Something Better Change (again)

 

I'm sure I've used that name for a blogpost before. Many, many times before. It's a time of change, at least it is in my mind. I've just deleted my Substack - welcome if my final Substack email brought you here. 

Otherwise, it's been a heck of a year. Topped off by a turbulent week or two of confusion, where I needed to know what I was going to do... so, I turned to the cards. 

You may remember in my previous posts, I'm a big fan of Tarot. I used to do readings for people at art college and university, and I've taken to doing my own readings when I've been a bit directionless. My favourite deck has, for many, many years, been the Vertigo Tarot set based on the various Vertigo comic lines. However, recent events have kinda tainted them for me, so I sought out a new cool Tarot deck, settling on The Unveiled Tarot designed by Jesse Lonergan. Mostly because the artwork is bloomin' gorgeous. Each image has a frame within, almost two scenes in one, that mirror or contrast each other. Really lovely.

Anyway, first time I've used these, so I shuffled and scattered these for a long time, and I hope this kinda makes sense. Let's go...

So first card, Seven of Cups (Reversed) - this is supposed to reflect my current situation, which means 'A goal nearly attained' and 'a project presenting itself'. 

This is crossed by my immediate challenge, which is the Six of Cups - my first instinct is that maybe it didn't shuffle all that well, but it's the right way up so it means that I'm being held back by my sense of nostalgia and sentimentality. The image is an adult, imagining being a child, riding a playground animal. It's really clever and is definitely tied to the card's meaning.

Okay, on to the cross around these. 

The Six of Pentacles, this card is supposed to be my focus at the moment, and it's about charity, kindness, redistribution of wealth, and sharing.

Next up is the Queen of Swords (Reversed). This is in the position to reflect my recent past, and reversed it is all about a manipulative person, negativity, and imbalance in energy, and feeling self critical. Hmmm... 

Next is the Seven of Pentacles, in the position to show possibilities. I'm surprised there was even a card here that wasn't something awful or disastrous, but this one is about patience, perseverance, and long-term goals. I like how that's reflected in the image on the card, with the girl waiting for a plant to grow.

The final card in the cross is about my near future, and I drew the Ten of Cups (Reversed). Which can mean a loss of friendship, disruption in harmony, and a need to search for joy. I can see that being apt.

Okay, going up the side staff of the spread, again I thought I hadn't shuffled them enough. The bottom of the staff is about power, and the querent. The Nine of Cups (Reversed) was what I drew, and it's basically saying I have unrealistic dreams, I'm frustrated, and regretting mistakes. 

The next card up is the environment card, and the Five of Wands (Reversed). This is about what environment I'm in at the moment, and near future, which says I'm looking to end a conflict, and I'm feeling betrayed. Interesting... 

The next card represents hopes, and in this case it's the Knight of Swords. It says that my hopes are unrealistic, that I'm being impulsive, but also determined. That doesn't really help. Should I be determined and pursue what I want, or am I being unrealistic? 

And finally, the outcome card. The one this all leads to... the Knight of Cups (Reversed). It's all about being reckless, having a creative block, needing to have difficult conversations, feeling moody, and resentful for false promises. 

Well, that wasn't very positive was it? Interesting though. Maybe I need to reflect on these a bit.

Anyway, it was nice to look at the cards properly. Not sure if I'll use them next time, after all there's a really nice X-Files deck on Etsy at the moment, but it's a bit pricey. Maybe I should dig out my Twin Peaks deck instead...

Who knows. 

I'd best get back to all those #RPGaDAY posts. I'm hoping to compile them all at the end of the month.

In the meantime, stay safe, and stay multi classy...

D

In The Cards - Yet Again

Besieged by the regular frustrations and self-doubt, I felt compelled to try another tarot reading. Just what am I doing wrong? This isn't what I had planned! Maybe I should have read the small print? Have a let people down?

I dug out the Vertigo Tarot set again, with its Dave McKean artwork, and gave the cards a shuffle. Aren't you supposed to wait a while between readings? I Googled. I remember that you weren't supposed to have a major reading within six months, but checking Google that all seems to be out the window. Three months seems to be okay, and it's been just over three months. 

Time to shuffle the cards. I love the Vertigo Tarot, though the cards are slightly oversized and shuffling is a little tricky. But you have to work for it don't you? Everything in life is a little bit of a struggle? Okay, I think I'm done. Final cut of the cards, and it's traditional Celtic Cross layout time.

1) - Four of Pentacles (Reversed) - This represents me in my current situation. Last time it said I was coming to a realisation and needed to make a decision. This card, the Four of Pentacles in its reversed position means I'm letting things go. I'm losing my concern over some material things, and letting things go. Of course, there are some things I don't want to let go of, there are still some thing I'm hoping for, but they seem to get further and further away every day. Maybe I'm realising that some of these are just not achievable and I should just resign myself to my fate.

2) - Five of Swords - this crosses the first card, and represents what's holding me back, my immediate obstacles. Before, it was my reluctance to leave the house. Now it just seems that I'm defeated. Depressed, shamed, and silent. The card represents a situation where I feel like I can't speak out, to make myself heard.

3) - Nine of Cups - This is my past, and the basis of my current situation. This card represents my desire for perfection in art. Seems about right. I can get bogged down wanting things to be absolutely perfect. It does slow me down a bit, but I'd rather things were right?

4) - IV: The Emperor (Reversed) - This again is my past, or rather what is recently behind me. The reversed Major Arcana card, The Emperor, signifies discovering who is pulling the strings, and what is undermining my plans. 

5) - VI: The Lovers (Reversed) - This is my present. Before I was full of optimism and belief, and activity. This time it's signifying a need to rebel, there's an opposition going on and I feel like to need to strike back. Ominous!

6) - Three of Wands - this is my future. My previous reading said I was going to be dishonest to myself and fool myself over the situation. This time it signifies power, independence, divisions between people, exploring, making heroic actions or even a sacrifice. Sounds even more drastic. 

Up the side of the Celtic Cross are four more cards...

7) - Five of Cups (Reversed) - this represents my attitude. A bit more positive than last time, this says that I'm understanding, have a fresh hope, appreciating what I do have and looking forward to something new and hopeful. I'm full of hope. Whether it ever happens or not is something else, but you gotta hope, right?

