Category: RPGS

Arc Dream (GODLIKE, Monsters, Wild Talents) offering blowout 66% off sale.

Arc Dream calls these deals ‘unspeakable,’ and… yeah. Godlike (World War II superheros, code GODLIKE66), Monsters and Other Childish Things (Little kids and their friendly but insanely dangerous monster pets, code MONSTERS66), and Wild Talents (Variety of superheroic settings, code WT66) really are some of Arc Dream’s best stuff.  I own most of the books already… and, thanks specifically to this offer, I now own rather more of it.  Godlike in particular is good because it was written by people who have some small idea of what happened during World War II, and how to weave in superheroes without totally disrupting history*.

Seriously, check this one out. Even with shipping costs it’s practically stealing. And the print books will probably move quickly.

Moe Lane

*They saved doing that for Wild Talents, which is a direct sequel.  Well, Wild Talents the game is.  Wild Talents the game line is a bunch of different historic settings, including at least two possible futures and the American Civil War.

You *want* this Esoterrorists Bundle of Holding.

For sixteen bucks and change this is a great deal for Esoterrorists RPG PDFs.  Lemme put it this way: I’m not picking it up because I own all of the books already.  Most of them in print.  Heck, I have the first edition rules from when it was all about the GUMSHOE rules and only had bits and pieces touch on the actual ‘sane conspiracy horror / supernatural investigation’ game world*.  By all means, get this series.

Moe Lane

*It’s different from many other supernatural investigation game settings in that the conspiracy that the PCs are working for is essentially benevolent (while still being ruthless on demand) and remarkably intolerant of sociopaths within its own ranks.  No steady spiral out into broken relationships and substance abuse for the Ordo Veritatis, thanks; you start to feel the strain, they get you competent psychological counseling. Because when you’re trying to patch holes in reality made by unnatural occurrences and human suffering maybe you shouldn’t be doing either yourself?

Gen Con sells out.

Of badges:

​Gen Con Sells Out Historic 50th Convention

Indianapolis (August 14, 2017) Gen Con, North America’s longest-running and best-attended tabletop game convention, has announced a complete sellout of badges for its 50th convention to be held August 17-20 in the Indiana Convention Center. The convention will not sell badges on-site and attendees, as in prior years, will be asked to display their badges while attending the show. In addition to its 50th convention, this Gen Con marks 15 years in Indianapolis.

(Via @SJGames)

They sold out of four-day passes last month, but this news means that the one-day passes are now officially gone, too.  So if you were planning to just buy entrance at the door, well, there’s always the Indiana State Fair.  Those are always fun*.

Moe Lane

*They legit are, actually.  So you might as well go if you’re in Indianapolis this weekend, because you ain’t going to Gen Con unless you already bought your ticket…

Item Seed: 101 Classic Insults in Helltongue.

101 Classic Insults in Helltongue – Google Docs

101 Classic Insults in Helltongue

 

This handsome leather-bound work runs to about 220 pages, has no printer information, and incorporates illustrations that force the average human reader to blank out the pictures in sheer neurological self-defense.  That last bit tends to encourage people to believe that 101 Classic Insults in Helltongue is in fact ‘real,’ given the rather obvious reality-warping going on.  Given that the rest of the book features lengthy phonetic transcriptions and short translations of what sound like fairly bizarre statements (“Your brood-mate cleans its horns with second-rate bone sand,” that sort of thing), it’s likely that dilettantes wouldn’t bother with the book otherwise.  There’s also a section which earnestly assures the reader that showing dominance over spirits via the use of ritual insults is a time-tested way to safely summon demons.

Continue reading Item Seed: 101 Classic Insults in Helltongue.

Location Seed: Oak Island Base.

Oak Island Base – Google Docs

Oak Island Base

 

How do you keep a secret?  By not keeping anybody around who can see it.  Oak Island is a small island in the Lake of the Woods that was ceded to the United States by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, ostensibly to resolve surveying errors but mostly because the British government preferred that the underground derelict alien base found on it become the headache of somebody else. British savants had prodded and poked at the stupid thing for forty years, they got nothing out of it, and perhaps Brother Jonathan would have better luck.  Or else get themselves blown up by randomly touching things.

 

The American government — with, admittedly, a lot of help from first the British, then the Canadian governments — has been themselves nervously poking at the place ever since.  Oak Island Base is an extensive underground facility with ten levels, and enough space to host about five hundred humans; based on the size of the ‘beds’ and ‘tables’ in the facility, it was capable of hosting about seven hundred or so of the aliens.  Most of the facility is empty: the aliens apparently took everything with them that could be easily removed.  It wasn’t until the 1930s that researchers realized that there was an electrical system in the place, and the 1960s before somebody figured out how to refuel the nuclear reactor that powered it.  Discovering that there were embedded video screens to switch on didn’t occur until 1998; people have been trying to decypher the digital menus and library ever since.

Continue reading Location Seed: Oak Island Base.

I was going to order this Delta Green patch, but now I don’t know.

There’s something about it that doesn’t appeal.  I mean, yes, it’s an asymmetrical design that’s supposed to be evocative of medieval ritual magical symbols (hidden as a government logo); and if I’m remembering my Latin right the motto is brutally honest for that game world. I get all of that.

But it’s still just a little unsettling.  Weird. Guess that they did their job properly with the design, huh?

Ark (Quantum 7) [GURPS 4e]

Ark (Quantum 7) – Google Docs

Ark (Quantum 7)

 

This timeline is not a myth parallel where there was a literal Noah’s Ark. Infinity Unlimited is almost certain of this. Instead, Ark is merely a world where virtually every species of animal is domesticable.  Discovering the exact change point has not yet been achieved, but the results are real; animals from Ark both remain domesticable outside of that timeline, and their traits breed true.

 

Which is why the timeline is now the site of a particularly vicious war between Infinity and Centrum. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they can hide their fights inside one or other wars that crop up on Ark with distressing regularity. It turns out that being able to domesticate anything usually results in countries breeding their very own exotic animal cavalry.

Continue reading Ark (Quantum 7) [GURPS 4e]

The Ogrezine! Kickstarter.

The exclamation point there was added by me. For some reason, Ogrezine! looks more dynamic than Ogrezine. Anyway, this Kickstarter from Steve Jackson Games is designed to fund/test out how much interest there is in Ogre ‘stuff.’ Three bucks gets you the articles, and everything else is moving the minis:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/ogrezine-the-ogre-magazine/

Arc Dream has a bunch of Delta Green softcover RPG supplements up.

Found here.  I don’t think that they’re part of the $300 The New Age tier in the Delta Green Kickstarter; I got the impression at the time that the tier in question covered all the hardcover books that Arc Dream’s supposed to be publishing. That was and is a good deal, in my opinion, and I assume that these are print-on-demand softcovers that seem to be becoming pretty popular in the gaming world. PDFs are nice, but so are physical books.

So, if you’re a completist, check ’em out.  Alas, I have to budget for that sort of thing these days.  Then again, I did get the PDFs as part of my backing, so I’m hardly hurting for new stuff to read.