Adventures in a World of Magic

If you've been reading the blog, or know me even remotely well, you'll know that I love Harry Potter. My love of Harry Potter has lead me to ask many times "why is there no Harry Potter roleplaying game?" 

My pursuit of Harry Potter as a game has seen me look into the license many, many times, and a couple of times it has seemed like it could happen - talking to Warner Bros. and everything. But alas, it was not to be. 

I'm still convinced that a Harry Potter RPG is a great idea, but I think it has a couple of hurdles to get over - hurdles that could be tackled by getting the right message to the right people. 

The first hurdle is explaining what roleplaying games are - or more importantly, what roleplaying games are now and how amazing they can be.

Roleplaying Games - Using Your Imagination

Envelopes for Harry Potter Book Night 2015
at Waterstones, Norwich.

One of the truly magical things about Harry Potter is that it got kids reading again. Not only were kids reading, they wanted to read. I worked in a bookstore for seven years, and the greatest and most exciting experiences there were Potter book launches - the kids in their hundreds, dressed up for the midnight launch. The first one I worked we even had owls in the shop during the day. The atmosphere on the nights was amazing. 

What a Harry Potter RPG could do on top of getting kids reading, is get kids using their imagination in a truly social environment. So much of our time is spent staring at screens, whether these are TVs, our phones or computers, interacting with people via texts or messages, or even strange disembodied voices from the other side of the country telling us how bad our gaming skills are. 

Tabletop roleplaying games have the advantage of getting people together, face to face, sitting across the table and interacting. 

I've mentioned elsewhere on my blog that I got my first job in the "real world" due to playing Dungeons and Dragons - the boss interviewing me had been a gamer, and knew that it meant that I could communicate, work in a team, formulate courses of action, and (handily enough as it was a cartography job) could draw maps.

Dungeons and Dragons always has this social stigma associated to it - the image of grown men of generous proportions sitting in their basements. 

But going to a gaming convention these days, times have changed. There are far more women gamers (often more than men), and more and more kids playing. Boardgaming has become cool and popular again, and families are getting away from sitting in front of the TV and gathering around the table to play a game on a regular basis.

It's a great time for games, and a great time for roleplaying gaming.

The great thing about tabletop roleplaying is that it really stretches the imagination. Rather than being limited to the options of a videogame, RPGs allow your characters to do anything. You create your own stories, create characters with real depth and meaning, and work as a team together - not competing against each other - but together, creating your own stories and battling evil. 

The first hurdle in getting a Harry Potter RPG to be approved by J K Rowling and Warner Bros. would be to show them that roleplaying isn't what the stereotypes portray - certainly not any more. RPGs can be valuable social experiences that fuel the imagination and are perfect for kids and adults alike.

Creating Your Own Stories

The second great hurdle, and certainly one that I think is one of the tallest hurdles to overcome, is the concept of "creating your own stories", as we mentioned before.

Creating such a detailed and magical world, as is the world of Harry Potter, it's understandable to be protective of it. The events of the books are set in stone, and (despite being able to wander about and do strange things in the video games) you wouldn't want people playing Harry, Ron and Hermione and changing the events of the books.

However, if you set a game outside of the books, after the Battle of Hogwarts, but before the years when Harry and Ginny's children attend, that means the events of the books are held fairly sacred.

But the great thing about tabletop roleplaying games is that the stories you tell in the games, the adventures you play, they are yours and stay at the table. It's not like your stories are suddenly part of the official world. They are purely your own.

West End Games'
Star Wars RPG

A great example of how this works is Star Wars. There have been multiple roleplaying games based upon Star Wars (West End Games' one is my personal favourite, but there have also been ones by Wizards of the Coast, and most recently from Fantasy Flight). They allow you to play characters in the Star Wars universe, scoundrels, rebels, pilots, Jedi and more, throughout the many eras of the Star Wars history... but they never changed the Star Wars movies, they didn't become "canon", and they didn't ruin anything. 

Adventures were published for them, and some have been incredibly successful. But they're not part of the Star Wars universe outside of sitting around your dining room table, and in your imagination. The source material is incredibly safe.

For Harry Potter, other schools of witchcraft and wizardry could be created, making the events and characters at Hogwarts even safer, rather like the nameless schools that appear around the world in the PS3 video game "Book of Spells".

