Five by five

I haven’t done a book review in a while. So here are the last five books I read that scored “5”. (These aren’t the last five books I’ve read – I’ve read many more than that. However, these are the ones I enjoyed most, enough to score 5/5.)

Hothouse Earth

By Bill McGuire. A readable, if depressing, guide to what life will be like if we don’t get climate change sorted. (TLDR; not good.)

In many ways, this is a little like a focused (and updated) version of Mark Lynas’ Six Degrees (published in 2008). Where Six Degrees explained what each degree would be like going up to six degrees (and six degrees of warming is truly cataclysmic), Hothouse Earth concentrates on what will happen between now and 2100. (Also, the science is more up-to-date.)

There are no answers in Hothouse Earth. Instead, McGuire accepts that we have failed to control global heating and predicts heatwaves, droughts, crop failures, rising sea levels and wars. Assuming we do nothing else.

(If you’re looking for answers, recycling, cutting down your meat consumption and switching off phone chargers when they aren’t in use won’t cut it. Governments must coordinate and act–decarbonising society is a colossal challenge beyond any one individual. Bill Gates has ideas in his How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.)

Can games help? I’m not sure, but Matt Leacock (Pandemic designer) and Matteo Menapace have developed Daybreak, a cooperative game about solving climate change. It’s not out yet, but I’ve ordered a copy.

Joe Country and Slough House

By Mick Herron. Books 6 and 7 in the Slow Horses / Jackson Lamb series. Slough House is where disgraced MI5 agents go to die. MI5 won’t kick you out; instead, they demote you to Slough House where you work for the worst boss ever – the gloriously foul Jackson Lamb, ex-cold war spook. While everyone in Slough House harbours ambitions of making it back, nobody has.

I can’t imagine reading these out of order, so start with Slow Horses. (Or the excellent Apple TV series starring Gary Oldman and Kristen Scott-Thomas.)

I’m not going to describe the plots, except that, as always, the slow horses are dragged into a complicated plot that’s as likely to result from an earlier MI5 operation gone wrong as it is enemy action. As usual, Jackson Lamb is three steps ahead of everyone else, and Herron comes from the same school of writing as George RR Martin: don’t get too fond of the characters. (Slough House has a real cliffhanger in that regard.)

Occasionally I’m annoyed by the plot – some coincidences strike me as unnecessary, but everything else is so good that I’m prepared to forgive them.

Once I got into the series, I found them hard to put down. Recommended.

The Bullet that Missed 

By Richard Osman. The third book in Osman’s very cosy Thursday Murder Club series is like being wrapped in a warm blanket. I forget the plot now, but that’s not really the point. The joy is in the Osman’s characters – even the criminals have a touch of warmth about them. I’m not surprised it’s a bestseller.

Why we eat (too much)

By Dr Andrew Jenkinson. I am fascinated by diet, obesity, and health. I am lucky because I don’t have a weight problem. I was a skinny kid, and while I put on weight around my middle in my thirties, I’ve since lost that (partly through 5:2 fasting). I’ve read (or listened to) many diet/health books, including The Diet Myth and Spoon-Fed by Tim Spector, The Truth About Fat and The Angry Chef by Anthony Warner, The Clever Guts Diet by Dr Michael Mosley, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and so on. There are many commonalities and a realisation that obesity and poor health aren’t choices but are symptoms of our western society and diet. (The other change is the importance of gut health.)

Anyway, Why we eat (too much) is written by a bariatric surgeon who wanted to know why something seemingly simple (losing weight) was so hard for so many. I enjoyed it and learned a few things. The book is wide-ranging, but my key takeaways are:

• Being overweight is 70% genetics, 20% diet and 10% willpower. If you are genetically disposed to obesity, it’s hard to get out of it.
• Your body tries to maintain a set weight. If you eat more calories than your set weight suggests, your body will raise your metabolic rate to burn them off without you doing any exercise. And if you diet, your body will slow your metabolic rate – it thinks food is scarce.
• Your body takes cues from what it thinks is happening – in autumn, it gets heavier as it puts on weight for winter. This is because it senses the approach of autumn thanks to a diet of nuts and seeds (high in omega-6). In summer, it loses weight because of plentiful leafy greens (high in omega-3). 
• Unfortunately, the Western diet mimics autumn all year round. The Western diet is awful: too much omega-6 (vegetable oils (in everything), nuts, seeds (including wheat) and not enough omega-3 (fresh fruit and veg, and things that eat fresh fruit and veg like grass-fed beef and oily fish). Obesity rates started climbing in the 1980s when governments introduced dietary guidelines (which recommended grains and less saturated fat).
• Vegetable oil is not “natural” and not as good for you as olive oil. Unlike olive oil, which can be pressed, vegetable oil requires industrial processing, which I hadn’t realised.
• Food that doesn’t go off, or has a long use-by date, probably isn’t very good for you. 

Dr Jenkinson’s suggestion is to eat natural food as much as possible. Cut out wheat (it’s a seed) and anything processed. So cook mostly from scratch, and don’t eat too much junk food.

