Sidequest: Every TTRPG played 21-30

Continuing my previous posts listing every tabletop RPG I've ever played, we're starting to get into the Nineties! Of course, just a handful of Eighties RPGs to get through, but we're getting there. 

If you want to catch up with the list in (sorta) chronological order, check out the previous parts here:

Part 1 - 1-10

Part 2 - 11-20

And now, without further ado, let's get on with it. 

#21 - The Price of Freedom

Cover of West End Games' The Price of Freedom

The Eighties were certainly a strange time when it came to the political climate (not that it's any more stable now). In the Eighties, the threat of war influenced movies, TV series, and games. Heavily influenced by Red Dawn, West End Games' TTRPG The Price of Freedom was all about guerrilla warfare in an occupied America. It was very tactical, and came with hex maps and counters for units. It was a bit bleak, and my players didn't really want to play in that setting, so I ended up converting it to play "V", the TV series of alien invasion with a deep message mirroring the horrors of WWII. 

Instead of fighting humans, the resistance was fighting alien Visitors. The hamsters and mice needed saving!

#22 - Robotech

Palladium Games' Robotech RPG

A bit of a strange one and a bit left-field, but for some reason I wanted to play with big robots, and spotted the Robotech RPG on the shelves at our local store. I bought it, read it, was thoroughly confused (it felt a bit like D&D) and we created some characters, but that may have been as far as it went. I'd never seen Robotech, so the concept of the aliens being flippin' giants didn't even occur to me (it wasn't that clear in the book I don't think, or I was just stupid). This may have been my only exposure to the Palladium system. I think someone else in the group had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG, but I never played it. 

#23 - Star Wars (West End Games)

Star Wars RPG (West End Games)

Look at it. It's beautiful. One of my favourite games of all time, up there with Ghostbusters, is the original Star Wars RPG by West End Games. I mean, I was a fan of WEG having played Ghostbusters, Paranoia, and The Price of Freedom, but when they announced they had the license for my favourite films that was me sold. 

The Star Wars RPG is just awesome. I know it has its foibles and there were times where we were rolling so many D6s that you could hardly see the table, but it was glorious. It really captured the action and feel of Star Wars. It was the last RPG I bought and ran in what I call my "Golden Age", and we played a heck of a lot of it. Probably so much my players were sick of it, but I loved it, and I loved Star Wars. Still do (with both). 

After that, things wound down for a bit. I went to college, a lot of the players went off to university, and gaming in general faded into the background for two or three years. 

#24 - Vampire: The Masquerade

Vampire: The Masquerade (1st Edition)

There is going to be a bit of a recurring theme here for a while, sorry. I went to the University of the Arts to do a degree (so I could do comics and graphic novels - see, that constant bouncing between comics and RPGs at it again). I'd gone away to Uni, met loads of new people, and immediately stumbled across a gaming group playing Vampire: The Masquerade. I'd never even heard of it, but was immediately hooked. This was back when we had student grants to help pay for our education, before it became 'loans', and I was terrible. I blew a chunk of my grant on buying a heap of Vampire books. This was going to be my next big thing. I ran a game for my old group, started another group locally with people from the comic shop, and set both games in the same city, at the same time, crossing over events and characters. 

Vampire got me back into gaming in a big way, and introduced me to my future wife. We joined the Camarilla, went to a couple of big Camarilla meetings. Heck, Debs was head of Clan Toreador for a while, while I was the second in command in Clan Tremere. 

#25 - Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Werewolf: The Apocalypse (1st Edition)

I told you there was going to be recurring theme... Of course, Vampire wasn't going to be enough, and when Werewolf: The Apocalypse came out, I was just as intrigued, aiming to add werewolves into our current Vampire game. As a bit of an aside, I ran a Werewolf story with my local group set in the same city as the Vampire game – their actions directly impacting upon the Vampire chronicle as a whole. It was fun! I think we did a couple of adventures like that... but then, something else came along.

