RPG A Day 28−31

Day 28 — Great Gamer Gadget

I don’t like gadgets— at least not for tabletop role-playing games; I’ll happily purchase gadgets for my wargames, like mounted mapboards, deluxe cards, bespoke dice, acrylic counters, you name it. But the action of a role-playing game unfolds in your mind... it doesn’t need any physical media!

Day 29 — Awesome App

Sorry it’s in French but the best answer to this stupid question is definitely imaginos’.

Day 30 — Person You’d Like to Game With

I’ve mentioned at the Day 19 entry that I’d only managed to have the missus play once. It was a D&D game and she was playing a fairy. She was awesome (not very surprising since she’s into improvisational theatre) but alas she never wanted to play again... she prefers family boardgames. So that’s it: the person I’d like to game with is my wife!

Day 31 — Game or Gamer You Miss

Well, as a Gloranthaphile, I obviously miss Greg Stafford. Technically speaking, he wasn’t a great GM (all of us who have had the privilege to play with him have anecdotes on this subject) but he was such a marvellous and mesmerising storyteller.

I miss you Greg!

RPG A Day 25−27

Day 25 — Desirable Dice

Desirable Dice?? Dear Lord, what kind of “question of the day” is this?

Like all roleplayers, I do have a fetish for dice, but I do not remember having ever desired a particular die, even though there are a few it took me some time to get hold of, like the ‘D4 that rolls’ (actually a D8 numbered 1−4 twice), my polyhedral dice with Chinese numerals, or my fancy weather dice.

Day 26 — Superb Screen

I am not very keen on ‘official’ TTRPG screens. Sure, I regularly purchase the ones that are made for the games I referee, but I usually leave them at home and use my all-purpose, house-made screen instead in which I can put the tables I need and not the ones someone has decided I should need. Or I even usually simply place my binder upright on the table: et voilà... a superb screen!

Day 27 — Marvellous Miniature

Being of the theatre of the mind persuasion (see Day 8) I am not big on accessories/gadgets; this is hence again a difficult “question of the day” for me. I don’t own any minis. Not even a single one. So when I run a game in which visualising one’s surroundings is really important, I print mirror-sided pictures of the PCs/NPCs, glue the two sides on heavy paper or cardboard, and put the resulting paper minis in standees. Works for me!

RPG A Day 21−24

Day 21 — Classic Campaign

Shadows on the Borderland is my favourite product from the ‘RuneQuest Renaissance’ of the early 1990s, one of the few original Avalon Hill RuneQuest supplements that was not a re-issued or a re-packaged product from the RQ2 range.

Shadows on the Borderland was not officially presented as a campaign, but as a series of adventures set in the same area (Prax) and with a common theme: the ever-present threat of Chaos in this uncivilised part of central Genertela— which of course enabled resourceful GMs to build a campaign out of these adventures (which is exactly what our GM did).

Day 22 — Notable Non-Player Character

What is a ‘notable’ NPC? One that is central to the ‘lore’ of a role-playing game? In this case, Arkat, Argrath, Harrek, Ralzakark and many others are notable NPCs, especially Argrath, who is supposed to play a major role in the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line.

Or is it an NPC that the player characters are bound to meet over and over again over the course of their adventures, and who acts as a useful deus ex machina tool for the [lazy] GM? In this case, le Club Pythagore from the French role-playing game Maléfices ticks all the boxes.

Or is it an NPC that you and your fellow gamers will remember from a great role-playing session or from a memorable campaign? In this case, everyone will have a different reference as to who is a notable NPC, irrespective of how well the NPC was presented in a given gaming supplement. From my recent sessions as a player, I have fond memories of Zaleena Silver-Tongue, a Lunar schemer from The Eleven Lights campaign written for HeroQuest/QuestWorlds.

