Recent content by Alas

I've been playing D&D since the Basic red box and AD&D. I've migrated with every edition change, and enjoyed them all. I enjoy this particular edition of D&D (5e 2024) because the rules presentation is user-friendly (I love the glossary in the PHB), they included a really excellent primer on the...

A sci-fi setting for exploration would be great because, depending on taste, the sessions could alternate between "planet of the week" and deep dives into a particular world. Trek would be the iconic example, but I wonder if the Aeon-Trinity setting would work, with its mix of developing the...

Which presents kind of an ethical challenge, for me, as far as any proposed game's content and framing. I definitely want my explorers more from the Moana and Picard end of the spectrum than Columbus and Cortes. The Earthdawn plot of reconnecting after the Horrors would be an interesting and...

Can't stop thinking about this: to really play into the "intrepid explorer" theme, I'd want a game to have some sort of "expeditionary dispatch" move. The party puts together a package of letters, sketches, and samples of what they've accomplished so far, and sends it off home. The "dispatch"...

That's definitely something the players should discuss going in. Can your characters die on this expedition? If they do, do you promote a porter to PC, or is the expedition over for them? Failing is certainly not the outcome the players are looking for, but I think a game should have some risks...

This is the sort of game that I think Cortex would excel at. I could model multiple stress tracks: nutrition, health, injury, intra-party tension, finances. Every time the adventurers get a setback, they gain or step up a die in that stress. Max out a stress, and you get a serious crisis or...

My first thought was Blood + Dread, but, yeah, there's something weirdly compelling about Blood + Splendor.

I have it, but haven't had a chance to play it. It's a pretty slick looking Cortex-based rule set. Characters' three main dice sources are abilities (agility, awareness, influence, intellect, spirit, strength), values (devotion, glory, justice, liberty, mastery, truth), and the standard...

If we're sharing resources, more people should know about... Darkest of the Hillside Thickets! They're a heavily HPL-themed Canadian rock band with albums like The Shadow Out of Tim and Dukes of Alhazred. It's a bit too comedic and rocking to be ambient music for game time, but if your...

I've heard anecdotes about the free-range LARPing, but never saw it myself. We preferred table-top; and when we LARPed, it was always in a rented community room, or in designated convention spaces. And at the convention, you had to wear a ribbon/tag that showed you were in character. By year 3...

Ha, yes! And Tracks, and the Capitol Ballroom, and the Roxy, and the old 9:30... Going out dancing turned into location scouting for our game plots.

Three?! Without thinking too long about it: D&D 5e (2024) Shadowrun (2nd edition) and, and, and... Daggerheart! (It's tempting to say the Cortex toolbox, because I could use that to craft bespoke RPGs, but that feels a bit like cheating.)

Looking back, I think part of Vampire's appeal to our newer gamers was the low cost of entry at the time. The players and the storyteller/GM just needed the one core rule book and enough d10s. We could invest in the clan books and lore stuff (I sure did), but so much of our campaign depended on...

I ran a Vampire campaign for 4 or 5 semesters between '93 and '96. During that time our group grew from about 5 to nearly a dozen on big nights. We were a mix of our original D&D group plus a bunch of our goth friends who previously hadn't been very interested in RPGs. Why did they join now...

As always with your articles, the data is fascinating... but this one gets an extra dose of, "Ah! I had that one!" It's been decades since I've seen Mountain of Mirrors and Escape From Castle Quarras, but I recognized them in an instant. Fond memories! I wonder how they hold up...