Finally found my Supers RPG to run online?

 

I have posted in the past about my deep background with Supers RPG's (also here), going all the way back to childhood starting with the very first superhero game Superhero 2044. Then Supergame, then Villains and Vigilantes, and finally Champions/Hero System. That was my favorite, and using my futuristic hero setting Haven (based in part on Superhero 2044's Inguria Island) I turned many of my DnD groups on to it as an alternative. There would be resistance (most were not comic book fans) but they would eventually be requesting it. They loved it, despite the crunch of Champs. It was probably my favorite genre, in large part having grown up a comic book kid.

Now several years since the last time I ran a supers session, and also now that I essentially run all games online, I have been hankering to give it a go on Roll20. But the crunch of Champs would make it very hard. I considered Mutants and Masterminds which was fairly popular online, but it has its own high crunch it seems. I don't want to have to learn nor run another crunchy ruleset. 

Interesting note: when I first looked into this about
a year ago, the deluxe book (the most recommended 
as far as character creation choices) was out of print
and going for around 300 bucks where you could find 
it. But it is now apparently around 50 bucks and easily found. 

Last year for a couple session I played online in Kickstarted supers system I can't even remember what it was called. It was based on 5th ed DnD. It was kind of fun, but the guy kind of lost it mid-session and decided the system was no good for what he was doing. He declared he was probably going to try another system, but I passed. Put my search for a system on hold. 

But now in recent weeks I discovered Marvel Multiverse RPG, a fairly new system. I always rejected a licensed supers game, especially based on Marvel or DC, but the attractions of this was it was fairly rules light, and had excellent Roll20 support it seems. I immediately ordered the book off Amazon, and started watching Youtube videos about it. 

It has an odd, what I think is kind of clunky dice rolling system, but it is indeed simple. I can work with it I think. And it based around Marvel is OK. My Haven setting is more or less an alternate future version of the Mavel Universe (I always had it 20 years in the future of whenever I ran it) as a base, though having grown up on comics I was very familiar with Multiverses. I had Haven be a kitchen sink of genres, and other comic universe stuff could enter into it. Sci Fi in general really. I even had a Jedi show up in some old session. 

MM RPG has a rank system to determine your supers level, from street level like Daredevil all the way up to Galactus, and how that all works with the powers is something I need to research more of. Also it is all a little bit of an investment. The physical book was almost 40 bucks, and for Roll20 I will need to buy the in-platform version. For full functionality (sharing rules with players, a character sheet builder, etc) I think I need a subscription to something called Demiplane. But money is not really an object if I could get this off the ground with some decent players. 

I have plenty going on with my DnD right now. But I am around 30 sessions into the campaign and already past the point where I get a wander lust for other genres and systems. So as always it is sort of life raft building time. My research shall continue, but I am hopeful for supers action!

Cheers

Children of Trouble - the D&D Suicide Squad

 So, my Isle of Dread campaign has been going well for months, running almost every week. A couple of months ago we were missing an important player and the discussion began about an alternative I would run when somebody needed could not attend but we still had enough for a session. One player shot down my idea of just starting another secondary campaign starting at 1st level. He wants to start higher, and that does seem to be the trend these days. The other players were fine to start at 1st, but then I started wondering if I wanted another standard campaign starting at 1st. 

So I started pondering. Then the idea came out of the blue, Well, maybe not so out of the blue. Over recent years I had considered this campaign, but the idea was a bit off the beaten path for me. Almost all of my campaigns in my homebrew world I started as a kid happened in or around the west coast kingdom of Tanmoor. Almost 120 years of character continuity there. But for this I thought outside the box. Why not a campaign set in the Acherian Empire on the east coast?

The free kingdom of Tanmoor started over 800 years ago as a colony of Acheria, the first city of the lands of Acheron, based heavily on ancient Rome. A fantasy Roman Empire where they hate non-humans and magic types that were not clerics.

A few decades ago Tanmoor gained independence after many battles across the lands and in Tanmoor itself. A new age of kings and queens had begun in the west. Even during the centuries of Acherian Governors Tanmoor had evolved to be a city diverse in terms of non-human presences (due to proximity to the Wood Elf forests) and in contrast to the Empire proper, Tanmoor was like any DnD city chock full of wizards and all that. Big mages guild and all. 

But in the Empire, an age of decline began after the loss of Tanmoor. Now, Acheria itself was mostly just a place far away that Tanmoorians hated. I never had games set directly in the empire. Or on the upper east coast period. Well, now I am. 

