Dan Sumption's Blog, page 7

Play-by-post and the written word

Encourage the Beautiful by Louis Rhead

In my last post, I gave an example of play in my vapourware play-by-post game (which, incidentally, has the working title "Out of Hope", due to the fact that player characters will start off in Hope and at some point, presumably, will travel out of Hope)

One of the most obvious things about my example is that it's "wordy"; it is (I hope) decently written; it's a story. It has fine details, but also forward momentum. 

This, for me, is one of the most wonderful ...

An example of play-by-post in Peakrill

A Light in the Pavilion by Gordon BrowneThis is the first of a few posts I'll be writing about play-by-post RPGs (formerly known as play-by-mail  - PBM - and then play-by-email - PBeM). I played in quite a few PBM games in the 80s, and have been thinking about running one myself for quite some time now (using rules loosely based on Monte Cook's Cypher system). But first, an example of how such play might go...  
Let's say that at the end of your last turn, you decided to leave town and head for a...

Mostly Harmless Meetings - now available to buy

 

"Shop in Paris" by Eugène EmmanuelViollet-le-DucYou may have noticed from the eye-catching buttons at the top of the page that I am now selling my work online. Mostly Harmless Meetings has been sent out to Kickstarter backers, so I am selling both printed zines and PDF copies.
My physical products shop on Bigcartel also contains a number of non-gaming related titles I've produced in the past, including the last few packs of the Pilgrims' Tarot produced to accompany the Cerne2CERN pilgrimage. The...

Into Into The Odd

Into the Iron CoralThis weekend I ran my first game of Into The Odd. I was also my first in-person TTRPG since the pandemic started, my first in about 30 years in fact. And it was also also the first time I've talked my wife into playing an RPG. But not the last! (Actually, I had previously persuaded her to play I'm Sorry Did You Say Street Magic, but that was verrrry different from playing an old-school dungeoneering type game)

I backed Into The Odd remastered, by Chris McDowall, on Kickstarter....

Interview with Write Radio

Write Radio
I was interviewed recently for Write Radio on Sheffield Live. I talked to host Jane Armstrong about writing for roleplaying games, and how it differs from the sort of short story writing I'd been doing before. We also talk about the differences between TTRPGs now vs. those I grew up with in the 80s, and about my various current projects: Mostly Harmless Meetings, King Arthur vs. Devil Kitteh, and Learning to Draw Trees.
Here is the interview. I've added comments at various points to in...

The Lost Doctor Who

Ken Campbell is The Lost Doctor

There's been a lot of talk in recent days about the new Doctors and Daleks series of roleplaying adventures, using Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (5e) rules. I don't have very strong feelings about either 5e or Doctor Who (if I were to play a Doctor Who game, I'd probably opt for the Lasers & Feelings hack, Day of the Doctors). I do, however, have some very creative friends who are creating a really interesting new Doctor Who multiverse...

In 1987, Colin Baker's Six...

Start Drawing Maps*

My first isometric mapIt seems pretty much the norm these days to use map-making software or free/cheap pre-existing maps when running an adventure. I can see benefits to this, not least in time saved (at least, for pre-made maps: for me, trying to use map-making software can be a massive time-sink). But I suspect that many people use these resources because they look flashy, with all of their detail and shading and professionalism. In my opinion, all of those things are overrated, and making yo...

Learning to Draw Trees - now live

Cover image/limited edition print - work in progress
 Just a quick note to say that Learning to Draw Trees is now live on Kickstarter

Nanodeities

 

A small god by Richard Tingley
Have you seen my Twitter bot, @deitygalaxy?

When the nose of Iohraï-ses, god of turtles in the hamlet of Nether Opthowichmoor-by-the-Water, grows significantly more turtle-like, it is usually a sign that they are feeling perceptive.

Iohraï-ses is needy. Reply to him please? #Iohraïses #turtles

— All the Deities (@deitygalaxy) January 27, 2022

 Deity Galaxy, AKA All The Deities, invents new gods, goddesses and goddexxes. Tiny, eeny-weeny deities. Deities so small that t...

The Book of Horkos

Your author and the Book of Horkos

I wrote recently here about real-world magic. Bear with me skeptics (feel free to call it something more sciency if you prefer: perhaps "psychology" or "human nature" or "nudge theory"), for here is another powerful school of magic in the real world: the spell that is cast by the perilous oath.

Some years ago, Daisy Eris Campbell came up with the idea of the Book of Horkos. Horkos was an ancient Greek demigod responsible for punishing oath-breakers. Horkos was (i...