Sidequest: Every TTRPG played 11-20

Well, it's been one of those months again. In such a funk, and kinda down, that I can't really think of anything exciting to add to my blog. It's a good job I've got these ridiculous posts listing things to keep me moderately occupied, rather than just staring into the void. 

So, to continue from the previous post, Kieron Gillen inspired me to list every tabletop roleplaying game I've played. I did the first ten in sort-of chronological order starting with those first games I ever played. Lets see how bad my memory is as continuing the list from 11-20...

#11 - The Adventures of Indiana Jones RPG

Cover of TSR's Adventures of Indiana Jones game

I know, the much maligned Adventures of Indiana Jones RPG from TSR. I freakin' loved this game. Not as free and easy as you may think, involving lots of tables and weird slide-rule thingy, along with lots of cool cardstock miniatures and 3D models. I bought everything you could get for Indiana Jones, and I loved it. I even made a video about it last year. 

Loved it. Wish there was a new version so we can explore, adventure, and punch more Nazis. 

#12 - Warhammer Fantasy (1st Edition)

Cover of the old white box Warhammer RPG

Another game bought by one of our regular players wanting to run something different to AD&D. We should have realised it was going to be very different by the name - Warhammer: The Mass Combat Fantasy Role-Playing Game. It really was quick, brutal, and our characters died very, very quickly. I don't think we got many games in, but after the GM moved to the other side of the world, that boxed set now sits on my shelves.

#13 - Golden Heroes

Cover of the Golden Heroes RPG

Next on the list is possibly our first foray into superhero gaming. We didn't do an awful lot of supers stuff, and when we played Golden Heroes it was just after I'd read Watchmen so we played with powerless vigilante characters rather than having proper 'super powers'. It was pretty cool, but the superhero Odyssey game we played later was better - not because of the game, Golden Heroes is still great, but just because someone else was GMing rather than me and they did a better job. I'm sure it'll come up in a later post...

#14 - Paranoia

Cover of the West End Games Paranoia RPG, 
published as a hardcover in the UK by Games Workshop!

Next is something a little different. Wasn't sure what I was getting into when I started running Paranoia, but it was madness and we loved it. Played all the weird adventures from the time, like HIL-Sector Blues, and Clones in Space. Heck, I even bought those Citadel miniatures and did an awful job of painting them.

#15 - Twilight: 2000

Cover of the original edition of Twilight: 2000

It was the Eighties, and (as you'll see by another later entry) things were a bit tense when it came to international relations. Good thing we sorted that out after all these years! (sarcasm) But, yes, we had a go at Twilight:2000. I don't remember much of it, just creating some characters and wandering around the roads near Krakow. I don't think we played very much of it. 

#16 - Doctor Who The Roleplaying Game (FASA)

Cover of the FASA 2nd edition of the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game

Much like the old FASA Star Trek, we also played the FASA edition of the Doctor Who RPG. We were lucky to have a GM who was not only our Call of Cthulhu keeper, but also a massive Doctor Who fan who knew his stuff. Being a fan of the creepy Hinchcliffe and Holmes era of Tom Baker's run, he ensured the game played like a spooky Cthulhu adventure, with our resident Time Lord, the Collector, strangely absent most of the time (the player hardly ever turned up). 

#17 - Judge Dredd the Roleplaying Game (GW)

Cover of the original Dredd RPG

As mentioned in an earlier post, I'd been reading 2000AD since issue #2, the first appearance of Judge Dredd, and most of us in the gaming group read it to some extent. It was inevitable that we'd play the Dredd RPG. We played a handful of games, engaged in a Block War or two. I'd love to see a new edition soon - I must admit, I'd love to see a TV series done like The Rookie but only with MegaCity Judges...

#18 - Odyssey

Image from the movie ALIENS

Okay, home-brew time. This wasn't just your average home-brew, this was Pete's most epic RPG, taking up a chunky ring-binder of rules. Taking elements from RuneQuest and turning the volume up, Odyssey was Pete's generic RPG to work in any time and any genre. I remember he said "I've a murder mystery RPG to test" and we all joined in on this simple game of regular people who had won a prize to go on a cruise. We thought it was going to be a murder mystery, and then *RUG PULL* the ship sank and we were washed up on a desert island, with superpowers. Inspired by the old Elementals comic, we played the heck out of that. 