8) - Six of Pentacles - This represents my surroundings, my current environment. The card says it's all about sharing, people helping each other, and receiving help. I'm very open to that. If anyone feels like they can steer me in the right direction, please let me know.

9) - Nine of Wands (Reversed) - this is all about my hopes and dreams. Last one signified a change in direction, but that never came. This time it says my hopes and dreams, my inner thoughts, are all about confinement, confusion, and needing to take a fresh look at things. 

10) - Ace of Cups (Reversed) - and finally, the last card represents the overall outcome. This card says that emotions are strong, troubled, with a level of sadness, and that I need to work at it. Jeez, I guess I asked for that. But I can foresee without the need for the cards that things are going to require a lot of work over the next couple of months...

I put the cards away, and the interpretation guide book. and look at my notes. Did that help? I don't think so, but it's scarily accurate again. 

Until next post, which may be about the next in my video games series or building up to the 10th anniversary of #RPGaDAY...

Stay safe. 

February is a time for cards...

 

The Vertigo Tarot deck

Following on from last week's post about my doubts and anxieties, and how I was unsure of the best course of actions, I turned to the cards. I know it's weird, but as I wrote about on this blog many times in the past, I've always had a bit of a fascination with the tarot. My dad had a deck, I created a deck that got me into art college for my graphic design degree, and I designed another deck for the WILD RPG that was illustrated by the awesome Gareth Sleightholme. 

I used to do a lot of tarot readings for people in art college, and then turned to doing them myself every now and then when I was unsure of the future.

Beginning of a year is as good a time as any - so I cracked open the ol' Vertigo tarot, my favourite deck, and shuffled, asking what I was supposed to do next. In traditional Celtic Cross layout, I got the following.

1.  Eight of Wands - this represents me, and tells me that I'm coming to a realisation or conclusion, that I need to choose between a number of possibilities. I mean, that's kinda why I was doing a reading in the first place.
2. The Hermit - this represents what's holding me back, my immediate obstacles. The Hermit is supposed to represent withdrawing, acting alone, seeking wisdom, and having a difficulty in connecting to people. Well, this is right again - I like hiding in my little house, singing Paramore to myself ("This is why I don't leave the house..."), and yes, I do find it hard to connect to people most of the time. 
3. Ace of Pentacles (Reversed) - This is my past, and what is the basis of my current situation. The Ace (reversed) is supposed to represent an imbalance, and a need to focus on one thing or one area. That'd be nice. It'd be especially nice if I could focus on something I really like or am passionate about as well...
4. Ten of Swords - Again, more of my past, and more recently what's behind me. The Ten of Swords is all about intellect, abstraction, detachment of emotion or from daily worries. I guess recently I have had to think less about what I'm emotional about, and just get on with it.
5. Six of Wands - This is supposed to be my present, how things are now. The card represents optimism (that's right, I'm hoping for something cool to happen), belief (I want to believe), and a flurry of activity on many projects (again, that's right - I have so many projects on right now, I'm looking forward to some of them getting completed so I can focus on something).
6. Justice (Reversed) - This is the future. And a reversed Justice isn't great. It represents being dishonest to myself, an unfair outcome or situation. So that's something to look forward to, the future is unfair, and I'm going to lie to myself about how great everything is.
7. Five of Wands (Reversed) - Up the side of the Celtic Cross reading are another four cards, this being the first and it represents my attitude. Attitude? I don't have an attitude do I? Ha! Anyway, this is another reversed one, and this card when it's upside-down means conflict, anger, feeling betrayed. Is that what I'm feeling right now? I don't know...
8. Four of Wands (Reversed) - the second of the cards up the 'staff' is all about my environment, and what is around me in my current situation. I mean, besides some book cases and a sofa. This is upside-down again, so it's probably not going to be great. Tension, or people having trouble working together. That can't be right, can it? 
9. Eight of Cups - at last, a card the right way up again. This is supposed to be about my hopes and dreams. The card is supposed to represent a change in my situation, and flashes of excitement and movement. That's nice. I think?
10. Knight of Swords (Reversed) - the last card is supposed to represent my outcome, but it's also a Court Card. Some people read this is a person that is going to have some sort of impact in my life, whereas some read it as this is the reader and what they are going to do or become. The Knight of Swords (Reversed) can be read that I'm making rash decisions, pulling others down with me. That I'm impatient, or that a big opportunity is about to come my way. It could also represent someone with some sort of privilege who can help. It could also be telling me that I need to be assertive, pursue my dreams, but I shouldn't rush things.

Did it help? No, but it did kinda tell me things I already knew. 

Oh well. Patience, Jedi... 

Relics: A Game of Angels

Over the last three weeks I've been looking at the Tarot and how it has influenced my game playing and designing over the years. This brings me handily to this week's blogpost - a review of a forthcoming Kickstarter that uses the Tarot as a game mechanic...

Relics: A Game of Angels launches on Kickstarter on the 10th April 2019

Relics: A Game of Angels really ticks some major boxes in appealing to me. First of all, it uses Tarot as a mechanic for task resolution (and other cool elements). It also is about angels, which is very cool. And also, it's written by Steve Dee who I've known from the days of playtesting Conspiracy X 2.0. Sure, I may be a little biased, but you need to see what is sure to be a very cool Kickstarter launching next month.

Relics uses the Fugue System as designed by James Wallis that first appeared in his game Alas Vegas (which I mentioned last week in the blog). In Alas Vegas the basic premise was that the characters woke with no knowledge of who or where they were, and the game gradually filled in those details as the story progressed. The Tarot cards are used for task resolution using Blackjack (or "21") as the main system. However, in Relics the characters know who they are - they are angels stranded on Earth. The memory recovery element is still present, but the players start with a definite feel for who their character is, as they struggle against demons, creatures and some humans, to try to save the world from itself. Instead of remembering who they are, the mechanic cleverly allows players to recall skills or information that will help them in times of need, filling in the character's backstory as the game progresses. The player determines the skill they need to "remember" but another player narrates the memory.

In addition to this, the angels can discover and reconnect with powerful relics that have powers and abilities that could aid them in their fight, or have the opposite effect. While the game could be a pure fight against demons and evil forces, the inclusion of these relics adds an element of hunting for hidden and powerful items, racing against time and demonic powers to gain control of them before they fall into the wrong hands.

Artwork from the forthcoming Relics RPG

I've been reading the playtest document for Relics and I'm really enjoying the use of the Fugue system for it. It seems like a perfect marriage of system and setting as the characters uncover elements of their past that can influence their actions now.