And, last but not least, me and my friends have notable NPCs from our house campaigns. These NPCs won’t mean a thing to you, but we of course love reminiscing about them. One such NPC is Sturm Martex, a dream magician from Orathorn who kept thwarting my players’ plans during our Chern Durel campaign. I think his appearance is what made him so memorable... he had no body, just a head that was carried around on a silken cushion resting on a precious palanquin supported by his slaves. He had tinkered too much with dream magic, and his body got stuck in the Dream World. 

Day 23 — Peerless Player

Anyone who has ever attended a role-playing convention and enthusiastically played in a one-shot with total strangers is a peerless player 🙂

Day 24 — Acclaimed Advice

As someone of the show, don’t tell persuasion, I enjoy learning from experienced GMs at cons during the course of a game or at a panel.

For inexperienced GMs I will recommend the book Mener des parties de jeu de rôle (in French), which is a collection of articles written by French TTRPG professionals with loads of useful tips.

RPG A Day 20

Day 20 — Amazing Adventure

Oh my days, there are so many.

For me the best adventures are the ones with well-defined NPCs that you will still fondly remember years after the adventure has been played, but I am not going to mention my favourite TTRPG campaigns again (that was Day 12), so I’ll have to think of something else.

One that truly stands out from my recent years of GMing is a free Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes adventure titled the Curse of the Midnight Sun by Michael Paul. It is supposed to be set in upstate New York in 1953, but: (1) I have moved the action to Normandy in 1902, and (2) I have adapted it to Maléfices.

Well, what was supposed to be a one-shot adventure ended up as a fabulous mini-campaign with very endearing NPCs, scary villains, and two mysterious siblings.

RPG A Day 19

Day 19 — Sensational Session

We are a family of hardcore gamers. Well, me, my son, my daughter, and my son’s girlfriend are. My wife and my son-in-law less so. The missus loves family boardgames à la Ticket to Ride, and my son-in-law likes short, fun games with simple rules. I’ve only managed to play D&D once with my wife, and my son-in-law started playing in my Maléfices campaign but dropped out after two or three sessions.

So that was the situation until I convinced everybody to play Arkham Horror (3rd ed.). And that was truly a sensational session— we played the Feast of Umôrdhoth scenario, and even though Arkham Horror is not exactly a role-playing game (your player character does not progress beyond amassing gear, and the choices you make are limited by the scenario) my wife and my son-in-law were completely immersed in our desperate fight against the chthonian horror. Next step, a real role-playing session? [I hear there is an Arkham Horror rpg in the works...]

RPG A Day 18

Day 18 — Memorable Moment of Play

Well, as someone who’s been playing since 1981, there have been many, but one of the best memories from the recent years is certainly the finale of my RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha campaign set in the Kingdom of Ignorance, when the player characters heroquested on behalf of Can Shu’s daughter who was looking for a means to act against her father. The heroquest succeeded, and its consequences kickstarted the Hero Wars in Chern Durel, much to our satisfaction as this episode marked the end of two intense years of gaming in real life.

RPG A Day 16–17

Day 16 — Quick To Learn

In my opinion, a role-playing game that is quick to learn is one in which there aren’t many different subsets of rules. Or maybe there are, but there is a single, overlying engine that lets you start playing, and then you needn’t refer to the rest of the rules until you have reached the particular situation that requires looking up said rules. In this way of looking at things, all BRP-based TTRPGs are ‘quick to learn’.

If we want to move further towards simplicity on the simple vs complex axis, however, there are many TTRPGs that are even quicker to learn.

Tunnels & Trolls has been my favourite go-to system for one-shots or to introduce newbies to TTRPGs for a long time. My only complaint is that it has two different unrelated engines, one for combat, one for non-combat actions, which I find inelegant.

Maléfices is even simpler: you have to roll 1D20 under a given characteristic (of which there are only five) to succeed in an action. Except perhaps for diceless systems, I don’t think there is anything quicker to learn.