#26 - Mage: The Ascension

Mage: The Ascension (1st Edition)

Oh yes, now we're talking. Vampire was cool, and goth, and moody. Werewolf was angry, and nature, and anti-corporation. Mage: The Ascension was just nuts. And we loved it. I ran a Mage game for our local group (who we still play with today) and it was amazing. Debs created a character that inspired so many works of fiction. The setting, the characters, the themes we tackled in those games were beyond anything we could hope to replicate. It was Quintessence in a bottle, rather than lightning. When the Paradox Backlashes hit, things went really weird, and yet we kept it all in the same city and story as the old Vampire game. Truly epic. Until one of the characters died...

#27 - Wraith: The Oblivion

The incredibly hard to read and over-the-top cover for Wraith: The Oblivion

So, one of the characters died in our Mage: The Ascension game, but no one wanted to see the end of that character. Luckily, White Wolf had just brought out the next in the line of World of Darkness games, with Wraith: The Oblivion. Therefore, the character remained in the Chantry, and joined in with the adventures, only as a ghost! We never played a dedicated game of Wraith, at least, not to my recollection. But we explored many of the themes and adventure ideas in the Wraith setting in our main WoD campaign. 

It was about this time I considered going back into writing roleplaying games again. 

However, things happened, I got grumpy, over-reacted, and turned my back on World of Darkness. I wanted to keep running the game we had going in Mage, keeping with weird magic and ghosts and supernatural stuff. That's when I turned to the next game in the list...

#28 - KULT

KULT (1st Edition)

The replacement for World of Darkness was an easy conversion over to the grim and terrifying world of Kult. Sure, the magic wasn't as easy to cast, but it made the game more creepy and somewhat sinister. The Mage character's Chantry was a pocket in the Metropolis, and things took a decidedly darker turn. There were still vampires and evil creatures, but the influences of Hellraiser were definitely there. Possibly the tensest games I've ever run, and some of the scariest stuff we've played, but it was cool and very 90s goth.

And that 2nd edition with the cool typography (rumoured to be done in MSWord)... oh, Lordy. That's so good. 

Maybe a little too dark, though, which lead to converting our existing game once again to yet another system...

#29 - CJ Carella's WitchCraft

CJ Carella's WitchCraft

More closely in line with the themes and tone of our old World of Darkness game, we switched over to CJ Carella's WitchCraft. I was initially drawn to the cover design, and that the game was a smaller digest format rather than the usual sized gamebook. It was smaller, easier to carry, had some great art, and the system felt very like the old World of Darkness. Of course, this introduced me to Eden Studios...

#30 - All Flesh Must Be Eaten

All Flesh Must Be Eaten (1st Edition)

We'd relocated to the other side of the country, and the gaming had come to a halt again. But there was a little gaming store on my way into work. In there, I spotted another one of Eden's smaller digest RPGs, the legendary All Flesh Must Be Eaten, a game of zombie survival horror. I didn't actually get to play it until many years later, after we'd moved back to where we were before, and I started hosting an RPG bookclub at the bookstore I was working at. Instead of reading a book and talking about it once a month, we'd pick a game, and run a short one-shot once a month. The members of the group could then buy it at a small discount if they liked it. 

I ended up running a quick one-shot of All Flesh Must Be Eaten, set on one of my sixth-form school trips. It was suitably over-the-top and complete carnage, but great fun. 

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That's it for the latest section. Possibly only a couple more of these to go, I find I'm buying games and reading them more than I get chance to play them these days. You may be surprised at the omissions when it comes to what I haven't played!! 

Until next time, stay multi-classy!

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. 

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-THREE and TWENTY-FOUR: The clock is ticking Jack Bauer...

 

Just a week to go after today for this year's #RPGaDAY, and I'm once again slipping behind. Time for a quick catchup...