The Tarot cards are used in additional ways in Relics, coming into play in character creation (though in a faster way to that which I've been toying with in WILD) as well as generating random miracles, and other narrative effects.

It is going to be hard to review or preview Relics without mentioning other angelic roleplaying games, and this really does feel like it could be an excellent successor to the incredibly popular RPG In Nomine, (originally In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas) that was big in the late 90's. And that's not a bad thing to be compared to as I loved In Nomine. Relics also has echoes of TV series such as Lucifer and Supernatural, and movies like The Prophecy, though the tone of the game is certainly a lot darker.

Another fantastic element that the game has going for it is the design of the Tarot cards. Remember a couple of posts ago I talked about the original Mage: The Ascension game and the Mage Tarot that was produced to accompany it? It is still one of my favourite decks and the artwork is fantastic. Well, it seems that Dan Smith (aka SMIF) who did some of the artwork for the Mage Tarot, as well as most of the illustrations for In Nomine, is on board as artist for the Relics Tarot.

With that, and Steve Dee's writing, and a great use of the Fugue system, it looks like Relics could be a huge success. Definitely check it out when the Kickstarter - you can find it here!

Tarotica (Part III)

Over the last two weeks I've been chronicling my relationship with the Tarot, and how it has inspired and influenced my gaming and art. Onto the final part (with an epilogue to follow).

The first generation of the Tarot used for playtesting WILD

When I started working on WILD, my RPG of dreamsharing, my natural assumption was to continue with the system I knew the best - Vortex, the game system I'd designed for Cubicle 7's Doctor Who RPG. It seemed to work for just about anything with a few tweaks, and I started stripping the system down to be even simpler. Four Attributes, and five "Skills", though these skills were more like roles or archetypes to begin with.

These skills were initially inspired by the most influential source for the game, with names like Forger, Architect, Pointman, Shade, etc. and I'd had a moment of clarity for the name of the game system - Rapid Die Movement.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to incorporate a set of Tarot cards into the game. I thought the randomness of dreams could be inspired by using a card draw (when the primary dreamer loses control over their own dreamscape) and some of the Tarot images could incorporate some of the list of 100 common dreams that I'd compiled. Then I started to wonder - why am I using dice for one thing, and cards for another, when I could just use the Tarot for everything - randomness, task resolution, and even character creation? Character creation was the real moment I turned my attention purely to the cards - if you lay out a spread of Tarot cards that look at your past to divine the future, why not use the Tarot cards to inspire and guide through character creation for the game? A detailed background is essential for WILD, as images from your past may surface in your dreams.

Much as I hated to say goodbye to the name Rapid Die Movement, I put the dice away and started to focus on the cards - their symbolism, alternative uses, and how they could work in task resolution. In order to do that, I thought I'd check out some other roleplaying games that used cards as a mechanic.

Everway RPG by Jonathan Tweet, Published by Wizards of the Coast (1995)

First one I was recommended was sitting on my gaming shelves. Everway was been a great influence in the way it looks, the design and the production. It's a rather gorgeous set that was way ahead of its time. Using two decks of cards - a Fortune Deck that was used for action resolution, and a Vision Deck that could be used to inspire encounters, quests and adventures. It came in a big box with three books and a handful of character sheets. To my regret, I've never played it, but the way the cards are used to randomly inspire the adventure, and other cards are used to resolve tasks, has been quite inspirational.

Once I'd decided to go the Tarot card resolution route, I actively sought out roleplaying games that used Tarot as a mechanic. Mostly to make sure that whatever mechanic I was using hadn't been done exactly the same way before! People have pointed me to Castle Falkenstein (which I haven't managed to check out yet, but have read up on), and to a quirky game called Psychosis - Ship of Fools.

Psychosis: Ship of Fools by John Fletcher, published by Chameleon Eclectic (1993)

Psychosis - Ship of Fools is an odd game in the fact that it was a set storyline designed to be played in about 4-8 sessions. The first of a line of Psychosis games, the second being Solitary Confinement (which I haven't read yet... must hunt that one down) the game involves the players waking in very different environments and trying to figure out who they are, where they are, and what the hell is going on. The Tarot are split into two piles - Major Arcana and Minor Arcana. The Minor Arcana is used to determine task resolution (Wands are strength, Swords are agility, Coins are knowledge and Cups are intuition). The Major Arcana are drawn at special times in the game, when really major reality shifting stuff can happen. Very interesting!

Alas Vegas - written by James Wallis, published by Spaaace/Magnum Opus Press (2017)

More recently, I'd backed the Kickstarter of James Wallis' Alas Vegas, utilising Wallis' Fugue System, using Tarot cards for task resolution (with extra effects). Like Psychosis, Alas Vegas' gameplay is structured for a limited experience, taking place over four 3-4 hour sessions with a rotating GM. And, also like Psychosis, the characters wake with no memory of who they are or what's happening. The game answers these questions as the players progress. Task resolution is done by playing Blackjack (or "21") but all of the cards are in play, with the Major Arcana's numbers representing their value (special effects happen if you can 21 with 0: The Fool and 21: The World).

Again, very interesting, and thankfully not the same system as I had in mind.

The task resolution in WILD is being tweaked a lot at the moment, and I'm hoping to have another moment of clarity where all the cards will suddenly fall into place...

Until then, I'll keep playing with those cards until something drops.

--

Next week, continuing the theme of games that use Tarot cards, and following nicely along from Alas Vegas, I'm going to take a look at Relics - A Game of Angels - a game coming to Kickstarter in a matter of weeks that uses the same Fugue system.



Until next time, stay multi-classy!

Tarotica (Part II)

Last week I thought I'd start a series of blog posts about the Tarot, and how I've been influenced by their use and design over the years. On to part 2!

I got into University, or Art School as it was then before it gained full University status, with a very clear purpose. I was going to draw comics. I loved comics, and I'd teamed up with some of my RPG group to publish some comics including my first title - Drowning in Darkness. How cheery! After the review that called me the "Goth Hergé" I was more determined to pursue my comic career. You can read more about that, my comic publishing company that was, and the few titles I released here.

