We’ve made it to Day 7 of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge with the prompt of “Journey”. Once again, I’ve been reading other blogs and social media posts to see what inspires me, but I kept coming back to a conversation I had a long time ago.
Now a warning before I post this. I’m not making any legal claims, nor am I about to lawyer up and try to take any legal action. I have no way to prove what I’m about to post, nor do I think that I’m the only person who came up with the idea. When it comes to storytelling, there are only a limited number of plot-lines that are out there. What is different is how those plots are told in the medium they are presented.
I was talking with a friend at the “gaming clubhouse” which was a geek hangout near the Comics Utah store in Salt Lake City. The year was 1993 and we were talking about Star Trek roleplaying scenarios. At the time, only the FASA Star Trek RPG had been released (a lot of us didn’t know about the Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier books) and my friend didn’t think there were very many challenging plots left to run in a Star Trek RPG. I disagreed and offered to come up with a campaign right on the spot.
I then presented an idea where a Starfleet crew would find themselves in a perilous situation where their resources would become limited. It would take a long time for them to recover because they were trapped on the far side of the galaxy. Some phenomena or plot device had thrown them to the other side of the galaxy we inhabit, and it would take a long time to return to Federation space. The journey would have been the campaign to get back home.
Now if this sounds familiar, later in 1995 the newly formed UPN network premiered Star Trek: Voyager on January 16th. I didn’t know how they were going to get this lonely starship across the galaxy. I also didn’t know that they would also be trapped with various civilians and Federation rebels known as the Maquis, which gave the show some internal conflict. But the basic plot was the same that I had come up with just a few years earlier. I was quite excited to see how the crew of the USS Voyager would make it home.
So, in a roleplaying game campaign, a long journey could be the entire story arc. What was the reason for the journey? Are they getting to somewhere, or trying to return from a distant location? Is this place familiar to the players, or are they facing the unknown? It doesn’t have to be a destination from this plain of existence. I could see a campaign where players from a certain timeframe get stuck in a pocket universe with NPCs from different timeframes or alternate universes all trying to escape. Greed and desperation may make for points of conflict when different factions are trapped together.
This is why we play roleplaying games. Where will this journey set up by the GM, but shaped by the players actions take all of us in this shared storytelling experience?
Do you have a memory of a past RPG event that is related to the term Journey? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Day 6 of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge and the graphic posted above shows “Motive” to be our topic of the day. Another vague topic that could cover just about anything. I’ve read a few other blog posts so far about today’s topic and I think I’ve decided where I’m going to take this.
What motivates you to participate in a roleplaying game related activity?
Do you just want to sit at the table to throw dice, eat pizza and spend time with your friends? Do you want to put together challenging puzzles and scenarios for the players to solve? Do you want to write the backstory to flesh out a set of numbers written down on a character sheet? Do you want to spend some time painting a small miniature that just came out of your 3D-printer? Do you want to attend a gaming convention where you play a bunch of one-shots over the weekend with possible new friends? Do you need more shiny math rocks that go klicky klack when they roll across the table? Do you love figuring out how RPG systems work and if they can be applied to the style of game you want to play? Do you love participating in the Character Creation Challenge even though you may never get a chance to play that character? Do you post on blogs or social media websites about our hobby? Do you get frustrated when the scheduling conflict monster and that damn real life gets in the way of your gaming time?
I feel ya. Well except for the painting miniatures part. I never had the patience to do that which only makes me appreciate those who can.
But our motivation to do this comes down to one word. Fun. It is fun to do? To play? To go through the frustration of getting things put together? The players should have fun, as well as the game master. When you commit to a game, be there on time, be prepared to play, pay attention at the table. Your fellow players planned to be there, the GM put a lot of hard work into the game. Don’t play the character in a way that it’s an asshole unless the game was set up to have the PCs be bad guys. Those types of people don’t last in real-world groups, why would a group of adventurers who are risking their lives want to protect someone like that?
