by guyeatsfood

Stuck in a Prep Rut? Make some Pregens!

I have a long gaming to do list. Between conventions, Unconventional GMs, and new purchases, I’ve got a lot of games I want to get to the table. But I’m stuck. UK Games Expo was over a month ago, and my excitedly-purchased new games have been sat unplayed on my shelves. I have Bundles of Holding burning holes in my hard drive. But I can’t seem to get them ready. Sound familiar? “I’d love to run Dark Conspiracy at a con…” – well, why haven’t you?

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

I’m in a rut – I just can’t seem to get started. But thinking about it, I know how to solve this, so in the true spirit of self-help, I’m telling myself what to do in this post. And what you should do if, like me, you’ve got games you really want to run, but can’t… just do the first step. That first step?

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep: The Lazy Loremaster – The One Ring

Here’s a new project – I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can – and I’ll offer a variable amount of commentary. 

These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about it. This one, however, links to an active Kickstarter – so, unlike most of my posts, it’s going public on both platforms at once – a reminder that usually Patrons get access 7 days earlier.

This is a little different. This is the 2nd (or 3rd, if you count our little Session Zero-to-One as Session 1 – I like to get a bit of play in at the end of a S0 to wet the whistle) session of an ongoing One Ring game that I had to set up because I was having so much fun playing TOR in another campaign. They’re going to be working for Saruman eventually, but some of the players are new to the system and so they are bumbling around Bree for now.

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Whimsymaxxing : Running Under Hollow Hills One-Shots

It’s fairly unusual that a game blows me away with entirely different gameplay to what I’ve seen before, but Under Hollow Hills has done that. It’s also really great for one-shot gaming! So here’s my guide to the game, and how to get a great one-shot out of it.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks! Patrons also get three ready-to-run Occasions uploaded with this post – a Patreon exclusive!

Under Hollow What?

Under Hollow Hills is a Powered By The Apocalypse (PBTA) game by Megeuy and Vincent Baker. Its core gameplay system is standard PBTA, but it twists some other aspects of the system in other ways – you’ve got Plays, not Moves, and instead of choosing Attributes in character generation, you assign bonuses directly to the Plays. 

In it you play a fairy circus, travelling through Fairyland and the Mortal World, putting on shows at various Occasions. These could be a change of seasons, a funeral, a wedding – or sometimes your circus just shows up, and an audience wanders in. The core gameplay loop is that you arrive at a location, explore and find out what is up with the people there, and then put on your show – where you’re probably trying to resolve some of the problems you heard about in the first part.

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Everything But the Bottle Of Rum – Review: Pirate Borg Starter Set

I’ve had a lot of fun running Pirate Borg, and similar games, on Unconventional GMs and elsewhere. So I’ve taken a look at the Pirate Borg Starter Set. Like all of my reviews, I’ve played it before reviewing – there’s too many reviews just based on a read through. I did one 3-hour one-shot session online, in which my players just got off the first island – which is what’s suggested in the set for a one-shot aim. I’ll be running it again at a convention later this year, face to face – which will let me use the copious bling in the set. I was sent a comp copy to review by Free League; to be honest if I hadn’t I might have bought it myself.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep – Neil Gow’s Werewolf: The Apocalypse

The Actual Prep project is a chance to showcase TTRPG prep, in all its forms –  one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. For this post, I’ve got somebody else’s – Neil Gow, designer of Duty & Honour and author of Liminal Case Files from the desk of Professor Cain Moore. Neil was kind enough to share his prep for an ongoing duet game of Werewolf 5e, which I’ve reproduced below. Half of my Actual Prep posts are Patreon exclusive – have I mentioned my Patreon? – but this one is going out to the masses, just 7 days after patrons have it.

1 Player

4 hours (over 2 sessions)

Ran face to face

Chatting online with Neil, this is an ongoing campaign that, while still in its infancy, has covered a lot of ground – you can do that with one-on-one games! It’s also well supported – both Neil and his player are blogging about the campaign as it goes on – so check it out there.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

“Why does X not want to kiss you?” – Better Bonds for One-Shots

One of the things I’m always mindful of when prepping one-shots is encouraging player roleplay. I don’t mean PCs talking to my NPCs (you can directly influence this as GM), I mean PCs talking to other PCs. There’s several techniques to promote this, but I’m going to talk today about bonds.

