Treasure Hunt 2023

 This year’s Christmas treasure hunt:

Add together the fifth and sixth prime numbers. Then subtract 1.

Find the three consecutive odd numbers whose sum is 27. What is the middle number?

The first letter of the capital city of Myanmar.

Decrypt this using a caesar cypher with a shift of 3: “Wkh dqvzhu lv wkh ohwwhu g.”

What is the number of the chapter titled “The Forbidden Forest” in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone?

The ninth prime number.

The first letter of the name of the artist who painted three castles.

A bat and a ball cost £1.10 in total. The bat costs £1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost, in pence?

The first letter of the name of the artist who painted a wine bottle and two glasses.

A score.

Changing my mind – Fate

Last time I talked about the change I’d make to Fate Accelerated – I’d add a seventh approach, Charming.

Vodkashok pointed out some errors in my thinking on The Tavern discussion forum (where, through the magic of Interwebs, my blog was automatically posted).

He wrote:

I'd humbly suggest falling back onto my old favourite Fate Accelerated adage - Approaches say how you do something, not what you do. So each one can be applied to anything. So, if you are trying to charm someone

Quick - rapidly bombarding the listener with words, not letting them get a word in. Literal fast talk

Forceful - power of charisma or fear, like a drill sergeant

Flashy - a staged performance, ala Donald Trump

Careful - slowly and steadily picking your words to make the most impact

Clever - long words, complex sentence structure, introduce some Latin phrasing and the occasional 'Whaar!'

Sneaky - Laying down linguistical traps, boxing someone into a corner where they cannot do anything but agree, the weasel words salesperson

He’s right, and that’s helped my Fate Accelerated thinking.

How you do it, not what you do

Vodkashok is right to remind me that approaches are how you do something, not what you do.

It seems odd that I had forgotten that, as when I teach Fate Accelerated to new players, that’s exactly what I tell them: you tell me what you’re trying to do, and I’ll tell you which approach that is.

Can you forcefully charm someone?

But I’m not sure about all of Vodkashok’s examples (they appear to be persuading someone rather than charming them), but it’s a good example of how something like persuasion works in Fate Accelerated. 

And “charming” might even be part of your high concept aspect, allowing you to spend a fate point to invoke it for a bonus. Or it could be a stunt.

How do you charmingly open a door?

Thinking about it further, charming doesn’t work as an approach because it’s so limited. How would you “charmingly” open a door or drive a car? You can’t. It doesn’t work.

Now, I’m not sure that every approach should be used in every situation (I probably wouldn’t let someone forcefully charm someone), but adding niche approaches probably isn’t the way to go.

So, I won’t add Charming to Fate Accelerated after all.

What would I change about my favourite RPG system?

While I participated in RPGaDAY back in August, I found the questions a bit frustrating as I would have liked them to be more reflective.

As I was going through the month, I came up with a few questions I would like to answer. This is one of them.

What would you change about your favourite RPG system?

My favourite system, the one I find easiest to run and play, is Fate Accelerated.

I find Fate Accelerated absurdly simple. Characters are defined by:

• Aspects (“Hotshot pilot” “Rugged archaeologist” “Bull in a china shop”) which are always true. (Aspects can be applied to anything.)
• Approaches – how the character does things. Approaches come in six flavours: Forceful, Quick, Careful, Clever, Sneaky, and Flashy.
• Stunts – special abilities that work in certain circumstances, often giving a +2 bonus to a roll.

There are no skills – if you want skills, you should use Fate Core or Fate Condensed. (But I’m not a fan of Fate’s skills list, as I mentioned in my Fate of Cthulhu writeup.)

Doing stuff

So, to do something in Fate Accelerated, a player rolls four fate dice and adds the relevant approach. If they are smashing down a door, it’s probably Forceful. If they are picking the lock, it might be Careful.

The difficulty with approaches

Sometimes, I find it tricky to work out which approach should be used. Clever and Careful often seem to have an overlap. I don’t worry too much, but if I’m struggling, I do two things:

First, I consider what the result will be (and what might happen if they fail). If the player is carefully defusing a bomb, then that suggests a methodical approach. If they fail, they’ve probably taken precautions against taking too much damage. But quickly defusing a bomb suggests a certain recklessness.

Second, it’s sometimes helpful to think of the approaches as D&D attributes. While this works for Forceful (Strength), Quick (Dexterity), and Clever (Intelligence), this doesn’t work so well for the others. (This doesn’t work for every case. If a PC was trying to intimidate an NPC, I could imagine them rolling Forceful.)

I guess I could argue that Careful might equate to Wisdom, but I suspect that the blurriness between Clever and Careful is like that between INT and WIS.

But there’s no approach in Fate Accelerated equivalent to Charisma or Constitution. That’s fine for Constitution – there’s no need for a “healthy” approach as that’s covered by stress boxes and consequences.

But Charisma? That’s the bit in Fate Accelerated I miss. My players often try to befriend or get to know NPCs, and I find the approaches let me down in Fate Accelerated. So, I’d like to see a “charming” or “charismatic” or “likeable” approach for social situations.

Just one change

So that’s the change to Fate Accelerated I’d make: a seventh approach – Charming.

Reflections on a campaign larp

So from what I could tell and what the players told me (and others afterwards), the players enjoyed my two freeforms at Consequences. Several players want to find out what’s coming next, and other players (who missed one or both episodes) want me to run them again.

Which has me in a bit of a quandary.

The big idea

So a recap.

I’m writing a series of connected freeform larps set in the same universe. The freeforms are based on the science fiction first-contact novels and movies (and other media) that I have always adored.

Some characters appear in multiple episodes. Some characters appear only once. The games are always written for 13 players (although I’ve managed when Life has interfered). The games are also designed to be independent – you need not play in the previous episodes, but I hope you’ll get more out of them if you do.

The games so far are:

The Roswell Incident: Kind of a prequel. Sets the scene and introduces some of the main themes. This is now published by Freeform Games.

All Flesh is Grass: Based on the 1965 Clifford D Simak novel of the same name.

Children of the Stars: The players grapple with another alien race. Friendly or not?

Messages from Callisto: A mission to Callisto has unsettling news.

The Stars our Destination: The next game, which I’ve started, is set on Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

So far, I have run each game twice – so I have two alternate “timelines” taking place.

Timeline 1 is is an online-only game, started in February 2022. It’s suffered from occasional technical difficulties.

Timeline 2 is a face-to-face series that started at Retcon in February 2023 and continued at Consequences in 2023.

There are a few differences between the two – aside from the differences the players have created. I have changed some character names and alien details (one alien has completely changed from my original ideas).

But I’m keen to carry on with them. The two timelines are diverging, which is both scary and exciting.

(I should also note that while I have a vague sense of where I’m heading with the overall arc, I don’t know how I’ll get there…)

Multiple runs

At a convention like Consequences, it’s common to have multiple runs of popular games. This year, The Ashlight Labyrinth and Incense and Insensibility both ran twice. 

While that’s an easy thing to do for a one-shot, that’s a little trickier for ongoing games.

One easy answer is to start each episode with a summary that basically says, “Forget what happened last time; this is the real history.” As I understand it, that’s what Tony Mitton’s Linfarn Run series does.

But I don’t want to do that. I want the players' decisions in an episode to affect later episodes. If the players decide to multilaterally disarm and dismantle the world’s nuclear stockpile, then that should be part of the history going into later episodes.

I guess I could run (say) Children of the Stars twice at the same convention. They could have a common background (let’s say Timeline 2), but I would then end up with Timeline 2A and 2B (or is that Timeline 3 and 4?).