However, Odyssey really came into its own when we started using the system to play Colonial Marines in the ALIEN universe. The encumbrance system was genius, and I remember this frantic run for the drop ship and shedding my smart gun to speed up so we could escape the nuclear blast of the terraforming plant exploding. He also ran a brilliant game where one of the players was a villain, working to sabotage the plans for his own benefit. Lots of note passing to the GM, and it was only when combat started and the dice rolls started matching up did they realise who was shooting at them. Decades before Free League's game of marines and hidden agendas, Pete was doing it in the 80s. Brilliant stuff.

#19 - Ghostbusters

Cover of the legendary Ghostbusters RPG by West End Games

Here we come to one of my favourite games of all time - West End Games' Ghostbusters Roleplaying Game. You wouldn't believe how much I love this game. I've written at length about how reading this game made me want to be a game writer and designer. It's just a joy to read, brilliantly simple, and based on one of my favourite movies and franchises. How could I not love it? We played so much of this, so much that the Ghost on my Ghost-Die started to wear off. 

Again, I'd love to see a new Ghostbusters RPG - especially as the D6 system that powers it has returned recently in the Carbon Grey and Planet of the Apes RPGs. If anyone at Ghostcorps is listening, you know who to call. 

Here's a link to another video I made!! 

#20 - James Bond 007 Roleplaying Game

The Victory Games RPG of James Bond 007

Finally for this batch, here's another one of my favourite RPGs of all time. Victory Games' official James Bond 007 RPG. Amazing game, with some brilliant and revolutionary mechanics, and some of the most amazing presentation (especially for the adventures). Absolutely love this game. 

I'm going to sound like a stuck record, but again I'd love to see a new version of a Bond RPG (who knows, it may happen now the Amazon deal has happened - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they honour such a legacy). And, again, here's a video I recorded if you want to check out what the game looks like. 

We played a heck of a lot of this too, and I ran a couple of the adventures multiple times for different groups, each with very different outcomes. Awesome.

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That's it for this batch. We're getting close to the 'break' I had from gaming, and I'm keeping track of games I've bought and not yet played, just in case I wanted to do a Sidequest of the Sidequest!! 

Until next time, stay multi-classy. 

Your Licensed Game Is Awesome!

Been a while since I've posted anything on here, I know. The last post was prompted by some serious backlash against a game I had been collaborating on, and the internet space was all getting a bit nasty. So, I took a break from the internet, focused on my work, and doing stuff in the evenings that wasn't tabletop writing.

I dipped my toes into the internet waters again to see if there was anything good happening, and stumbled upon an article in my feed (which I won't link to) that basically said licensed tabletop roleplaying games sucked. I was angry, hurt, and offended - mostly as the image they used for it was the cover of the Doctor Who Roleplaying Game. So, everyone was seeing this article with the headline 'Your Game Sucks' with an image of the game I'd been working on (off and on) for the last thirteen years.

Hard not to be offended!

The actual article itself was basically saying that licensed RPGs were bad, because you (as a player) didn't have the power of a bunch of scriptwriters, and no game could feel as cool as the licensed property it was based upon. 

So I thought I'd take to the blog, and voice my rebuttal. 

Licensed RPGs are awesome.

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Some of the best roleplaying games I've played, and the most fun I've had, have been playing licensed tabletop RPGs. The first game I GM'd was Star Frontiers, and I was so obsessed with movies and TV series that I populated the epic star-scape of Star Frontiers with lightsabers, T-800 Terminators, Transformers, and more. However, when publishers started actually making RPGs based on some of the movies and series I was so fanatical about, that was when I started having the most fun with roleplaying.

The first licensed game I bought and played was the, now legendary, TSR Adventures of Indiana Jones RPG. Sure, it didn't have character creation in the basic box, and I spent hours typing up a character creation chapter of my own to allow players to generate their own globe-trotting adventurers. But we had fun with it, playing ridiculous adventures of raiding tombs, punching nazis, and action packed thrills. It was great, and something that sticks with me to this day is the excellent 'Judges Survival Pack'. In that little supplement was, not only the character creation rules I desired, but also some fantastic 'random tomb generator' tools, to ensure the GM (or Judge) had a fresh ancient tomb, filled with traps, on hand.

To top this off, there was the amazing 'Chase Flow Chart' that provided an endless stream of roads, buildings, paths, and obstacles for foot or vehicular chases. It was brilliant, and a fantastic idea that I haven't really seen again. 