So during those times decades ago when Acheria was sending troops to the west to secure their hold on Tanmoor, and them mostly being trounced in large part due to high level player characters taking part in the struggles, they came up with a specialist group they called The Children of Trouble to send in and counteract the diverse, magic wielding character parties that were devastating the troops. This group was made up of criminals of the empire. Wizards and non-humans. They were given powerful magic items and sent west to challenge the west and its player characters. 

This was way back in the 90's, and I had based the concept of The Children on a group of violent mutant hunters that appeared in X-men comics called The Marauders. The Children of Trouble presented a real challenge for the player characters. The Acherians considered it a successful strategy. But they were a product of their time.

But lately the notion hit me. Why not tap into the concept for this alternate campaign.  So I presented it as having been inspired by The Suicide Squad. They knew the movies, but I collected the comics back in the day, and it made sense. I would run it like that.

Will "Slappy" Smith

Oddball characters, either nonhumans or illegal magic users, who had run afoul of the Empire and earmarked for death in the colosseum but taken into a special prison and inducted into the new Children of Trouble program. 

I started them at 4th level, but would quickly put them to 5th. I gave them some decent starter magic items. Unarmed, dressed in wool prison togas, they were escorted by many guards with war dogs and removed from the regular prisons (where they had anti magic collars, and to an old abandoned and ruined ancient part of the city (as I say the Empire was in decline) where some very old academic buildings were being used as this special prison. 

The Warden. Brutal high level fighter.

Mentor, a high level Wizard and a former
member of the old CoT. He's their handler
at the prison. Fairly kind and somewhat helpful,
He represents the "benefactors" of the CoT
program. In a way he is as much a prisoner
as they are. 

Led into the main building, still partially in ruins and being restored, the characters are shackled, have anti magic collars (created by clerics), and are dressed in light togas. well armored guards and lots of barking guard dogs surround them, as they were told the deal: serve the empire out of the prison and they will find their circumstances improving more and more. If they agree (otherwise back to the main prison and prepped to die in the colosseums) they fight in a testing room lightly armed against archers, and then sent to their tiny crappy cells they will be in until after they are fully proved. Also, they are told that if they escape they have temporary tattooed "glyphs" on the back of their necks that will allow Orcus clerics to cause a demon to be summoned next to them to attack. That takes care of the "exploding collar" type situation the Suicide Squad members are in. 

The demon glyph. I also use it as the home
page image for the campaign. The symol
for the CoT, if you will. 

They get their first mission pretty quick. An area called "the Prefectures" between the twin cities of Acheria and Achium, a once vibrant suburban area fallen into some disrepair like much of the Empire, where a growing bandit gang called The Bloody Red Caps is taking over entire neighborhoods. 

So they went to Sarnath prefecture neighborhood where a couple dozen members of the gang had taken over. They were to send a message by destroying them as brutally as possible. This gang of freaks were certainly very horror show. I had named this session "The doom that came to Sarnath" or "the Bloody Red Caps have a bloody bad day"

The Mastodon, an old school Acherian troop 

transport used to transport CoT when outside 

the city proper. Drawn by warhorsed and driven 

by a pair of half ogre prisoners. 

The assault on the gang in the taverna was one of the most violent sessions I have ever run. My intention in the campaign was to have these mostly combat sessions, with a sort of over the top DnD combat parody vibe. Fantasy Tarantino. Not all the characters are evil, but they are all capable of coming off as terrifying. 

An elf from the Shadow Realm

A death goddess worshipping Dragonborn

An Asian female shape shifter assassin

Goblin artificer, raised by dwarves

Her mechanical familiar

Paladin Aasimir angel sort of character. She has
a halo that can come down over her face and it 
has eyes on it. She is imspired by Nephlim or
something. One of the few non evils

So it was a bloodbath and lots of fun. The CoT went back to the prison and were given access to after mission open air bathhouse with massages, and nice clean linens and better and warmer wool prison tunics, and an hours access to the meal hall for all kinds of decent food and drink. After their next mission they are given a dorm building to habitat, though still well guarded. 

Not only was this Children of Trouble idea and session super fun, but the players came up on their own with a secondary group to run for. Group B. 

A whole 'nother pack of freaks. 

And I have run an intro session for these monsters. Good Golly. I may post about them next, though I can't let the main campaign, Isle of Dread, get lost in the shuffle. This was supposed to be an occasional thing to run. But you gotta give the players what they want. 