But that’s not what I want to do. I’d rather start Timeline 3 with The Roswell Incident and start afresh.

Playing previous episodes

The other issue is whether players who join the game at episode 4 (say), would like to play an earlier episode. They already know some of what happened in those episodes (because it’s part of the background) – but would playing in an earlier episode appeal?

I don’t know.

I’d like to think that my games are enjoyable enough that they would have a good time playing even if they already knew some details. 

And freeforms are often re-run, and players often play them again. At the recent Retcons, I played in two freeforms that I had played previously – in one case, I even played the same character. It didn’t affect my enjoyment – I had either forgotten the details, or deliberately overlooked them.

So, I hope that players will enjoy playing in earlier episodes. (And if it were me, I’d be tempted to push the game in different directions.) I guess I’ll find out in due course.

2-3 monthly campaign

I guess my ideal approach for the campaign would be to run them at 2-3 monthly intervals with a stable of players.

If anyone is in the Leeds/Harrogate/York region and wants to organise such a thing, let me know!

Available for others

A final constraint is that I plan to make the games available for others to play.

So far, The Roswell Incident is available via Freeform Games as one of their murder mystery games (although the main mystery isn’t a murder…)

Next to get into shape is All Flesh is Grass, which I hope to start work on shortly. When that’s done, I’ll make it available on my itch.io page. With a fair wind, I hope to get that up in early 2024.

However, making a game where earlier games affect later games presents a few challenges. For Children of the Stars, I anticipated one big outcome and several little outcomes. (And there was another outcome I hadn’t predicted!)

So for Messages from Callisto, I prepared a set of notes for each character based on the big outcome and briefings for the little outcomes. And between the games, I hurriedly stuffed character packets accordingly.

However, as the timeline goes on, that’s likely to become more complicated.

So I will probably provide the game as MS Word documents (rather than a pdf as I might normally do), and highlight the areas that need changing. (It’s that or provide different files for each option – along with really complicated instructions for assembling character packets.)

I am already taking the highlighter approach for The Stars our Destination as I am already writing different sections of the text changes for different outcomes.

To sum up

So:

• I want to keep the games in their own timelines. I want the in-game decisions to matter. So I’m unlikely to run them more than once at the same convention.
• I will make them available for others to run.
• The next game will be The Stars our Destination and is set on Rapa Nui. The title may change (but it’s unlikely). I hope to run that online in the first half of 2024 (Timeline 1), and then in person at Consequences (Timeline 2).
• I will probably run another game at Consequences, but whether that is episode 6 or something else, at this point I have no idea.
• I’m not sure when I’m going to start Timeline 3.

My first Consequences

So last weekend I attended Passionate Consequences, the freeform larp convention (with some boardgames) held every year in a holiday camp near Poole.

Loads of people found it hard to believe that this was my first Consequences. Many of my larp friends attend – and many games played were ones written at Peaky. Consequences started in 2007, but as it’s on the south coast (near Poole), attending it always meant taking five days (including travel). And while I had a day job and a young family, that was more leave than I was comfortable taking.

Now I don’t have a day job, it’s easier to take leave, and so in 2023, I went to my first Consequences.

Consequences

Consequences is held at Naish holiday village, so the accommodation is mostly holiday chalets. My accommodation (a two-bed apartment, not actually a chalet) was fine – it was clean and (once we’d figured out the heating) warm. As ever in this sort of accommodation, there were never enough towel rails.

Typical accomodation / gaming lodge

The accommodation is all self-catered, and I ate a mixture of ready meals and bar meals. Unfortunately, the apartment’s oven was a little shonky. I’d bought a non-microwavable shepherd's pie but couldn’t get the oven up to temperature. So tipped the pie out of its foil tray onto a plate and used the microwave, and all was fine.

Thursday

I set off from Yorkshire at about 9, having walked the dog, and after a long but easy drive, arrived at about 3 pm. I checked in and chatted with old friends.

Horrospital

My first game was the tricky-to-pronounce Horrospital, a horror-comedy game by Tony Mitton for 25 players. Horror in freeforms is never very horrific. It is inevitably played for laughs and involves comedy vampires, werewolves, demons and the like. It’s always over the top and never very scary. Which sums up Horrospital nicely.

I played Orderly Peeler, an undercover cop. I was investigating a series of murders, and I got much of the way through solving it, but couldn’t quite get the final piece. This is partly because I was tired, but mainly because I didn’t sit down and discuss the murders properly with the character who could have filled in some gaps.

(I was tired not because of the long drive, but because the game started at 8 pm and I’m often tucked up in bed at 10 pm. I remember starting to flag at about 9:45 pm and thinking, blimey, we’ve got a way to go yet.) 

Anyway, Horrospital was very enjoyable, my favourite bit was explaining to everyone that the reason I was investigating the murders was because I was studying for an NVQ. I’m sure everyone saw through my nonsense.

Friday

I woke at 6 am (as usual) after a not-very-long night. Although I returned to the chalet early(ish), I didn’t go straight to bed as I wanted to relax and unwind first. I also needed to review my character for the morning’s game. I was originally signed up to play Sam, but a last-minute dropout meant I changed to Stevie. Who I hadn’t read. So I needed to read, absorb and take notes. Perhaps unwisely, I did that before going to bed and, as a result, got only three or four hours of sleep.

Antarctic Base 13

This was a ten-player tense SF game set at an isolated research station in the Antarctic – with strong The Thing vibes. Written by Rich Perry and Alli Mawhinney, I’ve wanted to play it for a while. I’m glad I did, as it was great.

I played Stevie, the comms operator. Which meant I had access to lots of information – and I didn’t like going outside. My favourite parts were searching the base when everyone else had gone outside and doing something in plain sight in front of other players who were so caught up in their own thing that they didn’t notice me doing it.

It’s not perfect – the character sheets need a bit of work, and a couple of bits feel creaky, but the core concept is great. 

After that, I had a short nap to wake up and lost badly at Dune Imperium, which I’d not played before. (I can see why it’s popular, but it’s a bit long for my liking.)

Children of the Stars

This was the first of the two games I was running, and I was looking forward to seeing how it would work. I had 13 players – and it went really well. I had a few pre-flight nerves because the first run (online) didn’t go well for various reasons. But this time, it went off without a hitch.

Discussions about weighty matters...

The players bought into the ongoing story. A couple had played in earlier episodes, and I had four playing in both this and Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. And I could see the decisions I’d given everyone were causing them to think.

As ever, I made copious notes and have a few changes to make – mostly clarifications rather than anything game-breaking.

Saturday

I woke with a headache on Saturday and decided to eat in the restaurant rather than battle the kitchen appliances. My headache had cleared by the time it was to play my first game.

Old Nick’s Game

Old Nick’s Game is written by Charlie Paull, Alan Paull, Roger Gammans, and Nick Hollingsworth. It’s for ten players and is set in Hell and is based (loosely) on Old Harry’s Game, a Radio 4 comedy which I know of but haven’t listened to.

I will admit to being slightly apprehensive about this game as I wasn’t sure about my character. I was playing Antonia, the mother-in-law of another character. Gender didn’t seem very important in the game, so I wasn’t worried about that, but my character didn’t believe that they were in Hell – instead, this was all a rag week stunt. But the character sheet felt muddled as a result.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried as the game was great. It played really nicely, and I had a whale of a time pretending we weren’t in Hell. I particularly enjoyed threatening to report Satan to HR if he continued his bullying. My favourite bit was discussing my favourite fiction (which I decided was Mills & Boon romances) with Satan, and he summoned Jane Austen from the pits of Hell – and she turned out to be extremely foul-mouthed. She must have had a very good editor!

