Ravenloft, Chapter 1: The Executioner

So, a long while ago, I statted up a D&D character and had a decent campaign ahead of him. Now, allow me to return and give him the full treatment he deserves. His very own Ravenloft campaign. Not only that, but Philip is also getting played on Foundry, a program I had taken a look at, so that’ll be an interesting way to see how the game unfolds. This will be a review for how Foundry plays compared to Astral.

To briefly recap on his backstory: Philip is a druid who took on a job that ended in a werewolf being lynched by a xenophobic Burgomaster and Philip plots to kill him in revenge. He also recently pissed off some cultists after mucking about in one of their HQs, a house they turned into a death trap.

Blue’s Clues, but Lovecraft wrote the episode

It’s time for me to make up for missing Halloween last year. This is One-Page Cthulhu, which is, you guessed it, one page. Perfect for a last-minute game! As for my Engine, it’ll be good ol’ CRGE-Kai, but with the Horror theme.

Right, time to slap my character together… My character’s really good at finding clues (+2), good at hiding (+1), is meh with forbidden knowledge (0) and is utterly terrible at fighting superior foes (-1). We will name him… Steve.

Oh… Oh God… I have an idea. Steve… from Blue’s Clues! But everyone’s an eldritch abomination!

Ooooooooh, okay. This is good. So, I ran an episode of Blue’s Clues to figure out what sort of plot is gonna happen (as well as remember how it goes), and I’ve decided that’ll be the adventure. Steve is a private eye who does investigations who recently came across a dog called Blue who helped in investigations. He is compelled to investigate the secrets of the world because there has to be more out there than just the wife concerned about a possible unfaithful husband. I’d say something about the connections to other investigators, but this is a solo story.

 So… Here… We… Go!

Stat It: A Maid, a Butler, and a Master

I figured to do one more Stat It before I get back to playing. In this case, it’ll be Maid RPG. I played this before, but that was just a small session in a larger campaign. I want to play an actual game of Maid RPG. And, to my luck, it’s an RPG that comes with its own scenario in its Corebook. Tons, in fact. But, I’m gonna stick to the common “Happy Birthday” scenario.

Like with the Marvel games, I’ll make three characters. A Maid who I created, a butler who will be randomized, and the premade Master, Nejiri, or given where I’m going to set this game, Torsion.

Right, I should explain where I’m going with this. Originally, I wanted to make this a surprise, but… Yeah, I kinda need to give you context. See, while Maid RPG is inspired by Japanese pop culture and thus Japanese names are given, I decided to set this in Spain, right alongside Hot Guys Making Out… See where I’m going with this?

The Voyager Sees Some Hot Dudes Making Out

I kinda wanted to make it a tradition to play Ben Lehman game for Valentines Day. However, I ended up finding games (or in one case, a gimmick to a game) that fit the theme a lot better. But now, I can say with the utmost certainty that we’re returning to Ben Lehman’s works with Hot Guys Making Out.

 The premise is a simple one: a young boy, orphaned by an ongoing civil war, is adopted into a rich family by a mysterious man. What proceeds is the boy adjusting to his new life, living under the roof of a kindly maid, a stoic butler, and the master of the house, the latter of whom he’ll fall in love with. The story has something akin to an anime or manga and is told in sequential sessions.

It’s an interesting set up and I’d like to see how this is executed. The game recommends I play either Gonsalvo, the young orphan boy, or Honoré, the mysterious master. It mostly depends on what your preferred method of narration is. Do you want more internalized thoughts or do you prefer action? I think Gonsalvo would make some interesting opportunities for roleplay, so I’ll pick him.

The next step is to pick out a Threat, the problem of the week, so to speak. However, one’s already decided for us: Maria, the maid, is jealous of Gonsalvo. The first scene is also decided for us: arriving at the manor of Honoré. After mulling over how to pull this off solo, the compromise is simple:

The game unique among the Solo RPGs I’ve played because this game uses playing cards and the game is played like a game of Hearts. … I just got the joke. You play Hearts to tell a game about love.

One Beginning, Multiple Endings: Zombies

So, this was written for a challenge in which the beginning is a common mad-libs starting scenario but it’d be our play style, genre of game, and other things that makes the endings completely unique. This challenge was called the One Beginning, Multiple Endings challenge and it was made by Thessius.

For the One Beginning, Multiple Endings challenge, I’ll be using the Ghostbusters D6 system with a Zombie Apocalypse setting. You can find my sheet here. Now, let’s begin with the scenario:

It was only thanks to your close friend, Purdie’s, warning that you could avoid the first wave of the invasion of your stronghold. Zombies are relentlessly storming the area, but you haven’t been noticed yet, thanks to their slow and dull nature. Your objective: reach a new stronghold before dawn, lest the zombies catch up.

Tales of the Winter Alien

So, for my Memorial Day game, I decided to go back to the very first one I did: Winter. This time, with all the tools I had learned over these past 5 years, as well as the devices I was given. Now, instead of choosing from one of three lines, I’m going to make up a new line using the BOLD.

• Waylay Problem: 8 & 9, otherworldly.
• Waylay Modifier: 21, harsh.
• Waylay Solution: 5, Enemy Help.

Hmmm… This might be interesting… Alright, let’s do a five-minute freewrite.

The 100th FATAL Session

Let’s get the elephant out of the room here.