Cheers.  

Isle of Dread - gotta do the Giant Crab

 After around 10 games in the city and around 3 on the boat ride, the party is on the Isle of Dread. 

The first time I used the module as is was when I was a teen. A long time ago. Since then about 120 years of character continuity has gone by, and things change. Not the island, really. I have had adventures there several times over the years. Maybe a couple or three with expeditions to the plateau. 

But the villages have had some changes. For a couple of decades in game time there was the Pagos Trading Company that had a trading post on the beach near Tanaroa and the great wall. It was mostly run by characters over a couple of campaigns long ago. But it went out of business eventually. But the trading post remains, run and pretty much owned now by old Pagos employee Trader Tim. Tim has lived there for over 20 years, and is a friend to the tribes. He helps with trade negotiations and even keeps the tiki bar going. He can even provide fairly comfy accommodations in some huts on site. There is even a hot tub!

But the big fun of last night's session was emulating one of my favorite scenes from the old Mysterious Island movie I have loved since childhood.

I think the last time I did the Isle, it was giant crabs but the size of Shetland ponies. But I wanted to do this big one. It was chasing some village girls when the party came across them. 

I gave it 18 AC and 60 hit points. The characters are 4th level now, and they hit it hard with magic and stuff. The AC helped keep it around awhile, but web and damage spells made fairly short work of it. But the characters had fun with it. We ended the session with a hot tub party, and the grateful native girls showing up with a nice big pot of crab bisk!

The fun on the Isle has only just begun.

Cheers

D&D Wokeness issues gets more and more media coverage

 

The whole wokeness invading D&D thing has been discussed on blogs and such for a good while, but it was when Elon Musk recently tweeted the possibility that he might buy it from Hasbro is when I realized this issue was going mainstream. 

The popularity of the game thanks to things like Critical Role has also led to the discovery of famous people having been players at least in the past, which Musk clearly was. Sure, figures such as Vin Diesel and even leftist late night shill Steven Colbert have been known about for a good while. But along with Musk we are finding more. 

Since I started watching a lot of Youtube because I mostly work from home, I have bits of clips I like to watch. One of these is The Hill, a news show that is one of the few balanced options for such. It is usually hosted by one leftist, and one on the right (more or less). 

Host Robby Soave often brings up being a boardgame and DnD geek. So he certainly chimes in on these issues of woke takeover of his beloved pastimes. 

I almost get chills with this stuff. When I was a kid I had to hide my geeky loves. I would leave football practice and sneak off to the history hall (where I knew no teammates would be lurking) to hang out with my dork friends and get my DnD on. Who would have thought it would ever get so mainstream that actual news journalists would be talking about it in a way that was not about satanic panic and dudes getting lost in college maintenance halls?

To the Isle of Dread! But not so fast..

 

The Opportunity to start a new DnD campaign happened awhile back. And by opportunity I mean that I did all the usual legwork to try to gather and vet for hopefully several players. And by legwork I mean the pain in the ass process of putting a group of strangers together for online play in Roll20. 

The looking for Players forums on Roll20 have really become a wasteland of Critical Role-trained younger people looking for Matt Mercer experiences, GM's wanting to run their weird homebrew such as a slasher film RPG, a very odd recent fad of players looking for a DM to run solo sessions for them, LBGTQ-only groups wanted, and the occasional stand out who seems normal and maybe based and might be a valuable player (more often than not they disappoint, so manage expectations). The latter is what I shoot for.

But this time I went outside the box and tried a couple other places as well. A DnD Discord that seemed promising, and also the DnD Beyond forums. Over some weeks I vetted and vetted and vetted. Were there the usual red flags? Hell yeah. I vetted harder than Jerry on Seinfeld vetted his dates (you know, like when Jerry rejected a lovely gal because she ate her peas one at a time?). 

But besides heavy vetting, I made some decisions to help me vet people within actual play (you don't really know until somebody is in your actual game and how they behave), and to kill some time before heading to the Isle of Dread. I wanted some solid, all in, players to go the distance with that. 

So with some help from an NPC patron, academic Merlot who I have used before, I got characters together to have mini adventures around the city proper. Go get some kobolds in the storm drains who stole an item of academic value. Go to nearby sea caves with von Tanmoor to look at some runes on a cave wall. Go to the undercity and to some old Acherian statues that granted things good and bad. 