Hot on the heels of that in my gaming was another legendary game — Ghostbusters. The 'Frightfully Cheerful Roleplaying Game' produced by West End Games. 

To say this game changed my life is an understatement. It was written with a comedic tone filled with self-referential comments and jokes, that made it an absolute joy to read. I LOVE Ghostbusters. Seriously, I was obsessed with the first film, so much so that I bought the VHS when the film came out on rental, before it was available to buy, so I could watch it over and over again. 

I read the game, chuckling away to myself at the jokes and just how cool the game was. This was fun to read, and I had that moment of clarity when I realised if it was that much fun to read, it must have been fun to write — I want to do that!!

As documented here on the blog, I spent hours sat at an electric typewriter, hammering away to create adventures for Ghostbusters, photocopying the manuscripts and sending them off to West End Games. Waiting months for it to get there, and eagerly awaiting a reply. While it was a "no", it was an encouraging no, and it is the reason I wanted to become a roleplaying game writer and designer.

Shortly after Ghostbusters, the seemingly unstoppable West End Games produced the one game I wanted more than anything in the Universe — Star Wars. I was obsessed with Star Wars from before I'd even seen it, from the moment my dad brought home those first couple of action figures for me. Everything was Star Wars, and nothing could top it for me. When I first started roleplaying, Traveller and Star Frontiers were just Star Wars in my head. So when WEG brought out the Star Wars roleplaying game, using a version of the Ghostbusters D6 system, I was instantly sold.

It was great, and we had many epic games of dodging swarms of TIE Fighters, using force powers, shooting at Stormtroopers, and sneaking around Imperial bases.

The production was cool, and after so many years of black and white illustration in roleplaying rulebooks, to have them punctuated with glossy inserts of full colour, and that "Join the Imperial Navy" advert that looked like the armed forces ads that we were familiar with, was just brilliant. Seriously loved that game.

It was towards the end of the 'golden age' of my roleplaying gaming (before I had a bit of a break from gaming) that I delved into the realms of Victory Games' James Bond 007 RPG. 

Again, another perfectly executed game, with brilliant rules to make your character the suave and educated spy that you'd expect from a Bond movie. I loved Bond movies, from my first trip to see The Man With The Golden Gun, so to get the opportunity to run games with cool gadgets, powerful villains, and dangerous henchmen, I couldn't pass it up. After picking up the main boxed set, and one of the adventures, I saw how fantastic the production values were on them, especially the amazing handouts, and saw the awesome chase rules, I just couldn't stop until I had the complete collection (a collection I only really managed to complete in the last few years).

However, the James Bond 007 RPG is often regarded as being the first game to employ 'Hero Points' — a revolutionary development that has continued into games even today. Fantastic.

I'd taken a break from gaming, and returned to the scene in the early 90's when Vampire caught my eye, but many years later I became obsessed with the TV series The X-Files. As there wasn't a roleplaying game for The X-Files, a friend of mine recommended the closest thing, in the form of Eden Studios' Conspiracy X. This got me reading Eden's games, and got me my first real writing gig in the gaming sphere... I was busy working on Terra Primate when Eden got in touch about another of my favourite TV shows of the time...

Eden Studios' Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG is another one of those brilliant licensed games that actually felt like the source material. Using a lighter version of CJ Carella's Unisystem, the Buffy RPG cleverly meant that you had to fight vampires to weaken them, before you could stake them. Just that little element meant that you had to punch and kick those pesky bloodsuckers until you could stake them, which meant it felt like an episode of Buffy. You did research, you went on patrol, you beat up some vamps, and dusted them. 

And the whole book was written in that lighthearted and accessible way that Ghostbusters was, filled with pop-culture references in the way the Buffy series was, and the way the Buffy characters talked. Just fantastic.

Filled with full colour glossy images, it was freaking glorious, and perfect for a group of vampire hunters, witches, watchers, or even slayers (if you continue from the end of season seven). I loved working on those books, and watching episodes over and over to get the floorplans for locations. 

When it comes to licensed RPGs that do things brilliantly, and perfectly reflect their source material, it's hard to ignore Leverage, published by Margaret Weiss Productions. Utilising a streamlined and modified version of their Cortex system (that was so brilliantly employed in their Smallville RPG), it boils stats and skills down to their core components, and the roles the characters have in the heist - hitter, hacker, thief, mastermind, and grifter. Everyone can do everything, but some are specialists in their field. 

