahead on Valkos—a planet suffering from a nuclear winter with a small, clinging population who had refused to be evacuated —the crew also conjectured about the implications of the journey, the risks of planetary defence systems, and the continuing enigma of the elusive data their quarry might still hold. This speculation knit tightly with their ongoing tactical deliberations, all haunted by the presence of space’s unpredictable void and the ever-persistent pursuit of bounties within it. In the throes of strategic planning aboard the Jägermeister, the crew meticulously mulled over their options concerning the pursuit of their elusive prey, Hirondelle. 

As the external scenario developed, with ships darting through space, trying to outmaneuver one another, Saul requested an astrogation check from Gil, aiming to deduce their adversary's probable destination. The analysis, albeit time-consuming, indicated that Hirondelle might have just jumped towards Valkos, a prospect that hung heavy with both opportunity and peril. With the prospects of a confrontation in space looming, the crew deliberated the strengths and weaknesses of their vessel compared to the stolen merchant vessel, which, despite its formidable armament, appeared to lack sufficient defenses. A speculative strategy emerged from Saul and Pen, considering disabling the enemy ship to facilitate a boarding operation, thereby avoiding a direct firefight—a notion supported reluctantly by Pen, who feared they might be outmatched. 

As they spun their strategies against the canvas of space, a somber news broadcast reached their ears, reporting a grim incident back at the starport—the steward from Hirondelle had been gruesomely murdered by Voss's crew. This revelation cast a dark shadow, reinforcing the urgency to capture the fleeing ship, which not only carried criminals but also sailed with relentless ruthlessness. Despite the tactical quandaries and the morally murky waters of space bounty hunting, the crew's spirits were buoyed by the challenge. They embraced the complexity of their mission with a mix of trepidation and thrill. As they plotted their next move, choices ranged from safe tactical waits to risky direct assaults, each option weighed with the potential consequences and their preparedness—or lack thereof. Pen and Saul debated the merits and risks of landing on Valkos while considering alternative strategies like waiting in orbit or intercepting at another juncture. The conversation veered into logistical concerns about refuelling and the critical need to account for Minerva and Valkos' whereabouts, reflecting the constant calculation required to navigate not just space, but the intricate dance of decision-making. 

Ultimately, despite uncertainties, the crew set their sights on the interdicted system of Valkos, driven by a mix of strategic consideration and the allure of the unknown. The decision, fraught with peril yet laden with potential, underscored the relentless pursuit inherent to their line of work. As they prepared for the next phase of their journey, the crew remained a dynamic ensemble of sharp minds and ready spirits, their eyes fixed on the stars, their thoughts tethered to the mission at hand.

In summary: The crew had Voss captured and had managed to blag Aoife Scarlock into pursuing the Hirondelle in the Headhunter. They were hoping to avoid being linked to the fight in the docking bay. The biggest issue was that the ship had just finished taking in the water for fuel, and had another twelve hours or so before they'd have processed enough to jump. 

Arturo used his legal training to get the ship out into pursuit, avoiding the planetary lockdown due to the engagement in orbit. Reaching orbit, they found the Headhunter tumbling out of orbit having taken an unlucky his it the M-Drive. The Jägermeister stabilised the ship in orbit, but declined to send the team over to help, which resulted in a spiky conversation between Scarlock and Saul, with threats of legal action and getting even.

The Jägermeister set off in pursuit, managing to get sensor lock just to find the Hirondelle jumping out of the system, still under thrust. The sensor data was processed to try and establish where the ship was likely to be going.

Meanwhile, Arturo led the interrogation of Voss, who gave away very little. They got a hint that Valkos or Minerva were the most likely destinations, which matched with the jump vector calculations to indicate that Valkos was the target. They planned to freeze Voss in the low berth once they'd got as much out of him as possible.

