#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.

#RPGaDAY2023 - DAY FOUR: Most RECENT RPG bought

 

Day Four of #RPGaDAY2023, and this time we're asking what is the most recent RPG you've bought. 

What do you think I am, made of money? Ha! I must admit, there have been a load of cool RPGs I've wanted to buy, like Triangle Agency, or Rectify, but I can't really justify buying them. I know I probably won't play them, or have chance to. 

After all, the first #RPGaDAY asked the same question and I mentioned Atomic Robo that I'd bought from my FLGS (The Games Room).

Awesome looking book, brilliantly illustrating the rules with comic art. Really, really cool. Bought it ten years ago, read through it, never played it, still sitting on my shelf. 

Shame, it does look cool.

Most recent game I've actually paid out money for has been funding The Walking Dead Universe Kickstarter from Free League. I don't know if we'll get around to playing it, but I didn't think we'd play the Blade Runner RPG and we've done a couple of adventures of that and it's been a blast!

I Didn't See That Coming - Watching the Walkers

 

Watching 'Fear the Walking Dead' has reminded me of one of the biggest rug-pulls in my roleplaying game playing.

Let's set the scene - in one of my recent blog-posts I mentioned that, after I stopped watching The Walking Dead when they killed off one of my favourite characters in the most brutal way, I finally went back to watching the series, and kinda binged the last five seasons in a couple of weeks. I must say, considering I couldn't see the appeal of Negan, especially after that scene, and wondered why they'd chosen him for a sequel series with Maggie - I finally see it. Negan's story arc was actually really good, and by the end I could honestly see a guy who felt remorse for the horrific things he'd done, and was trying to do better.

We finished season 11 last night, and my wife surprised me by saying she actually missed watching the series already - so I dug out the first season of Fear the Walking Dead that she'd bought for me on DVD back when we were really into the series and the comics... just before we stopped watching completely. About half-way through the incredibly tense first episode I had a weird flashback to an RPG we played as teenagers - and how Free League could do the same with their cool The Walking Dead Universe RPG.

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Back in the 80's, one of our usual GMs (Pete) ran a game for us using his homebrew Odyssey game system. He said it was just to test things out and make sure it all worked, and we generated some pretty ordinary characters. As it was a homebrew, we had generic character sheets, and we all played ordinary people invited onto a cruise ship as a prize for a mysterious contest, and we figured it was going to be one of those murder-mystery type games. 

The sessions continued, and suddenly the ship started sinking, and disaster! We washed up on an island, and figured 'oh, it's going to be a survival game, where we're shipwrecked and there will be badguys and stuff like that'. (Bear in mind, this was decades before Lost. 

But that wasn't it. Something happened, and suddenly we gained superpowers. Yes, we'd started a superhero game, but had no idea that we were playing a superhero game until the powers mysteriously kicked in. I did not see that coming. None of us did. Pete looked pleased that his plan had come together, and his RPG based on the comic series The Elementals came into fruition.

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Why did Fear the Walking Dead remind me of this? Watching that first episode I just thought how cool it would be to be a player in a The Walking Dead Universe RPG campaign, but not actually know that was the game you're playing. 

Have character sheets that don't have the logo, or any really obvious rule bits. Have the players generate generic characters, and make them think they're going to play a cool murder-mystery game or something else - anything that doesn't involve the walking dead. Play a couple of intriguing games with the players thinking the game is one thing, maybe some news reports in the background of rising tensions, and then... the murder-mystery changes genre suddenly when the body at the murder scene gets back up and starts attacking!

I know it's unlikely with licensed games like this, as you kinda have to have the logo and copyright on the character sheet, but it's certainly something that can be done easily by GMs with a bit of tweaking to the sheets. It's like taking a 'Session Zero' in a different direction.

Like the prelude bit in the old Vampire: The Masquerade games, but if you didn't know you were going to play Vampire. 

I could really see Free League doing a 'set up' book, just filled with GM advice and campaign ideas so that players could experience that same rug-pull moment. It'd be awesome. 

In the mid-80s, when we played that Odyssey game, it was amazing and revolutionary. I'm sure you're all doing something similar in your games now...

Building Better Worlds

I should really plan my blog posts better, but sometimes you watch or read something and just feel like putting words on paper, so-to-speak. Please forgive me if this gets a bit ramble-y and off topic.