Between games

The most important thing I needed to do on Saturday was prepare the character packs for Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. So once I’d had a bite to eat, I popped back to the apartment to sort that out.

Messages from Callisto is set ten years after Children of the Stars, and decisions the players make in Children affects the background to Messages. I’d thought about this in advance and come up with options – so I had extra background and briefing sheets for each character. And now I knew what had happened in Messages, I could prepare Children.

(Would I do this again? It was a lot of work, but it was also very satisfying. So the answer is probably yes.)

Once I’d done that, I went back to the main area and got into a game of Villagers. While I was playing, I was asked if I’d fill a spare place in Better Than Life, as a player had dropped. So that was my evening sorted.

A Better Than Life Sandwich

A BTL Sandwich is a series of three short minigames featuring five characters. The scenes are all unrelated. It was written by Martin Jones for the Across the Universe weekend game, but he’s run these separately many times since.

The three minigames are all wonderful – tense, angsty and funny. The character sheets were all short, so it didn’t take much for me to catch up. It’s a great pick-up game.

The three minigames were:

• The Judgement of Solomon: The fate of a child hangs in the balance… I played the judge – and I might have played this before. There’s no good decision here – wonderfully angsty.
• The Gig at the End of the Universe: Inspired by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – and at about 30 minutes, probably the right length for a Hitchhiker’s game. The light relief to the other two more angsty games. I was Zaphod Beeblebrox, man! Delightful nonsense.
• Waiting: A dramatic game about waiting for aliens to attack. How long do you have, and what must you say before the end? Fabulously bleak.

Looking back, Better Than Life was one of my favourite games of the weekend. And it finished relatively early, which meant I was in bed by 11 am and got a good night’s sleep.

Sunday

A good night’s sleep left me refreshed for Sunday. I heard stories of people not getting to bed until 4 or 6 am. I don’t think I can do that.

Devil to Pay

Devil to Pay is a 26-player pirate freeform written by Brian Richburg and Alison Joy Schafer. It was an old-style freeform larp with long character sheets, rules, contingency envelopes, items, abilities and more. I found the long character sheet hard to read at first, but it soon made sense during play.

I played Laurens de Graaf, a Dutch privateer. To my surprise, my character survived. I was expecting to die horribly – but I won a duel and ended up with just enough loot to survive the game. It was great playing with Nickey, who was my wife and rescued our daughters before they could be killed in a pirate raid.

Messages from Callisto

Messages from Callisto follows Children of the Stars. It’s for 13 players, and I had four players who played in both games. Three played the same character. The fourth was a last-minute addition – I would have cast them as the same character had I known.

Thanks to a few typos (and some mistakes when stuffing envelopes), Messages from Callisto had a slightly creakier start than Children. But once it was going, it went well, and everyone seemed fully engaged and having deep discussions.

I have come away with a page of notes and improvements – but players told me later that they had a good time (and want to play other episodes), so that was all wonderful to hear. (I’ll probably reflect on that in a later post.)

Next year?

Next year, Consequences will move to a new venue. I suspect it will still be a long drive from Yorkshire, but I’m planning to go again.

Are tabletop RPGs "art"?

The old question of whether RPGS are Art (with a capital A) came up on The Tavern discussion forum recently.

I realised I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Instinctively, I think RPGs aren’t art – but I’m also aware that this discussion has happened many times before and by people smarter than me.

So if it’s an old discussion, it was probably in ChatGPT’s learning data. So I asked the question.

Are roleplaying games "art"?

My first mistake was not specifying tabletop roleplaying games. While ChatGPT 3.5 gave me an excellent response, I realised that it was referring to video games. (And purist that I am, I’m slightly annoyed that videogames have hijacked “roleplaying”.)

So, I asked about tabletop rpgs. Here’s ChatGPT’s response – I’ve merged both answers as elements in its first answer also applied to TTRPGS.

Whether tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) are considered "art" can be subjective and depends on how one defines "art." In a broad sense, many people argue that TTRPGs are a form of art. Here are some perspectives on this:

• Narrative and storytelling: Tabletop RPGs rely heavily on narrative and storytelling. Game masters (GMs) and players collaboratively create stories, characters, and worlds, making TTRPGs a unique form of interactive storytelling. The creation of these stories can be seen as a form of artistic expression.
• Creativity and imagination: TTRPGs require substantial creativity and imagination from both the game master and the players. The open-ended nature of tabletop games allows for limitless possibilities, encouraging participants to think creatively and contribute to the unfolding narrative. The design of game worlds, characters, and scenarios involves artistic decisions.
• Visual and handcrafted elements: While not digital, the physical elements of tabletop RPGs can have artistic value. Hand-drawn maps, character sketches, custom miniatures, and other handmade components contribute to the overall artistic experience.
• Emotional impact: Like other forms of art, TTRPGs can elicit emotional responses from players. The immersive nature of the experience can create a powerful connection between the player and the game, similar to the emotional impact of other art forms.
• Rulebook design: The design and layout of TTRPG rulebooks can be considered a form of graphic design. The choice of typography, illustrations, and overall presentation can enhance the artistic appeal of the game.
• Social and collaborative art: TTRPGs are inherently social and collaborative experiences. The interactions and dynamics between players contribute to a unique form of collective storytelling akin to a collaborative art project.
• Cultural and Social Commentary: Some RPGs explore complex themes, social issues, and cultural commentary. This reflective aspect can be considered a form of artistic expression.

However, not everyone may view TTRPGs as art, especially if they have a more traditional or narrow definition of art. Additionally, some TTRPGs prioritise gameplay mechanics over narrative or visual elements, blurring the lines between art and entertainment.

Ultimately, whether RPGs are considered art depends on one's perspective and definition of art. Many consider the act of playing and creating within a TTRPG to be a form of artistic expression, demonstrating that the boundaries of what is considered "art" continue to expand.

I thought that was pretty good. But I wondered if ChatGPT could present the opposing arguments.

And the arguments for them not being art?

Some arguments against considering tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) as art include:

• Functional vs. artistic intent: Critics may argue that the primary intent of TTRPGs is functional rather than artistic. The rules, mechanics, and systems are designed to facilitate gameplay and create an interactive experience, emphasising functionality over traditional artistic expression.
• Varied quality: Not all TTRPGs have the same level of narrative depth, character development, or visual appeal. Critics might contend that the wide range in quality among different games undermines the idea of TTRPGs as a cohesive art form.
• Player-generated content: The collaborative and player-driven nature of TTRPGs could be seen as shifting the creative responsibility away from the game designer. Critics might argue that the artistry lies more with the players' contributions than with the inherent design of the game itself.
• Commercial considerations: Some argue that the commercial nature of TTRPGs, where profitability is a significant factor, can dilute the purity of artistic intent. Games may be developed with market trends and sales in mind, potentially compromising artistic vision.
• Lack of tangible artefacts: Unlike traditional visual arts or literature, TTRPGs don't always produce tangible artefacts that can be readily displayed or collected as art. This lack of a physical, tangible product may contribute to scepticism regarding their classification as art.

These arguments are not universally accepted, and opinions on whether TTRPGs are considered art can vary widely. Additionally, the evolving landscape of art and the broader acceptance of interactive and participatory forms of media challenge traditional distinctions between art and other forms of cultural expression.

But what do I think?