While attending Uni, I started hanging out at the local comic shop (Abstract Sprocket) and continued my obsession with all things Vertigo. I loved the Sandman, Shade: The Changing Man, Kid Eternity, Enigma and The Invisibles. Almost everything they brought out I loved. So, when the lovely purveyor of comics at Sprocket showed me the listing for a rather special collectors item - The Vertigo Tarot - I put in an order straight away.

The Vertigo Tarot set, published by DC Comics in 1995. Gorgeous!

What sold it to me was not only the use of Vertigo characters for the Major Arcana (The Fool is an image of John Constantine, The Empress is Titania, Queen of the Fairies from Books of Magic), but the artwork was by Dave McKean - someone whose art I've admired for years. It's a huge set, in a big white box (strangely the same size as the fabled Nobilis 2nd Edition) with the deck, and a hardback guide book that explains the images and divinatory meanings, written by Rachel Pollack. While I'd been aware of her writing from her time on Doom Patrol, I didn't know she was an authority on the Tarot as well. As I read, my eyes were opened to how the cards worked, and Rachel's explanations have become my instant go-to for Tarot readings.

However, a weird thing happened. Inspired by how cool the cards were, and the clear and informative write ups in the accompanying book, I started actually doing Tarot readings. And the weirder thing is - they seemed to be strangely accurate. I had no idea what I was doing, and maybe that is the power of the Tarot and its iconography - with the vaguest of interpretations the questioner applies the meaning to their lives and it suddenly all makes sense.

I was doing readings for myself, as well as friends from Uni and my new found gaming group...

-

At Uni I rediscovered my love of tabletop roleplaying. When I'd gone into work, and then on my Graphic Design course, I'd almost put the RPG writing side of things away. I was concentrating on the comic production, and getting into Uni, and RPGs didn't really seem to be in my life. However, when I relocated to Uni I quickly fell into a game being run by my fellow students. A game that had become huge in the early 90's - Vampire: The Masquerade. The reawakening of my gaming interests has been covered before in my blog, waaaay back here.

We played a lot of Vampire, and then I kinda went off and started a new game with new players continuing the World of Darkness setting, moving over onto playing Mage: The Ascension. Wow, I loved that game. Our Mage game was huge, epic and bonkers, with some massive Paradox Backlashes that distorted reality. It inspired Debs to write her fiction, and I had my eyes opened again when they released the Mage Tarot set.

The Mage The Ascension Tarot set (pictured on the Mage rulebook)

We were very into Mage: The Ascension in a big way, so much so that Debs was the one who actually bought the Tarot set. As a card carrying Wiccan (as she liked to call herself) she took the cards very seriously, keeping them wrapped rather than boxed, and I was only allowed to handle them for short periods of time (something I respect even now - I touched them enough to put the cards on the table for the above photo before putting them carefully away).

The cards came with a little book of how to read and interpret them, though there was also a short section on using the cards to help with the RPG itself. However, the cards themselves were another revelation. Exchanging the traditional suits from Cups, Coins, Swords and Wands to Dynamism, Questing, Pattern and Primordialism was a revelation to me. You could change the suits? And use them in a roleplaying game?

Now we're getting somewhere.

The next incarnation of Mage (Mage: The Awakening) would explore this in even greater detail with a whole book called "The Keys to the Supernal Tarot" which looked at each card and how they could be used to inspire storylines and adventures. Excellent! Also helps that the art in this newer edition was bloomin' gorgeous!

Anyway, back to the right place chronologically. I had a strange moment when I wanted to continue our game but I had turned my back on the World of Darkness. I managed to fill the hole in my urban horror/magic/occult gaming with a completely different system - KULT. Again, that connection between tabletop gaming and the Tarot would come to the fore when I picked up a supplement for KULT called Taroticum.

The Taroticum supplement for 1st Edition KULT (US Edition 1994)

At its heart, Taroticum is a series of adventures that revolve around a deck of Tarot cards that can shape reality. It's an epic adventure where the characters must basically travel from London to Hell to create a missing Tarot card for the deck to save creation itself. It's wild and wacky, and I never ran it as our game morphed into a game of CJ Carella's Witchcraft.

However, the Taroticum of the game, KULT, has appeared again with the new edition (Divinity Lost) and the cards are available to purchase.

Kult: Divinity Lost set of the Taroticum cards

The Major Arcana are radically different to normal cards, 0 representing the Awakened Man (Anthropos) and 1 representing "God" (The Demiurge), 2 representing "The Devil" (Astaroth) , and the remaining 20 cards each for the 10 Archons and 10 Death Angels. The Minor Arcana is FIVE suits, rather than four, numbered 1-9 (no court cards) with each suit tied to one of the five paths of awakening - Death (Skulls), Passion (Roses), Time & Space (Hourglasses), Dream (Crescents) and Madness/Elysium (Eyes).

Having the suits represent actual elements of the game, like the Mage Tarot, has been a bit of an inspiration too. But I've gone on too long for this post. Next post will be about how I'm using the Tarot in WILD, and maybe a look at other games that use Tarot for task resolution in tabletop roleplaying.

Until next time, may the cards be in your favour.

Be kind.

Tarotica (Part I)

Let's get back to normal things shall we? By that I mean my usual mix of nostalgia, game design and rambling on about stuff. I had this weird idea a number of months ago to do a few blog posts about Tarot.

I know, it's weird, but I've always had this strange fascination with Tarot. One that I remember from my dim and distant childhood and has stayed with me right into the development of my roleplaying game - WILD.

The first real memory I have of Tarot is from James Bond. My parents got me interested in movies at a young age, and one of the first movies I remember them taking me to see was The Man With the Golden Gun. I was instantly hooked. My mum dug out her collection of Ian Fleming novels for me to have a look at and one of the first records I ever bought was an LP of James Bond themes. Yes, I got obsessed with things very easily. I guess some things never change!

But this was the late 1970s, and we didn't have things like video recorders and so on. Luckily, in January 1980, ITV in the UK showed Live and Let Die for the first time. In the TVTimes before it aired there were production drawings and designs for the gadgets and the stunts, and I kept those pages for many years to come. However, during Live and Let Die, the now famous scene introducing Jane Seymour's character - Solitaire, I was a bit confused by the weird cards she was using.

Solitaire reads the Tarot cards - Live and Let Die

Colour me sheltered, but up until this point my eleven year old brain was purely focused on spaceships, lego, and Star Wars figures, and certainly not on the esoteric.