Day 17 — an Engaging RPG Community

With the demise of Google+ and the decline of the OSR community, I would say that currently the online British RPG community is the most engaging. There are many cordial Discord servers (GROGPOD, The Mitchester Arms...), several excellent podcasts (Blasphemous Tomes, Frankenstein’s RPG, The Grognard Files, Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes, What Would the Smart Party Do?), each with its own little idiosyncratic community, and now that Twitter has become a haven for fаѕсіѕtѕ and spreaders of fake news, we have all migrated to Bluesky where everybody is super friendly.

There also many online conventions, the most notable of which is the virtual GROGMEET.

RPG A Day 12−15

Day 12 — RPG With Well-Supported Campaigns

I expect a lot of people will wax lyrical about the Masks of Nyarlathotep or The Enemy Within. Well, let me stand out of the TTRPG crowd and highlight how good many of the campaign games I have played for HeroQuest/QuestWorlds are.

Blood Over Gold, the (unpublished) Harreksaga, and The Eleven Lights, all of these HQ campaigns rank high on my list of best-campaigns-ever-played. Except for the Harreksaga which is more like a series of one-shots in different locales, these HQ campaigns feature extremely detailed NPCs in a complex web of relationships, which is what makes them stand out and “feel real”— which is what any good TTRPG campaign should strive for.

Day 13 — Evocative Environments

Given my obsession with all things Gloranthan, I reckon no one would believe that my favourite TTRPG genre is the historical role-playing game. And since my favourite city is Paris, I feel the most evocative environments are:

 - the 17th century Paris rife with the swashbuckling exploits of the musketeers from les Lames du Cardinal,

 - the early 20th century Paris full of occult mystery from Maléfices

(of course, both of these are French TTRPGs).

Day 14 — Compelling Characters

This question is not super clear. Are we talking about the player characters? the non-player characters? If it is the latter, I am going to repeat myself and refer to the incredibly detailed NPCs from the HeroQuest/QuestWorlds campaigns I’ve mentioned at the ‘Day 12’ entry.

If it is about PCs... any TTRPG that allows you to flesh out believable player characters rather than two-dimensional ones will do the job. Which I think favours narrative role-playing games. And the only one I’m really familiar with is, again, HeroQuest/QuestWorlds.

Day 15 — Great Character Gear

Groan. Honestly, this is probably the last thing I’m interested in when I play. For me ‘horse’ or ‘rifle’ are good enough on my character sheet and, despite being a lifelong fan of Tunnels & Trolls, I’ve always found its list of weapons ridiculously long and detailed for a game that is supposed to emphasise simplicity.

So I am going to mention a supplement that is supposed to be a ‘character gear’ manual but which is, in reality, an immersive guide into the day-to-day life of the people of central Genertela:

the Weapons & Equipment book for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

RPG A Day 8−11

Day 8 — An Accessory You Appreciate

As a GM, being a proponent of the ‘theatre of the mind’ style of play, I am not fond of the use of accessories; I’ve never ever used minis, I seldom use a dry-erase board, and my GM screen is only there to make sure no one is peering at my notes.

An accessory I do appreciate as a player is the All Rolled Up because I know I’ll have all the stuff I need for the gaming session or at the con.

Square Dice Trays are also very useful because my dice somehow always end up rolling under a piece of furniture.

Day 9 — An Accessory You’d Like to See

Now if someone could invent a virtual tabletop system for dummies— that would be the ultimate ‘accessory I’d like to see’! Something like what Rally The Troops does for wargames or Boardgame Arena does for boardgames, but for tabletop role-playing games.

Day 10 — RPG You’d Like to See on TV

A lot of RPGs nowadays are based on licences so in a way we already have a lot of RPG universes on telly. One thing comes to my mind though: I’d like to see an East Asian fantasy TV show with low-level magic, not the kind of over-the-top magic you see in The Storm Riders or in The Legend of Zu; no, I want to see low-level, discreet magic like in The Celestial Empire.

Day 11 — RPG with Well-Supported One-Shots

Except for a very long campaign that was a mash-up of Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express, my experience with the Call of Cthulhu RPG has been one of one-shots with our characters dying or becoming mad at the end of the one-shot session, so I reckon this is it.

