As the new year starts trotting along, I thought it would be interesting to have a quick look at the games that are currently on my radar for one reason or another. Getting my Kult on. Game Day We had a New Year’s Eve gaming party at our house, and managed to cram a little over 20 people into our Berlin flat. With the main table, sofa area, and spare room, we generally had 3 games on the go at once.
With the demise of Google+, hitherto harboring a great RPG community, many groups are trying to find a new home on the great old internet. A fair few are flocking to MeWe (you can find me there too), still others are clinging on to Google+ until its last breath. But gaming chat service Discord has also seen a huge uptake. One such new server is for DIY RPG Productions, which includes a channel entitled #gygaxian-democracy-d100s.
Hoozier Babgottle is a traveling goblin of advanced taste and decorum. With his everchanging assortment of oddities and trinkets, he travels the world, come snow or storm, in his tiny hot air balloon, made from a sewn-up hog skin and copper bathtub. He’s back in your neck of the woods with his current seasonal inventory. Marvel at his mulled whine and knitted jumpers! Goblin by ScandinavianLullaby Tipples Spirit of Giving.
A couple of years ago I got to play the Curse of Strahd campaign with my weekly group, and I enjoyed it immensely. On the rare occasions I get to play instead of run, I usually immediately reach for some sort of online character sheet. For D&D5, we have the excellent D&D Beyond, for example, and I have since used that for other games. But for this haunting game in the demi-plane of Barovia I decided to go old-school, and use no digital tools whatsoever.
“A Bride for Dracula” is a silly, but hopefully fun, system neutral scenario designed to be played in one session. Dracula is looking for a new partner to join him for eternity—though talk of eternity is cheap, as we’ll see. You play the hopeful contestants, and associated characters, traveling to his castle to vie for the prize. Oct 25th Update: Now also available as PDF, with additional art! My thanks go to my intrepid playtesters Karen, Heydon, and Fan.
Including an exclusive sneak peek from the upcoming Spire supplement Strata. Update 16th October: The Strata Kickstarter is now live! At UK Games Expo 2018 I managed to drag Chris Taylor and Grant Howitt away from their perpetually busy table for a few moments to chat to me about barbecue tours of the American south, celebrity roleplayers, making D&D satanic again, and of course their magnum Opus, Jason Statham’s Big Vacation.
In which I examine a surprise mashup of Gavin Norman and Greg Gorgonmilk’s The Weird That Befell Drigbolton, and Kiel Chenier’s Blood in the Chocolate. Here Be Spoilers Cozying up. My weekly Thursday game is currently play testing Hypertellurians, and recently they crash landed their stolen transdimensional ship—which they hot-wired via a Power Word: Launch spell—in Dolmenwood. Specifically on top of the tiny, hand-drawn cart of a star metal prospector.
Inspiring Games is the company behind Legends Untold, a cooperative adventure game with the speed of a card game, minimal setup, zero downtime, yet the depth of an RPG. Kevin and Hugh are the masterminds behind it, and were kind enough to talk to me about it and their upcoming game, Lord of the Horde, at the recent UK Games Expo. In a hotel bar. Late at night. Hugh and I go way to back to LARPing and other gaming activities back in our university days (I did say way back.
“Thrad”, by Enmanuel “Lema” Martinez. Now, Thrad wasn’t the type of person that would spring to mind when you heard the term “wizard.” In fact, he never used that word himself. He wasn’t a man of many words, at any rate. Born into a reclusive, wild tribe, in the depths of the jungle, he was a giant even for his kind. From a young age, he honed his muscles and soon became the strongest of them all.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Lamentations of the Flame Princess publisher extraordinaire, James Raggi, at this year’s UK Games Expo. We chatted about Free RPG Day, historical settings, and what’s next for an outfit that has put out the highest production value gaming books for the last few years. All illustrations are copyright Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and used with permission. All photos were swiped from various social media, by photographers of mysterious identity, but I thank them for the contribution.