A fun game is one where both the players and the GM are thinking about the next session. This type of energy motivates them to get ready for the next session. I have many memories of talking with the other players between sessions about what we were going to do next. I love it when my players have that same motivation.
What motivated you today about our RPG hobby? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
I was wondering what I was going to do for the Day 5 of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge. The prompt is “Ancient.” A quick search gave me the definition of “Belonging to the very distant past or having been in existence for a very long time.” Then it hit me, something ancient that still exists would be worth a lot for its rarity, functionality or long-lost information waiting to be uncovered. This is system agnostic for any fantasy roleplaying game.
Adventure Idea: The Battle Record of Anthelstan: The adventurers are in (or from) the long-lasting Kingdom of Anthelheim. The Royal Family of Anthelheim lays claim to the throne since their bloodline originated with the ancient warrior-king Anthelstan. This is kept in the royal tome known as The Battle Record of Anthelstan. This rare book is only accessible to the first family and the guild of scribes; however, it is brought out on special occasions where the different guild leaders read passages from the book to the public. It was written by the First Scribe who followed the young king on his adventures and recorded down the events for posterity. The first warrior-king brings about a sense of pride in the people of Anthelheim for his many good deeds in uniting the warring clans and forming the first kingdom.
The party is approached by a middleman/mysterious figure/confidant/??? who wants to hire the party to perform a discreet search. Apparently, a hireling of a known adventure offered to sell to a guild master/prominent figure/member of a crime family/etc. an ancient parchment which matches the first page of The Battle Record of Anthelstan. They were with the adventurer when it was found while searching for the lost battlefield of Draag’s Deep and claimed they just barely escaped from the traps that took their master’s life. The problem is the first page in The Battle Record of Anthelstan is still attached to the book that was seen in the recent Festival of Thrax and Alyton. Is this page a fake? Is it part of another copy of The Battle Record of Anthelstan? The benefactor hiring the party wants to confirm if this second book exists. Who wants the book? Someone wanting to keep an ancient secret? Someone who wants to present another record of a blood line? Who else knows about this page? Is someone else looking for the book?
Pushes adventure seed into the ground and pours some water on it. Take this tidbit and let it grow. But share with me if you run an adventure from this idea. I’d love to hear how it turns out.
Did this idea inspire you? What else could I have done with the topic of “ancient”? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Here we are on Day 4 of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge and our topic today is “Message”. I’m going to talk about an old-fashioned analog way to get messages to my players at my table without the rest of the party knowing what the contents of the message is.
A pad of Post-It Notes. No, seriously. These pads are small enough that I can have a stack of them behind my GMs screen. When I need to get a message to a player, I quickly write it down and toss it at them. The pad is stiff enough that they can write their response back and toss it back to me. Sometimes I’ll even just write down “Read this, giggle, and toss it back to me.” I can then remove the top layer and have the pad ready for the next clue/hint/joke/paranoia inducing information. The player themselves can then decide if their character wants to reveal the information they just gained or remembered.
I used this when I was GMing for the 5e group being introduced to OSR gaming (see the photo posted on that article). I’ve used it at a few one-shots that I’ve run at SaltCON as well. It allows me to keep players involved, drop hints (something the player would have known or observed) and just keep things interesting at the table. Simple and effective.
While I’ve been doing some of these articles, I’ve looked back on older RPGaDAY posts and recalled some of the feedback I had previously received. I had posted the comments given to me. I have had a few people tell me that they thought my posts (or twists on the theme) were very intriguing or entertaining. Thank you. Besides practicing how to write gooder, part of the reason I have this blog is to pass on information to other people. I even had someone recently send me an email thanking me for a four-year old article they had just read.