My dad told me about Tarot cards, and how they were used for fortune telling, but they sounded weird and mysterious, and not to be messed with.

It wasn't long after this that my father bought his first (and to my knowledge, his only) deck of Tarot cards. Maybe he was as inspired by watching Bond as I was? Dad was always intrigued by these things and I remember him bringing the pack home, though I wasn't allowed to play with them.

Course, it wouldn't be long before my obsession with James Bond movies would collide with my biggest pastime - tabletop roleplaying games. When the James Bond RPG came out from Victory Games I was not only amazed at the incredible production values, but the game was fantastic too. We played a LOT of sessions of the Bond RPG. A LOT!

But something was different about the Bond RPG. Due to the licensing issues at the time, a certain villain and his vast organisation that featured so heavily in the movies could not be used. Instead of Ernst Stavro Blofeld we had Karl Ferenc Skorpios. And instead of SPECTRE, we had TAROT.

Intriguing.

Dad eventually decided he was never going to use those Tarot cards, and gave them to me. I still have that set now - the "Tarot Fortune Telling Game" as it was called came complete with a book to assist in working out the divinatory meanings of the cards, as well as a sheet that showed you where to place the cards, and explained what each card position meant.

My dad's one and only Tarot set, purchased in the early 1980's.

They weren't anything too fancy or pretty, very old and traditional illustrations. I don't know if it's because the names of the cards were in French, but they felt mysterious. Like that book cover of a horror novel that scares you but you can't help but look at. I never did a reading, looked at the cards once in a while but didn't really return to them for many years.

It wouldn't really be until the very early 1990s that I would find myself drawn to the cards again...

--

I had left school, was unemployed for a little and, after a spell working in Nature Conservation and Archaeology, had gone back to college to do art and graphic design (much to my mother's delight). At the end of my BTEC the course tutors were really keen to get all of their students onto degree courses around the country. While initially I wasn't too fussed about going away to a university, I still applied as it kept the tutors quiet. My first couple of choices of places to go didn't accept my application, but my third choice asked me for an interview.

Before the interview, well in advance, the University sent a letter - an assignment that was part of the interview process. I was tasked with painting, drawing, sculpting or whatever, a self portrait. For some strange reason, I can't remember why, I decided that for my self portrait I'd create a deck of Tarot cards. Time was limited, so I focused on the Major Arcana.

To make it a self portrait, I looked at the meaning of each of the cards, and how that related to my life at the time. Then, I got some friends to take photos of me in various poses, and used them as a basis for a mixed media collage for each card. I know, it's a pretty lame idea, but it seemed to be okay. The cards were very oversized - each one A5 - and I created a box for them with a suitable quote from David Byrne on it: "People will remember you better if you always wear the same outfit." As I always wore completely black, I thought this particularly apt.

My first, rather bad, attempt at creating my first Tarot deck, as part of a self portrait assignment for University.

It seemed to work as I was accepted at the University, and while I could tell the tutors in the interview were underwhelmed by my portfolio, they liked the originality of a self portrait presented as Tarot cards.

I'll continue the Tarot stuff later, looking at my favourite decks, and look a bit more at creating a specific deck for WILD.

Until next time, who knows what fortune awaits?

#RPGaDAY2018 - DAY 24: Which RPG do you think deserves more recognition?

Day twenty-four of #RPGaDAY2018 is another remixed question kindly provided by M L Straus, who hosts the Youtube channel OG GM's Adventures. There's a link there that'll take you to his answers to the interview questions I asked those who supplied prompts for this year's #RPGaDAY. Be sure to head over and subscribe.

Taking the original question "Favourite Game System" from way back on the 18th August 2014, the question has been remixed to become "Which RPG do you think deserves more recognition?"

This can be interpreted a few ways - is it a specific game that you love but you don't think gets much attention, or possibly a system that really ticks all your boxes that you want to shout about? Or an old game that should be recognised for changing how gaming works?

So many ways to answer!

Maybe I'll do all three?

Specific game that I love that gets overlooked - that's easy. I love Tales from the Loop, and it's getting a lot of attention at the moment with Twitch streams, and the upcoming Amazon series. But it's easy to forget another great RPG of kids investigating the weird that came out many moons ago - Little Fears, by Jason L Blair.

Little Fears 1st Edition 

It's a really cool and simple system, using D6s like Tales from the Loop, where the players are all children battling the weird. Unlike Tales from the Loop, Little Fears isn't about technology or robots, it's about real supernatural horror. Nasty horrors from Closetland. The kids fight back through friendship, and belief in themselves and more.

Little Fears - Nightmare Edition

The game got a complete revamp in 2009 with the Nightmare Edition, changing some of the background of the threats and giving it a new system, but at its heart is the same great game with brilliantly executed character creation, real tension, and a brilliant and improved feel that makes it almost like playing a game of Goosebumps or Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Great stuff.


A particular system that I want to shout about? While I haven't played it, I did pick up Psychosis: Ship of Fools, simply because it uses a deck of Tarot cards as the main game system. It's an interesting premise, and I think one that heavily influenced Alas Vegas, where the characters all wake unaware of who they are, and in weird, seemingly unconnected locations.

You split the tarot deck into minor and major arcana, with the minor arcana being used for task resolution (each suit represents a sort of ability or type of action) while the major arcana are used for cool effects.

Nice!

And that leads nicely on to the old game that I don't think gets enough recognition, as it's by the same publisher - Chameleon Eclectic. That would be The Babylon Project. While the game wasn't as huge as it could have been for an RPG based on the cool TV series Babylon 5, it did have a particularly great character creation system that has been a great influence on me. Rather than the roll or pick some values, and add skills and stuff, the Babylon Project was all about creating a background for the character first.

You create each stage of the character's life, and as you go you pull out elements of their background that would be used to inspire which skills and abilities the character needs scores in.

Great to see character creation done that way around - something I'm hoping to do with WILD, especially as the character's background is going to be vital in that game.

There we go. That's the end of "Which week"... until tomorrow, stay multi-classy!

#RPGaDAY2018 - DAY 22: Which non-dice system appeals to you?

Day twenty-two of #RPGaDAY2018 is a companion to yesterday's question about appealing dice mechanics - this time asking which Non-Dice System appeals to you?