Of course, exclusive content, and fact checking direct from J K Rowling would be the ultimate way to go. It would be similar to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG from Eden Studios. When we were working on the supplements to the game we needed the full names of characters that only had first names in the series (Faith and Kendra). Eden asked Fox, and Fox asked Joss Whedon who provided the surnames for the characters (Lehane and Young, respectively), which have now become official in books and comics since.

Communication to the Ministry

Those, I see, are the biggest hurdles. Once you get over the stigma of roleplaying, and the care required for playing in J K Rowling's world - knowing that the game would be great and positive for kids, and wouldn't harm the world of Harry Potter, it's plain to see that a Harry Potter roleplaying game would be an awesome thing.

How would it be done?

The keys to a great Harry Potter RPG would be twofold - keeping it quick, simple and easy so that the game is fast to play, quick and easy to pick up for new players, and doesn't get bogged down in rules that would slow down what Harry Potter is all about: storytelling. And secondly, creating a game that is true to the feel of Harry Potter's world. 

Over the years, as I mentioned before, I'd planned and plotted a Harry Potter RPG many times in the past. I'd even recruited my awesome graphic design friend Will Brooks to put together samples of possible designs for one of the book's layouts.

First attempt at layout for the Students' Book for Harry Potter: Adventures in a Magical World
(c) David F. Chapman and Will Brooks

The first version was trying to be busy, a little like the amazing Film Wizardry book (which, I have to confess, we own four copies of...). C'mon, seriously... if you haven't looked at that book, it's awesome. The iBook for it is just as amazing, as the images are animated, just like reading a copy of the Daily Prophet.

A clearer approach was taken for a second attempt, swaying away from the movie images. 

Second attempt at layout for Students' Book for Harry Potter: Adventures in a Magical World
(c) David F. Chapman and Will Brooks

Of course, pretty pictures do not give any indication of what the game would be like. I went into great detail with a potential pitch for what the main game would be like, as well as possible supplements.

A pitch that I'll share with you next post.

(to be continued...)

Adventures in Honesty and Imposter Syndromes

I've been keeping a secret for a few months now, one that I can finally share with the world.

How I turned down writing the new Star Wars movie...

No, only kidding. But it comes pretty close.

First, let me confess something - I've never really been much of an adventure writer. When I was an impressionable teen, running Star Frontiers, most of the games were just one continual, ad-libbed mass of combat. Taking the fight to the Sathar Empire, and adding ridiculous ideas from every film or TV series I'd recently seen, whether this is adding T-800 Terminators, or bloody Transformers from the cartoon series. 

Of course, not everything I ran was ad-libbed. James Bond, one of my favourite RPGs of all time, involved playing through the excellent adventures that were provided for the game. But often, the players would go off on tangents and find their own ways of completing the adventure, and the "making it up on the fly" element would come into play again.

The cover for the one of the many
Ghostbusters adventures I started...

When my game group dispersed and went off to universities and so on, I wanted to get into writing RPGs. Strangely, the concept of writing a game was not the first thing to come to mind. Instead, my love of the Ghostbusters RPG lead me to try adventure writing. I've chronicled my attempts elsewhere on this blog, how I wrote a couple of adventures for West End Games (the first about a health food god - Yogurt-Sothoth - taking over New York, the second about using a time travelling Delorean to travel into the past to kill Dracula). The amazing people at WEG were very positive about my writing, but real life got in the way and they remain the only completed adventures I've written.

The second renaissance of RPGs found me at art school, and running World of Darkness in a complicated multi-chronicle crossover game that involved absolutely zero adventure writing. I created the world, and the players just ran across the landscape of vampire/werewolf/mage/wraith infested London, and it was great.

Even on Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, the smart people at Cubicle 7 hired a host of brilliant adventure writers to fill the Adventures books in the core sets, and the final chapters of the new corebooks. I was out of ideas when it came to Doctor Who, having exhausted my "Who-knowledge" making sure the game worked and kept in tone for the series.

So, when a few months ago, a game publisher that I respect and admire contacted me out of the blue to write an adventure to contribute to a larger campaign for a new RPG, I was surprised, flattered, and enthused. 