How do you communicate with the players at your table? Have you used messages to move the game along? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Tavern is the Day 3 topic for RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge and I think this is a good one. The common thread of taverns with roleplaying games is the “you all meet up at the tavern for the start of the adventure.” Well taverns can be a bit more than that. They can be a home base of operations such as the Inn of the Crescent Moon seen in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons comics from DC Comics, a common gathering place for the community such as Quark’s Bar on Deep Space Nine, a place to find transport such as the Mos Eisley Cantina or just a place to pick a fight…
“Funny, sir, how you always seem to find yourself in an Alliance-friendly bar, come U-Day, lookin’ for a quiet drink.” Zoe- The Train Job, Firefly episode 2
Taverns, bars, inns, etc. can be used as plot points in may different roleplaying games or stories. A place to find a contact or pass on information. Especially if it’s a last minute option for the GM to use. Just in case you suddenly find yourself in need of a name for that shady little dive the players find themselves in, here are some random tavern names.
Fantasy Taverns-
The Silver Stag
The Soot and Song
The Broken Tankard
The Rusted Crown
The One-Eyed Owl
The Whispering Mug
The Moonspindle Inn
The Wyrm and Whistle
The Laughing Lich
The Barrel and Brimstone
The Hearthless Flame
The Twisted Oak
The Sly Fox and Fowl
The Emerald Lute
The Crooked Lantern
The Grinning Gargoyle
The Copper Cauldron
The Wand and Wagon
The Hollow Helm
The Scarlet Manticore
1920’s Speakeasies-
The Velvet Valve
The Blind Canary
The Whispering Flask
The Garter Grip
Club Hush
The Gilded Ghost
The Gin Mill Grin
The Clover Club
The Cat’s Meow
The Backdoor Saint
The Brass Button
The Crooked Ace
The Cinder Lounge
The Owl and Hourglass
The Silver Stitch
The Blue Note Bunker
The Dizzy Duchess
The Blind Ledger
The Staggering Dame
The Clockwork Coda
Space Bars-
The Nebula’s Kiss
The Black Hole Saloon
The Cyro Leak
The Void Cantina
The Binary Shot
The Dockside Drift
The Event Horizon
The Crater and Cask
The Proton Parlor
The Ion Ivy
The Comet and Coil
The Blacklight Bazaar
The Tachyon Tap
The Gravity Well
The Chrome Chimera
The Red Shift
The Wreck Deck
The Quantum Mule
The Circuit Inn
The Infinite Happy Hour
Western Saloons-
The Rusted Spur
The Dusty Deputy
Cactus Canteen
The Whiskey Widow
The Silver Saddle
The Golden Rattlesnake
The Crooked Trail Saloon
The Tin Horn Tavern
The Red Mesa Saloon
The Prairie Rose
The Dry Gulch Tavern
The Coyote’s Cry
The Spittoon and Sparrow
The Gold Tooth Tavern
The Bootjack Burrow
The Hangman’s Harmony
The Devil’s Draw
The Brass Rail
The Blind Bear
The Lone Star Hollow
What adventures have you had in a tavern? Is there a better name of a bar that you’d add to the list? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
For Day 2 of the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge our prompt is…. Prompt? Uh… yea. Let’s give it a twist instead by designing a sci-fi engineering tool for characters to use. I’m keeping this system agnostic so you can drop it into any science fiction roleplaying game.
Here is one of the new items presented in the Engineering Section of Issue 39,247 of the Spacers Catalog and Bargain Basement Yearly by Crapola Inc.
Introducing the Mark IV version of the Programmable Reconfigurable On-demand Multi-function Portable Tool or P.R.O.M.P.T. for short. Designed by the team of Allyce, Auroro and Noxx who had previously developed the Neural Duct Tape and the Tachyon Muffler.
The Mark IV P.R.O.M.P.T. has three times the battery length of the Mark III and re-charges 27% faster from a standard interface power port. The memory has been increased to include 95 more common and exotic engineering tools which become instantly available from it’s short-range programmable matter paddle field. Just use your P.R.O.M.P.T. to scan the engineering challenge and the hand-held device will present three possible engineering tools extruding from the top of the device to assist the engineer with their duties.