Add to this the brilliant way they construct the anatomy of a heist, it's just a revelation. It was really one of those games where I read through it and kept saying 'I wish I'd thought of that' over and over again. 

Mentioning Smallville though, the relationship mapping when you're creating the game — how everyone knows each other, and significant places and events, is just brilliant. Seriously, you should check it out if you can. And it's a great supers game as well, where the characters don't feel impossibly overpowered.

Okay, you're probably getting bored by now, so I'll just do two more before I wrap up.

One of my favourite games of the last ten years — heck, one of my favourite games ever — is a licensed game. Based upon the artwork and artbook of Simon Stålenhag, Tales from the Loop is an amazing game, and an absolute revelation when I read it. In an alternate 1980s, where robots are common, and weird experiments at the Loop have resulted in time travel, weirdness, and mutation, Tales from the Loop allows players to return to school days and investigate strange goings on. 

Not only does it perfectly capture the feel of the era and the paintings, but it was a complete revelation in rules design for me. The size of the rules section was so small, with an emphasis in the book on the setting and story, constructing mysteries and investigations, it just opened my eyes to how minimal the rules of a game could be. 

We had some fantastic games of Tales from the Loop, one so epic the characters aged to enter the Things from the Flood, failed to stop the Loop going horribly wrong and sending the world into a post-apocalyptic setting of Mutant Year Zero - then time travelling back to Tales from the Loop to try to stop it! Awesome.

And I guess you can't talk licensed games, and mention Fria Ligan, without bringing up the awesome ALIEN RPG. Using a modified version of the Year Zero Engine that powered Tales from the Loop, ALIEN added new stress mechanics that really made you feel like you were in an ALIEN movie. The couple of games I've played have been some of the tensest I've experienced, with a real sense of panic from the players and characters, feeling like your character could meet a horrible fate at any moment. 

The 'acts' of the cinematic play, adding motivations that change as the acts of the story progress, are a brilliant addition, meaning you're never really sure of the other player characters' motivations, and it perfectly reflects the feel of the movies. 

I haven't seen how extended campaign play works out yet, so that's something to look into, but for a short, sharp, shocking trip into the terrors of space, it's brilliant.

Saying that I'm always in awe of Fria Ligan games is putting it mildly, and with their licensed RPG of Blade Runner launching on Kickstarter this week, you can count me in.

So there you go. I love licensed games. I want to play more of them, I want to write more of them. It's in my blood, and has been for a very, very long time. 

[Roll Your Own Life] The Movies That Made Me (Part 11)

ALIENS (1986)

Released in the UK on the same day as yesterday's movie comes another endlessly quotable piece of cinematic brilliance. ALIENS goes down in my history as the first 18 Certificate movie I saw at the cinema. I was just 18, by a few months, and I don't think I saw it on opening weekend. That probably went to Highlander. However, while I only saw Highlander once at the cinema (and devoured it on VHS later with dozens of repeat viewings), I went to see ALIENS four times during its initial cinema run (then again when our local cinema decided to do the "trilogy" back to back in one afternoon).

I had a strange relationship with ALIEN - when it came out back in 1979 I was way too young to see it at the cinema. SciFi was the coolest thing ever in my book, especially as I'd just seen Star Wars, but I was far too young to go and see ALIEN. I do remember the adverts on TV for it, and I have a distinct memory of our school form tutor (and English teacher), Mrs Perkins, being very enthusiastic about ALIEN when it came out. She went to see it one evening and then for the twenty minutes or so after registration in our form period at the beginning of the day, she decided to relate the whole story of ALIEN to us from beginning to end.

She was a natural storyteller, and we were all gripped listening to the story of this movie being told to us scene by scene.

I wanted to see it, but I wasn't great with horror movies in my youth. It does say something about the genius of ALIEN that it is a horror movie with very little gore compared to other horror movies that were out there at the time. When it finally aired on UK TV in 1982, I sat up to watch it on my little black and white portable TV in my bedroom and spent a great deal of the movie cowering behind a pillow. I knew what was going to happen, and that probably made it worse.

By the time ALIENS happened in 1986, I was older. Wiser, and certainly more tolerant of horror movies. I'd developed the stomach for it. But ALIENS wasn't a horror movie. It was a war movie. A brilliant, tense, and awesome war movie where the squad of marines were fighting not just one xenomorph, but hundreds.

