This is Random TTRPG Thoughts #88
Not only has it been quite the year this past week, Fall allergies are already beginning to creep their way into my sinuses. But I have coffee to break through both the stupidity of the world-at-large and the brain-fog spawned by vindictive trees. These are random TTRPG thoughts.
- I had an absolute blast running Monty Python’s Cocurricular Medieval Reenactment Programme this past weekend. It’s every bit as gonzo as I hoped it would be, and playing all the NPCs is so much fun.
- I’ll be on the A Squirrel Plays YouTube channel this coming Saturday to play a game of NUTS. Speaking of which, I need to make my character for that. The fun begins at 6PM Eastern!
- I’m about half way through writing my review of Dream and Machines, and it’s reinforcing my thought that its world-building is amazing.
- I’m still working my way through the first volume of Playing At The World, but I’m blown away by two things. First, the sheer number of chance encounters and fortunate happenstances that were necessary to see role-playing games become a wide-spread phenomenon is amazing. Second, when I first opened the Moldvay Basic Set back in the day I had no idea how new the hobby was. To me, it was something that must have always existed because it was such a cool idea that made perfect sense.
- So let’s see. This week we’ve got National Guard picking up trash in DC (great use of the money it costs to deploy them), some of them are now armed because the Orange thinks fear is the only way to rule. Orange’s appointed head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, has been fired because…and this must have shocked Orange Man…she kinda thinks the best way to run the CDC is via scientific evidence. In the wake of her firing, three prominent officials have resigned in protest. Brain Worm guy is limiting access to updated COVID vaccines this year because, somehow that’s “common sense” in his bizarro reality. Orange Man keeps insisting that he’s not a dictator, but maybe people want a dictator. He’s threatening to activate National Guard in other cities—all of which have Black Mayors and lower per capita crime rates than a lot of major cities in so-called “Red States.” Hmmm, I wonder why Orange Man is targeting them?
- I’m committing myself to writing an adventure for The Electric State RPG during the month of September. With any luck I’ll get it written and be able to run a session or two of it before my Sabbatical ends!
- Last night I was bored, so my friend Dave and I rambled on and on and on during an impromptu live stream. During our chat I brought up my three Howlmark adventures for EZD6 and how I’d like to get them published. This gave me the idea to live stream the trilogy on my channel! So, with any luck perhaps we’ll all get to take a trip to the lovely town of Hobgoblin Falls.
- In other news someone decided to shoot up a Catholic School church during its first day Mass and killed two little kids (and injured many more). The shooter put in for a legal name change several years back, which I’m sure is going to do wonders for the mental state of conservative TV pundits looking to give people their daily dose of irrational fear, “Look at what the trans-person did, you aren’t safe!” OK…here’s the deal. Can we, and I’m just spit-balling here, not shoot people? Or, as a father of a school-aged child who is married to a teacher and has another child who is a teacher, not shoot children? And maybe can a feckless congress get their heads out of their rear-ends long enough to come up with a solution to help reduce gun violence which doesn’t involve turning life into an armored fortress? And do not give me the “well a good guy with a gun” nonsense—cause now the shooters aren’t even going into the places they’re shooting up. See, I’d like my child to grow up in a world where things like windows in public places weren’t a reason to be scared for his life—and that is not too much to ask. Folks, if you are experiencing a desire to deal with your trauma by inflicting violence on a world, I have a whole shelf of games to do that where no one gets killed and maybe they can help you arrive at the realization you need to deal with whatever’s going on. This all seems like a better path forward to me for some reason.
- OK, show of comments. How many of you were shocked that I managed to make the last point into a TTRPG random thought? I was kind of surprised, myself.
- So I’m planning on taking my latest comic book adventure, which I’ve run in both Cypher System and Streamlined Superheroes, and developing a version for Sentinel Comics RPG. If I publish them would you like all three versions bundled together or as three separate releases?