So how much would you pay for this? Well before you answer, there’s more. Now the Mark IV P.R.O.M.P.T. can link up with other Mark IV devices to coordinate repair efforts. Tired of filing those pesky engineering reports? The Mark IV is now Interstellar Organization for Standardization Alpha-60009 certified so it can link up with your primary shipboard computer. This allows your engineer to provide exact reports on the repair jobs and close the assigned duty tickets upon completion.
Mark IV P.R.O.M.P.T. Statistics: Weight- 200 grams Length- 24 cm * Width- 12 cm * Programmable Matter Extension Length- 1-8 cm Battery Life Constant Use- 59 days Standard Use- 128 days Internal Processor- Holly V Pro Maximum Programmable Matter Tool Storage Limit- 287 ISO Alpha-60009 Certified HBZZ Cybersecurity Enabled
Interested in expanding your engineering toolbox? Authorized accounts can order directly from the catalog or by visiting one of Crapola Inc.’s many retail locations on Earth, Neptune, Venus, Ganymede and Titan. And remember, if we don’t sell it, then it’s not Crapola!
The art was last minute as the idea struck me today. Did this entry bring a smile to your face while reading it? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
Welcome to the month of August. I didn’t get a chance to do a “Prepping for…” blog post (damn real life getting in the way) but I’m planning to participate in the RPGaDAY 2025 Challenge as coordinated by David F. Chapman. As you can see in the image above, there are 31 different topics to inspire discussion. There are also additional Questions, Moods and Subjects. I might use these if the topic fails to get my fingers typing. This morning I’ve had a chance to read a few other blog posts that were participating and I think it triggered some ideas in my brain. So, without further adieu, here is my first entry.
Patron: For some, this term evokes the Warlock Class from the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. A spell-caster has a pact with some sort of patron that provides them with the power to use as they see fit. Another use of the term Patron is the subscription service that I see advertised on various websites, podcasts, blogs and videographers. I haven’t really used this service as a sender or a receiver. What are your impressions of this? The Merriam-Webster dictionary tells us that a patron can be a special guardian, protector or supporter.
The inspiration that hit me while reading the other entries was the player character being a patron. Not just giving someone else ‘power’ but more like a mentor position. Consider the following ideas:
The Wanna-Be Magician: What if a mid-to-high level non-Warlock magic-user suddenly found out that someone wants to learn the ways of sorcery (or Jedi powers) from them? Perhaps this person was assigned to them by a guild or magic school so they couldn’t just dismiss the person outright. Perhaps this apprentice could be an eager beaver wanting to impress their superiors, a brat of a rich family who thinks that they are already destined for greatness, someone scared of the powers they might obtain, etc. The NPC options are endless and could make for an interesting addition to a mid-to-high level magic-user.
The Voices in my Head: I’ve thought about springing this on players previously, but it never came up in a scenario that it could be properly role-played. The player character (could be any genre) reaches for an ancient artifact, statue, scroll, tchotchke and gets an electric shock. When they recover, they can hear a voice in their head of a long lost archeologist/wizard/supernatural being/etc. that only they can hear. I wanted to have this happen to a strong non-learning character (barbarian, mercenary, etc.) on purpose. Perhaps they felt the stronger character would protect their conscious/spirit/??? and help them achieve their goals. Not following the instructions of the voice, could lead to madness, but the voice could be helpful in sticky situations.
The Next Next Generation: For Star Trek Adventures or any space opera style game with a structured fleet, the characters could be assigned a junior officer that they need to mentor. Like the Command Training Program or younger Ensigns asking Lieutenants for help as seen on Star Trek: Lower Decks. Space navies always need to have officers fresh out of the academy mentored by seasoned officers in real-world scenarios.