I found ChatGPT’s explanation helpful in helping me realise where I stand on the whole “Are RPGs art?” discussion.

So, for me, while RPGs have artistic elements (most obviously the artwork), I don’t regard the playing of RPGs as art. But I’m happy if you do.

(Note: the image above was the result when I typed Are tabletop roleplaying games “art” into the Artflow AI art generator. I think it’s orcs playing D&D.)

Currently reading

My current reading pile has gotten out of hand. Normally, I may have two or three books on the go – an actual physical book, a book on my Kindle that I read at night, and maybe an audiobook or a book on my phone. 

Thanks to poor book management by myself, I seem to be in the middle of ten books right now.

Here they are, in no particular order.

The Integral Trees by Larry Niven

I picked this up at the wonderful Aardvark Books secondhand bookstore in Herefordshire. It has a pretty good SF section, and while I remember Larry Niven’s The Integral Trees coming out in 1983, I didn’t read it then. It cost me £2.50, 55p more than the 1985 cover price.

Unfortunately, it isn’t as good as I hoped. While the world is exciting and different (and the reason to read it), the story is about the descendants of a crashed human spaceship and feels a bit derivative. (Maybe it wasn’t derivative in 1983 – but I can think of other books with similar premises from about that time.)

I won’t seek out its sequel, The Smoke Ring, but I’ll probably pick it up if I come across it.

How to be a Liberal by Ian Dunt

I enjoyed Dunt’s Brexit – What the Hell Happens Now? (which accurately predicted much of the chaos we’ve experienced) and I’ve enjoyed his journalism. But How to be a Liberal is, so far, a history of liberalism, starting with Descartes in 1619.

And I’m finding it hard going - I picked this up in Wetherby’s Oxfam months ago, and yet I’m not even 100 pages in. So I’ve put it on the back burner. I haven’t abandoned it (yet), but I’m clearing other books before returning to it.

The Land of the Green Man by Carolyne Larrington

This is a tour of British folklore, covering pretty much everything. I bought this because I wanted to learn more about British folklore – and particularly how I might apply it to my Liminal games. (I usually just make stuff up, but Liminal’s USP is that it covers British folklore, so I thought I’d do some reading.)

However, I’m starting to regret not taking any notes…

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Chiang’s Stories of Your Life is the short story that became Arrival. It’s been on my to-read list for a while, so when I saw it in a secondhand bookshop in Berwick, I bought it.

However, I don’t enjoy short stories. I find them too choppy – I want to wrap myself in a story, and short stories are over too quickly. They also have a different feel to novels – they’re “cleverer”, and that’s not always what I want. So, I’m slowly working my way through them. My favourite story so far is Understand, a story about a man whose hormone-K therapy makes him superintelligent – but not quite intelligent enough…

I’ve got one story to go, and I’m not quite sure what is stopping me from reading that story and moving Stories of Your Life and Others off my current reading list. (All those other books, probably.)

Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler

A birthday present and delightfully wrong on so many levels. Scarfolk is the fictional 1970s county in England’s Northwest – I can’t do it justice here, so I suggest you visit the Scarfolk blog. To my surprise, Discovering Scarfolk has a narrative and concerns itself with the disappearance of two children. Or at least, that’s the story so far.

The Book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read by Louise Glazebrook

All about dog behaviour and communication – our dog, Monty, is now seven years old, so I probably could have done with this a few years ago. It’s an easy read, and I’m already nearly halfway through, so I expect I will finish this fairly quickly.

Cursed Objects by J W Ocker

I’ve had Cursed Objects for ages – I think it was a 2022 Xmas present. It’s a collection of over fifty essays about cursed objects (the clue is in the title). There are loads of ideas in here for RPG investigations, but I probably should have made notes.

This is taking a long time to read because it lives in the summerhouse, and I only read a chapter or so on a sunny afternoon. Now that we’re in November, sunny afternoons are few and far between… I’m not expecting to finish this before next year. 

The Ember Blade by Chris Wooding

I’m finding The Ember Blade hard going, which is a surprise as I normally find Chris Wooding very readable – his Tales of the Ketty Jay are wonderful (start with Retribution Falls), as is The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray.

However, this is slow. It’s a fantasy setting, with an occupying empire and plucky underdogs (I wonder who we’re rooting for?), but it’s taking its time in getting going, and I’m not finding the two heroes particularly likeable. (And as a result, I’m finding it much too easy to put it down.)

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Every now and again, I find I’ve got some spare time, but I don’t have my Kindle (or another book) to hand. That’s when I turn to the Kindle app on my phone, and because I had some time on holiday recently (probably waiting for the family somewhere), I have started Ministry for the Future.

The book starts in the middle of an awful heatwave in India that results in millions of deaths. I’ve only just started Ministry for the Future, but it looks like that’s the event that kicks everything off. I expect when I finish The Ember Blade, I’ll start reading this one on my Kindle.

Unruly by David Mitchell

I’m listening to Unruly: A History of England’s Kings and Queens with Mrs H. We like to listen to audiobooks on long car journeys, and we started Unruly on our way back from Herefordshire recently. It’s engaging and often funny, as expected from David Mitchell.

Thanks to concentrating on the traffic, I’ve lost track of exactly where we are, but I know we haven’t reached the Battle of Hastings yet. But I don’t think it’s far off. However, I’m not sure when we’ll next listen to it – we’ve not got another long car journey planned for a couple of months.

MR James: The Complete Ghost Stories Collection

During December, I like to listen to MR James’ ghost stories – I have several of his best-known stories on Audible, read by the likes of Derek Jacobi and David Suchet. Last year, I bought this collection, read by Jonathan Keeble, which fills in the gaps.

I didn’t complete it last year – maybe I will this December. But I’m in no rush.

(By the way, if you don't get on with reading MR James' ghost stories, and I find them hard to read, I do recommend listening to them. They're much better that way.)

And the pile I haven’t started yet

So that’s what I’m currently reading. Part of the problem is that the books aren’t that compelling – so not ploughing through them. I’m likely to score most of them two or three out of five.

And here’s the list of books I have waiting for me. I will try not to start these until I’ve made at least a dent in the above:

• Art of Ron Cobb by Jacob Johnson (I love Ron Cobb’s art – and there’s plenty of text as well)
• A Gamut of Games by Sid Sackson (a collection of 30+ games)
• The Armchair General by John Buckley (a sort-of choose-your-own-adventure where you’re trying to win WW2)
• Gothic Ghost Stories by Trevor Bell (something for those dark December evenings)
• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (currently being read by Mrs H)
• The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (I’m not allowed to read this before Mrs H reads it, which is probably a good thing)
• Forgotten Castles of Wales and the Marches by Paul R Davis (I love castles, and saw this in Ludlow)

Motivating a horde

As I was thinking about horde games (a type of larp) a couple of months back (see here), I thought I’d talk about something the horde can use based on Monster of the Week (MotW).

Why?

One of the problems I sometimes find with horde games is that the horde swamps the permanent characters. Horde characters are often little more than two sentences that need something from the main characters. And as a main character, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the horde.

(One of the things I liked about Across the City (the horde game written at Peaky 2023) was that as a permanent character, I had a plot, and while there was a horde around me, I didn’t always have to interact with them. But occasionally, they were very irritating and got in the way of our main plot.)

Anyway, it occurred to me that it might be worth thinking about the horde characters’ role – or motivation, as MotW puts it.

MotW gives everything a motivation – locations, monsters and NPCs. And the motivations explain their role in the story. So dark woods with the motivation maze will confuse and separate the players, while a den will harbour monsters.