Day TWENTY-THREE is about a Peerless Player. Tricky, but I'll answer that with a couple of responses. One would have to be my lovely wife. Debs doesn't like rules and can't be bothered reading them, but when something doesn't work or could be made simpler, she lets me know and that's a valuable resource for play testing. The other answer would be the partner of one of our regular players. I won't embarrass them by naming them, but she's really big in the LARP scene and plays in loads of games (LARP and TTRPGs). We played a game of The Walking Dead RPG near New Year and her approach to gaming is far more 'in character' than how we're used to playing that it really stood out how cool and in character she was. Kinda blew me away and I don't think I could ever be as cool as that in a game. 

Okay, Day TWENTY-FOUR is Acclaimed Advice, and I really can't think of any great advice that I've been given. I guess back in the late 80's I received a great response to my first submission for a game adventure for the Ghostbusters RPG published by West End Games. It wasn't advice in itself, but it was an encouragement to keep writing, keep trying, and keep submitting stuff. I never forgot that, and I kept trying. When my teachers told me not to bother going to university (I still went, after a couple of intermediate courses), when the opportunity to write for another company (Eden Studios) appeared, I remembered that letter from West End Games and just went for it. Thank you to those who told me to try, and not to give up.

#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY FIFTEEN and SIXTEEN: Catching up and Catching Ghosts

 

Starting to slip behind on #RPGaDAY2024 here, but hopefully I can catch up now. Okay, so Day Fifteen asked about Great Character Gear and Day Sixteen asked about games that are Quick to Learn... and my answer for both of them is Ghostbusters. 

There, that was easy. I mean, West End Games' Ghostbusters RPG is still a work of genius. The way equipment worked was by having the equipment on cards, and you could carry as many cards as your Muscles Stat (if I remember correctly, it's been a while) which was kinda realistic, because by the time you'd strapped that Proton Pack on, you really couldn't carry much else besides a PKE Meter or similar. It meant that each member of the team, much like in the movie, carried something different, whether it was a trap, Ectogoggles, or even the legendary Beach Gear with its oversized boombox. 

It's something I tried to replicate in Doctor Who, and the first edition of the game even had equipment cards (mainly for those cool gadgets like your psychic paper or sonic screwdriver.

When it comes to the rules, there are so few rules in Ghostbusters you can pick up just about everything you need to know in a few minutes. Heck, in the first edition boxed set there was even a rules summary sheet for quick reference, though I don't think anyone needed to look at it after the first session. Super-simple and easy. And just great fun...

I still love that game... one day, when I get that lottery win, I'll bring it back in all its glory, first edition rules, new adventures, updated to the new movies... 

#RPGaDAY2023 - DAY THIRTY-ONE: FAVOURITE RPG of all time

 

This is the end, beautiful friend. The end of #RPGaDAY2023. Another year done, and the final question of this year's initiative is possibly the most difficult one of them all: Favourite RPG of all time. 

Back when I started #RPGaDAY all those years ago, I asked exactly the same question. And my answer?

West End Games' Star Wars RPG. 

And that's because it was flippin' amazing. The system was great fun, and involved lots of dice to roll. It was great in its presentation, especially when you think it was produced at a time when there wasn't any Star Wars happening... it had been a few years since Return of the Jedi, and that game went on to shape a game system, to shape the Star Wars universe (even to this day characters and places from that game become Star Wars canon). 

Amazing.

Is it still my favourite? Probably. It's right up there with Ghostbusters (also by West End Games) and Tales from the Loop (by Fria Ligan). All of which have relatively simple systems that are incredibly evocative of the setting, and all of them are incredibly inspirational to everything I do. I can only aspire to do something as cool as West End's Star Wars. 

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So that was 2023's #RPGaDAY. The tenth time we've done this, and once again I'd like to thank everyone who has got involved - even if it was just the odd day here and there. Every little post spreading a little more positivity about tabletop gaming can get another person playing, or give an unnoticed but brilliant game the exposure it needs. 