I knew a bit about what was going to happen thanks to the magazines - the Official Collectors Edition magazine that showed you the behind the scenes filming and making of the movie. I used to collect all of those things, and especially the poster magazines. Heck, I still have them somewhere. I even had the ALIEN poster magazine years before I saw the movie. No wonder I was traumatised, having that poster on the wall as a pre-teen...

Anyway, I was determined to go and see ALIENS. I'd seen the making of the movie that aired on ITV the opening weekend, and it looked awesome. I can't remember who I went to see it with first, but I remember going multiple times in the end with various friends. It was just awesome. And so very quotable.

I think we were all really excited by ALIENS, and Pete decided that his homebrew RPG system (Odyssey) would make a fine RPG for ALIENS. JR was the Gorman of the group, staying in the APC, and the rest of us played marines of varying skill. I thought Vasquez was the coolest and generated a smart-gunner. We were sent into some hairy situations, like quelling rebellions from colonists trying to splinter off from the Earth government, but a lot of the situations went horribly wrong. I remember it was probably our third assignment when the xenomorphs started appearing, and I have a distinct memory of the encumbrance rules coming into play as we tried to get away from the nuclear reactor at the heart of one of the terraforming plants, with the countdown to its destruction echoing in our ears... Drop all the equipment and we may be able to run fast enough to escape the blast...

Now, decades later, there is a new official ALIEN RPG, and bloody tense it is too. We played the Chariots of the Gods scenario and there were no survivors. No player characters, no aliens, no ships. We managed to destroy them both. It was messy, but brilliant.

#RPGaDAY 2019 - DAY 25: CALAMITY, DAY 26: IDEA and DAY 27: SUSPENSE

Spider-droid has seen better days, time for a hot bath! Custom Autocratik dice thanks to www.chimericdesigns.co.uk

Much like the Doctor said, "I got away from me, yeah." Day job, deadlines, and so on has meant I'm three... yes, THREE... days behind on #RPGaDAY 2019.

*Insert Charlie Brown Aaugh!*

Time to catch up!

DAY 25: CALAMITY

Not really sure what I had in mind for CALAMITY - I guess the thing I always think of when it comes to RPGs and calamities is the good ol' fumble. At least that's where I remember it starting. Fumble tables, when you roll so badly that you really - I mean, REALLY - mess it up big-time. That kinda escalated over the years to become "disasters" or "Despairs" or the like.

Are they good for the game? It's a bit of both really - there's the advantage that it really shakes things up, adds some challenge and often some humour, and can lead to some exciting story developments. However, I've noticed a trend in "Fail Forwards" thinking - you don't get what you want, but something helps with the plot. Can they both exist in one game? Hmmm...

DAY 26: IDEA

Well, that's always my problem. I have too many ideas for games and not enough time / resources / connections / money to produce them. Possibly the best known of these ideas is the Harry Potter RPG I'd love to write if I could only fund the massive licensing deal and convince J K Rowling that RPGs are a great idea. Then there's the Ka-Tet RPG I wanted to write - roleplaying in the many worlds of Stephen King. I tried for that one, but it was just as the movie deal was being signed for the Dark Tower, so they said it wasn't a property they were interested in licensing out.

Problem is, I watch things and think "That would make a brilliant RPG" - the most recent one was watching 3Below: Tales of Arcadia. Connected to the amazing Trollhunters, and the third series Wizards coming later this year, it would be a great RPG...

And Twin Peaks...

Maybe I should just stick to working on WILD...

DAY 27: SUSPENSE

Onto today's post, catching up slowly! SUSPENSE! Hate to bring it up again, but our most recent game of Fria Ligan's ALIEN was one of the most terrifying experiments in suspense building I've had at a game for a while. I'm guessing it's because the scenario just kept piling on the tension in the form of infections, secret player character motivations, the knowledge that at least one of the xeno/neomorphs was on the loose in the ship - it meant even moving from one area of the ship to the next was full of suspense.

Great! If very stressful.

#RPGaDAY 2019 - DAY 19: SCARY & DAY 20: NOBLE

Ardent Zungar - whoever they are. They look a bit cross...

Day Nineteen of #RPGaDAY 2019 was the word SCARY, and I completely failed to write this one up in time. Mostly as I was doing something pretty SCARY and went for a job interview. However, it was (thankfully) nowhere near as scary as I thought it could have been, and far less scary than what I'd originally planned to write for today's entry - which was about Fria Ligan's ALIEN RPG.