I haven’t eliminated nuts and seeds, but I’m not putting on weight. So maybe the important thing is a diet rich in leafy greens. Or perhaps I’m lucky with my genes. Or both. Or maybe it’s something else – our bodies are extraordinarily complicated. But the overall advice (cook from scratch, don’t each much junk food) is good – although for many, that presents its own challenges.

Nearly fives

And some near fives – books I scored 4. Still very good, and I’d be happy if I enjoyed all the books I read as much as these:

SAS Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre. Story of the founding of the SAS and its exploits in WW2. I read this following the excellent BBC dramatisation. Very good, if different in surprising places to the dramatisation.

Why we get the wrong politicians by Isobel Hardman. As I've got older, I have found myself more interested in politics. Anyway, this is a fascinating look at what politicians really do, why it’s such a crappy job, and why we don’t get many good politicians. It made me glad I chose a different path.

Progress report

Okay, time for a quick status update on my various projects.

Writing Freeform Larps

Writing Freeform Larps, my book about how I write freeforms, is nearly done. I had a first draft ready in January, and I asked the uk-freeforms mailing list for anyone who wanted to comment on it. I got a good number of responses and a lot of great comments. I’ve worked through those comments (I took on board about 80%, I think), so I’m now close to publishing.

I’ve decided I want this in book form, but I’m not precious about getting an ISBN. So I’m using Lulu, plus there will be a pdf download on Itch.io.

I’m currently working on the cover – a minimal design and back-cover blurb. As cover design is not my strong point, the best I am hoping for is legibility. Maybe one day it will have an awesome cover.

With luck, this should be ready in March, and then I will have to promote it.

Way out West

Updating Way out West is my current project for Freeform Games. Currently, Way out West comes in several forms:

• A free version for 10 players
• A free version for 10 players for kids
• A standard version 
• A standard version (10-14 players) for kids
• An expansion pack with ten extra characters
• An expansion pack with ten extra characters for kids.

This is too many and is painful to manage; I’m simplifying it:

• I’m folding the expansion pack into the main game – so Way out West will be for 10-24 players.
• I’m removing separate kids and adult versions. The differences were minor – we removed most of the drinking references and changed “saloon girls” to “waitresses” for the kids’ version. As that’s just a terminology change, I’m using the kids’ version as a basis.
• I’m updating the game into our latest format as I do this.

When I’m done, that should leave us with two versions:

• A free version for 10 players
• A standard version for 10-24 players

I imagine this will be finished in April.

Other London

I’m pleased with how Other London has gone. I’ve discussed this previously, but this is where I am now:

• Other London: Desk 17 is the setting and background.
• Other London: The Fallen is a free investigation.
• Other London: Murder of a Templar is a second investigation.

These are available on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io. (Or they will be soon – as I speak, I’m waiting for DriveThru RPG to approve Murder of a Templar.)

Next up is Other London: Tales of Terror, a collection of Tales of Terror suitable for Other London. I’ve just started this, so it will be a few weeks before it’s ready. 

Turning Other London into a physical book (through DriveThruRPG) is still on the to-do list, but I will probably have to wait to upgrade my laptop.

Count Magnus’ Descendant

My scenario based on MR James’ Count Magnus (discussed previously) is pretty much complete. I am testing it and assuming that goes according to plan, I will upload it to Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

The Roswell Incident

After Retcon B’s successful run of The Roswell Incident, I am putting it into Freeform Games’ format. We don’t have any alien games at the moment, and while it isn’t strictly a murder mystery (although it could be…), it might sell reasonably well.

I’m also interested to see how our customers react to a more-freeformy game. But first I need to get it ready, and this has meant quite a few changes, such as creating a newspaper for the game as background.

Messages from Callisto

Messages from Callisto follows on from Children of the Stars (itself following All Flesh is Grass and The Roswell Incident). It was ready shortly after Christmas, but thanks to needing to prepare for Retcon, I’ve only now started thinking about when I will run it (online). And looking at the calendar, it will not be until after Easter.

The future

All Flesh is Grass: I want to take the feedback from Retcon and update the game files, then put it on Itch.io. It’s so heavily based on Clifford D Simak’s novel that I don’t think I can charge for it. 

The Highgate Club: I’d like to get this freeform in a presentable state so I can put it on Itch.io.

Preparing for Consequences: I plan to run Children from the Stars and Messages from Callisto at Consequences in November. They will need tweaking.

The Orphan Room: The next Other London scenario is a pile of notes that needs bashing into shape.

Beyond Callisto: I will start planning whatever happens after Messages from Callisto – although I think I need to run that first and see what happens.

Favourite freeforming moments

Here are some of my favourite freeforming moments. I have so many, these are but a selection. And in no particular order. 

Sharpe and Sensibility (2010): I played the prime minister, but my most treasured memory is trying (and failing) to manage my headstrong daughter (Penny N) and her various friends.

Lullaby of Broadway: All that Jazz (2012) – playing two characters (Riff Zidler and Joe Hardy) was so much fun – I was so busy! So I played two characters in Lullaby of Broadway: Into the Woods (2015) as well – Aimable Baker and Lionel and had even more fun in that one.

Café Casablanca (2014): As a GM, running the harbour and helping the players with their ridiculous plans.