Training the Peaceful Villagers:“Across that valley lies an army of darkness such as mankind has never seen. The only thing between them and total victory is this pathetic pocket of resistance. Without a leader, without a plan. Into this bleak arena steps a man, the man for the moment.” Rimmer- Meltdown, Red Dwarf Series IV, Episode 6. The characters can be samurai, gunfighters or even an obnoxious, trumped-up, farty little smeghead who need to train a group of common people into a fighting force. They may not be much of a fighting force, but with the character’s help, they just might pull it off. And who knows, if they survive, perhaps they will want to become followers of the seven… err… characters.
Are there other ideas? Did I miss a possible patron opportunity to put the characters into? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
All right, I’m sorry to my regular readers. I know that I owe you guys a LOT of catch up articles. Let’s just say that 2025 has been very sucky on a lot of different fronts. So I’m trying to catch up with this and other articles. I’m also going to attempt to participate in the 2025 #RPGaDAY challenge coming up in August. So the first of my catch up articles will be a look at the Monty Python’s Role-Playing Game Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme published by Exalted Funeral.
I had received this package back in January during the middle of the Character Creation Challenge, so I didn’t open it up then. Since those blog entries take up the bulk of my blog time, I elected to wait until later to do a review. Yea, that was a bad idea.
What I saw when I first opened up the shipping box.
This Kickstarter campaign actually started back in October of 2022. Those who had pledged for the physical items also received PDFs of the rules. This is how I was able to make a character for this game in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge. I discussed some of the items from the game in the challenge entry, so I’ll try to concentrate on the physical items that I received as part of the reward. I wasn’t able to get any of the big-ticket items, but I picked up the book, the special dice for the game. Since several stretch goals were met, the physical backers also received coconut dice rollers.
Yes, they make hoof noises when clapped together. I tested them.
You probably can’t see it very well in the photo above, but the game logo is on the inside of the coconut halves. I’ll have a chance to play this game at the upcoming SaltCON End-of-Summer, so I’ll bring both the dice and the dice rollers to use at the table. And speaking of dice… err… Certified Polyhedral Random Number Generators.
The top of the dice box for the game.
The text at the bottom of the box.
The contents inside the box.
The only item that seemed to have a printing error.
Yes, I had to get the dice for the game. No, I don’t have enough dice. While I’m not up to full dice goblin mode, I’m getting closer. I can’t wait to see how these are used in the game.
As for the hardback book itself, it’s beautiful. Brian Saliba and Craig Schaffer are the names posted on the front of the book. The cover art is by Keith Lowe. The ISBN is 979-8-88756-079-3 with a suggested price of $50.00. There are 450 pages with content on both inside covers. There are nine chapters and several appendices and an index. The hardbound book also contains a bookmark ribbon.
The first chapter is “An introduction to cocurricular reenacting” followed by “A brief historical remediation for those who didn’t apply themselves at school.” The third chapter provides the information on how the system works with the “How the programme programmes” and character creation is in the fourth chapter under “Participant Primer.” For the game masters, chapter five gives us “Head of Light Entertainment Handbook” with the “Heads of Light Entertainment Directory” following right after. A whos-who of characters from some different Monty Python films are included in chapter seven’s “Notable Historical Figures” with chapter eight providing “A field guide to creatures, historical, mythical and mundane.” The last chapter contains various “Quests” that the HoLE (aka GM) can use in a campaign. Since I’m going to be playing this RPG soon, I did not read any of these adventures. A character sheet is included (also available for download on the Exalted Funeral website. While I was looking at the book I noticed that they had provided different colored pages for the different chapters. This was also reflected on the edge of the pages for quick searches.
Hopefully the different colored pages show up in this photograph.
The text on the back of the book.
