Colin Sinclair's Blog, page 2

RPGaDAY2024: Day Seven

An RPG with good ‘form’.

I was going to go with The Wildsea, as it’s an odd shape and is also gorgeous – just fantastic art that really brings the setting to life – but I can’t find my copy of that to take a photograph so I’ll go with Cloud Empress instead. Neat little booklets of rules and stuff, and also very pretty artwork both outside and in. In the version I bought I also got patches. It’s an ‘ecological science fantasy’ RPG, so in some ways a very similar vibe to UVG, but more important...

RPGaDAY2024: Day Six

The question is: RPG that’s easy to use?

The easiest one I’ve used lately has been CAIRN.

Super simple system and, coupled with MAZE RATS, you can throw a whole gaming session together in a very short space of time – create a location, determine interesting features and NPCs, inhabit the land with monsters and quirky goings on (see this video where Baron de Ropp explains the process of using Maze Rats to generate quick material for game sessions). Also the rules booklet is very cheap and e...

RPGaDAY2024: Day Four

The question is: An RPG with great art?

A great many role-playing games have fantastic art; work that really adds to the general vibe of the game.

For example:

The most recent edition of Runequest; Free League’s The One Ring; and then there’s The Wildsea.

If I had to pick one right now (which is in fact what I’m doing here), I’d have to go with Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City.

I only have the first edition at present, and I’m not sure how the art differs (if at all) in t...

RPGaDAY2024: Day Three

The question is: Most often played RPG?

In recent times it’s D&D 5e, again, because I’m running that at the moment. In previous years there’s been all sorts of things and I’m not sure I could pick one in particular. I’ve played a lot of a lot of different games. I’ve also played in a sprawling modern day science-fiction-esque horrorific campaign known as ‘Glasgow’, that was stretched over several decades and incorporated many different systems including iirc the Fuzion RPG and the incredible ...

RPGaDAY2024: Day Two

The question is: Most recently played game?

As I think we’ve already established, it’s D&D 5e, which I’ve been running weekly for about a year now iirc. With various breaks and stalls for diverse reasons (also we played a bit of Cairn, more on that later I expect).

The D&D has been going great. Lots of entertaining events, interactions and combats. And a great deal of attempting to befriend everyone the party encounters.

An adventuring party, or possibly just some random figures on a ...

RPGaDay2024: the questions

I should have been better prepared for this. Although I tend to think that every year. Anyway, here’s the image thing with the list of questions. There’s also an alternative list which may prove more fun; I shall post that later.

RPGaDAY2024: Day One

The question is: First RPG bought this year?

Doctors & Daleks is the answer. A Doctor Who themed version of the D&D 5e ruleset. I bought it because the current gaming (family) group enjoy both D&D 5e and Doctor Who.

As it turns out though, we’re still playing through some adventures in and around Phandalin/Neverwinter and thus the Doctors & Daleks rules have loitered on the shelf since the day they arrived.

The Player’s Guide for Doctors and Daleks, featuring a lot of Doctors and severa...

Wild Tangents

Lost the thread of RPGaDay, yet again. Time has moved on and now social media is all about moving from, you know, that place, to somewhere else. In case it all burns down in a fit of pique.

This is just a test of a thing: Mastodon

RPGaDay2022: Day 10 (late)

The question was: When did/will you start Gamemastering?

I was a GM within days of getting D&D, as far as I remember how it went. Things were a bit shambolic to begin with, and then there was a bit of a break where I didn’t do much GM-ing at all for various reasons. And by bit of a break I mean it was probably years, as I was just a player for a while in various groups. The second game I ran after D&D was probably the original Judge Dredd RPG, which I’ve just remembered was the next game I bo...

RPGaDay2022: ‘This is me in day nine, baby (this is me in day nine)’

Today’s question: What is the 2nd RPG you bought?

It was MAELSTROM, a reasonably obscure release from the early days, written by (then teenager) Alexander Scott and released by Puffin Books in 1984 as part of the same line as the Fighting Fantasy game books and such like. Maelstrom was set in a vaguely 16th/17th century milieu, and featured nobles, mercenaries, priests and the like; not to mention herbalists and folks who could work magic to shift the world to their own liking. Sort of a prot...