Cthulhu Hack at UK Games Expo ’17
UK Games Expo sprawled across the last weekend. I have spent much of that time standing up, behind the Just…
Category: RPG Design
Ongoing reports of new thoughts, designs and mechanics
Classless Save
Character generation for The Cthulhu Hack opens up to a classless approach to shift from the Old School roots of…
Outpost Expansion
The Outpost Generator release came from looking at maps of the settlements in the early period of the Australian colony…
Creative Mojo
There’s something vaguely satisfying about the order of things in the Hottest Small Press category… Although, I’m not sure on…
Each To Their Own
Last night, at my local gaming group, I ran The Keepers of the Woods – the winner of the RPG…
Twenty Years On
I ran a lot of play-by-mail games in the 1980s and 90s. I also wrote a fair amount about them…
Project First-Quarter
In an attempt to generate some output, I’m trying to define a plan. I work better with deadlines. If I…
Voltari’s Respite
Yesterday, after spending most of the day scribbling, scrawling, drawing and fretting, I published a one-page encounter. Voltari’s Retreat isn’t a replacement for Stench of the Sea by any means, just something to tide people over while I finish my work.
Aaron McLin made a couple of very relevant points over at Google+ about Voltari’s Retreat. Firstly, the text should say garderobe, without the ‘U’. I will correct that in the next draft along with the errant spelling of Voltari (which becomes Viltori in several spots). While I hand-wrote all the text in the left panel of the one-pager, it shouldn’t pose much of a problem to make amends. A trifle of PhotoShop magic should suffice.
Sense of Purpose
While I didn’t manage to run a playtest session last night, I did participate in a Cthulhu Dark (Graham Walmsley’s excellent one-page system for running uncompromising Mythos sessions) adventure. While the Keeper (probably) had a plan and a map, I don’t think the adventure had much more preparation. No, I tell a lie – a sensed a hint of a Esoterrorist adventure in there with one very specific and memorable scene.
Basically the adventure had a very vague premise and characters with an awareness of each other and no common purpose. We had a reverend, a funeral director, a lady ex-drug addict, a hostillier, and an ice cream vendor – in a run-down, has-been village. The mayor announced a plan to bring fresh blood to the area with a coach load of immigrants or students (a little confused on the details from the beginning). When they arrived, the village held a fair, but the students (definitely students) seemed to be more interested in visiting a local lighthouse. The reverend (Reverend Ginger) witnessed their visit to the lighthouse and sensed something thoroughly disquieting about the whole affair. Anyway… I digress from the point.
Purpose. That’s my point.