Within that handful of sessions, a couple of players (damned window shoppers) came and went. But I was left with three solid players. Kris (the girl who was looking for a new group to play in and I contacted her to team up to make this group), an Englishman who apparently does not sleep. And a player who is running the first dragonborn in my games (you know, old school world turning 5th ed world). He also got a girl he knows from another game to come in several games later and she is great. And then another girl I think from the Beyond forums several games in who got right on the bandwagon. So yeah, two gals came in to play after those first session and are a great addition, and they round out the group well. After the session last night they swore fealty to the group and campaign and add a great energy. So yeah, group set. 

So the final adventures in the city before leaving for distant shores included a night at the opera, and just lots of city stuff. A night at a banquet; fighting assassins there and later in the streets. Spending most of their off time at Merlot's manor house lounging and partying in one of his dens..

Back in the day I had multiple campaigns that were taking place in the big city Tanmoor. But in recent years it has been more rural in my campaigns, so this was fun. Lots of emergent role play like those 7-8 hour sessions of old with face-to-face friends. Really, been like 5 years and 4 campaigns since I had any character or group hang out in the big city. I think even after all these many years city gaming is my specialty. Probably in part due to growing up on comic books and all that city action. 

So tickled pink with this group. Lots of chatter on the Discord. It feels like it could go awhile. And for the first time in a long time the girls outnumber the boy players. Ha. 

Merlot. The Patron. Have used him 
in other campaigns to bring PC's together for
"Endeavors." He's from oooold money, is a 
professor and all around academic. Has been 
gearing them up for an Isle of Dread visit. 

 

The coastal ranger. He is a drow. Heh. Drow. 

Rangering on sunbaked beaches. Eyes burning 

                                        out of his head

 

Tiefling bard. Very roguish. From rich human
family so an entitled mean girl. Throws charm
spells around like candy. Troublemaker? Well,
she got some of the party to help her pick pockets
at a special invitation opera house where the queen
was in attendance. 

                                

                                     

                                      

A gnome wizard and archeologist from

a large town a couple days from Tanmoor city. 

Seems sweet and friendly, but quickly kind of

got a bit corrupted by the murder hobos of the 

group. 

His origin is the that he was found in a 
shipwreck as a baby on the shores near the city. 
He got adopted by the clerics of Billick, god
of healing. Of low rank still, but he has been
a special child since he is the first Dragonborn
to be seen (or to be in in my games). 

 

 (cannot find the token version) 

Drow wizard. Lolth worshipper. Lawful evil. Presents 
as neutral. Calm and stoic. When the party ran to escape city watchmen
after a street fight in which deaths were involved, she was the only one 
not caught and arrested. 

So a nice diverse group. No humans though. But whateves. We entitled humies had our time in the sun. 

Cheers

James Raggi and The Albatross?

 

Yah, its weird to me to be making a post regarding LOTFP stuff two times in a row, but I saw something that got my goat a bit and got me thinking.

Like I mentioned at one point in that last post, I've gotten to like James Raggi. I never disliked him, I never knew him other than a small contact online with him a decade and a half ago. 

But as I show in that last post I've got a bit of interest in some of the stuff he has brewed up. Plus for some months I have followed him on his FB, looking in to see what he is up to with his business and life in general. Health issues (the guy apparently has leg problems, but travels the world for con appearances to sell boxes of merch, so good on him). What seems to be very early jaunts to local small heavy metal shows. And making the occasional youtube video, often out in the snows of Finland. Yeah, I have developed a sort of fascination, but also a certain fondness. I think in the last post I stated he had a sort of "grotty charm," and that if he did live plays of him GMing his stuff, I would watch them. A fan? I dunno. I have never used any of his stuff in my games, but that does not mean I have no interest. 

I guess I have paid attention for some years. When the Zak Smith cancellation thing went down (Zakgate?), I read about him somewhere having to cut ties with Smith for the sake of his business, and in the following year or so him suffering personally from it. Crying in his sleep, soiling the sheets. I don't know enough to be able to determine for myself if this was hurt over a true friend, or just frustration with cancel culture in general. But hell, he seemed to recover from it. He seems to be doing fairly well in recent years without his association with Smith. 

Before I looked at his Facebook, I did see a thread reprinted somewhere a couple or three years ago. An argument between James and Zak apparently about James not working with him anymore. It was kind of brutal. I don't remember all the details, but the gist seemed to be poor James getting gaslighted over it all, and James at one point stating simply "all I know is your life keeps hurting my business." To the point, and yeah pretty fair. Protect the business. An actual money making business. 

