As part of my continuing effort to squeeze in some tabletop action wherever I can, I've been hosting a weekly, open-table, no strings drop-in sandbox every Friday lunchtime (whenever life permits). Occasionally the stars align, and we get a short but sweet hour of exploratory roleplay: you can read all the play reports at this link right here. Sometimes, things don't go to plan: to show my commitment (and scratch that RPG itch), I've decided to start a solo-game of GANGS OF TITAN CITY. I backed the Kickstarter nearly 2 years ago (have a look at my review of the quickstart here), yet the odds o ..read more

I'm back out the other side of one of my bi-annual delves into the rabbit-hole of UFOlogy, and my takeaways are two in number: Is it me or is this group getting increasingly right wing? We need to revive Posadism at once... some classic Trotskyite entryism could work wonders... The "jellyfish" video is probably the most sinister children's party balloon I've seen in my life Before we go on you should know this: I am a believer. In spite my irreverence here let it be known that my worldview is broad enough to entertain the concept of multi-dimensional entities disguised as jellyfish hovering ..read more

You can find more information about this is series of games in this series of posts, but in a nutshell I was inspired by Luke Gearing's and Pat Eyler's respective one-hour megadungeon sessions to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break.  Just wanted to add a small note to say: I'm having issues with this blog's formatting: I'm aware of display issues, will hopefully get to sort it out this weekend This post is mostly a note for current and future players in the campaign.  This is the fifth play report, with the game taking place on 29th March. Next game is schedul ..read more

Following an extended break the City of Ghosts campaign is once again up and running. You can find more information about it in this series of posts, but in a nutshell I was inspired by Luke Gearing's and Pat Eyler's respective one-hour megadungeon sessions to run a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the fourth play report.  Cast I was obviously nervous about GMing after such a long time out of the fold: fortunately I was eased back into it by the patient and kind JFUR of https://jfur.itch.io/, and was relieved she was happy to play out a one-to-one session i ..read more

Since reviving this blog  in 2019 my output has not been as consistent in both quality and quantity as I would like. Setting the issue of quality aside for a moment, there have been occasions where carving out time to post has been challenging. Sometimes these occasions stretch from weeks and into months. Instead of reactively acknowledging that this has occurred with a tedious "sorry for falling out of the universe" introductory line to whatever post springs up next, I thought it would be a good idea to prepare you (the reader) for a 19 week/ 4-and-a-bit month interruption to your regula ..read more

It's a New Year and (apparently) it's time for a new Universal Resolution Mechanic! At least that's the challenge set by Prismatic Wasteland. My favourite so far is over at friend-of-the-blog Semiurge's Archons March On who proposes a method definitely not suitable for serious practitioners of one of the world's largest religions.  Never one to let a bandwagon sail by without sneering uncharitably before making a half-arsed effort to hitch a ride, I too have come up with my own mechanic: I call this Copenhagen Positioning aka Schrödinger's resolution mechanic... We have quantum ogres an ..read more

Portrait of late (Finnish?) Mesolithic man by Tom Björklund, used as character art for Wren-in-the-Sedge  Due to time constraints and inspired by Luke Gearing's one-hour megadungeon sessions, I'm running a weekly PARIAH sandbox during my Friday lunch break. This is the third play report.  Session 1 is here Session 2 is here The PCs Nimble Goat the spirit-touched victim of a blood feud (played by C) Rotten Antelope, exiled for thieving (played by J1)  Wandering Jackal, the strong girl with double-headed axe, an aurochs and dog (played by C) Wren ..read more

 My 5yo child caught sight of this in my feed (on some platform or other):  ANIMON STORY ...and of course they were immediately curious! They're just getting to that age where they're moving on from Paw Patrol and taking an interest in more varied worlds with higher stakes for the characters: Pokémon and Star Wars being the two franchises most appealing to them at the moment. The game Animon Story was crowdfunded to great success last year and was recently nominated for  Dicebreaker's Best Roleplaying Game' category (the winner was Women are W ..read more

 * TAKES DEEP BREATH * ...all actions are resolved by a 2d6 reaction roll- and specifically a reaction roll: this is god/the spirits/the fates/the forces of the universe responding to your actions based on how much they "like" you. (or, more specifically, how much they react in your favour) Support AnyDice's efforts to modernise through Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/catlikecoding This emerged from the ongoing GENIUS LOCI project: Atop the Wailing Dunes MOSAIC strict Genius Loci Initial Genius Loci post Refined Genius Loci post ...being that, beyond animals and plants being treated th ..read more

Clear the table. Place the map of the moon (as big as you can print) in the centre. Light a candle. Play Dawn of Worlds on the lunar map until the candle burns out, at which point the pariahs return to their bodies with memories of being gods and creating civilisations. - Pariah Volume 1, page 49 Please print the moon map above. Next, download Dawn of Worlds: http://www.clanwebsite.org/games/rpg/Dawn_of_Worlds_game_1_0Final.pdf Never let it be said I never give you anything! Please subscribe to my substack ..read more