The Mystery Terrarium

I don't mean the sort that might be investigated by Scooby-Doo and the gang, but rather a variant of the mystery sandbox, maybe one where player's don't even know it's a mystery sandbox to begin with. Or (to state in a more player-centric way), a setting where the level of mystery can be dialed up or down as desired.

What got me thinking about this is Wayward Pines wherein what appears to be a place again to the Village (from The Prisoner, I mean), is actually slightly more like the Village from The Village and is in fact [SPOILER] apparently a model 21st century town in a post-apocalyptic future.  So we get a setting where people are living in an artificial society where the reality of the world is hidden to one degree or another. It could just as easily be a faux-Medieval society as opposed to a modern one.

This differs from your standard post-apocalyptic fantasy setting like Tekumel in a few of ways. One, the nature of those settings isn't a secret from the inhabitants. There are details that don't know and things they don't understand, but most of time people are at least partially aware they are in a fallen world. Nor, generally, are there forces actively trying to hide the nature of the world from them. Lastly, the world is artificial to an extent--it was setup to to provide a certain environment and to fool people. It would be as if the quirky societies in the biospheres in The Starlost had been purposely created rather than be accidents of cultural drift. If the world of Anomalous Subsurface Environment were a big, crazy social experiment. Or a human ant farm.

The players' can run around the ant farm, blissfully unaware of their captivity--or they can take on the bigger mystery and try to break out.

It Came From the Trapper Keeper

A blue one, in a plastic cargo crate along with the contents of the Gamma World 3rd Edition box set, Advanced Marvel Super-Heroes character cards, Descent Into the Depths, and The Isle of Dread. I was looking for the G.I. Joe game my friends and I wrote, but instead I would the partial Transformers rpg.

The credits says the writers were myself and my friend, Al. My brother gets a "design consultant" credit. Most of my gaming group are credited as "playtesters", but that must have been aspirational as it was never played, as far as I can recall.

It was partially inspired by Marvel Super-Heroes--it used an action table, though it also seems to have had some sort of "action points" (called "Firepower") possibly borrowed from FASA Star Trek, I haven't compared the charts to know for sure. The abilities were inspired by the Tech Specs on the back of toy packages.

Games from the Crypt

Having returned from Texas with a 20+ year-old game (Wizards) I hear isn't very good (and I am unlikely to play in any case) and two 30+ year-old supplements for a game (Powers & Perils) I have never played, am unlikely to, and I don't known where I might have stored the core rules for, I am forced to ponder what is it about old games, anyway?

I am something of a collector, true and as Batman's Batcave and Superman's Fortress of Solitude have long demonstrated, it's cool to have a good collection on display. Still, books, comic books, movies--all of those I generally get the intended use out of as well as the collecting aspect. The games not as much.

There's a bit of nostalgia, sure. I remember seeing these things on shelves sometimes or I saw them advertised in Dragon and the like. I think it's also a bit of my love or history and archaeology. These products are a window into the past. They even smell old, whether through the smell of old paper only or musty rooms where cigarettes were smoked (and probably the less pungent Mountain Dew and snack foods consumed). They're a tangible connection to a hobby that, while relatively young, is older than I am.

How about you guys? Do you like old games even if you don't play them?

The Con Ends

I'm flying home today after a good time at NTrpgcon 2015. Had dinner with Justin of A Field Guide to Doomsday, and met the next generation of mutant chronicler. All the heads of Hydra (except Anothony) came together for some strategic planning about our upcoming endeavors. Chris Kutalik ran us through the Reavers of the Weird mini-game (made even more mini and cutthroat by a small selection of miniatures). I played a goatman bounty hunter named Valentine in a ASE-inspired, space station-crawl, Chris was a psyker cat named Miss Sassy, and my girlfriend, Andrea, played a bovinoid starship deck crew member with an Intelligence of 8. Hijinks ensued.

Saturday, the Hydra crew was together again as part of a indie rpg press panel put together by Richard LeBlanc (New Big Dragon Games Unlimited) and featuring a host of knowledgeable small press dudes.