Thank you again, and until next year, stay safe. 

I'll return you all to your usual scheduled program.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Games That Shaped Me (Part 4)

Star Wars - The Roleplaying Game - West End Games (1987)

This, along with James Bond and the Ghostbusters RPG, constantly vie for the top spot in my personal "Greatest RPG of All Time" list. When I was a kid it was all about Star Wars. Star Wars was just about everything to me - when I first picked up Star Frontiers as the first RPG I ever bought and GM'd, it wasn't because it was a cool game (which it was). It was because I looked at that gorgeous cover and thought, "I could play Star Wars with that".

In an act of typically bad timing, just as most of my gaming group had gone off to universities around the country and the remaining members were cutting back on their gaming time (to have something called "a real life" - I know, right?) along comes the perfect game for me. A tabletop RPG of Star Wars, made by my favourite game publisher at the time. I bought just about everything they'd produced already - Paranoia, Ghostbusters, The Price of Freedom - and this partnering of publisher and property had me far too excited.

Upon release I purchased the core rulebook (see above), as well as the Star Wars Sourcebook (on the right), and was completely blown away by how cool they were. Most, if not all, of the RPGs I'd played in the past were completely black and white inside, so the punctuation of some gorgeous full colour inserts in the corebook was amazing. Especially the one that looked like a recruitment advert of the Imperial Navy.

The game system was basically a more complicated version of the D6 system that I'd played before with Ghostbusters, but not too much more complicated. It was fast, easy, and above all, fun. The players quickly created characters, tweaking the templates at the back to suit their own needs, and before we knew it we were playing in a galaxy far, far away.

The smuggler (Deeko Smiggins) piloting the Ballistic Wombat led the group of misfit rebels, tackling ridiculous odds and seeming to come away pretty unscathed. I think I may have let them progress a bit too quickly with experience, as I remember the ship dodging a complete attack wing of TIE Fighters pretty easily to sound of a dozen or so D6 clattering across the table.

Star Warriors slowed ship combat down a bit, a board game spin-off with advice for using it in the RPG, but strangely that was where my gaming of Star Wars (WEG) finished.

I think that may have been when my tabletop gaming came to a bit of an end in general for a while. I was busy writing those adventures for Ghostbusters for West End Games, was unemployed for a little while before I started working for the local council (thanks to being a gamer, I got my first job as the interviewer knew about D&D and knew it would help with my teamwork, map making, and puzzle solving) and it all kinda ground to a halt.

Shame...

Since then, I have purchased every incarnation of a Star Wars RPG - Wizards of the Coast's D20 version, the Star Wars Saga edition (gotta love those square books), and now the Fantasy Flight Games triple threat (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force and Destiny), and while each is very cool, none of them got me as over excited as that 1st Edition West End Games one. Heck, just last year my lovely wife managed to find me the West End Games' 2nd Edition at the charity shop she volunteers at. It's really nice, but again, I didn't feel that buzz like I did before.

Must have been something about the time and the game being just right for it. That 1st Edition and the Star Wars Sourcebook that came out with it are such stuff of legend that Fantasy Flight Games reissued them for their 30th Anniversary in a slipcase. Just proves I wasn't the only one who thought they were something special.

Maybe I can convince my GM to start up Star Wars again with that system, just for fun...

[Roll Your Own Life] The Games That Shaped Me (Part 2)

Ghostbusters - West End Games (1986)

Next up on the games that had a massive impact on me is another one of my favourite games of all time. Ghostbusters.

I was obsessed with Ghostbusters (the movie that is) and I desperately wanted to be Venkman when I grew up, so hearing that there was a roleplaying game? I was sold before I'd even looked at the back of the box.

The only disappointment for my youthful brain was the lack of character sheet. Looking back now I see it was a revolutionary work of genius, but despite the character sheet problem (that I remedied with some homegrown efforts) I could tell even then that the game was something special.