(Sometimes the motivations are obvious, but even then, I find it useful to think in those terms: what purpose does this location have in the story.)

And the NPC motivations could easily be used in a horde game.

MotW bystander motivations

So rather than invent the wheel, here are MotW’s NPC motivations. (If they’re not minions of the baddies, MotW calls its NPCs bystanders.)

• Busybody (motivation: to interfere in other people’s plans)
• Detective (motivation: to rule out explanations)
• Gossip (motivation: to pass on rumours)
• Helper (motivation: to join the hunt)
• Innocent (motivation: to do the right thing)
• Official (motivation: to be suspicious)
• Skeptic (motivation: to deny supernatural explanations)
• Victim (motivation: to put themselves in danger)
• Witness (motivation: to reveal information)

How does this help the horde?

If I was playing one of the horde, knowing the intent behind the character would help me play them. As well as the usual two-line character, it would help to know that my job is to throw myself in the path of the monster so that I can be rescued. Or whether I should be helpful – or a hindrance.

I know I would find this useful.

(I have a horrible feeling that I’m talking myself into writing a horde game…)

Turning Writing Freeform Larps into an ebook

I've been learning to make an epub file (for e-readers) from an MS Word document using Calibre. I've been asked for an epub version of Writing Freeform Larps, so I thought it was time to learn how to do it.

It turned out to be relatively painless - although I found myself going around in circles several times.

The essentials

So the process consisted of copying the MS Word document I used for Writing Freeform Larps and:

• Replacing the fonts with a simple Arial font - e-readers have their own fonts.
• Removing headers and footers.
• Removing the page breaks and white space I'd inserted to make the pages look right.
• Remove cross-references within the document.
• Review formatting for bullets - my first attempt was a bit weird. I think they're still a little weird, but they're not as weird as they first were.
• Change tables to be in % width rather than an absolute width. (The first time I did this, they were wider than the page, and I couldn't read them properly.)

Then:

• Import the docx into Calibre
• Turn it into an epub
• Email it to my Kindle
• And check

And every time I spot an error, I delete the file from my Kindle, amend the docx and go through the process again. (Happily, this doesn't take long.)

So I think I'm there, and last week, I uploaded the file to Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Of course, I now have two versions of Writing Freeform Larps to maintain...

Gaming books on e-readers

I'm not sure how useful an epub version is, as I don't like reading gaming books on my Kindle. I've read a couple (Fate Core and The Esoterrorists), and I found the experience, um, sub-optimal.

E-readers are great for novels and books where you start at page 1 and continue through to the end.

But I don't read RPGs that way. (Does anyone?)

And I don't use my Kindle for reference books. I'd rather have a physical book.

RPGs are full of art, tables and complex formatting - which my Kindle also struggles with. (I don't like reading pdfs, either... Maybe the problem is me?)

What would I want from an e-reader RPG?

When I use my e-reader, I read from start to finish. So, what would my ideal game ebook look like?

First off, it would NOT be a regular rulebook. It’s not something I would expect to consult at the table.

Instead, it would accompany the rules – something to read to introduce the game. Maybe explain the setting and what the characters are supposed to do.

It would cover the main principles and rules of play - but exclude the detailed skill lists and tables. (Reading skill lists, or tables of equipment, is just tedious on an e-reader.)

Maybe it would be free – a promotion piece for a game.

As ebooks are usually read sequentially, I would think carefully about the order in which everything is presented. I would want everything to flow from first principles so it makes sense.

(And now I feel I’ve set myself a challenge. Is it possible to create a good ebook version of an RPG? I want to try.)

What about Writing Freeform Larps?

I hope Writing Freeform Larps makes sense as an e-book. I start the book with the process, then build the rest of the book around that. I have a couple of lists, but they’re tucked away in the appendices and don’t interrupt the flow.

Click here to learn more about Writing Freeform Larps.

As the Sun Forever Sets: playtest

Over the summer, I’ve been running a game of As the Sun Forever Sets, a Forged in the Dark game set during HG Wells’ Martian invasion by Riley Daniels. The game isn’t out yet – I signed up for the playtest and received a long pdf rulebook, some summary sheets and a hex map of Britain.

The game is a sort of hex-crawl. You decide where you start, determine your objectives during the prelude, and then work your way across the map to your destination, avoiding Martian terrors and the fall of civilisation.

Our characters

I ran it with three characters: Sir Sidney Eaton-Warwick (widower and industrialist – played by Terry), Major Horace Armstrong (guilt-ridden military historian – Jon), and Miss Dorothea Feldman (German magician’s technician – Thomas).

We started in Dudley, with Sir Sidney and Horace at a performance by Miss Dorothea. Then, the roof of the building was torched by a Martian heat ray, and we were off.

Practically, we played the game online. We used Discord for video and chat, and Trello as our virtual table. Players rolled physical dice and told me what the results were.

Our Trello board

The story

Our story was very enjoyable. After escaping the initial panic, the PCs sheltered with some nuns in a nearby nunnery. They then escorted the nuns to their sister order near Stafford before heading north. On their way, they rescued civilians from a Martian capture-machine and helped military scientists refine and test their new, improved artillery piece. Eventually, they left England on Sir Sidney’s yacht – just as the Martians died out.

Some great moments:

• Hiding in the nunnery cellar as the building collapsed above them – and then escaping while there’s a war machine watching above.
• Rescuing people from a trapped Martian capture-machine – shooting its sensors and then killing its occupants.
• Testing the new artillery piece – taking out two tripods and then getting a ridiculous success when shelling the Martian structure, blowing it to smithereens.

The system

However, I hated the system. ATSFS is a Forged in the Dark game, which I’m not familiar with. (I signed up to the playtest because I liked the sound of the game’s setting.)

Rolling dice: Most of the time in ATSFS, the players make planning and action rolls. Planning is for larger, overall actions where everyone works together. Actions are when characters are doing something dangerous or difficult.

(There are other rolls (reflex, chance, feud), but I found they came up only infrequently.)

Both work the same way – decide what you’re doing and build a dice pool of six-sided dice. Then, roll the dice – if your highest dice is a six, you succeed. If you roll two sixes, that’s a critical success. If your highest dice is a four or five, it’s a mixed success (there’s a complication). And so on – if your highest dice is a one, well, that’s a critical fail.

However, the way you build the dice pool is slightly different for each roll, and I found that I was going back to the rules every time to remind myself how it all worked. (That was the playtest – I hope the final system will be more consistent.)

The loop: Gameplay effectively follows a loop:

• Players decide what they want to do.
• Players make a plan roll.
• Players resolve any events that occur.
• Players decide what they want to do.
• And so on…

In game terms, you can cover a lot of ground this way. A journey of ten miles on foot is merely a single roll. And you can zoom in if you need to.

In play, I found that the way the planning rolls worked (each player builds their own dice pool), we had a lot of successes.

The fiddliness: While the core system seems straightforward, I found it fiddly. The core system is backed up by many subsystems (consequences, companions, transport, camping, shelters, the accord, threat, the map), and I often felt overwhelmed. I’m a “let’s keep things simple” GM. I’m new to Forged in the Dark, and ATSFS was not a good fit for me.

I became very frustrated with the system. Despite playing for nine sessions, I never felt comfortable with the game.

Support: The support from Riley on the playtest Discord server was superb, and I got quick responses to my questions.

Online maps

We found superb online maps for Victorian Britain – the National Library of Scotland has online OS maps of the entire country, including those from the 1800s.