Meanwhile, there were questions from the Port Authorities on the firefight in the bay. They provided statements, which were accepted. False flight plan filed, they jumped to the interdicted Red Zone Valkos system after lots of discussions on how to do this safely and effectively. Radiation, nuclear winter and desperate survivors, not to mention live munitions and defence systems awaited.

3 September 2025

Books in August 2025

August 2025 saw me read another eight books and 2,234 pages. For reference, this was one book and some 700 pages less than last year, but the data is a little inaccurate as I've actually read a raft of shorter 'In Nomine' supplements in PDF that I didn't bother recording.

So far this year, I've read 78 books and 19,886 pages. I am ahead on numbers of books read.

The mix this month included two roleplaying games, a short story collection and a single non-fiction audiobook. That was Borderlines by Lewis Baston, which was an enjoyable journey through the borders of Europe, illustrating how the interior of the continent has shifted around and the impacts of border changes. 

The roleplaying games were both ones that I hope to run soon - In Nomine and Coriolis: The Great Dark. 

In Nomine gives players the chance to be angels or demons, fighting the battle between heaven and hell on Earth. I will be running this at Furnace in October. I last played this some time back in the late nineties when it first came out, in an excellent game run by Ric based around the Northern Ireland peace process. 

The Coriolis book is the sequel to the previous edition of the game; rather than rebuild the setting (after the three campaign books comprehensively trashed things and put everything up in the air), Fria Ligan decided to follow the story of a refugee/explorer fleet that set out beyond the Third Horizon, hopefully following the course of the Nadir, a lost colony ship. However, when they get to their destination, they find many problems; the setting is one of exploration, dungeoneering (almost) and factional conflict. It's much more slickly done and presented than Coriolis: The Third Horizon, but I still love the original setting. However, I hope to run the campaign set once it's available properly in the new year and I'm looking forward to a game with a very different feel.

The collection of shorts was the latest edition of Clarkesworld Magazine (#227). I've had a subscription for quite some time but rarely read them properly, so I'm trying to get better at that. 

We Begin at the End by Chris Whitaker is a twisty tale of small town drama, in which a criminal is released back into the community and not well received. Things escalate, and we follow the chaos that ensues, turning everyone's life upside down. Recommended.

The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky sees several tech entrepreneurs returning to Earth after many years on Mars and beyond, assuming the population has been wiped out with climate change and collapse. However, the survivors have been more tenacious than expected, and become involved in the very real struggle between the three returnees and their very different visions of what the world should be like. These visions don't really involve the survivors, who are an inconvenience. There are hints that the fate of their ventures may not have been as good as they like to make out. I did enjoy this a lot, but I preferred his previous book Bee Speaker, which I read back in June 2025, which has similar themes.

Ben Aaronovitch's Amongst our Weapons is the latest Rivers of London book. This returns back to the main character, Peter Grant, who is about to become a father. He faces some terrifying experiences, including the North of the UK! I really enjoyed this and the pages slipped past effortlessly.

The final book that I read was Richard Adams' classic Watership Down. I read this on a nostalgia trip while on holiday. As a child, my parents used to take us to Devon or Cornwall, and I'd have a pile of books to read (indeed, finding the space to stash them was a key part of holiday packing for the car), and this book was usually there (along with Andre Norton's Solar Queen, some of Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth books, and others like Sir Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama). Anyway, I decided to read it again, and was reminded just how well written it is. Delightful.

Overall, a decent month. It will be interesting to see how September will go, as I'm travelling for work a fair bit, but also have convention preparation to do.

1 September 2025

#RPGaDay2025 - flamed out, but likely to restart

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Yes, I've fallen way behind.

I suspect that I will try and complete some more posts, but this year I found the prompts harder than usual. Some of them had me feeling that I was repeating myself or I found them very obscure. 

If I do them, they'll slot in where they should have been (for tidiness) but I think that the RSS feed should still show them.

1 September 2025

Eternal Lies - From the Keeper's perspective (Spoilers)

  

I posted a write up on my reflections on Pelgrane Press' excellent Trail of Cthulhu campaign Eternal Lies back in June. Rich, our Keeper for the campaign, shared his thoughts & reflections more recently in our discussion group and he's kindly agreed that I can share them here.

Clearly, there are spoilers below. 

#RPGaDay2025 - 20 - Enter

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Enter.

Both as a GM and a player, I always love that moment before you commit to a course of action, especially when it potentially puts the characters at risk. 

The doorway at the entrance to Moria in Tolkien's "The Fellowship of the Ring" was the element that immediately sprang to mind when I thought about this prompt, but these little moments repeat throughout fiction and throughout roleplaying sessions. 

 

When playing Eternal Lies I can remember every time we chose to enter deeper into the mystery, there was a moment of fear. Our characters felt so small against the threat. But once we were committed, it was all about doing and responding. You push off the edge and the energy takes you forward. Kind of how I found abseiling when I tried it.

Of course, it can go wrong; when we played Worldbreaker for Pelgrane Press' The EsoTerrorist, we had a moment when we had to enter a town with a major Ebola outbreak. The level of procrastination and hesitation from the players was amazing. None of us wanted to risk exposing our characters, with whom we'd developed a great attachment, to the possibility of such a horrific ending. Fighting the supernatural and its minions was fine, but risking being eaten alive by a superbug just caused us to flat out stall, causing the GM a lot of frustration until we finally talked ourselves into the whole thing!

There's definitely something to be said for making sure your adventures have plenty of chances for the players to choose whether they want to go deeper. This week's Jägermeister session had such a moment. The Bounty Hunters could have chosen to have taken a smaller bounty which would meant that they turned a small profit but avoided the potential of landing on a world that had been destroyed with weapons of mass destruction and becoming involved in solving a terrorist plot. They had a serious discussion about it and I was prepared for the campaign to end there, but fortunately, they wanted to go further. I think it was mostly wrapped in the meta decision of wanting to know how the plot plays out and knowing that they'd effectively wrap the planned campaign if they didn't enter into the next part.

The decision to enter, is a moment of choice. Make it meaningful where you can. A threshold to be crossed.

6 September 2025 (although posted on for the correct RPGaDay date)

#RPGaDay2025 - 17 - Renew

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Renew. 

Energy seems to beget energy. Since I rediscovered - renewed - my passion for Traveller, all of a sudden I find myself full of energy for roleplaying projects more generally. I've probably been more engaged on gaming this year than I have for quite some time.

I've two projects that have been niggling me for quite some time, and now they're coming together nicely. 

The first relates to material that I produced for BITS in the past; while some of this has been available in PDF, several of the books that I'm most proud of have never made it past the original editions that we were selling at conventions and through a couple of retailers and publishers (Leisure Games and Steve Jackson Games mainly). I've been working with Andy to get these back in print as PDF and POD, and they should be out before the end of the year. After that, I'll be helping to get some of the others converted to POD as well. However, this isn't quite as simple as it sounds as we will publish under the TAS programme. 

We need to do conversions into Mongoose Traveller 2, amend the legal parts and trade dress and then format them for print, which is reasonably complex as most of the books were originally created at A4 rather than A5 in Microsoft Word. Some where done in Quark, adds a further complication as the version of Quark that BITS has doesn't play nice with InDesign or Affinity. Fortunately, Affinity can manipulate PDFs very well if you have the fonts. That needs to be done manually, as the PDF from Quark strips the font names and replaces them with something like 'CIDFont+F1'. The covers are another challenge, but mostly less so. I can open a PDF and get to the elements on those so I am confident that they can be recreated easily (except for title dress, which is a shaped and extruded font that even Andy can't remember how he did it).

So it is very much a project to renew.

