Category: RPGS

Location seed: 909 Beethoven Street.

I was expecting this to go elsewhere.

909-beethoven-street-google-docs

909 Beethoven Street

 

This two story residence in coastal New Jersey is a fairly standard wooden house with a nice back yard and a couple of trees to give it shade. There’s no central air, but since it was originally designed to be a summer home there’s plenty of windows to catch the breeze and the house is pleasant enough except in the hottest of summers.  The fixtures are kept up to date, but not fanatically so. There are three bedrooms, but one is a converted craft/storage space. Two bathrooms. All in all, the site is nice, but not immediately remarkable.

Continue reading Location seed: 909 Beethoven Street.

Item Seed: The Baptismal Surveyor.

I dunno why, either.  Might be interesting to just hand this one to a bunch of players and see what they do with it. You can get some interesting campaigns that way, at least.

the-baptismal-surveyor-google-docs

The Baptismal Surveyor

 

That’s what it says, right on the box.  Yes, it comes in a box.  The contraption itself is firmly in the “wood-bronze steampunk aesthetic:” all polished gold-browns and dark woods, rivets, a basic shape that evokes a bulky tazer without being so crass as to really resemble one, vacuum tubes and needle-dials… and a blunt-tipped probe that extends, gently, when you pull the trigger. If the probe touches a person’s bare skin, a mechanical readout on the top of the Surveyor will gently spin to one of the following entries:

Continue reading Item Seed: The Baptismal Surveyor.

In Nomine Revisited: The Spark (Jean’s Desk)

This one I pulled because somebody was looking for it specifically and emailed me over it; since I’m processing it anyway, I should put it up.  Let me reveal the punchline, for anybody not steeped in In Nomine fanon: there was a theory among IN fans that Raphael, Archangel of Knowledge and Jean, Archangel of Lightning were somehow linked (I typically just treated them as ‘husband and wife’ and was done with it). Which was particularly interesting because both Archangels were Elohim, which in IN means that they were supposed to be perfectly objective Spock-types… this explanation is getting long. Buy the book!

Anyway, the ‘she’ at the end refers to Raphael.

the-spark-jeans-desk-google-docs

The Spark (Jean’s Desk)

Daniel now had to locate a chair; all the blood in his legs seemed to be rushing into his brain.

“If that is true,” he said, “then everything you proved before about point objects – for example that they move along conic section trajectories – “

“Applies without alteration to spherical bodies.”

“To real things.” Daniel had a queer vision just then of a shattered Temple reconstituting itself: fallen columns rising up from the rubble, and the rubble re-aggregating itself into cherubim and seraphim, a fire sparking on the central altar. “You’ve done it, then… created the System of the World.”

– Neal Stephenson, Quicksilver, page 686

Continue reading In Nomine Revisited: The Spark (Jean’s Desk)

Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

winston-churchills-walking-cane-google-docs

 

Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane

 

This is the walking cane that Winston Churchill carried throughout World War II. As you might imagine, it can have a certain resonance, in the right hands. And if it ever ends up in the wrong ones, well, the pyrotechnics could be entertaining.  Also, messy.

Continue reading Item Seed: Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane.

Item/Adventure Seed: Deborah the Destroyer.

I assume I’m not the first person to make this joke, sure.

deborah-the-destroyer-google-docs

Deborah the Destroyer

 

Because even Black Ops Necromechanic Engineering (BONE) teams have senses of humor.  And, for that matter, kids.  No, really, you want men and women with families for that kind of job. Keeps them focused on the exoteric world, and not on the bad half-heard whispers on the edge of hearing.

Continue reading Item/Adventure Seed: Deborah the Destroyer.

Adventure Seed: The Great Wheel of Turkeys.

This is apparently a thing. Here, here, and here.

the-great-wheel-of-turkeys-google-docs

The Great Wheel of Turkeys

 

OK, here’s the background.  The Druids discovered America, OK? – In as much as anybody ever did, really.  Thanks to the joys of temporal paradox and inter-dimensional timeline amalgamation, pretty much EVERYBODY discovered America, including Christopher Columbus… but the point here is that there has been a Druidic presence on the North American continent for thousands of years, and that very much includes their arcane dendroidal computing architecture.

Continue reading Adventure Seed: The Great Wheel of Turkeys.

Creature seed: Thundercows.

I can’t help but wonder if somebody else has had this idea before.

thundercows-google-docs

Thundercows

These bioengineered animals were designed to circumvent the high-technology ban that Galactic civilization slaps on trade between advanced and primitive planetary cultures. Said ban is interesting, actually: the primitive planetary cultures hate that ban because they can’t buy cool gadgets from advanced civilizations. The advanced planetary cultures also hate that ban because they can’t sell cool gadgets to primitives.  And the Galactic government hates the ban because everybody screams at them over it and the paperwork is sometimes almost literally murderous.  And yet, nobody can ever manage to get the relevant laws repealed. It’s either weird, or a conspiracy: take your pick.


 Continue reading Creature seed: Thundercows.

The Secret Antiquities RPG supplement/zine.

OK, this looks like the stuff:

As the linked text indicates:

Secret Antiquities is a new series of game supplements for DCC [Dungeon Crawl Classics] RPG. Part journal, part zine, Secret Antiquities documents Esoteric America, a weirdly historical campaign setting inspired by real American history, folklore, and urban legends as seen through the unique lens of DCC RPG.

All y’all know me, by now. You know that this is the stuff that I crave. This is the stuff that I like to write. I dunno if the guy’s taking submissions, but I’m grabbing the first issue sight unseen anyway.

Steve Jackson Games doing more with Amazon Createspace.

Basically, Amazon Createspace allows companies like Steve Jackson Games to release titles (in this case, GURPS titles) for softcover print-on-demand. They’ve already tried this with three existing titles: now SJG is going to try three more. If there’s enough demand, SJG will start assigning staff to convert more titles. There’s the faintest possibility of a suggestion of a hint that ‘even older titles’ might be made available, which could mean 3rd edition GURPS, or – dare I hope it? – In Nomine.

Continue reading Steve Jackson Games doing more with Amazon Createspace.

Great moments in gaming/Kickstarter theory, Full Frontal Nerdity style.

OK, here’s the premise: the group at Full Frontal Nerdity are going to play a game where ‘The object is to construct the game as you play.’ The board is whatever you come up with, the pieces ditto, and the rules get defined by all the players. And that’s mostly it.

[…And I’m deleting this next part, because I just realized that it wasn’t an actual witty observation about Kickstarters and indy games. It was, instead, a fairly comprehensive torpedoing of the joke behind this particular strip. Which wouldn’t have been very nice of me, especially since the joke was enough to make me laugh.]

Still, might be a fun thing to try on a weekend.  With players who aren’t like the ones at Full Frontal Nerdity.