Then in more recent times I noticed that James would complain about some regular real-world issue, and often ZS would chime in "what are you going to do about it?" I mean, it happened all the time. Like, this guy is supposed to be his conscious?  It was happening enough that I wondered if it was just some kind of performance art. Often ZS would just fully make it about himself and start laying out his own misfortune and why isn't anybody helping and doing anything about it? Ok, whatever. The guys are friends I guess so you tolerate a certain amount of things for the sake of the friendship. But it kind of smacked of the bullying of a fairly mild dude to me. 

Fair enough, but now James has tied his business back in with Zak. He gives ZS a couple of minutes to have his say about the new relationship.

Big news, in some circles. OSR? I'm kind of out of touch. In the last 5 years I have been using 5th ed, and I have mentioned both Zak and LOTFP in casual conversations about various gaming themes, and not a single person has heard of them. But I guess there are enough people in those certain circles, because as I said before James seems to be doing well. 

But some things about Zaks comments here kind of got my goat. Not just the simple "weird metal head who says and does fucked up shit" comment. But he called Raggi "stupid and cowardly."

Was James stupid and cowardly for breaking from working with Zak? Or was he being a smart businessman having to make a hard decision like many businessmen do? But whatevs, to me the standout here is that James Raggi is offering Zak Smith a new lease on his work (Zak made a post about being "brought back from hell") by bringing him back into the business that seems to be doing very well without him. The insults are kind of harsh in light of that. It kind of bothers me.

OK, so on Raggi's FB we once again have his friend making something that is positive for James all about himself and the negatives of his life. Will it hurt the business? Who knows. James is elated at somebody making a positive review of LOTFP, and because the person/people in question were part of the "hate mob" (I'm no expert and really don't know who most of the actors in all this in the last 5 years are) Zak makes it about the negatives in his life and seems to endorse people bothering the reviewer about it. One commentator on the thread does just that, in fairly nice terms, but yeah makes it all about ZK and his issues. 

Christopher 'Staples' O'Dell

Done. This is what I posted:

Great to see you continuing to review LotFP material.

I recently heard that you used to have reviews of three of Zak Sabbath's books – A Red and Pleasant Land, Vornheim, and Maze of the Blue Medusa, the first two of which are LotFP – but I'm not seeing them in your Reviews playlist anymore.

Between the court cases and the Clio Belle Weisman's Medium piece, it seems to be clear that Zak is innocent of the abuse charges that were leveled at him in the OSR community.

Would you be willing to put your reviews of Zak's material back up? If not, would you be willing to explain your reasoning?

I'm a very happy backer of Knave 2e and have been using it for my gaming. It's a great system and I want to be able to continue to support you with a clear conscience. Thanks!

Oookay. Honestly, Zak has a handful of super dedicated faithful (one guy who I think is named Semen in Ukraine pops up a lot as a staunch defender in Zak threads and has a blog that seems entirely about repeating Zaks talking point) who seem to step right in line with ZS's wants and I don't know if this guy is one of them. But yeah, somebody who was positive about Raggi's business is suddenly targeted with Zakness. Old negatives being hauled out. Of course, not being stupid nor cowardly James is not happy (I could screenshot some stuff, but I don't want to do that from somebody's social media, but here are snippets)

James Edward Raggi IV

oh for fuck's sake if the result of Ben reviewing LotFP is him getting bombarded by people bugging him about Zak (pro or con) the fucking result is going to be him not reviewing LotFP stuff anymore.

Zak Smith

James Edward Raggi So you let the bad guy who participated in cannibalizing your company because you want his attention. I am not in on that

Me, me, me. 

Look, I have no dog in this fight. A decade and a half ago I posted about Zak and company and was fairly complimentary, though I was not especially informed on everything regarding it all. Back then I had come off of years of listening to Howard Stern and that leaked into my blogging vibe. Now I'm a lot older and kind of identify as a Buddhist because of my constant search for balance and peace, so I don't want to judge. But I simply cannot wonder if James has made a major boo boo by essentially going backwards at a time when things seem to be going well. People (including humble old me in my last post) saying positive things about him and his work. Is it all going to have a taint of somebody else's apparent negativity and life problems attached to it from here on out? 