I’m going to be playing the most infamous RPG in all of history. The reason it’s so infamous is because of its excessive nudity, violence, racism, sexism, and other such dark themes, all handled with the same maturity as a fart joke. Most every reviewer that’s tackled this game have brought it up time and time again about how bad it is.

But the gameplay is seldom touched upon except if it’s related to the aforementioned themes, such as gender-specific stat boosts, jobs involving… erm… hiding the weasel, or even spells one could find better versions of in the Book of Erotic Fantasy. I heard bits and pieces of how bad the gameplay is, like how the levelling system is broken, as it gives you XP depending on what mundane activity you do. For melee-style classes like the Gladiator, it’s via how much damage you do. Get three of these classes and you can level up faster than an average character in D&D.

Part of the reason I’m doing this is to see if the RPG can be stomached by removing these dark elements. The other part? Gotta mark the 100^th session with something.

Actually, my character doesn’t start at base level 1. He’s 56 years old and began roughly around the age between 7 and 10. I then calculate the square root of the years he’s been in the job and I get my level of 7…

… Why did I need to do complex math to figure that out?

So, now I gotta quickly level up my character six times. Thankfully this just means skill points to distribute. This means I roll 7d10 to get the number of points to put in. This is on top of the skill points I get from my race (a d8 minus 1) for a grand total of 45 points.

… It turns out I gotta roll that dice 55 more times… What. The. Fu-

I Try To Become Mayor!

Just when I thought I saw the smallest RPG in the form of One-Page RPGs, along comes Clones, An Arnold RPG made by Erika Chappell of Newstand Press. How small is it? Well, the rules are all explained onto one business card.

Yes.

A business card.

I knew I couldn’t pass soloing this game, so here we go. The plot is that I’m a clone of a person and that I’m wanting to take over the world. Now, the game is meant to be played with multiple people, as each of them would give a list of skills for you to do, but since I’m playing solo, I’m gonna change it up a bit.

The Coziest Den

I always have a rule of thumb for picking out RPGs to play. If the setting is interesting enough, it’s worth a check. If I feel like I can play this solo, it’s worth a play. There were definitely games that I solo played just because of its setting and premise: A Flower for Mara, Titan World, and Bliss Stage being such examples.

This game is no exception. A Cozy Den has this for a setting: players are a race of snake people called Lesbisnakes who are part-human, part-snake, all lesbian. The game takes place during the chilly winter months as Lesbisnakes live in dens to hibernate. The more Lesbisnakes there are in a den, the better, and the aim is to make… a cozy den. Roll credits.

This setting is just amazing and it’s not because it appeals to the LGBTQ community, since lots of games can be tailored to appeal to that demographic. You play as a snake girl who lives with other snake girls to survive the winter. It’s a simple slice of life kind of game, which you barely see any of in modern RPGs. The closest ones are games that try to emulate Stranger Things, such as Tales from the Loop or Kids on Bikes. Not to mention that romance is involved in this game, hence why it’s this year’s Valentine’s Day game.

The engine I will be using is CRGE Kai since I barely use that at all even though it’s my go-to engine. Not only that, but I will be using the Social Focus Table from Mythic GM Emulator’s Variations. Character Creation is simple because I’m the only person here. The idea is that the group must be unanimous with what species of Lesbisnake they want to play as. I’m going with a Garter Lesbisnake.

We unfortunately come across a problem. The book mentions a character sheet, but as I skimmed through it, I saw no such sheet. This is an appropriate time to point out that I have a physical copy of the game and not a PDF. Thankfully, I found a sheet on the official website and it just so happens to be a Garter Lesbisnake. Though it wouldn’t matter which species it was that much given how everyone plays the same species and as such every option for each species is virtually the same.

However, I decided to take advantage of a feature that the book had. You could say that this is sponsored by Bits and Mortar, as it’s with them that I was able to nab myself the PDF of the handouts, the necessary half of the game that was missing from the book. With Bits and Mortar, you can get free PDF copies of physical books you’ve purchased, or in this case, handouts, provided they were published by someone who has joined the initiative. A good chunk of indie developers have joined this initiative, including the publisher of this game, Serpent Cyborg, and my favorite company due to their constant stream of character development-driven games, Genesis of Legend Publishing. Definitely worth a check out if you have a book of a game you like to see on PDF.

Destrox, The World Killer

For the second week of Solo Gaming Appreciation Month, we’re to turn a board game into a driver for another RPG. This is good, because trying to wrap my head around and playing WorldKiller would be a rather tough challenge. Instead, I’ll play a sci-fi game using the setting of WorldKiller as the basis… Which one though is a huge question. One I already know the answer to: Shifter Bots.

To briefly sum up what Shifter Bots is, it’s an OSR/Black Hack-style game based off Transformers. It’s made by Thunderegg Productions. If the name’s familiar, that’s because they’re behind Kaigaku and the Exodus System. I decided to pick this game over Exodus’s Sci-Fi edition due to the fact that, while reading up on the rules and lore behind WorldKiller, I recalled the battle of Yavin IV in the climax of A New Hope and I had thought of Unicron, a planet-eating Transformer whose alternate form is a giant planet akin to the Death Star.

And so it has come to pass that I stat up my character, Destrox, along with his leading officer, Domix, as the two robots that lead an invading force over to a distant planet, all while two other robots, Outrider and V-Duster, struggle to protect it.

Let the battle begin.