Smoke and Mirrors (Peaky 2022): Whispering advice into Nick C’s ear while he was negotiating. (And Graham A’s complaint that his advisor wasn’t advising him!)

Shogun (2018): Acting in a kabuki play. I never do performances – but I loved it!

Torch of Freedom (2002): My only American freeform. I played the banker, Hoffman, and made myself so hated that when the revolution came, the rabble came straight for me.

Tutankhamun: Evil Under the Egyptian Sun (2020): Making wonderful, hilarious silent movies as Rudolph Valentino. I made three movies and my character fell in love with Penny N’s character in each.

The Rosie Lee (Peaky 2001): The very first game written and played at the very first Peaky. And I had a blast!

Arabian Nights (1998): Playing Sinbad and finding (with Nick B) an erotic statue which we later presented to the sultan (Graham A).

Café Casablanca (1995): My first weekend freeform where I made many new friends. I joined the French resistance, and we were hopeless – completely outclassed by the Germans.

Tutankhamun: Evil Under the Egyptian Sun (2020): Being shot in the back as I tried to escape like the villain I was (as Rudolph Valentino). My wife (Nickey B) was one of those shooting!

Arabian Nights (1998): Getting lost in the formidable tape maze.

A Sisterly Soiree (2023): Becoming field marshall and marrying the lovely Heidi Bonnet.

Lullaby of Broadway: All that Jazz (2012): Taking Graham A and Danielle D to the opera at the same time as two different characters. (This is the only freeform where I kissed another player.)

Lullaby of Broadway: All that Jazz (2012): Romancing Sandy (Danielle D) as the wholly inappropriate Riff Zidler. But eventually, she dumped me and fell for Danny Zuko instead.

Best of the Wurst (2007): Playing a vampire with a bratwurst craving.

The Village (Peaky 2005): Realising towards the end of the game that we were monsters.

Lots of freeforms: Making so many good friends and creating wonderful stories together.

I have no doubt forgotten many, many more.

Retcon B (Retford Moot B 2023)

I spent a recent weekend in Retford in a follow-up to November’s hugely enjoyable Retcon A. It’s barely two months since Retcon A. Is this going to be too much of a good thing? (Spoiler: no.)

Warning – some game spoilers ahead. Look away now!

Friday

Originally I planned to have a lazy start, walk the dog and potter down to Retford in due course to start my weekend on Friday afternoon. However, I realised that with effort, I could get to Retford in time for the 9 am game. So that’s what I did.

Incense and Insensibility (mildly spoilery)

Written by Nathan Richards and Richard Salmon.  I played academic tutor Dr Charles Ward, a classicist with a distinctly Lovecraftian background. The detailed character sheet suggested a “classic” freeform with lots of plot to keep me busy.

The game was set at a ball at the Pemberly estate. The ball was interspersed with numerous dances – and if you wanted to do anything outside the ballroom (search the library, dig up Potter’s Field, carry out a satanic ritual), then you had to do it during a dance when you wouldn’t be noticed.

The dances: I liked the dances. You took your partner to the dancefloor and stood opposite them in rows. Then the couple at the head of the row said what was on their mind before casting out and walking to the bottom of the row (which moved up). Then the next couple said what was on their mind… It was a lovely chance to reveal your inner thoughts or secrets, letting the other players know what you were thinking without telling their characters. (It’s not the first time I’ve come across that – I remember Shakespeare’s Lost Play doing something similar with soliloquies.)

The constraint of doing anything outside the ball during a dance started as an interesting resource mechanic but became more challenging towards the end when players had lots to do outside the game. I like the constraint, but it needs thinking about.

Highlights:

• Talking with Kirstine and Ray, fellow chapel members. It’s a shame we couldn’t encourage young Miss Angelina (Clare) to join us.
• Major Hampton (Dave) had a lovely proposal – he would vote for me if I agreed to say I’d had an affair with his wife so he could divorce her. How could I refuse?
• Graham and I agreed to split the disputed inheritance 65/35 (in his favour) early on. I wanted it done and dusted so I could worry about other things. (And my case was dodgy at best.)

Suggestions

• The ending became rather frantic and turned into a (failed) widget hunt. I know that was a little frustrating for some. I think the end of the game needs thinking about.
• I did wonder if a few abilities would help. Among freeformers, abilities seem to have fallen out of favour (particularly for shorter games). But they have their place, and if it were me, I’d consider them.

Overall: Recommended – particularly a second run, when the kinks will have been ironed out.

A Sisterly Soiree (not at all spoilery)

Written by James Goodman, who GM-ed with Nick and Tony (playing a very intimidating Lady Catherine). I played Stephen Collins, a dragoon lieutenant. This light, structured larp is based on the works of Jane Austen and the Marrying Mr Darcy board game and is all about promotion and marriage. 

So, two regency games in a row. Both with dances.

A Sisterly Soiree had lots of party game activities – unscrambling words, fox hunting (blindfold hunting finger puppets), judging tapestry and music. And lots of dances. Between the dances, the men went and did men things (war and politics), and the women did whatever they did (I wasn’t there).