And of course, there was some beer consumption and a good deal of far-ranging discussion along the way. If only the professional conventions I attend were as much fun.

NTRPGCon

I'm in Texas for the  North Texas Rpg Con once again, this time for a summit of the Hydra Publishing Collective as well as the usual gaming an debachery. I met up with the usual suspects last night: Chris Kutalik, Robert Parker, and Justin Davis, and met Mike Davison for the first time. I'm looking forward to meeting Jason Sholtis.

Oh, and I picked this up yesterday:

Some of us are in an indie publishing panel on Saturday morning which they closed registration up prematurely, so if you're at the con and can rouse yourself at 0800, you should come by regardless.

Wednesday Comics: Indie Apocalypses

Continuing my survey of post-apocalyptic comics (focused on those) in print. Previously, I reviewed Marvel's and DC's offerings, now it's time to look beyond the Big Two:

Hunter
What's the Apocalypse? A nuclear war, starting in 2001, whose radiation creates psionic mutants called "demons."
Who are the heroes? Demian Hunter, half-human, half-demon demon hunter.
Where can you read it? Eerie Presents: Hunter

Mighty Samson
What's the Apocalypse? Nuclear war.
Who are the heroes? The titular Samson, a super-strong barbarian adventurer.
Where can you read it? starting with The Mighty Samson Archives volume 1
.

Just A Pilgrim
What's the Apocalypse? "The Burn," a solar coronal expansion.
Who are the heroes? Pilgrim--a religious fanatic and reformed (maybe) cannibal--and other survivors.
Where can you read it? Just A Pilgrim Complete.

Sabre
What's the Apocalypse? Nuclear war.
Who are the heroes? Sabre, Melissa Siren, and other freedom fighters against a fascistic regime.
Where can you read it? Sabre 30th Anniversary Edition

Scout
What's the Apocalypse? Ecological damage and economic collapse after most nations have levied punitive sanctions against the U.S.
Who are the heroes? Emmanuel Santana aka Scout, an Apache ex-U.S. Army Ranger on a quest to destroy a supernatural evil
Where can you read it? start with Scout volume 1

Walking Dead
What's the Apocalypse? A zombie outbreak of unknown cause.
Who are the heroes? Rick Grimes and a a changing group of survivors, many of whom will die.
Where can you read it? start with Walking Dead Compendium One

Wasteland
What's the Apocalypse? "The Big Wet" that left "half the world covered by poisonous, rising oceans" and the remaining dry land is desiccated and broken.
Who are the heroes? Michael, a scavenger who finds a machine that talks in a forgotten language.
Where can you read it? start with Wasteland Book 1: Cities in Dust

Xenozoic Tales (aka Cadillacs and Dinosaurs)
What's the Apocalypse? Ecological upheaval, leading humans to abandon the surface for hundreds of years. They return to find dinosaurs.
Who are the heroes? Jack Tenrec and Hannah Dundee. They drive cadillacs and run away from dinosaurs. And other stuff.
Where can you read it? Xenozoic

The World of Tiger Lung

Tiger Lung series of stories by Simon Roy (Prophet), assisted at times by Jason Wordie, published in a collection by Dark Horse. The title character is a shaman in Eastern Europe in the late Paleolithic era, the mediator for people between the material world and the world of spirits--a world not that far away, but alien to most.

In its fundamentals it recalls Muktuk Wolfsbreath, Hard-boiled Shaman. The story "Song for the Dead" even follows the formula of the Wolfsbreath stories: a conflict with a spirit reveals a secret transgression in the human world. But where the Muktuk Wolfsbreath series wrings some humor from juxtapositioning the activities of a Siberian shaman with dialog in the style of hard-boiled fiction, Tiger Lung plays it straight

Roy is not trying to write a standard prehistoric comic in the Tor or Kong the Untamed vein (not that those aren't cool in their own right), but more resembles Shanower's Age of Bronze in his attempt to create a level of (pre-)historical verisimilitude. It's most definitely fantasy, though, with its realms of the dead, various spirits and even were-hyenas. The only fault in the collection is with only 3 stories, it's all too short.

Art by Simon Roy