The second project relates to a Traveller adventure that I wrote about two decades ago for the first Furnace. That has been run multiple times by me and others (it's probably the most tested scenario we ever wrote, with perhaps runs in three figures by me and others at conventions). Completing it has been on my round-to-it list for a long time, but kids, life etc. have always got in the way. I'm exploring a route to bring this one to print via TAS in collaboration with another Traveller publisher that I really respect. Hopefully, that will see the light of day earlier this year or at the start of next year. Have just converted two other scenarios to Mongoose Traveller 2e, I'm pretty confident that I can do that part quickly.

So this year has definitely been one where I renewed my energy for Traveller and gaming in general. I'm even running a Traveller campaign for the first time in a long time!

17 August 2025

#RPGaDay2025 - 16 - Overcome

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Overcome. 

You may have noticed that yesterday, I managed to give Deceive number 16. I'd love to claim that was deliberate but it was totally an accident. Anyway, that's fixed and hopefully it won't break any of the permalinks.

I think that longer form campaigns give you a better opportunity to feel like you've overcome something. Sure, one-shots are brilliant and, as a player, you can pull off amazing things with stories to tell, but there's something about the extended game that makes it mean more.

Some examples.

At Longcon 2016, I was fortunate enough to play a truncated version of The Dracula Dossier over a weekend. Although the game was short compared to how the campaign could play out, it had the space for highs and lows, for terror and success. At the end, when we killed Dracula, it really felt like we'd struggled to overcome a true threat and succeeded.

I also played in Dr Mitch's Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, which ran over an extended period, and was a chain of defeats and successes where we managed to lift the Shadow from Mirkwood, leaving it in a better place for the events of The Lord of the Rings. However, it included one of the most terrifying slow motion events of my gaming life, the death march out of Angmar. We'd found ourselves in the Witch King's former kingdom and ended up fleeing, with children we'd rescued, back towards safe havens in Eriador. We had a number of poor rolls - lots of Eyes of Sauron - and found ourselves pursued and accumulating fatigue to the point that we were shedding equipment just to keep moving. We only just managed to get out alive, and it felt like we'd overcome the worst that could have been thrown at us.

I ran Curse of Strahd over multiple sessions and wrote it up here. The player's had a huge challenge to overcome, bring hope to Barovia and getting themselves to the point where they felt that they could overcome Strahd. What amuses me to this day is the fact that they felt it necessary to have a WhatsApp back channel without me where they plotted how they could overcome their Vampiric enemy. I'd initially felt it was a joke, but soon realised that it was very real. I think that they definitely had a feeling of overcoming despite great odds against them at the end.

Finally, at Longcon 2025, I ran both parts of the Stormbringer epic campaign Stealer of Souls & Black Sword. The end point of the campaign saw one of the characters seeking vengeance and facing off with Elric over the death of her father, his soul stolen by the demon sword Stormbringer. Somehow a path was found that didn't end up with what would have been an otherwise inevitable death. The gave a real feeling of success, and the character definitely overcame her likely fate.

I do think that the longer form game lends itself to a stronger feeling of having overcome something significant.

16th August 2025

#RPGaDay2025 - 15 - Deceive

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Deceive. 

This is an interesting one. I'm a huge fan of character vs character conflict, especially in one-shot convention games, as it makes the players really devious and interactive. However, I have shifted in how I do this. Mostly, the motivations and agendas were hidden, which meant that what happened often came as a surprise. The players would be trying to covertly deceive each other and gain the upper hand. I've written scenarios with a single player having a covert mission that puts them at odds with the rest of the group, and they've mostly gone down well at the table.

I have a Dune hack of Conspiracy of Shadows that plays out the events at the start of the first book, with one of the characters randomly assigned the role of traitor (which is kind of fun, as Paul Atreides can have that role). This was run using the 'blood opera' mode for the game, which is built around relationship maps and backstabbing. 

These days, I'd feel obliged to call out that there were hidden agendas and potential character-vs-character action, because I've become aware that it can cause upset and reduce enjoyment when people stumble into this kind of thing and don't like it. It's not everyone's cup of tea. 