Continuing from yesterday's post about how using more than one die gives you a lovely probability curve, when it came to starting to work on WILD I thought I was going to use dice in a pretty similar way. I considered loads of different options, bought loads of blank dice so I could experiment. But then I had that weird idea of using Tarot to add a random element to dreamscapes - drawing a card when you lose control over a dream and taking some inspiration for what happens from the image on the card.

But for task resolution I was still thinking DICE. After all, I'd come up with the perfect name for the system - Rapid DIE Movement. Ha!

Then I realised I was wasting my time - cards can be used for task resolution as well!

Prototypes for the suit of Focus - very rough and need completely redoing...

Not only do you have a basic card draw with a value of 1-10 for the basic pip cards in a deck which can be used for the same as a single D10 roll, but you also have Court cards and the Major Arcana which can have special significance. I've used them in WILD to balance the distribution of the "roll" to create a probability curve.

Add into that simple bonuses from drawing a suit that matches the task, or a court card that does the same, and you've already got a heap of cool effects you can add to the "roll".

And then, there's the imagery on the card, as well as the orientation of the cards as well (dignified or ill-dignified - that is the right way up, or upside-down). You quickly gain the ability to have a variety of additional "yes, but, no, and" like the Vortex system I was talking about yesterday.

Well, we'll see if it works. Need to finish it first!!

Okay, until tomorrow - stay multi-classy!

Wildly did my mind wander...

Taking time away from everything, letting the mind rest, thoughts of that game keep coming back to me. It's the burden of a creative mind, at least that's what I've read. That need to work on something, to get it out there. If you've followed my blog, or know me at all, you know that I've been working on WILD for many years now - tinkering away in the quiet moments.

Well, I've been thinking about it again. Coming back to it after some time away has made me question some of my initial choices, and it's going to take some work, some thought, and maybe some changes. Nothing major or drastic, but a few tweaks to some of the cards of the Tarot, changing the names of some things, and I can get back to where I was.

The playtest roughs, nowhere near final artwork

The horrible thought that dawned on me just after Christmas was that I had been working on WILD on and off for five years. I'd hate for it to become one of those great unfinished projects.

I'm not going to over-do it. I'm not going to stress myself into illness again, but I'm certainly going to chip away at it with a little more determination. One day I'll get it finished. One day...

WILD Character Creation (take 2)

Last night we put the band back together. Well, as best we could.

Edge (left), Stoo (via virtual reality, which worked surprisingly well) and Debs

On many occasions I've mentioned the most involved gaming sessions in my gaming history were with a few players - Edge, Tetch, Stoo and my lovely wifey. Those were some of the most intense and creepiest games when we played Mage, Kult and later WitchCraft. And I was eager to try to recapture the magic again.

Admittedly, Stoo lives miles away and had to appear via the wonders of Skype, which didn't work too badly (he could see us all and the table and everything!) and Tetch is on holiday somewhere, we thought we'd run a little trial session and see if the character creation for WILD worked.

I did a trial char-gen before, but thanks to writing the key-phrases on the WILD Cards, this worked a lot faster and easier.

Cards you say? Yes, the weird and wacky thing about WILD is that character creation involves cards. WILD can mean that your character's inner-most fears or memories can surface while dreamsharing, so it is important to have some depth to the character's history and background prior to gaming. Creating a character in WILD involves making a traditional Tarot spread using the WILD Cards.

Stoo's character creation layout.

I think it worked this time. Players who came to the table with an idea in mind for what they wanted their character to be and do still had what they wanted, but with some additional elements they hadn't considered before. Those who came without an idea had a pretty interesting launching point to get them started.

The next phase involved using a handful of spare cards each player had to create a relationship between the characters, common locations, events or people. For such a small group, there may have been too many cards involved, but that's what playtesting is all about. But it strangely worked - a location ties the characters together, and added an NPC and a person in one character's past that may have repercussions for the whole group. Not only does it tie the characters together without the "you're in a bar" first session, but it gives me as the DM (DreamMaster) some ideas for elements to draw into the game.

I talked them through the rules (not that there are many) and it all seems to make sense...

Next will be the first game. I don't know how it'll go - I have an epic and bizarre game designed for them, but it'll be the first time I put the rules into action, so we'll see how it goes.

Until next time,

LLAP - and Stay Multi-classy!

Pleasant Dreams and WILD cards

Sorry it's been very quiet on here for a while, but this year has not been brilliant so far.

Things being the way they are, this is possibly my last video for a while. I promised I'd look at the awesome Kickstarted card game Pleasant Dreams by Aerjen Games. It's a beautifully produced little game where players try to remain happily asleep and fight off the horrific nastiness that can plague a good night's sleep.

You can purchase the game direct from their website.

On the subject of cards, I've been tinkering with using the Tarot as the main mechanic rather than using dice. The second half of the video looks at some of the ways the cards may work. They're still roughs, and I'm still not sure if they work (or if they're anywhere near as quick as using dice), but I'm pondering.

Well, that's it. Next blog post will probably be more text than not, but in the meantime be good to each other, and stay multiclassy.

What the Hell am I doing?

I'm having one of those months where I'm questioning everything I'm doing. Whether this is my writing, drawing, or even the day-job, I just keep coming back to wondering if I'm doing the right thing.

For the last month, the day-job has taken up 90% of my waking time (as usual), with my lunch hours being spent hiding in the public library or coffee shops working on the second draft of the WILD novel that I completed as part of NaNoWriMo a couple of Novembers ago.

I'd been reading novels before going to sleep, books that had dreams as subject, and I've been mostly frustrated that they're not what I've been looking for. First up was Dream London by Tony Ballantyne. It was certainly cool, well written and very dreamlike. There were some particularly cool moments involving people strangely queuing up to look at the bottom of a hole like some tourist attraction. Looking through the strange manhole size hole at the bottom of this pit the viewer can see another landscape far below, as if looking through a gap in the clouds, a hole in reality to another world below. All in all, very smart, but I just didn't like the lead character - he was an archaic "Flashman-esque" womanising scoundrel, and not what I'd want from a lead character.

The next on my reading list was the "Wake" series by Lisa McMann - (Wake / Fade / Gone). Sure, it's a teen fiction title, but never let that put you off of a good book! This one featured a teenage girl, Janie, who is pulled into other people's dreams if they fall asleep in close proximity. This makes things tricky when you're in high school and people keep falling asleep in class. She learns to use her ability to help people overcome their recurring nightmares, and starts working for the police department, going into the dreams of suspects to see if they're guilty of crimes.