RPG A Day 6–7

Day 6 — RPG That is Easy to Use

I’m not sure what this entails. All RPGs are easy to use. All you need is a table, a few friends, and your imagination. 

This may leave out a few RPGs that mandate the use of minis or of weird dice but that still leaves 99% of games in.

Day 7 — RPG with ‘Good Form’

Without the shadow of a doubt, the RuneQuest Starter Set.

RuneQuest has often been maligned as being “only for Grognards” or “only for Gloranthaphiles”. The Starter Set shows how this criticism is rubbish.

The Starter Set is a beautiful, sturdy box containing everything needed to start playing RQ in the world of Glorantha: four booklets, a set of pre-generated characters, several maps, and a few accessories, like the super cool Strike Rank Tracker for mathematically-impaired players.

The first booklet contains the rules, which are perfectly laid out (I feel they’re even clearer than in the core book). The absence of what is probably the most daunting part of RQ:G, character generation, makes them almost standard fare as far as fantasy RPGs go. The slim booklet makes the rules easier to use as reference than a thick book.

The second booklet gives an overview of the world of Glorantha, with an emphasis on a single city, which I think is a good idea because it sets the tone of RQ adventuring, which is often city- or wilderness-based rather than dungeon delving.

The third booklet is a solo adventure. This is a terrific idea— an inexperienced GM can get the gist of RQ adventuring before they set up a table for their friends by playing this advenure, although I think the adventure itself may be a tad too complex.

The fourth booklet contains three adventures. The focus of the adventures is to have the novice players slowly discover the peculiarities of RQ and Glorantha as they start adventuring. The adventures are really good— but while I appreciate the surprise effect of the third one on long-term RQ aficionados I’m not sure it’s a good example of what a 21st century RQ game usually revolves around.

The character sheets are practical and beautifully illustrated. The characters are a good mix of adventuring types and make it perfectly clear that RQ is not your typical vanilla fantasy TTRPG.

RPG A Day 4−5

Day 4 − RPG With Great Art

For me, one of the outstanding features of the latest edition of RuneQuest, i.e., RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, is its art, and in particular the illustrations by Andrey Fetisov, Katrin Dirim, Antonia Doncheva, Jakub Rebelka, Ossi Hiekkala, Michelle Lockamy...

I feel art in RPGs has always been a ‘filler’, with little if any relationship with the text it was supposed to, er, illustrate. Don’t get me wrong— I love the humorous vignettes in the original AD&D DMG, and I am a lifelong fan of the early Chaosium or Flying Buffalo artists like Luise Perenne and Liz Danforth, but I feel none of these Old School products featured art that enhanced the immersion in the game world like the latest RQ:G art does.

Day 5 − RPG With Great Writing

This might seem paradoxical, but although I really do not like 13th Age in Glorantha as a TTRPG engine, I immensely enjoy the book for its clear writing, many examples, and insightful side bars explaining why this or that choice has been made, including instances of where the two authors may have disagreed upon a given option. I wish all rule books were written like this one.

RPG A Day 1−3

Hey. Haven’t done this for a long time, mostly because the daily suggestions of the last few editions were kinda daft.

Also I think I will be unable to post daily, so expect this as irregular bursts every two or three days.

Day One − First RPG Bought This Year

Well, it doesn’t specify whether it’s ‘dead tree’ or any format, so I’ll assume it’s the latter and it’s going to be a double order for two Jonstown Compendium products:

Nochet: Queen of Cities

Secrets of HeroQuesting

both for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. This was on 1st March, which also shows that I don’t buy as many RPGs as I used to.

Day Two − Most Recently Played

Again, it doesn’t specify whether it’s face-to-face or any kind of gaming, so again I’m assuming the latter. In which case it’s my Monday night VTT session of

Old School Essentials

GM’ed by Old Scouse Roleplayer.

Day Three − Most often played RPG

Since the 2023 RPG-a-Day challenge? since the beginning of the year? since forever? It would be nice to know. I’ll assume since forever, in which case it is

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

(with HeroQuest/QuestWorlds a close second).