Highlights

• The dances and activities were lots of fun. They were good ways to mix with all the other players.
• Thanks to a lucky series of dice rolls, I was promoted from a lowly lieutenant to field marshall!
• I married Miss Heidi Bonnet, only revealing that I was gay at the end of the game. (Discovering my sexuality was a random thing that happened during the game – it wasn’t part of my original character sheet.)

Suggestions

• I think we wrong-footed James when we all lined up for the first dance. We were expecting a called dance, and he gamely gave us one. The game had three or four dances, and he called them all. If it were me, I would use the same (called) dance each time. The players will slowly learn the dance, making it easy for everyone. (The actual dance moves aren’t important, after all.) Maybe we should have a standard Regency freeform dance?

Overall: Highly recommended, especially if you don’t mind simple activities and games in your freeform.

The Roswell Incident (slightly spoilery)

This was the first face-to-face run of my 1947 Roswell alien game. I first hosted it online about a year ago. I made some tweaks – such as adding abilities. (And at least I didn’t have to worry about a power cut.)

The game took about two hours to play, which was about the same as the online game. It was a very different run, though, and all the aliens were revealed. That’s partly because it was face-to-face rather than online, partly because freeformers are generous and like to share, partly because this episode felt self-contained (rather than episode 1 of a campaign), and partly thanks to the abilities. It went well, and I was pleased.

Sheriff Jackson, Professor Kraushaar, Mayor Weinrib and junkyard owner Karns

Highlights

• All the players were fabulous, but I particularly enjoyed Hanbury’s over-the-top Major Marcel.

Suggestions

• I have lots of typos and corrections to work through.
• I think an optional flying saucer rescue option might be useful. It wouldn’t have been needed for this game, but it might be fun to include next time.

Overall: I was happy with how The Roswell Incident went. I will rerun it and work it up for Freeform Games.

Saturday

After an atrocious night’s sleep, my energy flagged towards the end of Saturday. Mrs H told me (when I got home) that I always have a terrible first night at Retford. How come I haven’t realised?

Fiasco (unspoilerable)

I played a wonderful five-player game of Fiasco with Heidi, Graham, David and Joanne. I wasn’t sure whether I should pitch it or not, but I’m glad I did and as a few people talked to me afterwards about how they almost signed up for it (and that they have the game but have never got it to the table), I probably will again.

This was the first face-to-face game of Fiasco I’ve played. The others have all been online with my regular gaming group between longer campaigns. It was also my first five-player game of Fiasco, and it ran much smoother with five than with three or four.

It's a Fiasco!

Hope Springs Eternal (not very spoilery)

Written by Nickey Barnard, Sue Jolly, Helen Jones, Tym Norris and Traci Whitehead at Peaky, many years ago. Set in the 1952 Hope Brothers department store, Hope Springs Eternal is inspired (to an extent) by the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served? So camp BBC sitcom and a dash of horror. I played apprentice Tim Porter – and I think I played Tim when I played it the first time.

Hope Springs Eternal is a classic Peaky game – lots of stereotypes to play off, lots of dark or embarrassing or guilty secrets, a mystery, lots of things missing, some silliness and a twist in the tale. I had a great time.

Highlights

• Interacting with the department heads, trying to figure out which department I should be apprenticed into next
• A “dust” item card, which I found in an old locker. It pleased me deeply to find an item card for dust. Completely useless, of course, but lovely.
• David taking me under his wing and giving me swigs from his hipflask.

Overall: Recommended.

Marlowe 2020 (not very spoilery)

Written by Kirt Dankmyer and Jon Lemich, Marlowe 2020 reconfigures Shakespeare’s tragedies for a cyberpunk future. I have no idea what that means, and my initial reaction to Dr Puzzo, my character was, “huh?” It’s a short character sheet with little sense of why I’m present or what the game is about. 

Marlowe 2020 was never going to be my best game at Retford, for several reasons:

• Marlowe 2020 wasn’t my first choice. I signed up to play a different game, but that didn’t run, so I switched.
• I was tired. It was my third game of the day (my sixth of the weekend), and I had had an abysmal night.
• It was late. We started at 8 pm, and as most games had run for two or three hours, I expected that would happen this time. So my heart sank when the GMs said they expected the game to take about four hours…

So while I probably didn’t go into Marlowe 2020 with a healthy mindset, I’m not sure it was my kind of game in the first place. Warning signs:

• My character, Dr Puzzo, felt like a bit part. I was playing the apothecary from Romeo and Juliet. My job was to sell poison and patch people up. (In short, I was the healing rules.) I had a fragment of plot about an android underground, but it required me to develop it fully. While I don’t mind collaborative, improvisational games (see Fiasco above), I find it hard to do in a large larp with a semi-detailed background (even when I’m not half-asleep). A half-in, half-out approach doesn’t work for me – although it seems to work fine for others.
• Dr Puzzo was a loner and I don’t enjoy playing loners. While I knew of a few characters, I wasn’t part of a group, and other than my healing skills, I had nothing to offer.

My fatigue was partly a blessing. I was so tired that I didn’t mind sitting on the sidelines with my eyes half-closed, watching everyone else. It was easy roleplaying.