Overall

So I’m pleased I tried ATSFS, but I can’t imagine playing it again. I enjoyed playing through War of the Worlds, but I don’t think I’d want to do that again. And I don’t like the mechanics – they’re more complicated than I am comfortable with.

Hazelwood Abbey - DramaSystem playbooks

Following its successful premiere at Furnace, I’ve put Hazelwood Abbey on itch.io as a free download.

Hazelwood Abbey

Hazelwood Abbey is Downton Abbey meets Hillfolk. Players play an aristocratic family in a player-led dramatic game of emotional needs and wants for 4-5 players.

Hazelwood Abbey uses Pelgrane Press' DramaSystem rules engine to create a story of high-stakes interpersonal conflict. During the session, players create family members with conflicting needs and goals. And then we find out what happens.

Hazelwood Abbey consists of two sets of playbooks - one for upstairs (the family) and one for downstairs (the servants).

Upstairs playbooks

• The Earl
• The Countess
• The Heir
• The Spare
• The Eldest  Daughter
• The Youngest Daughter
• The Suitor
• The Cousin

Downstairs playbooks

• The Butler
• The Housekeeper
• The Valet
• The Lady's Maid
• The Footman
• The Housemaid
• The Cook
• The Scullery Maid

Download for free

You can download them for free on my Itch.io page.

I’ve proposed Hazelwood Abbey for Airecon in March 2024, and I’m thinking how I can run a DramaSystem game online.

Furnace 2023

It’s October and that means I’ve been to Furnace, the RPG convention in Sheffield held over two days (five sessions of gaming). I ran one game and played in three. This is how they went.

Dragonbane

First up was a Dragonbane scenario, The Village of the Day Before, ably run by Graham. I played grumpy mallard, Makander of Halfbay.

The scenario had a videogame feel about it – there was a problem to solve, which we had to solve by doing things in the right order. Fail (or run out of time), and everyone dies and the scenario resets. Fortunately, Graham didn’t make us go through everything for every reset – that would have been tiresome. We ended up with a tricky battle against a demon in which I (as the party tank) led the assault and almost died.

As a system, Dragonbane was new to me. It was extremely easy to pick up, which I was grateful for, and probably made it good for conventions.

It would have been nice to have fifteen minutes of session zero at the start to get the characters to bond with each other and create links to the scenario. As it was, we were an “adventuring party”, and we were going to the village because it might have some treasure. I know those are RPG tropes, but I’ve never been convinced by them.

DramaSystem

After lunch, I ran Hazelwood Abbey, which is Downton Abbey for Hillfolk/DramaSystem. My five players were Elina (Eldest Daughter), Lynn (The Heir), Dee (The Earl), Paul (The Spare) and Becky (The Youngest Daughter). 

Most players were new to the game, so I ran through the system, and we dived in. Everyone leaned into their characters and the situation. We had a lovely dramatic game with illegitimate children, money problems, a dodgy Heir and more.

This time, I found I needed some GM scenes to keep up the pressure on the main plot established at the start. (That wasn’t something I needed when I ran Hillfolk at Continuum.) So halfway through the game, I inserted a “GM” card into the deck I was using to call scenes; when it was my turn, I played whichever minor character I needed to play to keep things on track.

We wrapped up after about 2.5 hours with a satisfactory climax. It felt like an intense session, and I was grateful for a slightly longer break after the game. 

I will do a couple of things differently next time as The Heir and Spare need adjusting. The Heir decided that they were a distant relative, which put The Spare in an odd position. We sort of fudged it, but I’ve adjusted The Heir’s playbook to say that if The Spare is in the game, then the Heir should be a family member (ie an older brother). I think that would have been clearer.

I’ll make the playbooks available shortly.

Saturday evening

I never play slot 3 at Furnace; instead, I head home to see the family. So I re-read the Hillfolk rules. Having run it twice now, I’m already questioning some rules. I don’t know if that’s the difference between campaign and one-shot play, or whether I’m missing something, but it’s something I will reflect on as I run more Hillfolk/DramaSystem.

Unknown Armies

On Sunday morning, I played in Elaine’s Unknown Armies game – another system new to me. Elaine ran Jailbreak, a classic Unknown Armies one-shot featuring escaped convicts and an isolated farmhouse. I played Uder, the loving husband, and I’m not going to say more than that for fear of spoiling an excellent scenario. (And that’s a shame because I had a lovely scene with Elina, playing my lovely wife, which I won’t mention because it was sooooo spoilery.)

Jailbreak gets a thumbs up from me for using characters tailored for the adventure – it wouldn’t be as effective with a random set of pre-gens.

A couple of the players had played it before but couldn’t remember the details. Playing the scenario a second time isn’t a problem if you are deliberately antagonistic and help drive the action, which is what happened this time.

I didn’t get the hang of the rules – particularly the Madness Meter. But I think I made only one or two rolls, so it didn’t matter.

I expected the game to end up bloodier than it did – no characters died. Maybe we’re all getting more reasonable as we get older.

Liminal

And finally, a Liminal investigation run by Neil set in and around Newcastle (and written to accompany the forthcoming Novocastria book). With its vampires and werewolves, it’s easy to head towards horror in Liminal, but instead, Scream! If you want to die faster? focussed on genuine Newcastle folklore involving a traditional fair (The Hoppings) with its “danger night” and even an old curse). 

We played members of the Worshipful Company of Investigators – I was posh boy Simon D’Oliviera, a clued-in mortal. (And if that sounds familiar, it’s because the characters were taken from Pax Londinium – the Crew was sent on a mission outside London to the Grim North.) I’m not sure I played Simon particularly well – but I rolled dice, followed the clues, danced, was ineffectual in combat and enjoyed exploring liminal Newcastle.

One character was a London geomancer. Outside of London, you’d think their powers would be limited, but Neil had a great way to connect them to Newcastle through the gift of a magic Newcastle United shirt. (Geomancy is a tricky power if you run a game set in many locations – this was a neat solution.) 

Overall

So, three great games played, and I enjoyed running Hazelwood Abbey. Best of all was catching up with old friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years.

Maybe next year I’ll make one of the other Garrison conventions?

Current projects

I did a progress report in Feb. Here’s an update. I should do these regularly – they’re useful places for me to record what I’ve done and talk about what I have planned.

What did I achieve?

Since the last progress report, I’ve completed:

• Writing Freeform Larps
• Way out West format update (for Freeform Games)
• Other London Volume 4: Tales of Terror
• Count Magnus’ Descendent
• The Roswell Incident (for Freeform Games)

I also completed the formatting for Night Train and The Highgate Club for Peaky Games, but thanks to some technical difficulties, neither is yet available.

Current projects

I’m currently working on several projects, but I seem to work best by working on a lot of things at once. It stops me from becoming tired of any one thing. And if I hit a block, I can work on something else until inspiration strikes.

Freeform Games

Freeform Games is my main source of income, so these are my main focus.

A Purrfect Murder: A new game by Karolina Soltys and set at a cat fancy show. It’s currently being playtested by some of our customers, and when I’ve incorporated the feedback, we’ll put it on sale.

Court in the Act: Once I’ve put A Purrfect Murder to bed, I’ll start to bring Court in the Act up to date. It’s the last game in our old format.

I’m also thinking about starting a vampire/werewolf/urban fantasy murder mystery that we can sell for Halloween (our most popular period). I’m not sure about the details yet, but I’m sure it will come to me.

The Department for Irregular Services (DfIS)

I wrote about the DfIS a while back, and I used the DfIS for Count Magnus’ Descendent (a gloomy Cthulhu Dark adventure).