I know there was an ALIENS RPG many, many moons ago, but I always wondered why no one had attempted a new version of an RPG in the ALIEN universe. Luckily, it fell into the hands of Fria Ligan, the force behind the awesome Tales from the Loop, and we recently played the introductory adventure you get when you preorder the game.

And it was freakin' tense. We'd stumbled across a ship, adrift for decades, and went aboard hoping to unravel the mystery (and gain some tasty salvage).

Needless to say, no one survived. None of us - alien, infected, human or synthetic. All of us toast. Two whole ship crews went out after three incredibly tense sessions with arms being ripped off, ships piling into each other, and plenty of running down corridors with those flashing yellow lights and the computer alert repeating "WARNING: SELF DESTRUCT ACTIVATED"...

Fab. Looking forward to seeing how it'll work in campaign play as the xenomorphs are TOUGH. I know they are in the movies, but they're one hit killers. Nasty! Also want to see how the stealthy sneaking around rules work that Fria Ligan were talking about on the podcasts.

Awesome stuff.

And that brings me up to today.

Another one of those custom Dr Who Micro Universe figures I made, this time the Donna Noble "Runaway Bride" mini,
custom Autocratik dice made by www.chimericdesigns.co.uk

Day Twenty of #RPGaDAY is the word NOBLE. The only thing I could think of talking about when it comes to nobility was my go-to character class in AD&D, which was Paladins. But as I'm sat here writing this one, I thought maybe this is a good chance to mention Nobilis again. I know, it's a slightly off-centre interpretation for the day's word, but I did want to say how much I love the 2nd Edition of Nobilis.

The cover of 2nd Edition Nobilis - The "Great White Book" as it's known.

It's so pretty, a marvel of graphic design and layout, and one of the first narrative-driven games I've owned. The sad thing (or should that be scary, to tie in with day 19's post) is that I've still never played it.

It is one of the benchmarks of RPG design and production in my opinion, and something I can only aspire to achieve with WILD.

Show and Tell

I was recently reminded of the old tale of "how I got into writing roleplaying games". The weird thing is, it wasn't anything to do with gaming, it was movies. Neill Blomkamp.

You've probably seen online the recent announcement that Neill Blomkamp, the genius of the high-tech, super-realistic sci-fi genre and director of District 9, and most recently Chappie, was going to direct a new Alien movie, starring Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn. This rather excellent news stemmed from conversations Blomkamp had had with Sigourney Weaver while filming Chappie, and his imagination was fired up. From what I could tell he just wanted to make an Alien sequel, did some designs, some concept artwork, and the project kinda stalled. So, he put it on his Instagram account, saying he was disappointed...

The internet went wild. The internet spoke.

The world wanted to see Blomkamp's Alien sequel, and Fox listened. They greenlit the project, everyone's happy. The fans get the Alien sequel they want. Fox are ensured the interest is there for an expensive movie.

This isn't the only time this has happened, and recently too. The awesome Gillian Anderson was on the Nerdist podcast being her usual hilarious and brilliant self. Naturally, the topic of The X-Files came up. In a jokey way, she asked "Do you think people want a new X-Files?" and listeners were encouraged to show their support by spreading the tag #XFiles2015. Again, the internet answered in their thousands, and Fox listened. Lo and behold, Fox announces the return of The X-Files for a six episode event series. Fantastic!

Though that was a little different, and maybe a little off topic. Any excuse to mention Gillian Anderson. I know... sorry...

Maybe it would be better to use the Deadpool movie as another example. A film the studio had very little faith in - but a short "sample" video to show off the tone and type of movie it would be ends up online, and the massive internet response means that the studio - oh, look... it's Fox again - can make a film that they have an audience for. Clever...

Other examples could be said to include the current spate of "fan videos" that populate Youtube - incredibly high quality short movies such as "Dirty Laundry" or "Judge Minty", that are made by filmmakers who want to prove to the  world that their vision, their creative ideal, is what the world wants. It's like they're making short "showreel" videos, hoping a studio takes note, and gives them the greenlight, or a job.

And that brings me back to Blomkamp again, with his short "Alive in Joburg" which really made everyone aware of his work and really lead to District 9.

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What does this have to do with RPGs I hear you say?

I guess it's really just a case of being able to show (a) that you can do it, and (b) what you have in mind. Then you have hope that (c) someone likes it enough to have faith in you.