I don't believe that you should ever have player-vs-player (PVP) in a roleplaying game; as a GM you need to be really clear that this is all about character-vs-character. Roleplaying is far more personal in its nature that a video game, and the danger is when people start to take things personally. My experience is that you tend to get a better atmosphere and more enjoyment at a table when the GM has called that out at the start.

I'm also a big fan for making the scheming open at the table; not everyone loves that, but it can make for a more fun story when things are played out so the player is aware, but the character doesn't know that they are being deceived or plotted against. The character may get stabbed in the back, but the player can see it coming.

Some games do deception overtly; Alien is a good example of this. Each character has a hidden agenda, which will change as the scenario develops. That change is usually a complete surprise, and is a tool for the GM to drive interaction. However, the setting is built around paranoia and distrust, and it's open from the start of the game that anyone could have an agenda like Ash or Burke, something at odds to the survival of the group.

In conclusion, I like games were there is an opportunity to deceive, but I prefer it to be open and the table to be aware that it could be happening. I also think the GM needs to be clear at the start that it is character-vs-character, not player-vs-player.

15 August 2025

#RPGaDay2025 - 13 - Darkness

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Darkness. 

Hello Darkness, my old friend...

I think that I get the most out of roleplaying games when the struggle to succeed is palpable and you're not sure if you're actually winning. The games I remember most as a player are those when all the way through, I wasn't certain that we could or would succeed. Eternal Lies, the Darkening of Mirkwood, Tales of the Lone Lands, the Dracula Dossier, the multitude of Esoterrorists campaigns I've played in, all of these had little victories along the way, and some setbacks. In all of these cases, I was never certain what was going on and - so many times - the opposition looked almost certain to succeed. And yet somehow, despite the darkness, we prevailed. Those victories all built towards victory, but right to the end of everyone of those campaigns, I had no confidence that we could win.

And sometimes the win was bittersweet. In the Dracula Dossier, my character had to kill another party member who had become a vampire to fight Dracula. In Eternal Lies, we won, but my character was lost, and the other character was permanently scarred by the events. But all the way through - from Mexico City at least - we'd thought that death was likely. 

The darkness makes the victory all the sweeter.

Looking at it from a GM's perspective, it can be a fine line to walk. I try to be a fan of the characters, but that doesn't mean that I won't push them or stretch them. There were a couple of moments in Curse of Strahd which came very close to being a TPK (Total Party Kill). Ironically, the encounters weren't aimed to be like that, but the tactics that the players chose made them do that. Throughout the campaign I struggled to judge whether I was making it feel dangerous enough for them. I knew that once they'd reached mid-levels, that even Strahd himself wasn't likely to be a major threat if they worked together, but the players didn't see it that way. I tried to make them see the darkness in the setting from their interactions, from the way that the townsfolk were cowed and had adjusted to their terrifying and horrific oppression by a feudal lord who would literally eat you alive if you opposed him. I tried to make the moments of success and sanctuary meaningful, light against the darkness.

Failure and adversity against the darkness make the victory all the sweeter.

13 August 2025

Edit - I was doing catch up mode with this and seem to have written a variant post to that in Overcome (which I actually wrote first). However, I think that the theme here is subtly different. The darkness is what you are overcoming, what the struggle is about, rather than the struggle itself. It is the threat, the oblivion, and the price of failure you need to overcome. You don't need darkness to overcome something (for example, a heist based scenario, or a trading based campaign both probably won't have much darkness) but I think that it makes the stakes so much higher.

RPGaDay2025 - 12 - Path

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Path. 

There's an element in game design that really turns me off, partly because I've increasingly lost interest in complicated mechanics and minutiae, something that my younger self would have lapped up.

Hang on, you say, but don't you love Traveller?