I try to be as honest as possible in all things, and my response was an immediate "Great! I'd love to... but..." and I confessed that adventure writing was not my forte. Well, it's not. I didn't want to be the one to ruin their campaign, but I said I'd give it a go, but I'd understand if they gave the gig to someone else. After all <imposter syndrome kicks in> I'm not anyone special in the RPG world, I'm just a guy who works in a shop and writes games in his free time that I hope people will like.

They very sensibly gave the gig to someone else, and I was sworn to secrecy about what the gig was, what the game was and how it would be used. 

Of course, that game was announced a few days ago. That game was Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana - the RPG that will feature in Wil Wheaton's Tabletop RPG show.

A webseries that will be the biggest thing to hit RPGs since... I dunno... the introduction of Hero Points. It'll be huge. It'll be a perfect example of roleplaying - the adventure, the fun, the storytelling, the ad lib... everything that we love about the hobby...  And it'll put it out there on the internet to show the world why we do it, why we game, and it'll hopefully inspire a whole new audience to get involved and to try the games for themselves.

It'll be awesome, and I can't wait to see it.

Of course, a part of me is kicking myself for not just lying and saying "sure, I can do it!" - Friends on Facebook were probably confused by my comments a while ago quoting Ghostbusters:

...But I know darn well that adventure writing isn't my thing, and that if I had just faked it, you wouldn't have had amazing tweets from the legendary Wil Wheaton himself like this...

You'd have probably had something like "Well, that didn't make any sense" or "that was a massive plot hole"... Or, "I can't believe this adventure turned out so bad, it's ruined the show for everyone!"

With everything that's been happening with me during the time the adventures were being written it's probably doubly best that I didn't try contributing, I honestly don't think I'd have been able to give it my full attention.

So it was close. I was nearly part of the awesome. Nearly. But thankfully, I didn't screw it up for everyone else. Maybe in the coming months I'll try writing adventures and scenarios, just like I did in the old Ghostbusting days, and when Season Two happens I'll be better equipped to help.

I'd like to thank Chris Pramas and everyone at Green Ronin for even considering me all those months ago. I was both honoured and surprised to even be asked!

Personally, I know that Titansgrave is in excellent hands, and I can't wait to see how the series turns out. It is going to be excellent.

PITCH: "FULL OF SECRETS" - Roleplaying in the Mysterious World of TWIN PEAKS

Not Final Cover

Through the darkness of futures past,
The magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds...
"Fire... Walk with me"

In the quiet town of Twin Peaks, everyone has a secret. Under the surface lies a world of murder, betrayal, exploitation and obsession. Yet something even more sinister is breaking through, something evil.

In Full of Secrets, players take on the roles of inhabitants in Twin Peaks. From nosey highschool students with secrets of their own, to investigating FBI agents and local law enforcement, everyone has a story to tell, and a story they'd rather remained undiscovered.

Within the pages of the core rulebook you'll find:

* A fast and intuitive game system, allowing characters to uncover the secrets of the town, and face the forces of darkness.

* Details of the town and major locations, and important characters. Set after the final episode of the original series, but before the 2016 revival, players can create their own characters and become involved in the events.

* Advice for the Gamemaster for creating their own setting, whole new towns of strangeness and secrets.

344 Pages, full colour, hardcover
Written and Designed by David F. Chapman
Based upon the series Twin Peaks, created by Mark Frost and David Lynch

Future supplements include:

* A Guide to Twin Peaks - details of every location in the town, filled with new and interesting NPCs to populate your adventures.

* Bookhouse Boys and One Eyed Jacks Girls - a look at the criminal activity in Twin Peaks, from drug smuggling to prostitution, and those who have made it their work to put a stop to it.

* The Blue Rose - paranormal activity in Twin Peaks, from alien abductions, lost time, and possession through to the Black and White Lodges.




Like my pitches for  The Beatles RPG, and The Stephen King's Dark Tower RPG, this isn't a real game... I seriously think this is a great idea and I'd love to have a go at writing it.

I was a massive Twin Peaks fan when it first aired. I have a distinct memory of recording every episode on VHS on Tuesday nights when it was shown on BBC2 in the UK. I remember hating Alan Bennett, and his pesky "Talking Heads" programme that used to screen before it - those last ten minutes of his programme while waiting for Twin Peaks to start seemed to drag on forever.