The other thing that should have lifted my game was the violence. There’s a doctor in the game for a reason. Shakespearean tragedies are supposed to have a healthy body count. This time, however, the reasonableness of today’s freeformers overcame Marlowe 2020’s rivalries and jealousies. So, in this run, at least, a doctor wasn’t necessary. I did one detox and healed one poisoning (the same character, oddly).

The GMs saw I was struggling (they were also surprised at the lack of bodies) and offered me one of the spare characters, but I was too tired to consider another character.

Highlights

Even though this was my least favourite game of the weekend, it wasn’t without highlights.

• The marshall (Nathan) warning me about paying my taxes. Very intimidating. And then helping him try and figure out who was targetting him with a weird cyberweapon.
• Selling poison to an android (Elina) and then curing her victim (David) a minute later.
• Dave’s wonderful Italian hand gestures.
• Roderick’s roleplaying at being awkward around humans. I (and others) thought he might be an android who didn’t know he was an android.

Suggestions

The first suggestions are for me:

• Programme some breaks for myself. And remember that I always sleep badly on my first night at a freeform convention.
• Figure out how to spot these games, so I don’t sign up for them. They’re not my cup of tea!

Marlowe 2020 feels like a first-draft Peaky game. That’s fine at Peaky, where everyone knows what it’s like to write a game in 24 hours, but after Peaky, we have time to patch the holes. So I would add stronger links between characters and include some programmed deaths to set the game’s tone (one at ten minutes in and another at 30 minutes). 

Overall: Not recommended (although I gather it’s been run more successfully before, so I may not be the right one to judge).

Sunday

On Sunday morning at breakfast, I complained about the owlish nature of freeformers and their inevitable late nights to Clare and Kirstine. I’m not sure they sympathised. (I’m a lark, alas.) But, at least I slept this time.

All Flesh is Grass

Sunday morning saw me running the second part of my magnificent/epic/doomed (delete according to taste) series of first-contact larps. As with Roswell, I first ran All Flesh is Grass online last year.

As Roswell had gone well, I was slightly nervous about All Flesh is Grass. The two games are very different – Roswell is more of a traditional freeform. All Flesh is Grass has only one plot and ends with a significant decision that needs to be made at the end. Luckily, I need not have worried – the game went well.

The room for All Flesh is Grass, before the players arrived.

Some thoughts: As well as the inevitable typos and glitches that the players found, I had a few thoughts.

• I hadn’t changed All Flesh is Grass from the original run, and I need to make the characters more flexible to allow for a different result in Roswell. I like running two parts of the game at a convention, but I need to prepare better for the second game. I have some ideas about that.
• The room is divided into two parts – inside the barrier (Millville) and outside the barrier (the rest of the world). I divided the room so the Millville side had no exits. I hoped that added to the psychological sense of being trapped.
• Clare had a great idea to start the out-of-towners outside the room so they could bond for a moment. So that’s what I did.

Highlights

• Malk’s senator commanding the space at the start of the game.
• Elyssia’s “To whom am I speaking?” every time she answered the telephone.
• Richard and Jenny’s lovely scene where Jenny berated Richard for not telling her he had been reading to the phones.
• Hanbury’s wonderful military codenames; the only one I remember now is Operation Gobstopper.

Overall: All Flesh is Grass went well. There are a few improvements I can make, which I will address for next time. (There will be a next time, but I don’t know when.)

The Illuminati computer game

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy playing Illuminati again. But I am.

Some history

I first played Illuminati, Steve Jackson’s card game of group-based world domination, in the 1980s. It was of its time – slow, fiddly, but with a deep streak of humour.

In 1994, Illuminati was reborn as INWO (Illuminati: New World Order), a collectable card game following the CCG craze that Magic: the Gathering started. INWO was like Illuminati dialled up to 11 – more groups, lots of crazy plots and bizarre combos.

INWO card game

Over the next few years, INWO spawned two expansions, Assassins and SubGenius, but we haven’t seen a new card in decades.

“I can’t help but wonder if it would be easier ACTUALLY to take control of the world?”

INWO was both more streamlined (action tokens replacing income) and more complicated (secrecy, immunity, resources, places, personalities, instant attacks…). It rewarded deep mastery, and I loved it. 

But it was also frustrating. The rulebook isn’t short, and as each group had its own ability, exceptions and special cases were inevitable. (As the compiler of an unofficial FAQ, the UFAQ, I was very aware of all the complications. Teaching INWO was a nightmare.)

(The quote above is from one of my friends.)

Variants

In 2010 or so, I dusted off my cards and pulled together some variants (rules and cards). I created a wiki to capture them all. (I don’t know why I didn’t do this on BoardGameGeek. I should upload them.)

I created a variant with very different rules that satisfied my issues with INWO. I’ve played it once or twice, but given the lack of fellow INWO players to hand, I haven’t played it (or regular INWO) in over a decade.

The deep freeze – and Kickstarter

So, to sum up, I was over-invested. But after about 2012, I put away my cards and variants and stopped thinking about INWO. Instead, I played other games. Simpler games. Games that were easier to teach. Games that weren’t so geeky. Games with a modern design and less waiting between turns.