While I covered the character creation steps in the 2024 Character Creation Challenge entry, I didn’t really go into detail on the system. Each class… err… situation that the participant (aka character) is a part of has a series of traits. The player describes to the HoLE what their participant is doing and a trait is selected to roll against. Which of the many die is selected depends upon if the participant is being serious or silly. There are also accouterments that may give the participant bonuses to their roll. The HoLE will roll for the opposing NPC or situation. However if the player describes the action well (or silly) enough, then the HoLE may just declare “Intercourse the Dice” and award an automatic success. I’m not certain if I’m describing the basics very well. Perhaps I’ll be able to explain it better after SaltCON. But the feel that I’m getting is that this is has a lot of narrative feel, but keeps the soul of randomness going with the different types of dice.
The traits in the game are Animal Husbandry (aka Animal Handling), Argumentation (aka Debating, but I wanted an argument), Authority (aka Leadership), Bardistry (aka Performance), Chasity (avoiding temptation), Decorum (are you trained to be high class or are you just a peasant), Druidry (healing through nature), Glibness (the ability to use quick wits or not), Heartiness (aka Charisma), Lorefulness (aka Intelligence and Wisdom), Luck (self explanatory), Nimbleness (aka Dexterity), Purpose (aka Force of Will or Faith), Sorcery (There are some that call me… Tim), Strategy (aka Tactical knowledge), Subtlety (aka skills a thief would have), Valour (aka battle skills and bravery), and Wisdom in the Ways of Science (aka Thinking outside the box). Not all situations will have all traits. If the player attempts to use a trait that they don’t have, then they roll the lowest die (d4), but they can still try.
Going through the book there is a ton of in-jokes from the various Monty Python episodes and movies. Primarily it is geared towards The Life of Brian and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But fans will notice other entries as well.
I am glad that I backed this Kickstarter campaign. I can’t wait to actually try it out at the table. It will probably be one of the first Kickstarter games that I’ve picked up that I’ll be able to play. So I will hopefully have more to say after SaltCON EoS is over.
Do you have any questions about Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme? Have you backed any Kickstarters lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
I’m writing this the day after SaltCON-Summer 2025. Let’s just say I’m really happy that I was smart enough to take the Monday after the convention off. It gave me a chance to not only unwind from the very busy weekend, but get somethings done that I usually do on Saturday or Sunday to prep for my next week. I’m also very happy for the time I spent at the convention. Thank you to those who gave me hugs. I hope you realize how much this is helping me keep my spirits up. I also had one of my readers come up and tell me that he enjoyed my blog posts. Thank you. I know that recent posts have been rare, but I’m going to keep going. I do have plans to participate in the upcoming RPGaDAY 2025 activity this August. I also still owe you guys different reviews and first-looks at some of the KickStarter rewards that I’ve received.
As you can see from the loot photo above, I was able to pick up a few items. SaltCON has always had a good t-shirt design for each event. This year seems to be following the cyberpunk genre. I had some money to pick up both the current con shirt, but the spring shirt as well that I missed out on a few months ago. One of the nice things that SaltCON does is sell the older con shirts at a discount. When I picked up my badge, I was notified that I was one of the random winners of the game giveaway. Out of the two possible options, Chicken Time Warp sounded like fun. And since it was the size of a deck of cards, it wouldn’t take up too much room in my convention backpack. There was a dealer that had a sale on geeky pins, I picked up some that said “Dungeon Master”, “I’m not procrastinating, I’m doing side quests”, “Sarcasm +5” and “I don’t have any ducks in a row. I have squirrels and they are at a rave.” I also received a couple of thank you prizes for running games that included the RPG Attack from Space (medieval knights vs. invading aliens from outer space) and a mug that says “DnD Diplomacy, Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, FIREBALL.” I’ll be using the mug for my end-of-day sleepytime tea and I’ll be using Attack from Space as one of my entries in the 2026 Character Creation Challenge.
Posters made by the con to advertise my games.
I was scheduled to run three games at SaltCON-Summer 2025. I’m not sure if it was karma for dropping out of some games at the spring event, or if I simply waited too long to submit my events and got stuck with bad time slots—but unfortunately, no one showed up for my Basic Fantasy and Teenagers from Outerspace sessions. I did get a chance to run the TfOS game at The Queen’s Realm a few weeks ago (in preparation for the con) but I also put a lot of effort into the home-brewed Basic Fantasy adventure. So I may make another attempt with one or both games at a future convention.
The Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition game. Let’s just say that the players and I were laughing and having a very good time with the scenario. Probably one of the best one-shots that I’ve ran in quite some time. We even ended up with a “There I was…” type of story out of it. Long story short, the players were disguised on a planet with a pre-warp civilization. The Prime Directive was in full effect, but the players had found themselves in a dangerous situation where the villagers were chasing some of them. One player hid in a merchant’s shop and wanted to use his back door. The merchant, wanting to make a sale, said that he was willing to allow paying customers slip out the back door. The character had not thought to bring any of the local currency with them when they went into the village, so he accepted the offer to trade his hat, for one of the agrarian level hand tools. The moment he had made the exchange, I spent a level of threat and reminded him that the hat had been replicated with his advanced technology. While it was an imitation of the local headgear the natives wore, it wasn’t the same material. There was another PC in the store with him so he couldn’t just say he had lost it. This put the player in a panic and we ended up spending an extra amount of time over this one plot point and the hand-wringing it brought about. Was this a violation of the Prime Directive like Dr. McCoy leaving his communicator behind on Sigma Iotia II? When they rejoined the Commander leading the expedition, I did give him a chance to notice the missing headgear, which he did which lead to further awkward. When the game was over and I asked for feedback from the players, one of the first-time players said he was glad that I had used the threat in-game currency (which I had on several different times) to spice up the scenario. Some of these I only came up with on the fly during the course of play. Another first-time player stated he now needed to go out and pick up the core rulebook because of how much fun he had. Had there been a merchant at the con selling books for the games being run, they would have made a sale. Jim J, if you or any of your team are reading this, just know that the first time players picked up the system very easily and had a great time around the table playing your game.
Some of the characters I played this weekend.
For the first time ever, all of the games that I participated in as a player was completely new to me. Usually I just try to get one or two in so I can try out different systems. Two of the games were played with the actual designers who had attended to show off their works.
Shadowdark: This was an interesting game since we were playing zero-level characters in a funnel similar to the kind I experienced in Dungeon Crawl Classics. Every single one of my randomly pulled characters only had one hit point, so I went through a stack of them trying to get out. What made this D20 clone interesting is that none of the PC races had any type of infravision or dark vision. So if our light source went out, we were at a disadvantage. The timer would run in real time and to demonstrate this, an hourglass was placed on the table that would match one hour. This made for a very interesting scenario that I’m glad that I tried out. I wouldn’t turn down a Shadowdark session if an invite was extended and I’m interested in seeing the character creation rules.
Pirate Borg: Another game that I’ve been hearing a lot about and that I’m hoping I can pick up for a future Character Creation Challenge. Ran by the same GM who ran the Shadowdark game earlier. The character was higher than level 0, and thus a little bit more hardier. All of the players got into the pirate theme of the game (one even kept talking with a Jersey accent the entire time) which added to the enjoyment. One of the players ended up getting killed at the very last second of the game which showed me how weird this game could be. Again, I wouldn’t turn down a chance to play it again.
Untold: This is a fantasy game that uses D12s. A LOT of D12s. It kind of reminded me of the 2d20 system where you have target numbers based off of skills and attributes, but you had to roll over the target number. Which wasn’t easy to do sometimes. I played a barbarian so I didn’t get a chance to try the unusual magic system, but it wasn’t Vancian. It was interesting to try the game and a lot of players got into their characters. This was one of the creator run sessions.