I mean, look at the thing - it was a work of perfect simplicity. It didn't need to be full colour, it didn't need anything except that logo on the front, and some dice. And one of those had the logo on it as well.

The thing about it was how quick and simple it was. The rules were possibly the most minimal thing I'd ever seen. And it introduced "Brownie Points", something that I'd never encountered before, allowing the players to fudge rolls, to tweak the outcomes and to generally make the story funnier, better and cooler.

The start of the Rules Chapter from
The Ghostbusters RPG
with thanks to www.gbfans.com

And story was what it was all about. No longer was it a simple dungeon crawl, it was about telling a cool (and funny) story. There were investigation elements, working out who the ghost was, what its typical behaviour was like, and then there was the fun of blasting the place to pieces with Proton Packs. And there was no dying. Buildings could be destroyed (and frequently did) and your characters would stagger out of the rubble in their underwear with a Wile E. Coyote dazed look on their faces.

There were adventures published in the Ghostmaster's rulebook, and what was a revelation, dozens of Story Hooks. Short adventure ideas that could be expanded to complete adventures. Brilliant.

We played Ghostbusters continually, I zipped through all of the Story Hooks in record time. We had some of the most bonkers characters (Coop's character of note was Mr. Oook, an orangutan with a Proton Pack) and some of the craziest adventures ever (I do remember the published adventure "Hot Rods of the Gods" was particularly wacky!).

Of course, without adventures (we'd gone through all the ones published) I had to design my own. And so I did something I hadn't considered before. I contacted the publisher...

A little self portrait I did at the height of
my Ghostbusters writing in 1987

I wrote a letter to West End Games and gushed about how cool and funny their game was, and they kindly supplied me the necessary release forms for budding authors. I saw this as a huge "Go For It!" sign, and promptly set to work.

The problem I had was that my life revolved around gaming and watching movies. So a lot of what I started writing was parodying movies in some way. Also, this was at a time that may seem alien to some... it was B.I. - Before Internet.

Writing was a laborious task involving a huge electric typewriter (not electronic, just electric) that had fans and stuff built in to keep it from overheating. It was about the size of a Volkswagen and when you needed to change the ink ribbon, the front lifted up like the hood of said car. Everything was typed up (double spaced), corrections made with those little Tippex Correction Strips, and then it was all photocopied and posted as a huge mass of A4 paper by airmail to New York to be read by those cool guys at West End Games.

So, what nonsense was I turning out?

The cover I did for Spooky Science.
This is a black and white photocopy
from 1986

I wrote two big adventures. The first was called "Spooky Science", a parody of Call of Cthulhu, Indiana Jones and Weird Science. 45,000 words of bizarreness where an automated computer system attached to the containment grid goes mad, a fitness cult open a portal to unleash their god, Yogurt-Soggoth, onto an unsuspecting New York, and the Ghostbusters have to escape from the Temple of Yogurt in an epic chase involving shopping trollies. I seem to remember the finale involving New York being flooded in yogurt, and the Ghostbusters arrive on the scene on wet-bikes.

Flicking through the photocopies of the manuscript that I'd recently uncovered, it isn't baaaad...  it's just filled with typos, and it's a little derivative. Mulu Pram, the high priest of Yogurt-Soggoth was an obvious rip-off, but it was a bit of a laugh, and a satirical dig at the fitness craze that was big at the time. I blame Olivia Newton-John. Hell, we all loved Olivia Newton-John at that time.

Anyway, I packaged it up, sent it off, then waited the expected three months for a reply from WEG.

I called New York, which in the days before Skype and Facetime was a costly and scary affair from the UK, and talked to someone at West End Games to confirm it had arrived okay. Then, a couple of months later, I received a reply. It was very positive, but explained that they'd already published a food-based adventure (with the first official scenario, Ghost Toasties) and I saw it as an encouragement to go ahead and write more.