And I didn’t think about INWO for years. Not until I learned of a Kickstarter for an Illuminati video game. I signed up for the basic tier – I wanted to support the game, but I didn’t like their business model as I didn’t want to buy all my cards again. (We’ll see…)

Illuminati – the computer game

In early 2023, the Illuminati computer game was released on Steam – and I’m enjoying it. It’s still being developed, so it’s rough around the edges. Gameplay combines classic Illuminati and INWO, with some plot cards and INWO’s colourful design (much of it updated). Over time, more of INWO is planned to be incorporated – but not too much, I hope. (Some things aren’t worth including.)

I’ve played several two-player games against the AI. I now win regularly. I have yet to play a game against a human opponent.

Gameplay

The Illuminati computer game is a cross between Illuminati and INWO. You have your own deck of plots and groups (as per INWO), but there’s also an uncontrolled area (as per Illuminati). There’s no deckbuilding (yet?), so everything is random, much like Illuminati.

There are no automatic takeovers, apart from one at the start of the game, so you are making attacks to control almost every turn. The plots are a cut-down sample from INWO: Mostly +10s, power boosters, reloads and alignment changers.

Illuminati computer game

The other big change is the power structure, which is laid out as a pyramid with your Illuminati at the top. All groups are played the right way up – this change works for the computer version.

The good

Things I like:

• The new groups and art are great. As ever, the groups are biased towards the USA, but that’s inevitable. The random decks and uncontrolled area are a lot of fun, and you see lots of groups that would never see play in INWO.
• Only one automatic takeover – at the start of the game. This took me a moment to figure out, as I had expected INWO’s auto-takeover every turn. But I think I prefer this way of playing – there are more attacks, and the game is more interactive as a result. (INWO often resulted in players playing defensively.)
• Attacks fail on a 12. This is a huge change – in INWO, attacks failed on an 11 or 12. As attacks were relatively rare (you could grow your power base with your automatic takeovers), this made luck a huge factor. An unlucky roll could lose the game for you. Reducing the chance of failure from 1 in 12 to 1 in 36 is a big deal – I like it.
• I like the new pyramid structure, with all the groups facing up. (However, I am confused by the underlying logic. The computer tells you where is free in your power structure, but it’s not always clear why those slots are free.)
• Reloads are simpler – restore an action to a group of a specific alignment that doesn’t have one. There’s no discarding or action token requirement, unlike INWO. I prefer this simpler, cleaner approach.
• Similarly, the power boosters are simpler. Instead of increasing power to 6 (as INWO), they increase it by +3.
• The in-game tutorial is good. I muddled through a couple of games without it, but I wished I’d started with the tutorial.
• I like the combination of a neutral zone and a private dossier.
• Illuminati plays quickly – it takes 15 or 20 mins to play a game against the AI. I think there would be too much hanging around with more than three.
• I like the clarity of play. INWO could get very muddled, with every group having a unique ability and the interactions creating analysis paralysis. This is much simpler. Having said that, I’d like to see some of INWO’s craziness, but probably not all of it. (More on that below.)

The not so good

Illuminati isn’t perfect, however. It’s an early release, and updates are released all the time. So this list is likely to be out of date fairly quickly.

• The graphical display isn’t great. Once you have lots of groups, you must pan around to see your power structure. 
• The interface isn’t great, and it’s not always clear where to click. Once you get used to it, it’s fine. But initially, it’s awkward and doesn’t give a good first impression.
• Documentation is non-existent. It would be nice to read how Secrecy and Immunity work (are they the same as the original?).
• Where groups can be placed is confusing. It’s not a big issue (as the game highlights all available slots), but I can’t figure out the underlying logic. For example, even when your Illuminati’s control arrows are all used up, you can still use it to attack to control (with the group going elsewhere in the power structure). I like this, but it's not how I remember INWO.

Going forward

While the game plays well at the moment, adding complexity from INWO may make things worse:

Cancellers: Cancelling was a real pain in INWO. Cancelling slowed everything down – not just because cancelling an action stopped it, but also because you needed to factor in the likelihood of your opponents cancelling your actions in your planning. And that added to the analysis paralysis.

Do we really want to have to click “Do you want to cancel?” for every action?

For me, I wouldn’t include any cancellers. Instead, I’d change the Nuclear Power Companies’ ability to remove a group’s action. Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know could do the same. Hoax could remove an already-played power/alignment changer.

New World Orders in combat: Playing an NWO in combat was always frustrating as everything needed adding up again. It’s much simpler with the computer doing all the adding up, but I suspect it would be better if NWOs had to be played outside of an attack.

At any time: In INWO, many cards can be played during your opponent’s turns. This included power boosters and alignment changers, which can be played only on your own turn in the computer version. I think I prefer this limitation – the complexity of playing cards during opponents’ turns may slow the game down significantly. So I hope those cards will be minimised.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Some funky group abilities that aren’t just attack bonuses. (Brazil, Fraternal Orders, IRS, NPCs (but see above), Pentagon, Phone Phreaks, and so on.)
• Resources, instant attacks, NWOs and other elements from INWO.
• Deckbuilding. As much as I like the random decks, I’m looking forward to deckbuilding.
• More AI Illuminati – the AI plays the Network at the moment.
• Stuff that only a computer can do – there’s talk of a campaign game where you start in the 1980s and continue through to the 1990s and 2020s. That sounds fun.