Twin Peaks was one of my great TV obsessions (before that, I have to say it was Moonlighting... and after Peaks there would be the genius of The X-Files). I watched avidly, wanting to be Agent Dale Cooper - possibly the coolest FBI agent on TV, even getting a trenchcoat like his (yes, me wearing something that wasn't black! Such was my dedication).

When I went to college, part of my graphic design course was to produce a graphic instruction for someone so that they could learn something. I saw this brief as an excuse to create the most complicated flowchart in existence, mapping every character from Twin Peaks and their relationship to each other. (I may still have it somewhere in the loft, along with the rest of the coursework).

I watched the TV series, bought the books, saw the movie (though my favourite Lynch movies have to be Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive). I loved every moment of it.

When they announced a new series (hopefully airing next year) I couldn't have been more overwhelmed. I could only have been happier if they'd announced the return of The X-Files... oh, they did!

Twin Peaks would make an awesome RPG setting. But then, a great investigative RPG in a small town is a great way to run a campaign. Think "Under the Dome" or "The Killing", or "Fortitude" (if you want to add an environmental factor into it as well)... Hmmmm...

I even started working out a game system for Twin Peaks, using the same "engine" as WILD, but with its own set of Tarot cards - so instead of "The Dreamer" or "The Architect" you'd have "The Agent", "The Giant", "The Owls" (they're not what they seem)...

Roughs of the Twin Peaks Tarot cards for the game
(yes, I know I missed the Giant's tie...)

The Tarot cards seem like an ideal system for the game, especially using them for character creation (like WILD) which produces an interesting and detailed background story for the characters, as well as establishing some relationships before the game starts. Perfect for that surreal soap-opera feel...

At the moment, the Twin Peaks RPG - Full of Secrets - is just a dream. Who knows, maybe one 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.

--

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.

--

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...

Welcome to the (Creative) Desert of the Real...

From my trip to Australia, 2014

The above picture from the window of The Ghan train, travelling up the middle of Australia, summarises everything going on in my head at the moment. It's one big desert, with little glimpses of life in the distance that look exciting and interesting, but too far away to reach.

I have this problem where I get very excited about a project, and it dominates my thoughts. When the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG was in playtest I was incredibly excited, and devoured the TV series again (I mean, any excuse to rewatch Buffy? Right?), and ended up writing parts of the Slayer's Handbook, and helping to edit that and Monster Smackdown. 

When I thought about Conspiracy X (fantastic game!) and how it didn't have the same system as other Eden games (Unisystem), I became obsessed with the idea of converting ConX to Unisystem, and pitched to Eden to do it. I signed the contract to do the new incarnation of Conspiracy X just a couple of weeks before my father died, and I immersed myself in game. Maybe it was my way of dealing with it all. It took a couple of years of rewriting, updating and editing, but eventually Conspiracy X 2.0 was released with the new system. 

Talking to a Conspiracy X fan online who turned out to be Chris Birch, founder of Modiphius Games (publisher of some awesome titles, and the new Kickstarter for the ultra-cool Thunderbirds co-operative boardgame), we discussed properties that could introduce roleplaying games to a new generation of players. The discussion continued, and it evolved into a crazy pitch to the BBC with Dominic McDowall-Thomas, Angus Abranson and Fred Hicks to do the Doctor Who roleplaying game. None of us thought we'd have a chance, but it lead to producing the award winning Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG for 

Cubicle 7.

Doctor Who became the be-all-end-all of my working existence. Unfortunately, my day-job when I wasn't working on the game was very focused on Doctor Who as well - selling Doctor Who merchandise and DVDs. I think I saturated my head too much in all things Time Lord and burned out. 

Then I made a mistake. Another one, of many...

I thought I'd do something else. I turned my back on the RPG writing, and thought I'd try something completely different. Needless to say it didn't pan out. I was stupid, foolish and deluded.

Thankfully, Conspiracy X came to the rescue again. Kickstarters saw the last of these published which meant I was called back to a game I hadn't looked at for a while, and again I immersed myself in the that world at a time when I needed it again, just as I lost my mother.