When I wanted to get into roleplaying game writing oh-so-many years ago, back in the late 80's, I wrote to West End Games, asked for guidelines and if it was okay if had a go at writing an adventure for their Ghostbusters game. You can read about how their positive feedback kept me trying here.

And then when I first talked to Eden Studios about writing for them, for their All Flesh Must Be Eaten line, they said "Sure, show us you can write!" - so I submitted a complete supplement to them. While it wasn't what they wanted there and then, I proved I knew the system and was willing to do the work - and they gave me the task of putting together Terra Primate... and the rest is history.

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That said, my head is full of crazy ideas. Games and settings, licenses and designs that I'm convinced would be popular but I can't just publish. So, inspired by Blomkamp, instead of just leaving them in notebooks and as files on the computer, I thought I'd polish them up and put them out as an open letter - a pitch, of sorts - to show the world what I had in mind.

The many notebooks for WILD

If they're licensed properties, they're not designed to infringe on any copyright - they're just ideas for cool games I had in mind that I wanted to share. Who knows, maybe the IP owners will like what they see and think it's an idea worthy of pursuing.

So, if you see a post on here called "Blomkamping", pay it no mind. It's just me, airing the crazy creations that circle my mind. Who knows where it may lead...

Bad at Games (1)

I’ve decided I may be too old for video games. 

There, I’ve said it. With the announcement for the new Xbox One and the PS4, both new and exciting consoles that can do everything bigger, faster and with more amazing graphics than ever, I looked at what was planned with a feeling a disappointment and boredom. I’m sorry. I’m just not excited by the prospect.

When I started this blog I was going to do a few reviews, discuss gaming stuff about roleplaying games, and reflect upon my life as a roleplayer. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it’s been gaming as a whole that’s been following me over the years. And it’s videogaming that I’m disappointed with at the moment.

I grew up in a seaside town which meant something major when it comes to anyone my age – arcades. We had a few in our little town… not as many as the neighbouring seaside towns, but we had a healthy selection of arcades that would suck up every spare 10p I had. Starting with Space Invaders, and the revelation that was Galaxians, we used to hang around at the arcade and play the lot. 

Many of them were pretty basic, especially by today’s standards, and probably the most gaming time would be spent either on Gauntlet (let’s face it, it was trying to be a video game version of D&D – they certainly saw us coming didn’t they), or trying to master the elaborate controls of Defender.

Warlords on the Atari VCS (1981)

Then home gaming came. Coop and I both had the old Atari VCS, where we’d play the Space Invaders cartridge for hours. The best Atari experience had to be from the simplest of games – Warlords. It was basically “breakout” but four players used the breakout paddles to control a little defence thing that span around a castle in each corner, and we’d hurl little pixelated blobs at each other.


We progressed into computer gaming after my parents bought me a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (48K) one Christmas with the hopes that I’d become a wiz-computer programmer and make my fortunes in the growing computer industry. However, Sinclair BASIC was not the language of choice in most cases, and my A-Level Computer Science project that was printed out on that heat-sensitive Sinclair Printer “silver toilet roll” may not have put me in good stead to become the next Steve Jobs. 

But we played them all – Jet Set Willy, Horace Goes Skiing, Atic Atac, and of course Elite. Even upgrading to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128, and playing what would be the pinnacle of Spectrum gaming for me – Starglider (which took around 30minutes to load from cassette).

Aliens - The Computer Game (1986)

Even then, I could see one of the major problems I’d have with video gaming. It started with Aliens, the computer game. Published by Electric Dreams, this was possibly one of the most basic forerunners to a first person shooter. You controlled a squad of six, running around the installation on LV-426, with basic graphics, and just the constant heartbeat noise of the motion-tracker for company. You’d run through many identical rooms, encountering the odd facehugger that would leap out at you, before you ventured into the scary hive, and the warriors would take your squad out one by one. I never got very far, never saw the queen. All I’d see would be teeth, and six flatlining monitors as my squad all became either eaten or impregnated.

It was terrifying. I used to get sweaty palms, and have to stop playing. Sad really…

Eventually, I sold my Spectrum to a colleague at the Archaeology Unit where I worked, and I turned my back on video games for a bit…  That was until I met my future wife, played an intense six-hour session of Doom and she was introduced to Lara Croft on the PS1…

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There is a point to this story, but it’s a long story. Too long for one blog post. A tale of epic quests, midnight launches, heartbreaks and halos. Of Master Chief and world tours. Of bank heists and riding into the sunset, before it all starts to go horribly, horribly wrong…

Roll Your Own Life (11) - They Mostly Game at Night... Mostly...