The first of the trilogy was good (Wake), the second okay (Fade) which focussed on the unsavoury topic of trying to expose a sexual predator in school, whereas the third (Gone) is quite depressing as Janie discovers the side effects of her ability and must make a choice between using it, or living a shortened life in seclusion.

I've heard that they've optioned the Wake series as a movie, starring Miley Cyrus, which sounds like an awful choice - Wake would work pretty well as a supernatural police procedural TV series, maybe not as a movie, but I wait to be proven wrong.

But neither of these filled the desire for Inception. I guess that's all I really wanted from a book as Inception part 2. Maybe I should just try reading Paprika again. That's kinda why I wanted to write the novel (sorry, novels) that form WILD's backstory. I wanted to explore the reasons why Carter created the dreamshare device, and the emotional progression as he learns to communicate with his comatose daughter, and puts family before the billion-dollar tech company he spent his life building.

Just creating the plot, and the backstory has helped form the universe of the game, and has inspired the images on the WILD Tarot that has become an integral part of the game system.

However, the more I think about the book, and the second draft, the more I question my abilities in writing fiction - I mean, I've dabbled in fiction before but I'm a game designer. I write like bloomin' stereo instructions.

The other options would be to take the story (which I have mostly plotted out in my head) and script it as a comic (which would be okay if only I could actually draw worth a damn) or as a script for TV (who would even look at it, it's not like I can show off my screenwriting skills, especially no one can see my previous screenwriting work).

Maybe I should just get back to the game?

I thought about what needs to be done for it, and it's not horrific, but it's still a long way off. It really is a labour of love. I guess what I need to do is go through everything I've done and start working out what needs changing and writing.

Part of the roughs of the cover image for WILD. (c) Autocratik 2014

I even thought about getting the cover sorted - paying for it to be done. This way I'd have to get the game finished, otherwise I'd have wasted my money paying a professional artist to produce a cover. I have a very definite idea of what I want the cover to look like, so it'll probably be rubbish. I wanted it to be a flip cover for front and back, with the images merging in the middle at the spine - dreamers joined in a shared world. I tried to draw a version of the idea myself, but then I remembered I can't draw... Maybe soon...

So there you have it, that's my current state - so many ideas, no time to actually do it.

Let's break it down -

Things I want to do with WILD:

• Finish writing the game
• Pretty artwork - David Despau meets Windsor McCay
• Cool layout - if House of Leaves was an RPG book, that'd be it... Like 2nd Ed KULT.
• Build a prop version of the ALICE headset and the Dreamshare Device.
• Make a video trailer for the game, fake company infomercials for the product as well.
• Finish the novels, all three of them. 
• Graphic novels?

If only I had the time... And that's before I even think about the ideas I've had for how a Harry Potter RPG would work...

It's Written in the (WILD) Cards...

Okay, I have a confession. I’m terrible at motivating myself.

I’m one of the Kings of procrastination, and I will often find myself sitting and staring at the newsfeed on Facebook rather than actually doing anything even remotely productive. If I have a project I’m enthusiastic about, I’ll put every waking moment into it, but after time I can become tired and bored.

What I need is deadlines. Luckily, I’m in a little group of writers we like to call “Write Club” (though we do not talk about Write Club), and we meet once a month to chivy ourselves along. We hear how each other’s projects are coming along, and offer advice and encouragement. Last month we decided to set goals, to give ourselves something to aim for. I knew that NaNoWriMo was approaching in November, and while I have an idea of what I’d like to write, I thought it would be helpful if I finished the Tarot cards for the WILD RPG before then.

The roughs for the Suit of FOCUS, for the WILD RPG's Tarot

The benefits of completing them were many –

* I’d be able to actually start playtesting the game. The cards are fairly integral to character creation, and I’ve been wanting to try that out for a while.

* If I got stuck for a direction of where to go with writing the NaNoWriMo book I could draw a card and see if it inspires a plot twist or more.

* I wouldn’t be drawing cards when I should be writing.

So I set myself the task of completing the full set of WILD Tarot cards by the next meeting, and thankfully, I managed to hit my goal. It required drawing roughly two or three cards a day, but I did it. They’re only rough, but they give the impression of what the cards will do in the final game, and I can use them to generate some characters and see if that process works at least.

I mentioned the cards briefly in a previous post, but the tricky bit has been working out the images for each card. I’ve tried to incorporate not only the classic meaning of the Tarot card, but also some aspect of the most commonly recorded dreams, as well as keeping a narrative element that you’d normally find in Tarot cards only this time telling the story of the characters who were involved in pioneering the dreamshare technology.

The roughs for the STRENGTH Suit for the WILD RPG Tarot

Rider-Waite version
of The Lovers

I showed the cards to some of the Write Club group at the most recent meeting, and one of the comments was exactly what I’d hoped. “The Lovers card, it doesn’t look like they’re supposed to be together, it looks like it’s an affair.”

Perfect.

In the traditional and Rider-Waite imagery of the Tarot, the Lovers card usually depicts a couple as you’d expect, but sometimes it’s about the choice between two people. In the narrative of the Tarot suggested by a couple of books I’ve read, they’ve said that it sometimes represents the man’s choice between staying at home with his mother, or leaving with the new love in his life.

For WILD, I’ve interpreted the card slightly differently, with the card showing the wife of the creator of the dreamshare technology, having an affair with another man. This is part of a long story of her being ignored by the tech inventor, as he spends more and more time working on his computers and creations, than being at home with his wife and daughter. There’s a tale of separation and redemption, about creating the device to be with his daughter, and… well, I won’t give it all away here.

Very, VERY rough
version of WILD's
The Lovers

So the card not only reflects the traditional imagery of the Tarot, it also tells part of the story of the dreamshare device, and the people who made it. On top of that, some of the most common dreams that people have are incorporated into the cards as well. In this case, it can be many of the most common themes in dreaming – showering or bathing, being discovered somewhere you shouldn’t be, finding yourself naked, having an affair, having an argument, or simply a sexual encounter. The GM can take any of these dream-elements and incorporate them into the game if control over the dream is lost and the expected narrative succumbs to the randomness of dreams.

On top of all that, the card suits have been renamed to the four Attributes in the game – they seemed to match their Tarot counterparts perfectly – and the Court Cards, when paired with the Ace of each suit, can be adapted to match the five “Skills” in the game (I put Skills in quotes as they are more than just Skills, they’re more descriptors – broad areas of ability).

