Mansions of Madness

Aug. 13th, 2025 04:39 pm
a_cubed: caricature (Default)
[personal profile] a_cubed
While visiting [personal profile] purplecat last year and this, $OFFSPRING and I enjoyed playing the Cthulhu Mythos game "Mansions of Madness" with her and B (and maybe G last year, too). We also enjoyed a game with $NEPHEW this year. Having discussed the possibility of a remote game with $NEPHEW and taken advice from [personal profile] purplecat I have bought a copy. The second edition of this game introduced a program to take on the role of the "Keeper" (aka dungeon master) which in the first edition meant someone had to run the game for the other players. The program now tells you what you can do and provides guidance on things like how the monsters move about the board, and keeps track of monster health. It also includes some fun puzzles. Nice for me is that it plays fine on the Steam linux program, which uses a Windows emulator under the hood to allow Windows-based games to play on linux. This game is one of those that works perfectly according to the database of game support. As it's not a heavy 3-d action game or anything, it's not that surprising, I suppose.

Looking forward to playing it with the family here. $WIFE likes Cthulhu Mythos so may be willing to play with us. We probably won't get to a remote game with $NEPHEW until the Christmas/New Year holidays, though, with the time zone issue making the timing awkward. The way we play (semi-role playing, heavy co-op discussion of actions) it was taking much longer than the suggested times. It will probably get faster as we become more familiar with the game, but even so, the time difference UK-Japan is long enough to make scheduling tricky, though not impossible.

Another one-day Games Con - Ruby Con

Aug. 12th, 2025 12:11 pm
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
Leisure Games will be running a one day games con in Finchley, London on September 6th to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital and celebrate their 40th anniversary. I'm not going to be able to make it due to family stuff, but the details are on line here

https://leisuregames.com/pages/saturday-6th-september-ruby-con-our-40th-anniversary-celebration

Entry is free, they'll be selling goody bags to raise money for the charity, and I assume other fund-raising things will be happening.



ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This bundle presents Ironsworn, Starforged, and Sundered Isles from Tomkin Press, which use Powered by the Apocalypse for solo and refereed games, with SF and fantasy settings included:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Ironsworn

 

So far I've only had a good look at the Starforged rules, which is a very nicely presented game although it does fall into a few common SF tropes - most notably the "jungle planet", "desert planet" idea where an entire world has only one type of environment, which seems just a little unlikely. The rules are more complicated than I like, but that's pretty common for games based on the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics. Art is very good - I suspect that some AI is involved given the sheer quantity, but it's a lot less obtrusive than some I've seen, and the characters depicted rarely fall too deeply into the uncanny valley. Characters seem to be dressed appropriately for safety and the environment, and there are no chaos spiky shoulder pads which is generally a good sign.

Overall, this is surprisingly cheap for what you're getting, and I think it's well worth a look.
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is a crossover between the Harry Potter books, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series, and the film Bedazzled (1967, not the 2000 remake), with some other crossovers and Easter eggs, so far including Dogma (1999). All characters belong to their respective creators / owners / megacorporations of doom and not to me, please don't sue...

IV - His Master's Voice )

Comments please before I post to archives. For previous parts see:

On Twisting the Hellmouth - https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-34251/MarcusRowland+Harry+Potter+Undazzled.htm
On Fanfiction.net - https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14336114/1/Harry-Potter-Undazzled
On Archive of Our Own - https://archiveofourown.org/works/54407350

Checking In - 8 August 2025

Aug. 8th, 2025 11:05 pm
dewline: Text - "On the DEWLine" (Default)
[personal profile] dewline
No visitation today. Got some shopping done, and the map projects have slowed down a bit. One job application filed this afternoon with the feds.

I suppose that's enough for today, right?
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is a short-term offer of the RPG Fight With Spirit from Storybrewers (Good Society), an RPG about competitive sports teams:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FightWithSpirit



As anyone who knows me could tell you, this isn't really my sort of subject - I'm REALLY not a fan of sports of any sort, unless someone comes up with rules for competitive sloth - I went to great lengths to get out of them when I was at school. Having said that, the rules are nicely presented and (amazingly considered the topic) there is virtually no semi-nudity in the illustrations - the nearest thing to cheesecake is a (male) member of a swimming(?) team illustrated in the index and on one of the game cards. It's cheap and if you want to try something a little different from your usual RPG it may be worth a look. Meanwhile, I'll be skiving off in the library complaining about how my flat feet keep me from playing...

(no subject)

Aug. 6th, 2025 06:40 pm

July 2025

Aug. 6th, 2025 06:38 pm

What To Do Next

Aug. 6th, 2025 01:03 pm
dewline: "Truth is still real" (anti-fascism)
[personal profile] dewline
Rachel Maddow argues that the United States is "there" now...



I have figured out some things that I have already been doing, that I will keep doing, in order to keep the Problem from fully installing itself in Canada. Other things, I need to either stop or start doing. There are lists that others have worked up, lists I should be copying from, to that end.

Resistance to the revival of the nightmare continues in the States and in Canada, of course, with or without me.

I'm also still looking for work because until either that job is secured or I'm driven out of the workforce to whatever result, I still have to live within the existing system.
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is a repeat offer of the Modern AGE / Expanse bundle from Green Ronin Publishing, containing the Modern AGE version of their Adventure Game Engine rules and sourcebooks and adventures for the popular Expanse books and TV series;

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Expanse




In 2020 I said "I'm slightly hampered here by lack of familiarity with the AGE system, but my impression on a quick look is a fairly playable game that for once doesn't need a huge variety of dice - everything is rolled with 6-siders. The combat rules don't seem to take up a ludicrously large portion of the system, and explanations seem to work reasonably well without going into impenetrable gamespeak. Presentation is good too, with nice artwork and a reasonable balance of male and female characters represented. I found that the font used for the rules is a little hard to read on screen - I had to up the magnification more than usual - but otherwise have no particular problems. The font size may be a consequence of the fairly high word count for these rules, and I suspect that it was the best compromise for the printed version - larger text would have upped the page count considerably. Unfortunately I don't feel that it's a particularly good font from a legibility viewpoint, which isn't helping.

My visual problems aside, this looks to be a pretty good bundle, and is probably a must-buy for anyone liking The Expanse. Recommended!"

I don't see any reason to change any of that.

SNW: A Space Adventure Hour

Jul. 31st, 2025 10:27 pm
dewline: Text: Trekkish Chatter Underway (TrekChatter)
[personal profile] dewline
Not every episode is meant for me.

This one wasn't, and that's alright.
ffutures: (Default)
[personal profile] ffutures
This is an offer of issues 11-20 of Shrapnel, the official BattleTech magazine from Catalyst Game Labs, plus an anthology of issues 1-4.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Shrapnel2



This isn't something I particularly want since I don't actually play the game, but it's cheap compared to individual issues and contains a lot of material you won't find elsewhere, including fiction. If you play BattleTech it's definitely worth taking a look.

April 2017

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 13th, 2025 05:21 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios