Title taken from the Tom Waits track. This blossomed into a scenario where the PCs were sent to investigate a murder. A newcomer to a quiet US suburb was found beaten to death in his home. The house is trashed. And no-one else in the suburb heard or saw anything… Anyone else have done something…
Author: matt
Gamer. Writer. Dad. Serial Ex-husband. Creator of The 23rd Letter, SpaceNinjaCyberCrisis XDO, ZOMBI, Testament, Creed. Slightly megalomaniac
Starship Concept Art
Picked up this link to amazing starship concept art over on theRPGSite forums.
Archaeology
I spent a couple of hours in the attic of my parent’s house excavating some old books. I have a notion to sell some of them considering that I’ve not looked at them in a decade but as I continued to browse I don’t think I could find one that I would seriously get rid…
Quality of Play theory
Levi Kornelson came up with this theory and posted it on TheRPGSite: The text inspires “solo play”. Personal play creates group play. Group play feeds back into personal play and pushes more group play. The punch-line is: The quality of solo play often matters more to actually getting a game than the quality of group…
WotW: Earth – Art
Last night I commissioned two art pieces from Storn Cook for the upcoming War of the Worlds book. I really like Storn’s art (massive thread on RPG.net here) and he was very nice when I enquired about the commission and explained what I wanted, even going so far as to suggest additional things. The ‘look’…
One for the millennialists…
Mike Cane 2008 reports that NASA got it wrong and an asteroid that they reported to have a 1 in 45000 chance of hitting Earth actually has a 1 in 450 chance of hitting Earth. It took a 13 year old German schoolboy to validate the figures after NASA experts forgot to take into account…
23rd Letter: Projects Campaigns
A Project-based campaign is as flexible as the players want. The G.M. may choose themes as he or she wants. PCs working for a Project are relieved of many of the worries of Network members or other independent espers. Usually they are not on the run, living out of safehouses or mobile homes, lack of…
Mario Kart for the Wii
Last weekend we picked up Mario Kart for the Wii for a fiver after trading in two games that we neither liked nor played (Wabbit Wampage? Cars?) and I must say it was the best fun I’ve had since I bought the device (over a year ago) and discovered Wii Sports. The game isn’t as…
Sexuality (part 1)
A recent thread on TheRPGSite talks about sexuality and sexual and/or gender bias. Art Cheesecake art in fantasy is a real issue. I thought it was mostly gone but there’s heaps of the damn stuff out there. You know – the male characters are ripped with muscles, the female characters are showing cleavage. It’s because…
The 23rd Letter
Balbinus on RPG.net responds to someone asking for sourcebooks about running a campaign about the whole concept of PSI powers: “IMO the best is a game called 23rd Letter, it’s basically Firestarter (the Stephen King book/movie) the rpg. Probably OOP but available I would have thought on ebay.” Thanks, Balbinus! It’s not out of print!…
Priest Chaser
…that the citizens of Perugia compelled the surrender of the citadel of Gerard du Puy, the cardinal-nephew of Pope Gregory XI, during the War of the Eight Saints with a trebuchet nicknamed the cacciaprete (“priest chaser”)? I think that the modern day Catholic Church has dire need of this.
What’s that in the background?
Today I had lunch with Mike and Jim in Kainan Cafe. We then went round to Forbidden Planet where I refrained from buying a lot of stuff. This is self-control, I tellya.
Return of the Great Old Ones.
Found this gem when I added Pooka’s blog to my blogroll. “In 1901, New Year’s Eve, the Stars Were Right. The Great Old Ones Returned, bringing with them all manner of being from their starry prisons. Fortunately for humanity, while the Old Ones were certainly horrible to look upon, they were not nearly as great…
Raising the bar
I’m arrogant to believe that I can write and, to be honest, most of the time the feedback has been pretty good. I like writing, it’d be nice to do it for a living (and not the stressful but boring job at $BIG_COMPANY) but them’s the breaks. In my spare time I write a lot…
Spiralling Down
I don’t blame anyone really. Sometimes I get angry or depressed and curse my friends, my family, the company, the system, the church and anyone else I can name. But it’s a short madness and like all things, it will pass. I haven’t slept very well in the last few days. Bouts of lethargy and…
There is a hole in my memory
I don’t remember a game I allegedly ran over a decade ago. Nothing at all memorable. I think it was a superhero game/ That worries me.
“Do people still go to cons?”
This year, Q-CON celebrates it’s 15th year. It was sixteen years ago that I finished the ‘market research’ of conventions in Ireland (via Gaelcon and Warpcon – and getting illicit copies of their after-con reports from by Bothan spies). This was while I was the President of the RPG society, Dragonslayers. It was a year…
Gates of Hell
A couple of pics of a really accessible volcano. Easily re-used for something gaming…