If I continued writing about my history of "life" in gaming, I'd be reaching what I sometimes call the "long dark teatime of gaming" when I really didn't do anything at all. I didn't game, didn't write, I just became a self-absorbed misery and tried to do college stuff and desperately try to get a member of the opposite sex to see me as more than "just a friend".

I'm going to skip that game-less era, and head straight onto the "Second Renaissance" of my gaming, but that'll be next post.

Before I move on though, I want to mention a particularly influential movie and the amazing game that it spawned.

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Back in the mid-late 80's, right through to the end of the decade, we had a regular tradition at our house which was "Friday Night Videos!" Basically, we hired a movie from what was our local video rental store (Dixons) and we took over the living room at my mum and dad's and we watched a movie. My folks were usually out until the mid-evening, and they hid in the bedroom until the movie finished, but every now and then we'd hire something that my folks were interested in and one or both of them would join us.

For some reason my dad thought that watching "The Terminator" was a great idea (which caused a slight awkwardness at the Reese / Sarah Connor love scene), but we all agreed (my dad included) that it was awesome. It wasn't my mum's cup of tea, but it didn't stop my dad describing the most violent and gruesome moments to her with a giggle of enthusiasm.

Aliens - What are you looking at Burke?

James Cameron was the new god, and when we first saw the trailer and making of documentary for his sequel to Alien, the Eight were all pretty keen.

I think I saw Aliens about three or four times at the cinema in the end. It was the first 18 certificate film I saw at the cinema, and I managed to see it with various members of the Eight at different times. Even today, Aliens is still awesome, and we can all recite most of the lines word for word.


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Bill Willingham's ELEMENTALS

Meanwhile, as I mentioned briefly in the previous post, Pete had created his own game system called Odyssey. I don't really have much recollection of the system - Pete has mentioned that it was a 2D10 system, and I do remember having skills over 100% which allowed you to do extra actions. That's about all I can remember. But the real test for any game is whether you remember the system (and its faults and interruptions) or whether you remember the games themselves. And Odyssey certainly produced some of the most memorable games I'd ever experienced as a player.

What started as a more realistic and authentic RuneQuest style game proved that it could be used for any genre when Pete decided to use the system to run a superhero style game based on Bill Willingham's "Elementals" comics (published by Comico).

But the game really came into its own when Pete decided we'd play as Colonial Marines in the Aliens universe.

Most of us were troops. JR showed his natural born leadership skills by being the Gorman of the group, remaining in the APC and watching us all balls-it-up through our helmet cameras. I thought Vasquez was the coolest, so I played a similar character. A short, stocky, and hard-as-nails female Smart-Gunner.

Aliens. We were not as smart as these Marines...

Pete had predicted the similar space-colony background that would form the Spartans in the Halo-verse, having our group of marines being sent out to outlying colonies to quash resistance elements and rebels. The Smart Gun was rationalised, and made super cool with a really efficient tracking system, firing punched disks (rapidly bashed into a sharp cone of armour piercing metal) which made the ammo carrying easier. But it was the encumbrance rules that really stick in the mind.

I have very vivid memories of the colony's terraforming reactor being overloaded and damaged, about to cause a huge nuclear explosion (I think part of the damage may have been from stray gunfire, I'm not sure). We'd stopped the rebels, but the explosion was imminent and the squad had to run the 5k back to the dropship as our APC had been taken out, before the nuclear explosion wiped us off the planet. The encumbrance rules really added to the tension, as we realised we were never going to make it to safety without dropping all of our guns and equipment.

The later games had us encountering the xenomorphs from the movies, and we had a great one shot with different characters where each member of the party was taken out by an unseen force (that was revealed to be my character, under orders from the GM from slips of paper he kept passing me under the table).

Nothing really much to add there except that Odyssey introduced me to the idea of gaming in a group where one of the player characters was the secret villain, showed me how to do a faithful game that was tied to an existing universe, and showed me that you could create a game system from scratch and have some seriously kick-ass adventures with it. I really hope that people have as much fun with the games I've worked on as I had with Odyssey.

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Next "Roll Your Own Life" brings us to the Vampire years...