The Language of Kralorela (Part Two)

As written in the Guide to Glorantha (p55):
“Written Kralorelan uses a logographic script devised in the God Time by a student of NiangMao and perfected by Emperor Shavaya. The characters capture the special characteristics that set apart each and every thing on the earth. The script is primarily used for seals and engraving; a less exact but easier to write derivative script devised by Emperor Mikaday is used for most purposes.”
In my campaign, I call these two styles respectively the seal style and the regular style. Both are extremely difficult and time-consuming to learn, being thus the province of aristocrats and scholars. Over time, and in particular at the time of ShangHsa and his God Learner companions, a simpler, non-logographic system was devised, which I call the demotic style, and which is only used by commoners. Its use by aristocrats or scholars entails a loss of Reputation of 1D4%.

Examples of the seal and regular styles can be seen in the Guide to Glorantha, respectively on pages 744-746 and on page 266.

The classical Kralori writing system in both its seal style and its regular style has been adapted by most other Vithelan languages (notably Imperial and Tanyen).
The debased writing system has been adopted by the Ignorants and adapted to write Stultan.

Here is how the phonemic demotic style works:

Clearly denoting God Learner influence, the shapes of the consonants and of the vowels are based on the standard runes the God Learners popularised over Glorantha at the height of their power.

The vowels have been drawn from the Elemental Runes:

Darkness - u
Water - i
Earth - e/ɛ
Air - o/ɔ
Fire/sky - a
Moon - mute/very short vowels

The consonants have been drawn from the other Runes; opposite pairs denote consonantal pairs:

Beast - k
Man - g
Fertility - t
Death - d
Harmony - p
Disorder - b
Truth - f
Illusion - v
Stasis - m
Movement - n
Movement (reversed) - ŋ
Luck - s
Fate - z
Dragonewt - ʃ
Dragon - ʒ

Pairless runes are used for unopposed consonants:

Law - l
Plant - r
Spirit - h
Chaos - q

Less-used runes play the role of diacritics:

Mastery - preceded by semi-vowel
Magic - followed by semi-vowel
Infinity - gemination

Each syllable is written separately within an imaginary square of the same size and shape as a regular character, e.g, Godunya [go - du - nja] is written

The Language of Kralorela (Part One)

(warning: rants about my pet Gloranthan peeve)

Even though Kralorela is supposed to be the ‘Chinese’ counterpart to the Western lands of Genertela, the Kralorelan language has never sounded Chinese in Greg’s writings.
If you look at the Kralorelan chapter of Revealed Mythologies, for instance, you can read the following:

 - Place Names

• Abzered
• Hemkarba
• Hesezmedi
• Kerandaruth

 - Emperors, false emperors and heroes

• Daruda
• Godunya
• Heen Maroun
• Heseroon Marn
• Mao Tzen
• Metsyla
• Mikaday
• Sekever
• Shang Hsa
• Shavaya
• Tarn Gat Ha
• Thalurzni
• Vashanti
• Vayobi
• Yanoor

Honestly, among all the above names, there aren’t many that sound even remotely Chinese; maybe Mao Tzen and Shang Hsa do. On the contrary, most are multi-syllabic names, quite unlike what one would spontaneously think of as ‘Chinese’. This is the reason I was so disappointed when I read actual Chinese words in the Guide to Glorantha, e.g., Lungren Men (p271) or Lingnao Qiao (p274). So why do I hate the latter?

1- As written above, Greg’s original Kralorelan place and people names sound nothing like ‘Chinese’.

2- Kralorela is supposed to be vaguely inspired by China, not to be its exact equivalent in Glorantha, so please no actual translations. Just when we got rid of the faux Viking names in Dragon Pass!

