Failing Campaigns

Biggest lesson from last few years of gaming to me might have been that I can accept the fact that not all campaigns will work.

At first this seems like no-brainer. But only after some consideration, failures, and successes was I able to embrace this. It is not “letting your players down” nor is it “failing”. Understanding your own resources as GM is a tool.

So in this post I will try to explain this personal notion.

Continue reading

Quick Word About Mutant Chronicles

I recently downloaded the free quickstart for 3rd edition of Mutant Chronicles from Drivethrurpg. I knew about its successful Kickstarter-campaign and have been fan of franchise since the days of Doomtrooper way back in the 90s. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the quickstart and to learn that Jay Little of all people was behind the development of the core rules. I was even thinking about getting to know the system and GMing it. But then I bought two sourcebooks for brewing ideas…

I like buying roleplaying books. I think most gamers do. I have shifted from physical products to PDFs mainly to save space and a little money but still like to expand my collection. Usually the books I buy deal more with the flavor and ideas than actual rules. But this time I feel mislead. Twice. Continue reading

Sandbox on Rails

Sandbox campaigns are a dream I have chased for years. A campaign where the players participate in the story, create memorable content and I act only as a referee. I know that many people chase the same white rabbit and I’m going to discuss my methods of catching it.

We finished our latest season of Eldritch Sigils just last night. It was one of the most epic season with game starting in 2099 and ending in 1770s after a detour in about 2300. When we started this campaign exactly ten months ago I had no idea where the story would take us. I was once again trying to force my players to play with me on my sandbox.

Continue reading

[DnD5e] Planning for the Campaign

I’ve been playing rpgs since ten and most of that time (24ish years) I have been a GM. And I have never ran Dungeons & Dragons. Sure, I started with ANKH that was in essence just a D&D clone in Finnish. But the actual grandfather of rpgs has been a bit of a boogieman for me. The Old School Renaissance introduced me to DCCRPG and most recently I tried out 5th edition while I participated in Out of the Abyss. But now I think I would like to try to run DnD5e.

In this post I share me ideas for my first campaign as well as my impression and thoughts on the subject of starting such a campaign and about DnD5e in general as a first timer.

Continue reading

Review: Würm RPG

Having just finished Far Cry: Primal I am totally in the mood for a Palaeolithic and tribal roleplaying. Searching for a game suitable for this kind of a story proved more difficult though than I had anticipated. After coming into conclusion that either was no such game or none of them were very good I stumbled on the Würm (funded via Kickstarter and co-published by Nocturnal).

Summary: Having (only) read the rulebook I have to say that it has some excellent ideas as well as interesting ideas and at least is an excellent tool box for any game set in this kind of environment.

Continue reading

Designing Eldritch Sigils

Last Sunday I published the beta version of rules for Eldritch Sigils. This is a game I have been working on for about five years. I have actually published earlier drafts over the years but this was the first time it actually has consistency and it is actually playable.

This has been a long process and one that is still in the works. But now that the rules are “out there” I thought it would be a good chance to talk about them. Since game design is quite an interesting topic I hope that sharing my process might produce new ideas or at least be curious.

Continue reading

Asking Help from Community

Roleplaying communities in internet are a beautiful thing. Back in the day when we played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay I was really active on Strike-to-Stun. I quickly learned that if I had a problem or wanted to change ideas an international community of likeminded players was a great place to start. Now we haven’t played WFRP in ages but I still visit the communities because I want to keep up with the people there.

There are a lot of rpg communities all around the web. There are dedicated forums, publisher’s forums, Facebook and (my personal favorite) Google+ for example. Combine them and you have almost unlimited resources of information and ideas. Ask help and you will get it.

Most of the time.

Continue reading

[Uncharted Worlds] Creating a Character

Last week we managed to play the first prelude mission for our upcoming Uncharted Worlds campaign. We plan to start the campaign quite soonish. And since I already have a character concept in mind I decided to build it in advance. I have no idea if it is something that we will be able to use but we will see. In this post I will discuss the creation of the said character and include some thoughts behind the process.

Continue reading

Trying Out: Uncharted Worlds

spiliaprime1Short version: Uncharted Worlds is an Apocalypse World hack by Sean Gomes. It is a game for a space opera in the style of Firefly (amongst other things). It’s a complete game not requiring the understanding or ownership of the Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker. And it is a good hack with a lot going on.

Long version: After a number of times failing to get the group together we finally managed to sit down for a game of Uncharted Worlds. Sami (our GM) has been talking about this and has prepared for it by running the Out of the Abyss-campaign. He has even vowed to write about running it at one point. With 20+ sessions I would imagine he has quite a bit to say about it. Once he actually does it…
Continue reading

Ropecon 2016 – Weekend at Ropecon

Gallery

This gallery contains 47 photos.

Here is the gallery for random photos I took at Ropecon 2016. As always if you find an image of yourself you do not wish to see online, let me know and I either remove the picture or blur you out … Continue reading