All this and I haven’t really touched upon how the cards are used in character creation. We’ll come to that after I’ve given it a try to see if it works.

Until next time, stay multi-classy!

Put Your Cards On The Table

Tarot has always been a bit of an odd one for me. It has always fascinated me, even though I have very little belief in any "mystical" connections to it, I do feel that the symbolism used in the cards is incredibly clever. Not only does this mean that almost anyone can see themselves and their current situations in the cards, but this ability to relate to the cards can produce some incredible insight and help people who had previously become "stuck" in their situations.

I remember my first exposure to Tarot was through my love of James Bond. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was introduced to James Bond at an early age through my parents taking me to see The Man With The Golden Gun. From then, I was hooked and I have fond memories of keeping the blueprints and diagrams of the stunts from Live and Let Die that were printed in the TVTimes when the movie first screened on British TV. And it was from Live and Let Die that I first saw Tarot, in the hands of the lovely Solitaire.

Solitaire (Live and Let Die)

I hadn't seen Tarot before, so I was confused as to why the cards looked different to playing cards, and it was then that I discovered my father's passing fascination with the Tarot, and he let me see his deck. I don't think he'd ever used it - just bought it and filed it away. It was an old Tarot of Marseilles set that came with a book. A set I still have today.

Of course, when I started roleplaying, the interest started again when I started running the James Bond roleplaying game for the group, with SPECTRE replaced by TAROT.

The years passed, and I didn't do a lot with Tarot until the time I came to apply to do my degree at art college. As part of the interview process for that particular college (now university) they asked each applicant to produce a self portrait to bring along to the interview which would not only show off their artistic skills, but maybe also give the tutors an insight into the way their prospective students saw themselves.

For my self portrait I produced a set of Tarot cards. Just the 22 cards of the Major Arcana, but I used photos (some shot especially) and got creative, covering the images in paint, illustration and weirdness, interpreting the meaning behind each card to show an aspect of my life at that time. It was all very horribly angsty and personal, and I don't think many people have seen them outside of the interview. Luckily, they did the trick and I was accepted on the course.

Thanks to relocating for art college, and getting back into reading comics, I became a fan of the the weirder DC titles such as Sandman and especially Shade: The Changing Man. When these became part of that first wave of Vertigo titles, and they announced a special Tarot set illustrated by Dave McKean, I placed my order straight away.

Vertigo Tarot - 0:The Fool

The Vertigo Tarot was a lovely set, and the book was incredibly easy to use. I was inspired for the first time to actually use the set for the intended purpose, and after a few readings, the various friends I'd done readings for said that the results had been strangely accurate. It was odd, because I wasn't really reading anything special into the spreads. I didn't know the cards very well to begin with so most of the readings involved looking at the cards, and looking things up in books, and writing an interpretation for the querant. Maybe this was what produced the "accuracy" as it allowed the querant to interpret the results themselves, projecting elements of their own life - maybe elements they didn't realise were there - onto the results the cards had produced. It was odd, but it seemed to work, and the people I read for seemed to be inspired, motivated, and above all happy with the results.

I'd rediscovered gaming again after relocating for art college, and after playing Vampire: The Masquerade, we moved on to playing Mage: The Ascension. When they produced a set of Tarot cards, inspired by the cover image of the corebook, we had to invest. I never used them for the game, or for traditional Tarot readings, but it did sow the seeds of inspiration that the names and images on the cards could be tweaked to fit a specific setting - or in this case, to suit a roleplaying game.

Something that has obviously stayed with me over the years - for when I started to write WILD a couple of years ago, when I considered an interesting element for the RPG I immediately thought of the Tarot.

Initially, I wanted a set of random cards that could represent the 100 most common dreams. The traditional things like being late for an exam or test, being naked in public, descending into a dingy cellar, flying or floating around a room, losing your teeth... that sort of thing. Then I realised that these dream images also inspired Archetypes, and the more I researched, the more I discovered the connection between the Tarot, and Jungian Archetypes and dream imagery.

Very rough version of XIV

So I set to making another deck of Tarot cards. I took index cards and wrote the divinatory meanings of each on them, and took the 100 or so most common dreams and wrote them on post-it notes. Then it was a case of laying the cards out on the floor and matching the dream to the card it best suited.

But things started evolving as the game was being written. It was taking on a life of its own. The four suits seemed to fit the four Attributes of the game, so it was a logical choice to change out Coins, Cups, Swords and Wands to become Control, Focus and Vision. The court cards, if you took the Ace into account, also fit the five "Skills" of the game, so it worked if you took out King, Queen and Page and replaced them with the Skills, such as Deceiver, Creator and Operator.

As the NaNoWriMo novel took shape, and the background of the game was formed, detailing the events that would lead up to the creation of dreamshare technology and the dreams of the inventor's daughter, the more the imagery of the novel would inspire the cards, especially the Major Arcana.

The more I looked at the cards, and how they would be used in the game as a way of influencing events in the dreamshare, the more I realised that I was putting a lot of work into these cards for a device that wouldn't be used all that often. I put the cards aside, and I went back to writing the game...

The first few VERY ROUGH prototype cards

I went back to writing the character creation chapter, and, frankly, got a bit stuck. Until I thought of the cards again. Now the cards have become an integral part of character creation, and also a bit about the relationship-mapping between the characters. I won't go into great detail, as I don't want to spoil it, but I'm quite excited by how its worked out. However, it needs testing. And in order to do that, I needed the cards - complete with the imagery that I wanted on them. A load of index cards with notes and scribbles wouldn't do.

So, on a recent trip to London, visiting the Atlantis Bookshop, I picked up a deck of blank Tarot cards. A whole deck, Tarot card shaped, with a patterned back, but a plain white front. The only problem is, the cards are very glossy and the only thing that'll really stay on the cards is working directly in permanent marker pen. No pencils, just scribbling straight onto the card in pen and hoping for the best.

Some of the cards have come out better than others, and, if the game makes it to production, the cards would be illustrated by someone with a LOT more skill than me. But, they serve the purpose.

As of yesterday, I've completed the Major Arcana. Now, about to start on the Suit of Control. As you can tell, WILD is still a way off yet, but it's evolving and changing with every new development, shaping itself in a fluid form like the dreams it takes its inspiration from.