The cover I'd supplied for Back to
Transylvania. Really, not good... (1987-8)

The second of the adventures I finished was "Back to Transylvania", a bizarre time travelling adventure where, through a freak accident in history, Dracula had started a vampire plague and the Ghostbusters had to travel back to 1859 in a time-travelling DeLorean to take on the dark master himself, to prevent the world becoming overrun by vampires.

Again, it drew heavily from Hammer movies, Back to the Future and even had a moment where the filming of the TV series Moonlighting was interrupted and Bruce Willis became a vampire (the scene that initially tips the Ghostbusters off that there's something strange in the neighbourhood).

The scenario also introduced new rules for having non-human Ghostbusters (mainly to include Scooby-Doo as a player-character) and a basic magic system.

Again, I photocopied it, and posted it off to New York, and eagerly awaited a response.

And again, I had a really nice response from the guys at West End. I'm sure it was Greg Costikyan who wrote to me (or it may have been Bill Slavicsek) to let me know what they thought. I have the letter somewhere (though it's in a pile of stuff that has moved since the "moving everything out of mum's house" thing happened), but I remember what it said even now, nearly 25 years later.

It said that "you can obviously write, but..." and then went on to explain that Bruce Willis and Scooby-Doo's owners may sue for using them in a comedy adventure like this. While I understood what they were saying, about not using real people or copyrighted characters, the key thing was that letter said I could write.

I'm sure it was Greg Costikyan (and if it wasn't I'm sorry, and this is directed at you) who wrote to me, and without that positive reply I would never have continued writing. I'd have just packed it in there and then, got a boring job in retail (this is called irony) or something, and given up. So whoever it was who wrote to me, thank you.

The cover to an adventure I didn't finish, based
on John Landis' fake movie title
"See You Next Wednesday" (1988)

Encouraged by this, I kept going, but I didn't get every far. I started work on a new scenario called "See You Next Doomsday" which was going to be a fairly basic zombies and "Evil Dead" inspired story, as I'd just seen Evil Dead II and the idea of a Sam Raimi style comedy-horror with the Ghostbusters sounded awesome to me. The title came from John Landis' "See You Next Wednesday", a non-existent movie that appeared in the background of a lot of Landis' films, which in turn inspired our RPG group's name.

I came to a grinding halt a handful of pages in, when I was inspired to do a different game... based upon the movie "A Nightmare on Elm Street" I ran a proper horror game (strangely, using the Indiana Jones RPG system from the original TSR game) which involved going into peoples' dreams and facing their night-terrors. It seemed to go down pretty well, so I thought about changing it and doing it a little more light-heartedly as a Ghostbusters scenario.

Again, taking its title from another John Landis movie, I started work on "Into the Nightmare", but real life interrupted, and I found myself a real job. It wouldn't be until many years later that I would go back to writing RPGs based on dreams...

Since then, I've been able to continue my obsession with Ghostbusters with a project I did for EN Publishing for their WOIN system. I thought I'd do my take on Ghostbusters with Spirits of Manhattan. Must admit, I loved going back to that comedic style of writing. Just great fun. Check it out - you too can drive around Manhattan in a converted Pope-mobile and face a giant building sized Edgar Allan Poe. 

[Disclaimer - Some of this post was originally featured on this blog back in 2012]

[Disclaimer 2 - My wish to bring the Ghostbusters RPG back with a new edition has not changed.]

Done, Done, Onto the Next One!

I've been a bit quiet on here recently - sorry! Been busy. I had a writing project come in - not a huge one, but it was a major one for me - and I was already a month or two late in delivering what was promised.

Why was it a major one? Well, that's two-fold.

In a strange way this is almost the anniversary of my stepping back from the Line Developer role working on Modiphius' Star Trek Adventures. A dream job, working on a license I love. I didn't want to withdraw my involvement, but circumstances meant that if I didn't I would have made myself seriously sick - certainly mentally, if not physically. I was doing too much and I just wasn't handling it as well as I should.