I was having a tough time, and after Conspiracy X my head wasn't really in the "game" (so to speak) for anything too depressing, and then...

I made another mistake. Or rather, series of mistakes...

I started turning RPG work down. 

I had WILD starting, an incredibly personal project for me about dreamshare, and the more I thought about it the more "into" it I got. So much so, that when I did NaNoWriMo I started writing the backstory of the game as a novel - or rather a trilogy of novels. 

But I've been working on WILD for over two years now, and I'm floundering. The first novel is in the middle of rewrite, and I'm convinced no one will ever want to read it. The game's system has had some rewrites and may be moving away from the "Rapid Die Movement" I'd planned to being purely card-based. I look at the game and wonder if anyone would ever want to play it. And again, I'm feeling burned out.

I want enthusiasm again.

In the back of my head I have that nagging doubt - imposter syndrome - telling me I shouldn't bother. I'm nothing important, past game development successes were a fluke. Hell, I work 5-6 days a week in a shop.

In the back of my head I have that goading chatter - telling me that after Doctor Who I should be trying something else, like Harry Potter, James Bond, Sherlock, or Star Trek. A couple of those have lead to phonecalls, and emails with property owners, despite it just being me... a little nobody without a publisher...

These voices argue with each other, like past characters from games I've played (one probably has hair). In the middle of it all, I just want to be writing. To continue on WILD. To write something different - I had ideas for a more kid-friendly RPG like Adventure Time called "Awesonomicon" ((c)2015 David F. Chapman - just in case), and for a Twin Peaks-like setting for multiple game systems for a town full of secrets that could be used with anything, inspired by Peaks, Fortitude, Under the Dome, and so on...

But nothing will probably come of it.

I tried doing videos, I saw it as a means of showing off the cool of the gaming world, but when each video only gets about 30 views I have to wonder if I'm wasting my time.

So that's where I am at the moment. The real world is being hard on those I hold dear, making it hard to concentrate. But I wanted to get it all down, to state where I am, and apologise. 

Maybe I should just dig out the cards and try to tell my future...

Thanks for listening.

Dave

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.

A World of Infinite Possibilities

I had this moment of revelation over the Christmas holidays, and it was all about Disney. Playing Disney Infinity 2.0 with the lovely wifey, I was struck by how similar the skill trees for the characters, gaining extra "feats" when they "levelled up", looked to the skill trees for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPGs... in fact, like most RPGs that use skill trees dating right back to the first one I can think of, which was the old Games Workshop UK reprint of Paranoia.

It got me thinking of the reverse too... how a tabletop RPG based on Disney as a whole could work, with supplements that would allow you to play in all of the Disney properties, from Frozen and Brave, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to Tron, to Marvel and even Star Wars...

I made a video talking about my theories... please watch, share and comment!!

Until next time, stay multi-classy!!

Catching Up - Part 2: Hogwarts

Desperately trying to catch up with the events of December, continuing to the next cool and exciting thing which was another trip to Hogwarts - or rather the Warner Bros. Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter.

The wife and I at the Studio Tour...

We've been to the Studio Tour so many times now I've actually lost count. It's awesome, and if you're even remotely interested in Harry Potter you'll have a great time. If, however, you're a bit of a fan-boy like me, you'll spend hours pouring over every exhibit, and will be counting the days after you leave before you can visit again.

This time, it was part of a "Groupon" event where you paid a little extra on the usual ticket price, but in return you went around the tour in the evening, technically after it had closed. It meant that there were fewer people about, and they'd put on a host of extras including free Butterbeer, food, tour guide, and invited the animals and some of the prop-makers from the movies to add to the experience.

I took some video footage, check it out!!

Catching up - Part 1: Dragonmeet

Wow, has it really been a month since I blogged last? I'm so sorry. In the next couple of days I'm going to desperately try to catch up with everything, with a recap of what happened in December (well, the exciting bits that aren't just working in retail, fighting off the crowds like Helm's Deep) and what is to come in 2015...

First of all, my previous post listed the upcoming (then) Dragonmeet.

The Dragonmeet 2014 convention took place on the 6th December at the ILEC convention centre in London - a new home for the convention that has been running for years. Not only was it a new location, but also a new team running the convention after Cubicle 7 Entertainment handed the keys over to Modiphius earlier this year.