Many years ago I fell out of love with The Walking Dead. I loved the series, and loved the comics before it, avidly watching the TV series, and reading the comics every month as they came out - then buying those cool collector's hardcovers just so I had them safe and accessible without having to drag out the comic boxes and open each issue's bag one by one. It got to the arrival of Negan, and there was a scene that absolutely shocked me and turned my stomach. I kept reading the comics, but the memory of a certain character's demise (and one of my favourite characters in the Walking Dead universe) kept creeping in. 

About ten or fifteen issues later, I remember reading it and thinking "why am I reading this? This just feels like prolonged trauma." Rather than put myself through the misery of watching these people suffer any further, I bit the bullet and cancelled my order for it at the comic shop, turning to other comics that didn't feel miserable... 

And then, that happened in The Walking Dead TV series. (Season 7, episode 1). You know the bit. And it all came flooding back. My wife stopped watching, and I gave up there and then. 

Many years have passed, and then along came Free League's announcement of The Walking Dead Universe RPG, and I thought to myself... "should I go back to the TV series?" And I did... I started from the episode after the trauma inducing incident where I stopped watching, and I'm getting back into it... Sure, I hate Negan with a passion, but you're supposed to. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is absolutely brilliant in the part, but why do people love him so? How does he get to be in a spin off? I'm still in Season 7, so don't tell me, but honestly, I think there should have been a #JusticeForGlenn hashtag going around. 

I backed the Kickstarter for the RPG, of course, because I love Free League's games, but the thing that really stood out for me was their announcement the team behind the TV series were involved with the 'game universe' to ensure that the events that play out in the game, and their streamed game fits in with the series. I think the plan is that the events of the streamed game is 'canon' to the Walking Dead setting. 

It's a brilliant marriage of game and license. And it could work both ways. Just look at the history of licensed games. Back in the dim and distant past, when there were only three Star Wars movies, and my favourite game company in the 80s (West End Games) produced the first (and amazing) Star Wars Roleplaying Game, WEG created new worlds, new characters, locations, droids... 

And some of those locations and characters have made it into Star Wars canon, mostly thanks to the Heir to the Empire trilogy if Wikipedia is to be believed. More recently, license-holders have seen the value of tabletop RPGs as a way to spread the word of their media, with the Carnival Row RPG (a free downloadable PDF through Nerdist and Monte Cook Games) that was created to promote the Amazon TV series, and The Green Knight RPG that A24 created as a full 'starter set' format game to promote their movie of the same name.

Heck, when I was working with Eden Studios on the Buffy RPG, we were putting the Slayer's Handbook together and remember us saying "Maybe we could ask Fox what Faith and Kendra's last names are?" Eden asked, months passed, but we got a reply - they didn't have last names, but Joss Whedon decided what they would be (Lehane and Young) - and those names became part of canon for the Buffyverse ever since.

Tabletop RPGs can fill in those blanks in a chronology, or missing information. And I guess that's why I called this post "Building Better Worlds" like the Weyland Yutani Corp. Just think of your favourite TV series or movie, and think of how small the actual place or time is involved. TTRPGs can expand and develop areas you've never imagined. Just like the Shackleton Expanse in the Star Trek Adventures RPG by Modiphius - a region of space unused by the series or novels, but on the map of the Star Trek galaxy. 

Here are some examples - 

The Magicians - one of my favourite book series and a fantastic TV series. But what about other students at Brakebills? Other years? What else could be going on in Fillory?

Twin Peaks - one of my favourite TV series. There were 20+ years where we didn't see what happened in that strange little town. And what's happened since Cooper changed the course of history? 

Battlestar Galactica - another ship in the fleet, or another Battlestar that was lost?

James Bond - he's 007, what about the other Double-O's? 

Stranger Things - What happened in the 70's? The 90's? What about the rest of the lab's experiments? Other 'gates' to the Upside-down? 

The X-Files - What happens after Season 11? What about between Season 9 and 10, when the X-Files were 'shut down'? New agents, continuing the investigations even if it's in an 'off the books' capacity. 

Sapphire and Steel - we only really saw Sapphire, Steel, Lead, and Silver in action, what about all those other medium-atomic weights investigating temporal disturbances?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - after Season 7, there are many Slayers out there in the world, all needing training, guidance, and with their own Scooby-gang to help face the demons and vampires.

I guess, the familiar universe and setting, but the potential to do your own thing within those worlds, is why I love licensed RPGs. And while the publishers are fleshing out the world(s), the IP-holders can take this as inspiration for their universes and build bigger worlds.