Changes Revealed by the Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed Quickstart

I very much dig the changes in 7th edition from a gameplay perspective.  Here's why.

Cthulhu 7th Edition Quickstart

Chaosium has posted a QuickStart for Cthulhu 7th Edition. You can find it on DriveThruRPG and Chaosium's site.

A summary and review are forthcoming.

Milk Run Structure

So far, my Shadowrun 4 campaign has largely been narrative-driven, but the players have finally transitioned into being runners. The downside of having players with limited playtime, hacking through three sessions has taken six months. I intend to expand my campaign's player base, and offer mini-sessions, possibly via roll20, called "milk runs." Here's the format I have planned for each Milk Run.

Dwarven Forge: Caverns

From Dwarven Forge, the tabletop terrain studio that makes wonderful dungeon designs: A new kickstarter coming later this month, for cavernous tiles, made from similar material ("Dwarvenite") from their last round.

For an introduction:

Employing Horror Despite Technology, pt 2

Following up Monday's post about counteracting the use of cell phones in a modern Horror RPG setting, I'm going to talk about the Internet today.  One of the major threats to supernatural entities is exposure, and the internet is the ultimate in exposure.  Here are some ways to handle it.

Employing Horror Despite Technology, pt. 1

A recent hypothesis was recently posed to me by a friend about how supernatural suspense/horror would be different with the use of modern technology -- cell phones, the internet, and other forms of instantaneous communication.

Roman Augury

Research for a game I'm pulling together has brought me to an interesting guide to the details of Roman augury, divination, and in particular the reading of birds.  If this sounds up your alley, check it out here.

The 13th Age

I've been hearing a lot about the 13th Age RPG -- a d20 variant written by ex-WoTC employees that led the charge on 3rd and 4th Edition D&D.  There are three particular innovations that the 13th Age brings to the table:

1. Icon Relationships
2. One Unique Things
3. Escalation Dice

7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding

Following the Golden Rules of Worldbuilding, io9 offered up 7 mistakes that writers forget about.  These are perfect for vetting your chosen RPG setting.

A Memoir

[Note: This is a fictional piece detailing a character background for a game.]

To the poor deputy of Heldren that finds this,

Kickstarter: Red Aegis

On one of my incursions on the web, I stumbled across Red Aegis, which runs similar to a campaign I've been fleshing out for some time.  The concept is fairly simple -- build a world through RPG sessions, and take it through thousands of years in its history until the end of the civilization.  It's available for Pathfinder, and will hopefully expand into Fate, 13th Age, and Dungeon World as the campaign goes on.  It ends on Friday.  Check it out!

The Nukemap is Updated!

In honor of the 8/6 anniversary of the drop of the first nuclear weapons, I have a nuke-themed worldbuilding aid.  A bit back, I mentioned an application that allowed you to map the damage and fallout resulting from nuclear explosions, called the Nukemap, in the context of a world-building aid.  The Nukemap has been updated, and now allows for multiple explosions, calculates airburst v surface burst weapons, allows you to see the damage at a particular location, estimates the windsock of fallout, and most importantly, has a link to the homework behind its estimate.  It can be found here, and there's even a 3D modeler should you use the Google Earth plugin.

For Future Future Use

A guide to drawing tectonic plates.

The Five Room Dungeon

Pioneered by a gentleman named Johnn, I've decided to have a go at the five room dungeon model. Here's a link to his original thought.  This model particularly appeals to me, as I've been experimenting with short, episodic sessions and modular sessions that aren't quite as plot oriented.  The five room dungeon streamlines this process significantly.

Cults of Cthulhu

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here's a list of all the cults mentioned in canonical Lovecraftian work.
Here's an example of how a cult works in the Arkham Horror game (for a bit of a guide).
Here's an initiation right of the Order of the Golden Dawn.
Here's a list of Masonic initiation rites.

Not that I'm plotting anything related to this for a game or anything.

Debuting Tomorrow

For Future Use

In the "I'm leaving this here for future use" category, here are a few more things I've been looking at:

The Intellectual Origins of the Victorian Occult Revival
Victorian Reactions to the Spiritualist Phenomena
Osprey's The Indian Mutiny

A Better DC Map

After looking at Shadowrun Neighborhoods for my D.C. setting, I found this.

Tidbits of Cthulhu 7th

Updates from the Kickstarter (and the AMA):

A quick summary, taken from the AMA:
*The rules have been revised to make certain situations flow more easily in the game (combat and skill use for example), its the same game in nature.
*The rulebook have been completely revised and restructured. The experience of play remains much the same. Some of the new rules include the option to 'push' skill rolls, opposed combat rolls and the optional use of Luck points as a resource that can be spent to buy off failure.
*The characteristics are now percentages (e.g. 60%) which allows for straight characteristic rolls rather than needing to x5 stats etc. This also allows for opposed rolls, which essentially eliminates the need to refer back to a resistance table.

Cthulhu 7th Ed Kickstarter

File in the "How the Helpful Hints from Heloise did I miss this?" category:

The Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter, which I'd already somewhat covered, ended on Friday.  You can still get pledges in via PayPal.  Instructions follow.