I mildly followed the Zak controversies in recent years. I'm not that informed these days on the general gaming community out there. I mainly look at some posts by Tenkar and one or two others. But it is a fascination story, and at some point I found myself having some sympathy for Smith. I saw a post where he had teeth pulled and an eviction notice due to lack of funds (sadly for the most part probably lining the pockets of lawyers). I get it. He got me too'd pretty hard. But is what he now brings to the table going to be an improvement for Raggi and his bottom line? If that line gets damaged, will it be out of his sense of friendship, or raging against the machine that cancels both a person and their works? I dunno. I could not offer advice because in my life I have not always made the best choices in terms of the friends I chose or the causes I championed. So I will try not to judge others in those regards. I can only wish Raggi the best with his business. I'm actually thinking of buying one of those 300 buck prestige format Virginia game packs i would likely never run just to more quietly support him. And I'm going to hope, like I would for anybody, his choices don't hurt him. Whatever those choices are, I won't think of him as stupid or cowardly. 

Cheers

All reactio

A True Relation of the Great Disastrum of Virginia

Since starting to work mostly from my home office the other year I watch a hell of a lot of YouTube. I have to be honest. I find it fairly distracting. All these 10 to 20 minute bits on all kinds of subjects I like or have interest in.

So every now and again a short, James Raggy video will pop up. So kind of more in touch with his stuff than i've ever been really. I had moments of fascination about some lotfp stuff such as years ago, hearing about the module, Death Frost Doom being a rip off of one of my old favorites, the Lichway from White dwarf magazine (as it turns out, only the ending gimmick was, but otherwise the Lichway was a far more approachable and gameable adventure module in general).

So, the other year he had a giant PDF sale with rock-bottom prices and I picked up a handful just to finally satisfy my curiosity about some things I didn’t want to spend more than a couple of bucks on. I still haven’t brought myself to read even the barest fraction of the stuff. There might be some tiny bits to steal, but overall a lot of the stuff just doesn’t fit with how I do things for my old school game world but I do believe that old style DND in itself is generally fairly weird unless you really try to make it not so. Back in the 80s I remember us playing albums with our games like John Michael Jarre’s strange Zoolook which is pretty weird and inspired lots of creep. But certainly not “your characters penis turns into a live eel” kind of creep. 

Over a decade ago in the early and chaotic beef-filled days of my blogging I remember messaging James regarding how he found players for his game in the city he was not native to. I got a quick reply and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t explore his stuff over the years because I generally don’t really purchase a whole lot of game material, again, I really don’t know how much use I would’ve gotten out of any of it. I supposed at some point, I’ll take a closer look at some of those PDFs bought for a song. I think I got Red and Pleasant Land and I'd like to see what the fuss is about. Vornheim just kind of baffled me. I run a lot of city stuff and certainly not how that is presented. 

So some time ago a Raggi Youtube video popped up. I always tend to pay a bit of attention. I kind of like the guy. I knew a lot of metal heads back in the day in Venice Beach, but he seems fairly harmless and amiable compared to those sketchy chuckleheads. It was mostly the metal loving surfers I got in to scrapes with in the beach parking lots (the movie Point Break had a lot of true to life bits in it). I mean there is some ick there. I mentioned in a previous post some time ago about his comments about "why would you bother cleaning the inside of your toilet"(uh...maybe cuz it is in the house, and maybe a girl will come over?). But fair enough. I don't think he drinks, but I could see having a beer and a shot with him and talking some games. Since I've been of a mind to leave the country in recent years I would probably also ask his advice on being a stranger in a strange land. 

But anyway, he introduced this...

“Being an Account of the Rising of a new Star to the West of the Virginia Colony,
And its Derangements of Space,
The Engines of a Second Creation,
Rains of Fishes and burninge Coales,
The Mazement thus brought to Heathen and Christian,
And the Prodigies, Sports of Nature, and invasive Creatures from Spheres beyond,
Now disportinge upon the Earth

After years of raids and massacres, the Powhatan Confederacy and the Virginia Colony find themselves in an uneasy peace. The people of Jamestown and outlying plantations again trade with Powhatan neighbors, and English planters again ship tobacco to markets across the Atlantic.

Then the land to the west of Powhatan territory seems to rupture skyward, a new star rising into the sky. Down the James River soon come reports of strange happenings, strange beasts, and stranger people.

The English were not the only ones seeking a New World.