Backing out was hard, but necessary. Afterwards I kept questioning myself, asking if I'd done the right thing? And then came the desert that was writing work. It just wasn't there - I started to worry if word of my failure had spread, and now no one would hire me to work on their games. I'd shot myself in the foot, no one would touch me. Gone were my chances of ever helming another game, let alone my dreams of writing Harry Potter...

The other major thing about this writing job was that 60-70% of the gig was an adventure.

Back when I started trying to get into RPG writing, back in the late 1980s, the only thing I thought companies wanted was adventures. I wrote a couple of adventures for WEG's Ghostbusters RPG, which got some pretty positive responses - though they never saw print. Just wasn't suitable (I foolishly steered a little close to other movie copyrights). I started work on another Ghostbusters adventure, and a Price of Freedom one, but then life got in the way - I went to work in cartography and archaeology, and the worlds of gaming faded to the background for a while.

When I tried to get back into game writing again, it was with Eden Studios. The first thing I wrote for them was a sample supplement for All Flesh Must Be Eaten called "Summercamp Stalkers and Unstoppable Evil" - there was a sort-of adventure at the back of the book. More a setting for teens to run around and avoid a horrible undead nemesis. Not really a proper plotted adventure with a story, as such.

From there, everything I did either had adventures written by other people or didn't need adventures. Even for Doctor Who I got a handful of more qualified adventure writers on board to come up with that section, and I'm glad I did. I've always been a bit crap at coming up with adventure ideas.

This reluctance to write adventures (because I'm convinced I'm crap) even lead to my turning down one of the most high-profile adventure writing gigs around - Wil Wheaton's Titansgrave. I know... what a dumbass.

So I was cautious when it came to the new gig. I hadn't written for a while, and the last plotted and storied adventure I'd worked on was around 1989... But, the subject was fun, and I couldn't turn it down.

And I'm glad I worked on it. I just sent off the completed thing this evening. Now it's onto edits, revisions, layout and illustrations. I'm sure I'll mention it a lot in the following months, especially when the Kickstarter begins.

I hope the company likes it, and I hope you like it when you see it. I had a blast writing it, and it's reassured me that I can not only have a go at adventures again in the future, but also that I can actually finish something. That was a big part - actually finishing something. With WILD taking so many years and failing to get anywhere I was starting to think I was incapable of doing anything anymore.

Anyway, I can't say what this project was, I'm sure it'll be announced soon. But, thanks to it, I'm back on the horse.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 18: Favourite SF RPG

Just a quickie tonight as it's game night! Ironically, playing a fantasy game when today's question is Favourite SF RPG.

So many contenders... Star Frontiers, Babylon Project, Conspiracy X... but there's one that will always be the favourite in my books...

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day Eleven: Favourite RPG Writer

Day Eleven of #RPGaDAY2015 and it's another tricky question. So many great writers, so many great games, and even more tricky is that I'm friends with a lot of them, even if it's only over the interwebs.

However, picking my favourite writer(s) came down to the one game that really changed the way I looked at RPGs and how they are written. Previous games I'd played and run were very "traditional" or "old school" - after all, it was the early 80's... but then along came this one game that didn't take itself so seriously, and had a "voice". A real voice that wasn't just "turn to the table on page 37". It was a voice that was full of character, charisma, sarcasm and humour.

And that game was West End Games' "Ghostbusters".

It wouldn't be until many, many years later that I'd see that sort of writing again in the form of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. But that Ghostbusters RPG changed the way I game, and made me want to not only write RPGs, but write RPGs like that.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 10: Favourite RPG Publisher

Yeah, I'm gonna get a lot of stick for this one. And I know a lot of people on my friends list are game writers and publishers so they don't want to sound biased or show favouritism, so it's understandable if you skip this day...

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...