RPGS – Page 177

Soiled Doves [The Day After Ragnarok]

Soiled Doves [The Day After Ragnarok]

Well… they were various types of birds native to the American Southwest, before the Serpent Taint got into their bloodstreams and started reverting them back into four-winged, feathered microraptors (with what appears to be perpetually oil-stained plumage). The relatively few paleontologists still alive in the post-Serpentfall world are baffled about the idea of feathered dinosaurs, and there isn’t an actual evolutionary descent from microraptors to birds anyway, but there they still are. Unfortunately, Soiled Doves are mean-tempered, carnivorous, and spit poison (stats for a Venomous Snake with the fly and bolt powers).

But, yes, they can be tamed. Maybe not domesticated, but tamed. Just keep a lot of meat around. And keep Soiled Doves away from others of its kind. When one of them swarms, the rest of them do, too.

Hey: the new version of Space: 1889 is up on Bundle of Holding.

This is the 2013 Kickstarter edition, not the original. The original was one of the first RPGs I ever bought, but I never got to play it: there weren’t very many people around to play with at the time, and none of them wanted to do Victorian steampunk. Of course, I’m old enough to remember when ‘steampunk’ meant something like The Difference Engine, instead of the bronze, wood, and zeppelin stuff we have now. Mind you, I like both: certainly Space: 1889 is a prime example of the more adventurous form of the genre. But steampunk got away from the literary types pretty freaking quick.

Anyway, check it out.

Creature seed: Free-Range Emotion Squid.

I swear, I just said the first thing that popped into my head and saw where it went.

Free-Range Emotion Squid – Google Docs

Free-Range Emotion Squid

Well, technically that should be the Free-Range Emotion Octopus, but the current long-term Uplift projections suggest that the first truly sentient neo-Octopi will start being produced in no more than ten years. So, basically, best to avoid a potential marketing issue before it even starts, right? Best practices, and all that.

Continue reading Creature seed: Free-Range Emotion Squid.

Patreon campaign setting: Columbia: City of Secrets.

Below are the Patreon files that I did for Columbia: City of Secrets. Columbia, Maryland is a fascinating place. It’s an artificially constructed city that doesn’t feel like a city, lots of people live there but there’s no real overarching vibe coming from the place, and you can absolutely stick an occult conspiracy or secret cult somewhere inside city limits and nobody would ever know. It’s perfect for a certain type of RPG campaign, in other words.

Last call for Fall of Delta Green playtest tonight.

If you’re interested, drop me a line in comments, Twitter me (@Ogiel23), use the contact email, or whatever else. Starts at 8 PM Eastern, no previous knowledge of Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu or GUMSHOE needed. It’s a playtest: we’re kicking the tires and seeing how the adventure runs. No pressure.

Adventure Seed: the Commodore P-31.

Blame this. And… entropy, I guess. We grow old. …Well, at least it beats the alternative.

Commodore P-31 – Google Docs

The Commodore P-31

This ‘Commodore P-31’ is certainly an interesting piece of inexplicable computer tech. It’s unquestionably designed in the same style as Commodore’s 1980s computers, starting with the way the keys are set up and continuing with how the entire unit is contained in one keyboard. This one has a serial number and production stamp on it dated 2016, but needless to say said serial number is gibberish. It does have standard USB and HDMI ports; there’s what appears to be some sort of disk drive, but it looks more like the slot for a camera memory card than for anything else. In terms of raw processing speed and performance, it runs slightly more slowly, and a good deal more warmly, than a comparable gaming computer rig.

Continue reading Adventure Seed: the Commodore P-31.

Adventure seed: The Leicester Graveyard Dirt War of 2013

Blame this.

The Leicester Graveyard Dirt War of 2013 – Google Docs

The Leicester Graveyard Dirt War of 2013

I assume that you all already know to not bother looking up the War in either the papers, or the history books? Good, good. Yes, of course this sort of thing doesn’t spill over into the non-magical world. For one thing, the non-magical world doesn’t really want to hear about this sort of thing. Magic is typically mostly socially acceptable in our culture when it’s perceived as being faintly ridiculous. Having people get killed over handfuls of dirt is kind of antithetical to that.

Continue reading Adventure seed: The Leicester Graveyard Dirt War of 2013

Another call for playtesters for Fall of Delta Green adventure (3/4/2017).

I have plenty of spots available, so if you’re interested, let me know in comments and/or via moe-at-moelane-dot-com. It will be tomorrow night (Eastern time), via Google Hangout, and all characters and whatnot will be provided. Fall of Delta Green uses GUMSHOE, but no knowledge of that game system is required.

Moe Lane

PS: I plan to run at least two different playtest sessions, so if you can’t make this one, let me know when you can do it and I’ll see what I can do.

WashingCon (@washingcondc) is now selling tickets for 2017.

September 9th and 10th, over at the same Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center. They’re promising catering this year, which addresses what was easily the biggest problem that WashingCon had in 2016: the relative lack of open restaurants. As some of you folks may or may not remember, I ran a game there last year, and now I’m deciding whether to run one this year as well. I’m half tempted to try to get an In Nomine game going, except I don’t know if I’d get the players…

Creature/Item Seed: Gunpowder Wasps.

Gunpowder Wasps – Google Docs

Gunpowder Wasps

Never allow the sophonts at the Galactic Uplift Bureau’s Surreptitious Assistance Department too much free time. Or access to trashy Old Earth vidshows, apparently. GUB-SAD operatives can get themselves into all sorts of trouble that way.

The basic problem is this: most oxygen-nitrogen water worlds in the Milky Way galaxy have roughly similar biospheres, and that’s not even remotely accidental. A standard biological package of photosynthetic bacteria was apparently introduced to every planet that looked like it could support it (don’t ask anybody in the various Galactic governments who, or Who, did that). So, you can introduce new species into a particular planetary mix. If you have that sort of mind.

Continue reading Creature/Item Seed: Gunpowder Wasps.