Would I recommend?

So would I recommend the Illuminati computer game? Well, I’m very happy playing it and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops further. If you’re a fan of INWO or Illuminati, I think you’d be happy. But I’m not sure I’d pick it up if I weren’t into either of them. Not yet, at least.

Other London: Desk 17 published!

So I’ve published Other London: Desk 17 on DriveThruRPG and Itch.io.

Other London: Desk 17 (DriveThruRPG or Itch.io) is a modern-day urban horror setting that uses Fate Accelerated Edition. The players play members of Desk 17, London’s supernatural police team. The 72-page pdf includes character creation, pre-generated characters, factions, folk, and a short investigation.

Other London: The Fallen (DriveThruRPG or Itch.io) is a free investigation for Desk 17.

How’s it doing?

Amazingly well, all things considered.

I put the core book up onto DriveThruRPG, didn’t announce it, and came back a few days later to discover I’d sold a small number of copies. It may be a small number, but given that I expected it would disappear into the ether, I’m thrilled.

I've sold one copy on Itch.io, which is better than expected.

Why isn’t it a book?

I’d love Other London: Desk 17 to be a book I can hold in my hand. But doing that through DriveThruRPG means mastering Indesign or Affinity.

I have Affinity Publisher, but I’m finding layout a challenge. Partly that’s because it’s not something I particularly enjoy, but mostly because my laptop doesn’t seem to have enough horses for Publisher, and it regularly hangs.

Maybe it’s not horses; perhaps it’s a conflict. But either way, it’s making laying out work much harder than I want.

But I’ll get there eventually.

What comes next?

Next, I’m getting Murder of a Templar finished. That’s the next investigation (and my favourite). The text is finished, but I need to sort some art. With a following wind, I’ll get it done by the end of February.

I have also realised I could do with a Desk 17 worksheet, for answering the session zero questions about Desk 17. So I’ll sort that out as well.

After that, I will start on The Orphan Room, which is currently a pile of notes. I haven’t run it yet, so it’ll be a while before it’s in a state to be published.

Kingdom

Kingdom is a GM-less roleplaying game about communities by Ben Robbins, author of similar storygames such as Microscope and Follow. Microscope is one of my favourite games of all time (and the only game I couldn’t wait to play having only read the rulebook). I’ve played Follow a couple of times; it was okay but didn’t quite work for me.

Although I’ve had Kingdom for a while, I only got it to the table in early 2023. So here are my thoughts.

A “Kingdom” is the game term for the community or organisation that is the focus of play. Any community works – a school, a company, a club, a nation. Players play characters who are part of the kingdom which will face difficult decisions (crossroads) and eventually a crisis.

I played a three-player game over Discord, using Trello as our tabletop. We played two sessions and completed a crossroad and crisis.

Physically, Kingdom is a 6x9, 99-page black and white book with a colour cover. There’s minimal art – the cover and a couple of diagrams. I only have the second edition pdf, but it has a classy, elegant feel.

Making a kingdom

To create a kingdom:

Create a kingdom: We batted around a few ideas before deciding our kingdom would be The Egregious Society of the Silver Fork, a Victorian occult society.

Create three threats: Our threats were: Someone wanting to take over the order and remake it, a change in the law banning occult societies, and a collapse in relations with the museum that supplies our trinkets.

Although we agreed on these, I wasn’t sure how this would work out. I need not have worried.

Create locations: Each player creates two locations where characters are likely to be found. Our locations were Tavistock Hall, White’s Club in London, Petrie Museum of Egyptology, Madam Zara’s seance parlour, The Royal Society, and Stonehenge.

People: Brainstorm the kind of people who would be part of the kingdom. We brainstormed artists (painters, sculptors), theatre people, a wealthy but idle lord, an actual occultist who thinks he has powers, a down-at-heel European madam (fleeing revolution), a fortune teller, butlers, the deputy Prime Minister, society officials (chairman, treasurer, secretary), minor royals, a charismatic demagogue (with secret occult knowledge), and antique dealers. Plenty there to get us going.

(And if you don’t want to create your own, Kingdom has a dozen or so example kingdoms to get you started. But I wanted the whole experience, so we started from scratch.)

Make your characters

Creating characters introduces the trickiest concept in Kingdom – their role.

Your role: Before you decide who you are, you decide on your role. The three roles are:

• Power: You have authority over the kingdom. You decide what the kingdom does and what it doesn’t do.
• Perspective: You understand the kingdom, both its merits and flaws. You can foresee the consequences of the decisions the kingdom makes.
• Touchstone: You reflect the desires of the people of the kingdom. Your attitudes show us what the populace wants and how they react to what is happening.

While you don’t need all three roles at the start, the three of us each took a different role. I chose Power. (If you’re playing Kingdom for the first time, I recommend ensuring all the roles are taken – not having a role makes some later sections fiddlier.)

Who are you: While it seems odd that you choose your role before selecting a character, it makes sense because the role you choose influences your character. You take a character from the list of roles you have brainstormed.

So as I had chosen Power, I decided my character would be one of the society officials and created society chairman Reginald Winchester.

(Our Perspective was a seer, our Touchstone, an aspiring actor/playwright.)