What are bonds? They’re questions, or loaded phrases, that link 2 (or more) PCs together at the start of the session. In a one-shot, after everyone has picked their character, they answer the question or tag the bond which whichever of their fellow PCs they want. They give players a chance to customise who their pregen is, ground them in their past and the setting, and set them up to interact with their fellow players. They’re entirely transferable – while lots of PBTA games come with them ready-baked into the playbooks, you can use them in D&D, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu (which is what really got me thinking about them).

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Actual Prep – 13th Age Glorantha Actual Play

Here’s a new project – I’m fascinated by prep, in all its forms – one-shot, long-form, session notes, handwritten scribbles. My own and others. A quick check online leads me to believe lots of you are, too. So, I’m going to showcase this on the blog. I can’t promise every session I’ll share my prep notes, but I’ll try and do it where I can – and I’ll offer a variable amount of commentary. These are also going to be 50% patreon exclusive – half of them will never be released to the public – so spread the word, and let me know if you’d like to share your own prep and talk to me about it.

Continuing our series focussed on prep, I thought I’d share my development of a 13th Age Glorantha one-shot I ran recently for the channel. I think because I had designer Jonathan Tweet in the group, I over-thought it a bit and went through a few iterations of prep. This is natural! I hope you find this evolution interesting even though it probably makes this a bit harder to run yourselves.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

I’ve left my original notes here, with my revisions below each scene – the last set of revisions was done by hand on a printout of this, because I was at the actual convention as I did it. All references to monsters are from the 13th Age Glorantha rulebook.

3 Players

1.5 Hours

Ran face to face at The Kraken gaming retreat in Germany – recorded here on Unconventional GMs.

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Hacking #Borg Games

It’s hard to deny the impact that Mörk Borg and its cousins have had on the game space. With a punk aesthetic and layout just this side of legible, the quick-and-dirty system and open license has encouraged lots of related games. And the system is solid – a really good basis for relatively rules-light action-oriented OSRy gaming. We’ve got a few of them up on Unconventional GMs – check out Ronin and Pirate Borg, and there’s more to come. You’ll notice these hacks aren’t used for these games – these are how I’ve developed it since then.

However, based on my own preferences for gaming, I like to hack the system a bit when I run these games – largely to give the PCs a few more options, and to reduce the chances of meaningless character death. So, here are the ways I hack #Borg games, when I’m prepping for one-shots:

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

Your Apocalypse May Vary – the breadth of PBTA

Last month I was at Revelation – one of the only (the only, as far as I know) convention that specialises in Powered By The Apocalypse (PBTA) games and its derivatives. About 45 of us met in Sheffield, and filled out a packed programme of game slots, all loosely (the strictness has lifted through the years) informed by PBTA.

I had a full hand of different games, so I’m going to talk about them – and what they say about PBTA today, and the breadth of its styles

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →
by guyeatsfood

To Boldly Go Further: Star Trek Adventures Supplements Review

Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures (STA) has to be one of those rare licensed TTRPG success stories; a whole raft of supplements for 1st edition, including sourcebooks for Quadrants, Divisions, and Discovery – and now a 2nd edition, which tidies up some of the rules (getting rid of the fiddly d6 variants) and gives, in my experience, a more streamlined gaming experience.

I’ve had a lot of fun with STA. I ran one of my longest-running TTRPG campaigns ever with 1st edition, and the rules held up well then. I’ve only scratched the surface with 2e (check out our one-shot on Unconventional GMs here) and I like what I see. 2nd edition loosens up the scope a little, rather than trying to fit campaigns into specific Trek eras, and brings a more mature, considered rules system. I don’t mind 2d20 for any game, but in Star Trek it shines – you’ll mostly have skills and extended tasks, with only the occasional ship or personal combat where you can bring out the crunch.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, and the chance to request articles or content, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

Continue reading →