That's definitely a "Yes, but..." response. Traveller hides its complexity in procedural subsystems, which are mostly pretty logical. The character generation has pretty much everything you need for any character across two pages for each type, in clear step-based tables. Starship design is a menu-based system (you don't have to use formulae for power points and more these days) and there's a variety of spreadsheets out there that make it really easy to do. The task system itself is simple and elegant (although I prefer the more precise way that it was done in MegaTraveller and the DGP Task system for Classic Traveller). There's a clear and simple path through each of these processes.

So what do I mean?

I don't like the legacy of D&D3e with the whole process of feats and paths to create the optimum character. This continues through to the current design. I really don't want to read through lots of lists of things that are usually presented in text blocks with the mechanical impacts hidden away. I tend to skim them or phase out when reading because I find them tedious. Same with bestiaries and spell lists.

I loved the simplicity that Cypher presents itself, both in character generation and the game engine itself.

I am an adjective noun who verbs.

And then you hit pages of details - the paths that characters will develop on - behind all that which just lost my interest. It took me a while to realise that as a GM I could just skim this and hand it over to the players. I ended up doing the same with my D&D5e campaign. The players took this on.

I get lost in the trees and can't see the path through the forest as a result.

And yet I know this kind of detail and options give some people a lot of delight. Several of my friends love to go through this in detail and build their perfect, optimised character. To them, this approach gives a clear path to the character that they want.

Perhaps it's a legacy of my earliest games being Chaosium's BRP-based games and Traveller? They didn't have the same kind of progression. BRP was based on skills through experience and training and Traveller, well, once you generated a character, that was pretty much it for development originally. Their core engines were simple.

And yet, I really enjoyed running D&D5e and I've actively considered using Numenéra for running the Ultraviolet Grasslands.

12 August 2025

#RPGaDay2025 - 9 - Inspire

It's RPGaDay season again. Here's a link to the blog post with the current year's prompts.

Today's prompt is Inspire. 

When I pick up a roleplaying game and read it, I need it to inspire me if I want to run or play it. When I'm reading a book, I get what I can best describe as the 'GM tingles'. This is usually triggered by something within the game or the scenarios that excites me, meaning I want to explore that situation or idea.

At the moment, I'm reading In Nomine with a view to running it at Furnace. This has been mainly driven by a fantastic experience around the time that the game was originally released when my friend Ric ran a short campaign focused around the Northern Ireland peace process. It allowed us to explore the motivations of angels and devils against a very real backdrop that meant a lot to the GM as he has a heritage from Northern Ireland. I've always wanted to explore this further.

Had I not got this past inspiration, I'd have probably given up on the idea, as I found the first part of the book pretty tedious. The core rules are pretty verbose (but simple), the kind of thing that turns me off. However, I've just hit the part about the motivations of angels and archangels and all of a sudden I'm excited and inspired. There are tensions between them that are begging to be explored. 

I mentioned in yesterday's post about things that I wanted to explore in some Traveller adventures, and it works in similar ways in published materials too. What are the gaps and tensions that call out to be explored?

Similarly, a splat-book with details for everything doesn't inspire me. Give me gaps and conflicts to explore. If you try to sell me your game on page count, I'm probably not your target audience.

What inspires you when you and makes you want to play or run a game?

9 August 2025

The Dying Earth Revivification Folio Cribsheet

At Furnace last year, I ran Pelgrane Press' Dying Earth roleplaying game, using The Dying Earth Revivification Folio, which is the completely compatible but updated set of rules based on the Skulduggery RPG which was spun out of the original Dying Earth Roleplaying Game that was Pelgrane's launch product. 

As usual, I handled learning a new system by creating a cribsheet for quick reference at the table. Here's a link to it on Google Docs. Feel free to comment with any corrections or improvements.

I would observe that the game captures the feel of Jack Vance's novels really well, but it does mean that the players need to be willing to embrace the whims of fate, much like the protagonists in the novel. Hopefully, that fate will avoid Chun the Unavoidable. However, he is, as the name says, unavoidable. Just don't have a dismal failure...

9 August 2025