Your locations: Now pick two places (from the locations listed earlier) your character may be found – and why they may be found there. I selected White's Club (where Reginald feels at home) and Tavistock Hall (because Reginald likes hobnobbing with the Tavistocks).

Your bonds: Now you choose a bond with the character to your left – what you need from them and what makes it difficult. You agree this with the other player to create something interesting. So Reginald wants Gwynn (the aspiring actor/playwright) to introduce me to his family, but he won't - he goes into a rant every time I mention them.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it feels like it’s straight out of Hillfolk. I don’t know if that’s the case, but Hillfolk was published/Kickstarted a year before the first edition of Kingdom, so maybe.

A minor character: Finally, you create a minor character to help flesh out your kingdom. Again, you take someone from the list brainstormed earlier. I created Madam Zara, a sixty-something, pipe-smoking, Soho-based "fortune teller".

So that’s our kingdom created and populated. What happens next?

Playing Kingdom

Kingdom is played with scenes, but before we can get to a scene, we need to set up the crossroad, an important decision the kingdom must make.

Our Kingdom Trello board

Our first crossroad was: Will the society repair its relationship with the Petrie Museum? We decided that the Petrie Museum, our reliable supplier of occult artefacts, had started supplying a rival society. At the same time, a new dig had opened in Egypt, providing many new finds. How would this play out?

Play a scene: Then you take turns playing scenes. When it’s your turn, you must include your main character, and you decide who else is involved. They can be anyone – main, minor, or new characters invented for that scene.

Playing a scene is the roleplaying bit of Kingdom. It’s nice playing not only your main character but other characters as well.

In our game, one scene involved meeting Ernie, the supervisor of the warehouse where the finds from Egypt were being unloaded and catalogued. We were trying to discover if Ernie would be a suitable alternative supplier of occult artefacts.

You draw the scene to a close as soon as you’ve learned something new or seen a character make a choice. (The guidance in Kingdom isn’t super-clear here, but it was surprisingly intuitive when to end scenes in play. In essence, end a scene when it seems obvious to do so – and err on the side of ending it early.)

One of the things you can do during a scene is to use your role – provided you are playing your main character. So Power can make a decision, Perspective can make a prediction on the outcome of the crossroad, and Touchstone can say how everyone is feeling about it.

Check a box: Once you’ve played the scene, you check either a crossroads box or a crises box.

Reactions: After a scene concludes, and whether you were part of it or not, you get to react to it as your main character. (This is another opportunity to use your role.)

Resolve a crossroad or crisis: If the crossroad or crisis tracks are filled, you must resolve them. Resolution means Power makes the decision, Perspective tells us what happens, and Touchstone tells us what the people think.

In our game, we didn’t repair our relationship and instead bought our artefacts from Ernie at the warehouse. One consequence of this, however, was that the artefacts were much more expensive, and members weren’t happy with subscriptions being put up.

As we hadn’t completed the crisis track, we didn’t resolve the crisis.

That was the end of our first session. It took us about 2.5 hours to set up our kingdom and play through our first crossroad.

Our second crossroad: Our second crossroad, which we developed during our second session, built off the previous one. Now that we had an alternative supply of artefacts being smuggled in, we were approached by bloodthirst gangster Peregrine Cray who wanted to use our smuggling operation. In return, the society’s financial difficulties would be solved.

As we played through the scenes, we ended up with a crisis – would our alliance with Peregrine Cray destroy our kingdom? This is decided by a vote, and while it wasn’t unanimous, the society survived. It’s damaged and bruised, but it survives.

Kingdom: the good

It just worked: Kingdom worked much better than I had expected. I wasn’t sure how the game would work as I wasn’t sure if our crossroad was meaty enough, but it proved to have plenty of depth to it and we created lots of interesting scenes.

Kingdom played better than our first game of Follow or Fiasco – but maybe that’s our experience with GM-less games.

Easy to learn: Kingdom was easy to learn. I simply read from the pdf as we developed our kingdom.

Many example kingdoms: Kingdom provides a load of example kingdoms, with suggestions for conflicts, people, locations and crossroads. We didn’t use them because I wanted to create our own kingdom – but they exemplify the range of games you can play.

Two-player rules included: We had three players, so we didn’t need the two-player rules. But I’m interested in trying them at some point.

And the not-so-good

Bonds: The bonds didn’t come out in play much. While I touched on mine (with Gwynn) once or twice (and not at all in the second session), most of the time we focussed on resolving the crossroad. That’s an improvement on Follow, where I don’t think we touched on bonds at all.

I’m sure we could lean into the bonds more, but they feel a bit of an add-on. (They mean more in Hillfolk, where they are at the centre of play.)

It’s something to pay attention to, perhaps.

Resolving conflict: Kingdom has slightly fiddly rules about resolving conflict (Fight-or-Fix), which we didn’t use. I don’t know if we have a more cooperative style of play than others, but we didn’t use them. (Similarly, we didn’t need the Changing your Role rules, as everyone was happy with the role they had chosen.)

Overall

Overall I enjoyed my first game of Kingdom, and I’m looking forward to playing it again. From the one game I’ve played, it’s better than Follow but not as good as Microscope.