3- OK, let’s assume (for argument’s sake) that it is OK to equate Kralorelan with Chinese. Well, even if this assumption is true, Kralorela is still supposed to be Bronze Age China, not Qing China. Yet the Chinese words used above (e.g., 橋 qiáo for bridge) are the contemporary Mandarin words, i.e., the ones heavily influenced by Manchu pronunciation after the Manchu conquest of North China at the end of the 17th century. If Kralorela is equated with Bronze Age China, let us at least use the pre-Qing pronunciation of Chinese. For the word 橋 (bridge) this would be something along the lines of “giew”. But since, again, we are rather looking at a Bronze Age version of China, the reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciation of the word 橋 would be even better, i.e., “graw” or “grew” depending on which particular reconstruction you favour.
Lingnao Qiao (Dragon's Head Bridge) would thus become Roongnoo Graw, which still retains an imperceptible Chinese flavour but at least is slightly more similar to Greg's naming scheme.

(to be continued)

Entropic News

the beloved BGB

A few weeks ago, I asked, somewhat rhetorically and jokingly: Is D100 Dead?, because of the news from early this autumn that Chaosium would be scrapping the 2008 incarnation of the Basic Role-Playing system, fondly known amongst aficionados of the BRP system as the “Big Gold Book” (BGB), and the only one currently available.

[Yes I know about OpenQuest and Legend.]

Well, it now seems we're soon going to experience quite the opposite of the death of the D100, i.e., a plethora of D100-based systems! For those of you who do not follow G+, the gaming forums, etc., here are the latest news:

• The BGB will indeed be scrapped, and replaced with a new generic product called BRP Essentials, itself based on the classic RQ2 rules and “incorporating 30 years of progress”.
• The Design Mechanism isn't working on the new Gloranthan version of RuneQuest any longer (see announcement here); as a result, RuneQuest 6 will continue under a new name.
• Alephtar Games' Revolution D100 has successfully funded.

It hence appears that we will soon have three simultaneously in-print D100-based engines: BRP Essentials, the as-yet-unnamed generic D100 system by The Design Mechanism, and Revolution D100 by Alephtar Games.

These are the generic D100-based role-playing games; I'm not even mentioning that there are going to be two in-print Gloranthan D100-based FRPs in 2016: RuneQuest Classic and the “new” RuneQuest! An embarrassment of riches...

Better ReD100 Than Dead!

A few days ago, I provocatively and rhetorically asked if D100 was dead. I do know that D100-based role-playing games are from being dead, what with the new version of Mythic Iceland in the works or with the announcement by Chaosium at THE KRAKEN that a hardback 'nostalgia' version of RQ2 and a new, Gloranthised RQ6 would be published in 2016.

However, all the role-playing games mentioned above are standalone books. Apparently, the new management at Chaosium are convinced that generic universal rule sets are not selling at the moment, and that the public favours standalone role-playing games. I have no idea whether they have made any marketing research or analysed data of which books sell and which ones don't, but I'm ready to believe them. After all, Chaosium has been doing much better since the new management took over.

This being said, I am sure there still are many GMs and players out there who would like to have a 'toolbox' kind of D100-based rule set, and who are going to miss the BGB.

Fear not, brave souls, for Alephtar Games has started a crowdfunding campaign on Ulule to fund exactly such a role-playing game! Revolution D100 will feature a solid and modular implementation of the D100 system with quite a few new niceties (like Traits). I encourage you to have a look at the web-site of the crowdfunding campaign and, of course, to back it!

Is D100 Dead?

For various reasons, chief amongst which the fact that I have been directly impacted [my book The Celestial Empire cannot be sold any longer, see below], and yet I strive to remain impartial on my blogs, I haven't blogged much about the latest news in the small world of D100-based role playing games. For those of you who are unaware of the latest developments, here is a short summary of what has happened during this eventful summer.

