Colin Sinclair's Blog, page 4

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 29

Question 29: Share a friendship you have because of RPGs?

My oldest friendship exists because one day in 1983 or ’84 I went to the local Model Shop (which sold model kits of tanks and such and also roleplaying games and computers) and asked if they knew anyone who was a gamer?

They knew just the fellow, who showed up a few days later with a character sheet all prepared and invited me to join his group for their latest AD&D campaign.

The rest is hundreds of characters over decades of games.

Th...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 28

Question 28: Inspiring gaming excellence for which I am grateful?

Always impressed/awed by the work of Kevin Crawford and his Sine Nomine Publishing.

Fantastic releases like Stars Without Number, Silent Legions, and Scarlet Heroes, that are not only incredible games in their own right but also provide endless sandbox material for other games and adventures.

I can’t think of a game I’ve run in the last couple of years where I haven’t used at least one of the many tables from the Kevin Crawford...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 27

Another alternative question here

Question 27: Narrowest escape?

In a recent Dolmenwood game, the party were attacked in the forest by a band of creatures whose claws had the power to paralyse.

In short order, seven or eight of these fiends laid waste to the rest of the group, with the other three quickly down and out for the count, until my character stood alone to face the monsters that remained.

As luck would have it, Elves are immune to the paralysis, and thus despite being clawed up he w...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 26

Day 26: Gaming ambition for the next 12 months?

Aside from actually planning ahead for RPGaDay 2019, rather than just imagining that I’m going to plan and then not actively doing anything about it…

I want to run the new iteration of Runequest aka Runequest Roleplaying in Glorantha.

Not sure how that will fit in to the current gaming plans of the group, but that’s the plan anyway.

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 25

Day 25: Name a game that had an impact in the last 12 months?

For sheer entertainment value, it has to be Shadowrun.

There’s probably a more serious and thoughtful answer, but not right at this moment.

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 24

Question 24: Which RPG do you think deserves more recognition?

I’d have to say Broken Rooms, a game of parallel worlds by Stephen Herron and published by Greymalkin Designs.

It’s a game about travel, and knowledge, and learning things about your character and the multiple doomed worlds that they can visit: a world where an asteroid hit, a world with an alien invasion, worlds of ice and fire…

It’s all bad news, but still tremendous entertainment, with plenty of depth and heart.

Oh, yeah, I wr...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 23

Question 23: Which game do you hope to play again?

From recent times, the game I’d most like to play again is Shadowrun.

The system is not my favourite, but the setting was entertaining and the player characters were fun and we had a neat set-up as ‘popular touring musicians who are in reality an elite mercenary company’. There was a troll, a dwarf, a mysterious rigger, and an elf close-combat specialist known as Variant Rook.

Their musical stylings were eclectic and the band had a different...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 22

Question 22: Which non-dice system appeals to you?

The previously mentioned Dialect which i talked about here

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 21

Question 21: Which dice mechanic appeals to you?

In an earlier post I mentioned a game called Amazing Tales which has a simple ‘each ability is based off a die’ system. When you want to do that thing, you roll the die and get 3 or more. If you succeed you describe what happens, if you fail the GM tells you want went wrong.

I enjoyed this dice mechanic so much the first time I played it that I used it as the basis for a work-in-progress game about vampires which is (now) called Decadence.

Some...

#RPGaDay 2018: Day 14

Question 14: Describe a failure that became amazing.

Not so much a failure as a series of unfortunate time-table clashes and incursions of the Real World into the group’s traditional gaming evening.

The group typically runs two games at a time on alternate weeks, and whilst one of the games was Achtung Cthulhu and going well, the other was supposed to be a foray in the nostalgic-future of Cyberpunk 2020…except it didn’t always happen because people were missing for various reasons, week after...