However, I created the DfIS for Liminal, and I’m expanding the idea with some pre-generated characters and a couple of adventures. I’ve written an investigation based on the legend of Dartmoor’s Hairy Hands, but I need to playtest it. 

Other London

I’m currently working on two investigations for Other London. Well, when I say I’m working on two, I’ve paused one while the other has taken over.

The Dead Undead: A vampire is found dead in a nightclub, and Desk 17 investigates. Before this, I didn’t know what happened to vampires when they died.

The Orphan Room: A room with no doors is found in a hotel complex. It contains a desk, and on the desk are severed heads preserved in jars. It’s a job for Desk 17, but the author has been distracted by shinies and will get back to it in due course.

First contact freeforms

I am writing and running a series of first-contact freeforms heavily inspired by classic science fiction. The series starts with The Roswell Incident (now at Freeform Games) before continuing with All Flesh is Grass, Children of the Stars and Messages from Callisto.

I am running Children of the Stars and Messages from Callisto at Consequences in November. Events that unfold in Children will affect Callisto, and three players are playing in both (two of whom have played earlier games in the series). 

So I’ve given myself a headache working out how to manage the potential different pieces of information for Messages. I have a system in place, and it means that players won’t receive some information until just before the game starts (because until Children finishes, I won’t know what to tell them). I have my fingers crossed that it all works out as I hope.

The Stars our Destination: I’m also starting on the fifth episode, in which an alien spaceship lands on Easter Island.

Other projects

Hazelwood Abbey: I enjoyed running Hillfolk so much at Continuum that I created a set of playbooks inspired by Downton Abbey. I’m running it at Furnace (and I’ve pitched it for Airecon). Assuming it doesn’t break, I’ll make them available for download.

And that’s about it

For now, at least.

ChatGPT and freeform character summaries

Last time, I talked about how I introduce character sheets with a short summary that explains who the character is, why they are here and what they want.

The other day, I received my character for Antarctic Station 13, one of the games I’m playing at Consequences. The character sheet is over 5,000 words long, and unfortunately, it lacks a summary.

But rather than write my own, I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to create one.

ChatGPT prompt

This was my prompt:

Below the five asterisks is a character for a roleplaying game. Summarise the character in 300 words, and additionally pull out the key action points and key relationships

*****

Samantha ‘Sam’ Farnsworth

Age: 41

Gender: Female

Role: Climatologist

Early life

You had a decent up bringing with parents who loved you, their youngest child. You were shy in school, had few friends and were bullied. Probably because of… [And the rest of the character sheet (nearly 4000 words) except for goals, abilities and who you know. I didn’t include goals and who you know because I wanted to see what ChatGPT would make of the general text.]

(Thanks to a casting mixup, the character was written as female, but I’m playing them as male. Perhaps.)

ChatGPT’s response

This is what ChatGPT returned:

Samantha 'Sam' Farnsworth, a 41-year-old female climatologist, has faced a tumultuous life and career. Despite a shy and bullied childhood, her passion for science and the environment propelled her to become an expert climatologist. Sam's early career involved various jobs and culminated in a tragic trek to the North Pole, where a team member's death haunted her.

After facing a downward spiral of addiction and personal struggles, she found redemption through rehab, allowing her to rebuild her life and career. A chance opportunity landed her a post at Antarctic Station 13, where she finds solace in the remote environment and seeks to regain control over her emotions and confidence.

(I’ve omitted the key action points and key relationships ChatGPT returned – they weren’t so good and are a bit spoilery.)

So that’s a great starting point. Perhaps I should have asked for it in second-person, but it has taken me only a couple of minutes to edit it into this:

You are Samantha 'Sam' Farnsworth, a 41-year-old climatologist. Despite a shy and bullied childhood, your passion for science and the environment drove you to become an expert climatologist. Your early career involved various jobs and culminated in you leading a tragic trek to the North Pole, where a team member's death still haunts you.

After facing a downward spiral of addiction and personal struggles, you found redemption through rehab and rebuilt your career. A chance opportunity landed you a post as the second-in-command at Antarctic Station 13, which is where you are now.

(I’d then add a paragraph about the immediate situation, which is potentially spoilery, so I haven’t included it here.)

Summary

That was easy – it’s taken me longer to write this post than it did to create the summary. As a player, I’ve found that really useful, and as a writer, I would happily use ChatGPT (or one of the other large language models) to create a summary like this.

Character summaries for freeform larps

Looking back at Continuum, none of the character sheets for the freeforms I played in (Veterans Day, Party Like It’s 1993 and Ghosts… it’s not Ibsen) had what I consider to be a good introduction. 

A good introduction “settles the reader” by quickly explaining who the character is, why they are present, and what they want. This sets the context for everything that follows, and I find eases my comprehension.

I now try to do this in my freeforms (although I’m not always successful).

So I thought I’d try it for each of my Continuum characters. (Don’t worry, I’ve excluded any potential spoilers.)

Veterans Day

You are Rev Giovanni Holt, a Christian minister. During the war against the aliens, you were a UNVED superhero (codename ‘Jammer’). After the war, you joined a vigilante group and fought crime. After the group broke up, you became a minister and served God. You are here because you (and other superheroes) are being presented with a medal by Vice President Elaine House. You are looking forward to catching up with your old colleagues, some of whom you haven’t seen in over two decades and maybe even solving some of the mysteries that have puzzled you in the past.

Party Like It’s 1993

You are Erich Hannawald, a West Berlin lad who rebelled against your middle-class parents and now lives a life of crime, alcohol and drugs. The Bunker is one of your favourite nightclubs, and you are here to have a beer and game of darts – and maybe score some drugs and conduct some business.

(To be fair, Erich’s character sheet had a one-line summary, although it was too short for my liking.)

Ghosts… it’s not Ibsen

You are Phillip Granger, and you are on the run from the police after having kidnapped your mother, Hillary, from her negligent care home. You’re here at Oatley Hall to see your sister, Petra, and discuss how you can best care for your mother.

These introductions then set the scene for everything else and mean that the reader has a sense of their character from the moment they start reading.

Writing Freeform Larps

A character summary doesn’t even need to be something extra that needs to be written. In my book, Writing Freeform Larps, I write them in Step #4 (Outline characters). The summary helps me define each character’s core concept early in the writing process.

Learn more about Writing Freeform Larps here.

Duddo Five Stones

Duddo Five Stones is a Bronze Age stone circle set on a hill in a field in Northumberland, near the Scottish border. Access is via a permissive path from the nearest lane – park carefully to avoid blocking the large agricultural vehicles that use the lane. It takes fifteen to twenty minutes to walk to the stones – we walked through the stubble as the corn had only recently been cut.

Approaching the stones

You can see the stones ahead of you as you approach, standing out on the skyline.

Five stones, originally seven

The five stones don’t quite make a circle – there is a large gap to the west where two other stones would originally have stood. Instead, the stones look like the tips of a giant’s five fingers, reaching through the soil. I’m sure that’s just my imagination, though. 

The site was excavated in 1890, and the remains of a cremation were found in the centre.

Cup marks may or may not be present on the stones. We found an interesting pattern – a depression a couple of inches across surrounded by smaller depressions, giving the impression of a flower. Deliberate or weathering? No idea.

Local legends

According to The Old Stones (edited by Andy Burnham), a couple of local legends concern the stones:

• They were erected in 1588 to commemorate the battle of Grindon (discussed here).
• They are all that remains of five men who committed the heinous crime of digging turnips on the Sabbath.