• Moon Design has taken control of Chaosium and announced that they wouldn't publish the 404-page Big Gold Book any longer. Instead they will publish a 32-page booklet called BRP Essentials. 32 pages? That's tantamount to setting the clock back to the 80s and the slim Chaosium BRP booklet :-(
• Ben Monroe, who was the driving force behind Magic World, has left Chaosium.
• The Design Mechanism's RuneQuest licence — which has made gateway (i.e., non-Gloranthan) RQ products such as Luther Arkwright possible — has expired and will not be renewed. Loz and Pete will now work on an upcoming fully Gloranthan version of RuneQuest for Chaosium (ETA mid-2016).
• Third party licences (e.g., Alephtar Games') have also been rescinded. As a result, celebrated historical RPGs such as Rome (which had won a silver ENnie) aren't available any longer.

Except for D101 Games' OpenQuest, this doesn't leave us with much non-Gloranthan D100-based gaming left. Is D100 gaming dead?

Волкодав из рода Серых Псов (Wolfhound of the Grey Dogs)

I love serendipity. Last night, I unexpectedly stumbled upon a great Russian fantasy film on television titled Wolfhound of the Grey Dogs.

The film didn't have a particularly good start though. Tranquil village, camera moves to fair-headed child playing on the outskirts of the settlement, when suddenly the village is attacked by mysterious black-clad figures on horseback, who start indiscriminately killing everybody and setting the huts afire. The mother of the fair-headed child is killed at the very end of the scene by the boss of the baddies. No, it's not the beginning of Conan the Barbarian, it's the beginning of Wolfhound of the Grey Dogs.

The film then jumps to a pretty inventive fight within a dark foreboding fortress. A lone fighter is killing all the baddies. We soon figure out that the he is the boy who survived the killing in the previous scene.

Next scene is on a damp, narrow road in the countryside, between lines of tall trees. Our kick-ass fighter is travelling with some companions when a figure clad in black appears riding a black horse with unnatural red eyes, and starts emitting terrifying noises. No, it isn't The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, it's still Wolfhound of the Grey Dogs.

The film then eventually manages to get a style of its own. The hero gets to a small town that has a very distinct Slavic flavour. The town, the inhabitants, their clothing, it's all really very flavourful and very well photographed. Pretty much in the style of Vsevolod Ivanov who is one of my big influences for Second Age Umathela.

Approximately in the middle of the film there is a wedding scene between the beautiful princess of the small town and her suitor, no doubt inspired by pagan Slavic imagery, and it is fantastically rendered:

венчание

Another cool thing which differentiates the film from Conan or LotR is that the gods are very much real and intervene in the affairs of humanity. And there is a blind seer that does all sorts of D&Desque magic.

All in all, an entertaining fantasy film. I wish my Russian were good enough to read the novel the film is based upon.

The Mother Of All Generators

There are three kind of GM bloggers. GM bloggers of the first kind copy pictures or links and say, oh, this is awesome. GM bloggers of the second kind create useful new stuff for other GMs to use. I like to think that I oscillate between the first and the second kind, depending on the inspiration of the day.

Then there are GM bloggers of the third kind (no, they're not humming aliens). GM bloggers of the third kind also create useful new stuff, but it's stuff that can be expanded, improved, and customised, not mere one-off stuff.

The kind owners of the Last Gasp blog definitely pertain to the third category. They have created not a generator, but a tool that enables fellow GMs to create generators (a meta-generator?).

Here's a sample generator that I have created in 2 seconds using their Choose Your Own Generator tool.

Non-D&D OSR Blog Challenge

This is from a list of questions in the Tomb of Tedankhamen:

1 What was the first roleplaying game other than D&D you played? Was it before or after you had played D&D?
Tunnels & Trolls 5th ed. And that was after I had played D&D.

2 In what system was the first character you played in an RPG other than D&D? How was playing it different from playing a D&D character?
Tunnels & Trolls 5th ed. It wasn't really that different from playing a D&D character because at the time all we did was dungeon crawling.

3 Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?
Least enjoyable: Space Opera. Or the French rpg called Légendes. What a pain in the arse.
Most enjoyable: Any that didn't require hours and hours of calculations. I think I quite enjoyed creating AD&D characters.