The convention was a complete blast. Really busy, and great to catch up with loads of people I hadn't seen in ages, or had only really met over the Book of Faces. There were cool seminars that completely changed the way I looked at the games I've been designing, and I got to look at some of the coolest games currently available.

I made a short video looking at the convention and my experiences...

The convention was especially cool as those amazing people at Cubicle 7 brought me in to do a signing at their booth to sign copies of the limited anniversary Doctor Who RPG core rulebook.

Me signing the Dr Who core rulebook for a couple of fans of the game!

Me at the Cubicle 7 booth, sitting next to the legendary Joe Dever!

Awesome experience. Thanks to all at Dragonmeet, and all at Cubicle 7 for letting me grace their booth with my strange baldness...

Really cool!!!

Next up, was the wonders of Hogwarts and Harry Potter!!

Dragonmeet - Signing and Stuff

This Saturday, 6th December 2014, is Dragonmeet - the UK's biggest convention for RPGs and gaming since GenConUK came to an untimely end.

I've not been able to make it to a Dragonmeet in many, many years. 2007 was the last one I attended when I was on a panel with some very recognisable names in the RPG world.

Dragonmeet 2007:(L-R) - Me, Dominic McDowall-Thomas, Chris Birch
Angus Abranson and Fred Hicks

That was back when we were just announcing that we had the Doctor Who license and would be producing the official RPG with the BBC's blessing.

Since then, Dragonmeet has changed hands, changed location, and attendance seems to have increased tremendously - looks like it's going to be a busy one!

I'll be filming a little for the vid-blogs while I'm there, but those lovely people at Cubicle 7 have deemed me important enough to do a signing! I'll be at their stand at 2.30pm, signing the last remaining copies of the Limited Edition Anniversary Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG core rulebook. I must admit, I never thought I was important enough for a signing... I've not really done anything like that before... okay, sure I had a stand at the last UKCAC for the comic, but it's different when a publisher asks you to do a signing rather than you just pimping your own produce.

Seems especially weird when the other name for signings they have is the legend that is Joe Dever, creator of Lone Wolf. The guy is a legend, I'm honoured and a little baffled to be even given remotely similar billing to him on C7's page...

If you're attending Dragonmeet, come and say "hi"!! I'll be the bald one with a red tie and Autocratik badge (courtesy of Chimeric Garnish).

TOP 5 - RPGs I've Not Played (but want to)...

First in a few "Top 5" videos - the first looking at tabletop roleplaying games that I'd really like to play but ever have... Upcoming ones include Top 5 Bond Movies, and Top 5 Video Games I've Not Finished!

If you have a suggestion for a Top 5 video, post it in the comments below!

Share and enjoy.

Stay Multi-classy!

Autocratik Broadcast 3 - WILD Down Under

The second half of the videos about my time in Australia looks a little at Dreamtime, and incorporating it into the WILD RPG, as well as some cute footage of koalas and kangaroos. Awwww...

Autocratik Broadcast 2 - A Land Down Under

In a bid to catch up with things, here's the first of two videos that tell of my exploits in Australia. Hope you enjoy!

Now, I must get back to writing for #NaNoWriMo!!!

The Dreaming

Sorry it has been a while since I posted last, or made a video, or actually did anything even remotely productive. I do have an excuse! I was on the other side of the planet...

Me, photobombing Uluru

A bulk of October was spent in Australia, and a great deal of that was spent in the Northern Territories at Uluru. I guess it could be called a research trip, looking into Dreamtime, but the trip - combined with jet lag and making up time in the day-job - has meant it has been very sparse creatively.

However, all that is going to change.

I'm back, and I have a couple of videos in progress - one an abridged version of the interview I did recently with the amazing and wonderful Twisted Twins, Jen and Sylvia Soska, the other a look at the time spent "down under" and my first real experience of visiting another country... (Yeah, I'm not much of a traveller).

In addition to that, I've foolishly signed up for this year's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to try to get back into the swing of writing. I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near the word count expected, but some / ANY kind of motivation is great at the moment.

So, expect more to come, and in the meantime, I'll leave you with Kate Bush...