Nearby hill figure

Ever since I read John Drews’ The Silbury Revelation (where he suggests that Silbury Hill is an effigy – the artificial head of a hill figure), I’ve been interested in finding similar hill figures (Earth Mothers or Earth Goddesses) that can be seen from stone circles.

Miss H points west, with the
Cheviots in the background

And sure enough, there’s one at Duddo.

To the south, there are the Cheviots (which may hide a hill figure), but there’s one to the west, where from the circle, Sweethome Hill and Hume Craigs in Scotland form the head and body of a sleeping hill figure on the horizon. As a bonus, on the beautiful September day we were there, it looked as if the sunset would be on or near the hill figure.

You can just see it in the picture below, to the right of Mrs H (who won’t thank me for the photo).

Links

TripAdvisor (actually useful, explained where to park and so on)

Duddo Five Stones on www.stone-circles.org.uk

Duddo Five Stones on www.megalithic.co.uk

Hillfolk at Continuum

Following on from my previous posts (here and here), I ran Hillfolk at Continuum. How did it play? In short – brilliantly. It was the best session of my convention.

It signed up fast. I mentioned that I was running it to a friend, and he immediately put his name down. There was interest among those (like me) who had backed the 2012 Kickstarter but had yet to play it. It wasn’t just me – three other players also had backed the Kickstarter.

I ran Hillfolk with five players, which seemed to be a good number. I don’t think I would have wanted to do it with six, but I guess I’ll find out one day.

As mentioned before, I used Jon Cole’s Hillfolk one-shot playbooks.

Character creation

For the first 45 minutes of the game, we created characters. It turns out creating characters is a lot of fun – part way through this session, the players were grinning as the conflicts they were setting up became apparent.

After introductions, here’s what we did.

1. First, I gave a brief overview of Hillfolk. While most of us were aware of it, nobody was familiar with Hillfolk, and we had one complete newcomer.
2. Then, I spread the playbooks out and let the players choose. I told the players that if one of them didn’t pick the chief, the chief would be an NPC (and weak). One player chose to play the chief.
3. I asked the players to pick names and desires. I’d printed the list of names from Hillfolk (page 75) and the advice on page 13 on choosing desires.
4. The players chose dramatic poles – examples were printed on each playbook, or they could create their own.
5. The players then answered the playbook-specific questions.
6. I then asked everyone to go around the table and describe their characters to everyone. (As they did, I wrote each name and role on an index card.)
7. Then we moved to relationships – where the fun really starts. I asked each player to describe their character’s relationship with another character – and what they want from that relationship. The receiving player then declares why their character can’t meet that emotional need. (The only restriction I put here was to make sure that each character was only petitioned once.)
8. We then repeated step 7 in random order. Again, I ensured nobody was petitioned more than twice to keep the characters balanced.

And with that, character generation was done. Our characters:

• Firstson, the chief
• Raven, clan elder and the chief’s uncle
• Copperhair, the curate (and the chief’s son)
• Dog, the warrior
• Hewer, the captain

As an example of the dramatic poles and needs and wants, Hewer desired respect and was torn between honour and savagery. From the other characters, Hewer wanted affirmation from Raven that war is good and to train Copperhair as a warrior. Meanwhile, Dog wanted Hewer to recognise that he loved him.

Actual play

I started the game with a conference scene, with the news that raiders from the Shining Scales had stolen the last of the tribe’s food. (This is as suggested by the guide in the playbooks.) The chief made a speech, setting the scene. Copperhair started to respond, but I cut him off and suggested we turned that into the first dramatic scene – which we did.

Then I used a small deck of five index cards to randomise the caller for the next scene. (I didn’t let anyone skip their scene – something suggested by the Fear of a Black Dragon podcast which seemed to work.)

Dramatic scenes work with the caller deciding where it will be, when it takes place, and who will be in it. They then petition one of the other characters for something. If the petitioner forces a concession and gets what they want, the conceder gets a drama token. If the petitioner doesn’t get what they want, they get the drama token. Drama tokens come from the other player (or the pot if that player has none).

Most of the game consisted of dramatic scenes, with the players trying to persuade other players to give them things they want (or do things they want them to). At one point, Dog ended up with four drama tokens, giving him great power over his next scenes.

I didn’t have to do much other than watch the awesomeness unfold. I kept an eye on the scenes to make sure they weren’t too long, and I had to check who got the drama token (sometimes it wasn’t obvious – and sometimes both players agreed neither was due one). But it was probably the easiest GM-ing I’ve done for a long time. (And certainly the biggest impact compared to the effort put in.)

Oh, and I managed the occasional procedural scene.

Procedural scenes

Procedural scenes are action scenes – they’re the scenes that most RPGs focus on. In Hillfolk, they’re important, but they take second place. A procedural scene might be an entire battle or a single spear thrust. But there’s only one chance to resolve it.

Everyone (including me) had three tokens for procedural scenes: red, yellow, and green. The tokens represent the strength of their commitment (green = high, red = low). Here’s how it works:

1. Players state what they are doing and what their intent is.
2. GM decides on the strength of the opposition (high/medium/low using one of their procedural tokens). They keep this hidden.
3. GM draws a playing card and places it face up. This is the target card, and depending on the strength of the opposition, the players are trying to match its value, suit, or colour.
4. Participating players spend tokens depending on the strength of their commitment: Green token – draw two cards, Yellow token – draw one card, Red token – draw one card and the GM eliminates one card
5. GM reveals the strength of the opposition and determines if the action succeeds.

That’s broadly it. There are a few special cases for player against player and some rules for drawing face cards, but that’s mostly it. When I first read Hillfolk, I thought the procedural rules would be fiddly and unintuitive, but they made sense in play.

The twist with procedural tokens is that they don’t refresh until you run out (even between sessions). So before you can play a second green token, you must play your red token. Would that be an issue in a one-shot session? We had three procedural scenes:

The first was Raven the Elder’s peaceful approach to the Shining Scales tribe, trying to get them to give us food. I decided that the tribe’s negotiating position was weak and played my green token (high strength opposition, meaning the players had to match the value of my card). Raven’s negotiation attempt failed.

The second was when Copperhair tried to stab Raven with a spear. Luckily, Raven dodged out of the way. (In these player-v-player scenes, each player draws one [red], two [yellow] or three [green] cards, and the highest card wins.)

The final scene was the tribe raiding the Silver Scales and taking the food by force. This involved everyone. My best token was yellow at this point (matching the suit), and the players drew enough cards between them to match it at least twice. A success!

And there we drew the game to an end.

Overall

I found it so easy to run Hillfolk. The players leaned into the dramatic conflict, and everyone had a great time. (As GM, you get all the credit – even though you do so little!)

So, thoroughly recommended by me. And I’m going to do it again.

Appendix: Stuff for a Hillfolk one-shot

And here’s the stuff I took to Continuum for Hillfolk.

• The rulebook
• A deck of cards
• Counters and tokens – distinctive drama tokens (I used my fate points) and sets of red/amber/green tokens for each player (including the GM). I used counters from Pandemic Legacy
• Index cards (for table-tent name tags and a deck for me to randomise the next scene caller)
• The playbooks (downloaded from Pelgrane’s site)
• A printout of the map on page 68 of Hillfolk
• A rules cheat sheet (downloaded from Pelgrane’s site)
• A sheet of common names (copied from page 75 and pasted into a Word document)
• A sheet with advice on choosing desires (copied from page 13)
• Blank paper to scribble notes on