4 What other roleplaying author besides Gygax impressed you with their writing?
Steve Perrin, Ken Saint-André.

5 What other old school game should have become as big as D&D but didn’t? Why do you think so?
RuneQuest 2 (the original, Chaosium edition). It had a vastly superior system (hit locations, no character classes, no levels, no HP inflation), it had better products— Griffin Mountain, Pavis & Big Rubble, Borderlands, those are in my opinion the real OSR stalwarts, not Against the Giants or the Tomb of Horrors. I think the reason it failed was the über-stupid move from Chaosium to Avalon Hill just when the game was at the peak of its popularity. Or perhaps the crash of RQ:AiG.

6 What non-D&D monster do you think is as iconic as D&D ones like hook horrors or flumphs, and why do you think so?
The Gloranthan Troll.

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?
RuneQuest 2.

8 What spy RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.
None. I would have liked to try out Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes.

9 What superhero RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?
I think I played Villains & Vigilantes once, but I don't think the super-heroic narrative translates well into role-playing.

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.
Méga (a French role-playing game) because it was really what the GM made out of it, and I GM'd it really gonzo.
Star Wars (D6) because, well, Star Wars, and because the engine was quite good.

11 What post-apocalyptic RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?
I haven't played any post-apocalyptic RPG.

12 What humorous RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.
I haven't played any humorous RPG, unless you count T&T in :)

13 What horror RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?
The Call of Cthulhu because of its engine (BRP), because of the setting (the 20s), and because I adore Lovecraft.

14 What historical or cultural RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.
For historical gaming, BRP is best, but since this post is about old school I must admit I used AD&D for historical gaming before the various new versions of BRP (BaSIC, the BGB) came out.

15 What pseudo or alternate history RPG have you enjoyed most? Why?
I haven't really played pseudo or alternate history RPGs. I like my history to be accurate.

16 Which RPG besides D&D has the best magic system? Give details.
RuneQuest, with its battle magic that everybody has access to, even non-spell-casters, and with different cults getting access to different spells. And that was waaaaay before the priestly 'spheres' of AD&D2.

17 Which RPG has the best high tech rules? Why?
No idea. I'm not a big fan of sci fi games.

18 What is the crunchiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?
19 What is the fluffiest RPG you have played? Was it enjoyable?
I don't tend to use those categories.

20 Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?
Glorantha. Because myths are real.

21 What is the narrowest genre RPG you have ever played? How was it?
The narrowest genre RPG I've ever played is D&D. To me "D&D-ish fantasy" is a very narrow genre.

22 What is the most gonzo kitchen sink RPG you ever played? How was it?
Méga. PCs can be space- or time-travellers, and one of the official adventures featured a world made up of different shards from various epochs of the Earth, with the GM being encouraged to exaggerate the clichés about its inhabitants and their accents when playing NPCs.

23 What is the most broken game that you tried and were unable to play?
Oriental Adventures. It was so un-East Asian I wanted to cry.

24 What is the most broken game that you tried and loved to play, warts and all?
Call of Cthulhu. If the PCs survive the first adventures and start acquiring explosives, magic, etc. it becomes a very broken representation (to say the least) of Lovecraftian horror.

25 Which game has the sleekest, most modern engine?
Tunnels & Trolls 7.5.

26 What IP (=Intellectual Property, be it book, movie or comic) that doesn’t have an RPG deserves it? Why?
Space Usagi. Laser swords and dinosaurs. In space.

27 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.
Star Wars D6. I found it really close to the atmosphere of the original trilogy.

28 What free RPG did you enjoy most? Give details.
Er, if the BRP Quick-Start Rules count as a free RPG, then that's the one.

29 What OSR product have you enjoyed most? Explain how.
Cults of Prax (1979). Best "religious" RPG supplement ever.

30 Which non-D&D supplemental product should everyone know about? Give details.
Cults of Prax, as a lesson in writing an RPG supplement about religious cults.

31 What out-of-print RPG would you most like to see back in publication? Why?
RuneQuest 2. Because it is the best fantasy role-playing game ever. Period.