A True Relation of the Great Disastrum of Virginia, 1633 is a campaign for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing and other traditional role-playing games. This set comprises a sourcebook for the Virginia Colony, rules for exploring an altered wilderness, keyed encounters both in Virginia and far beyond, new Magic-User spells and miscast tables, and more than eighty new monsters”.

So, a high-quality campaign set, some kind of prestige format, and very different it seems from his usual modules with titles like "The Whores Bloody Guts" or "Honey, I fucked the kids."

Super interesting, I think. Colonizer days? Possibilities there (probably triggering in our current soy-boy society. Inspired by "Annihilation?" Cool. Super high quality and something like 300 bucks? Yow. Do you get a pdf with it so you can wrap the books in lead and put them in a safe?

My first thoughts though when I heard about it was "how the hell would I get players for this?" Is there a LOTFP forum with a player search thread? Because its getting hard enough to get players for DnD in the Roll20 forums. I want to do some Runequest and am mostly afraid of being to find enough players for it. Or at least a mixed gender group. I hate sausage fests. But not sure how the ladies, or even dudes I guess, would feel about running characters in buckle shoes and big stove pipe type hats (also with buckles). Stuff usually associated with Thanksgiving. Though The Witch (VVitch?) film was cool. I might use that as an example. 

It has struck me that this might work for Call of Cthulhu, and couched with that in mind may be the easiest ways to approach players. I do have a thing for different historical periods for CoC. I see Drive Thru has the PDF for 25 bucks, and I'm thinking of getting that just out of pure curiosity. 

I sure as hell would love to see some live play of this. It has been out awhile, but I see nothing. Not even a review. So maybe this is so far just being bought in the expensive form by the faithful and placed in protective plastic on shelves. But Raggi himself, with his odd, grotty charm, should be doing videos of him running this for some people. 

Jonesing for Glorantha. An impulse buy.

 I’ve talked about my old love of Runequest  here, here and here. And, well, over the years I probably at least mention Runequest in posts a dozen times so if you want to seek them out just type in Runequest in the search bar. Oh, I talked about in one of my articles for now defunct Film Goblin (the owner of the site was a hopeless, hardly functional drunk). 

The point of this quick post though is about this impulse buy…I don't buy many physical books anymore.

Running Cthulhu of late certainly has me thinking about Runequest just due to the basic role-playing similarities. Then it quickly leads to me thinking about Glorantha,  Probably my favorite game setting of all time.

It was one of those alternatives to dungeons and dragons. I discovered early on as a kid hanging out at Aero hobbies in Santa Monica. I ran a dragonnewt for a long time there, at least in young person time. Probably for like a year. but when owner Gary and the older dudes decided to move onto another game, like Traveller or Empire of the petal throne, we younger people went along with them. How I discovered so many games early on in the hobby.

It was my older teens and onward when I’d much preferred playing with my own friends or groups rather than a hobby shop with a bunch of stinky, aging wargamers and college aged nerds. That along with playing sports, surfing and of course girls I graduated from that dusty musty place to get a short campaign or two of RQ going with friends between my late teens and early 20s, but there were just so many things I loved to run. Primarily DND but I loved champions and also Cthulhu here and there. DnD always had to take the lions share of game time, but I had other loves and in every group I put together I would unleash another genre on them. They would resist but then love it. 

Then probably something like a break from RQ that lasted decades before I ran a shortish campaign of it with my group around 10 years ago in Santa Monica. 

Well, now I’ve got this bug again and I just decided to get the main book of the latest edition just to have a read through and see if I wanna go through the player finding process for it. It’s fairly thick and heavy book. More reading than I generally like to do these days ha ha. But I’m really going to buckle down and try to get a few pages in a night.

Its a really thick jampacked book. So much information on the cults and societies and all that. Far more than I remember in the ancient second edition book. Too much really I think. In the day we had to fill in a lot of the gaps ourselves. But I also realized I should’ve maybe gotten the quick start rules. there’s just so much crunch in this book. So much background info. And the Quickstart rules come with cool maps of Glorantha and of towns and stuff. I actually didn’t get the quickstart because It didn’t seem like elves and dwarves would be in that book. But they’re not in the main book either. For that you have to get the Glorantha Bestiary.

 I may just go ahead and get the quick rules anyway. The main book is kind of intimidating. Prob still gotta get the Bestiary. 

But, damn, I just want to run some Glorantha. I have used Gringles Pawn shop and the Rainbow Mounds so much for D&D it is time to experience them with Runequest again! We'll see. But it's fun reading.

Cheers