EverReach: This is a science fiction/cyberpunkish game with the designer of the game. The system was pretty easy to follow along as it only used D6s with the ability to swap out one of the D6s rolled (by the player or GM). We played an independent crew that was hired by a corporation to perform a smash and grab. As the players, we spent the bulk of the session planning out the heist and bouncing ideas off of each other. How were we going to get past the defenses and neutralize the third-party gang hired to protect the server we were after? How were we going to extract ourselves? Because we did a bunch of planning (something I had experienced in a past Spycraft game) there wasn’t a lot of rolling until the very end. So I got a little taste of it. But I’m going to be doing a deeper dig on this game as a review in a future blog post.
The Expanse: So I had only seen the pilot episode of this hard sci-fi TV series, but it turns out the game is based off of the books (it’s a rights thing). So there was still a lot of explaining to the newbies at the table like myself. There were different factions controlling different parts of the Sol System and there was no FTL in this universe. The main reason I wanted to play this game is to try the Age System that comes up in Fantasy Age and Modern Age. The dice roll mechanics was easy to get down, but there were pages and pages of stunts that each character could pull from when they ended up with special Stunt Points. So we were continuously looking through these pages to see what fit the situation we currently found ourselves in. In the end, we completed the mission in style due to these stunt points, but I’m going to have to go back and take a deeper dive into the Age books that I own to see if I’d want to do anything further with this system. Something I don’t know if I would have noticed without getting my hands dirty with it.
So in conclusion, I had a ton of fun (again) at SaltCON. Yes, the summer event is smaller than the spring one. But there were a couple of temping RPG pickups at the swap meet and game exchange. If there is a regular RPG book seller who’s looking for a market, this convention could easily make you a lot of sales especially if you had the books for the games being run at the con. As I was writing this blog post, one of the con-organizers posted on FaceBook that this had been the highest attended SaltCON-Summer ever. Once again, a big shout-out should go to the other attendees, volunteers and organizers for putting this together. As someone who has retired from the con-chair business, I know how much effort is put into these events. It was noticed and appreciated.
SaltCON-End of Summer is coming up on August 28-31 at the Davis Convention Center in Layton, Utah. Currently I’m planning to attend and run some RPG one-shots. Let me know if you plan to go so I can meet up with you.
Do you have any questions about the convention weekend? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been several months since SaltCON-Spring ended. With how busy, hectic and downright painful that this year has been, I really need a geek-out break. And here comes SaltCON-Summer to deliver. I will be packing my Convention Backpack that I have documented in a previous blog post.
So I’ve signed up again to run several games so that both my wife and I can attend. But one of the things I (tried) to do differently this time around was pre-run some of the games that I plan to run. While I’ve I’ve ran Basic Fantasy 4th Edition and Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition several times before, this is the first time that I’m running Teenagers from OuterSpace. Yes, I’m running an odd-ball game again like I did with the Wendy’s Roleplaying Game in the spring. The reason I do this is to make the con memorable for someone. Sure you’ll find a bunch of the games that you can find in the big box stores at the con, but seeking out that game that you don’t normally get to play may be just as enjoyable. And for me, it’s just as enjoyable to try to run something different.
I was able to secure a table for three different nights at The Queen’s Realm, a nearby gaming/geek store and event center. My scheduled date for my Basic Fantasy test run had to be postponed because of the passing of my 95-year old grandmother. I was able to make it for Teenagers from OuterSpace and Star Trek 2e. Of those two, only Teenagers actually happened (not enough players for STA2e unfortunately as several people had to back out). I’m hoping that the test run will help me run a better scenario at the con.
So what games did I sign up to play? Well all of them are games that I’ve never played before. These include ShadowDark, Pirate Borg, Untold, EverReach (a game that I’m currently reviewing for a blog post) and The Expanse. I think this is the first time it’s been all new-to-me games. This should make for an interesting after-action report.
As mentioned before (and probably demonstrated by the lack of blog posts which has bugged me very much) I really needed a relaxing weekend. If you are coming, please walk up and say “Hi”. At the spring event several people came up and gave me hugs and greetings which really helped lift my spirits.
What should I be on the look out for? Any recommendations for the games I’m going to be playing? This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.
