by guyeatsfood

Review: DIE RPG – Play the Player, Play the Game

DIE RPG is a bit of an odd beast – this TTRPG from Rowan Rook & Decard, written and developed from Kieron Gillen’s comics, is quite unlike anything else I’ve played on recently. It’s laser-focussed on a very specific play experience, and it’s all the better for it.

Like all my reviews, this is play-informed; I ran a one-shot of DIE for a group, and this is based on the play experience, not on reading the book. If you want a read-through, Iain McAllister from The Giant Brain, one of my players for the one-shot, has done one – so you can check that out here. Indeed, I’m going to try and not repeat stuff here – so if you want an overview of the system, or indeed the contents of the book, read that first!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

Supercharge your One-Shot, Part 3: Deadline Fights

In this series, I’m going to be showcasing some techniques you can drop into almost any one-shot TTRPG session to improve it – even if the adventure you’re running is already published, these will make it better. Each one is minimum-prep, and guaranteed to be well worth it at the table.

In Part 1, we looked at hirelings and sidekicks. In Part 2, we looked at a hexcrawl structure. Today, we’re looking at improving set-piece fights by DEADLINING 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, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

Supercharge your One-Shot, Part 2: Hexcrawl Plots

In this series, I’m going to be showcasing some techniques you can drop into almost any one-shot TTRPG session to improve it – even if the adventure you’re running is already published, these will make it better. Each one is minimum-prep, and guaranteed to be well worth it at the table. Check out Part 1!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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 further examples of these superchargers in action – including a plot sketch for a fantasy adventure.

So here goes, with part 2 – 

Plan your Plots like Hexcrawls

No, I don’t mean like enormous maps with loads of places to go to – just like a standard set of hexcrawl roses. Have events, actions, and revelations in each – making the players have more choice and options in the middle of the one-shot, and a defined start and end – like this:

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by guyeatsfood

Supercharge your One-Shot, Part 1: Sidekicks

In this series, I’m going to be showcasing some techniques you can drop into almost any one-shot TTRPG session to improve it – even if the adventure you’re running is already published, these will make it better. Each one is minimum-prep, and guaranteed to be well worth it at the table.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

So here goes, with part 1 – 

Give the Party Sidekicks

A good sidekick is great roleplaying fodder, even if they’re a hapless Duck adventurer. Image of Crontas by John Ossoway
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by guyeatsfood

UK Games Expo 2024 – the big one

At the last minute, last Friday I decided on a one-day trip to UK Games Expo, the biggest tabletop convention in the UK. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with it in the past; its sheer size makes it a bit impersonal, and as someone who’s not a fan of queuing or navigating between thousands of gamers, it’s never been an essential in the gaming calendar for me. But, as the last time I went was pre-pandemic, I decided to head over for a day, mostly in the trade hall, and see what was going down. And I actually had a really good time. Some thoughts.

Not a bad haul – credit to Goodman Games for selling me a second (travel?) copy of DCC!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

“To Boldly Game…” – Playing Star Trek TTRPGs: A Guide to One-Shots and Campaigns

For a media franchise so big in everyone’s minds, it’s no surprise that Star Trek has seen a few TTRPGs through the years. And, as we’re currently in the Neutral Zone between editions of Modiphius’ Star Trek Adventures, I thought I’d explore a few ways to play Starfleet, using this or other systems. For me, Star Trek is a brilliant genre to play in, especially for one shots, and I’d be very happy to see more of it offered at conventions.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

Powerpoint Prep

For the last convention I went to, I prepped my games differently. Normally, I rattle out a google doc, paragraphed text into scenes to get my notes in order. Like a lot of prep, the act of writing is more important than the artefact – I don’t often look at my notes at the table. 

But for Seven Hills, where I adapted two games from Tales From The Forlorn Hope, I used powerpoint. This is, to be clear, not my usual method – but it worked, and it’s something I’ll go back to. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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 have full access to two slide decks prepared using this method – The Impalers for TORG Eternity, and A Hard Road to Go for Neon City Overdrive, snips of which are used to illustrate this post.

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by guyeatsfood

How to Play – Guidelines for Convention Players

There’s lots of good GMing advice for convention games – lots of it on this blog – but less about being a good player. It’s a team sport, though – and if the players bring the awesome as well it just makes everything sing better. So here are four things players can and should do at conventions to help make their games more awesome for everybody.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

Four Things About Daggerheart

Update: You can watch us play through the Quickstart, using v1.3 rules (so some slight tweaks to the content from what’s discussed below, and more in line with the final product) here.

I’ve had a chance recently to run the Daggerheart RPG quickstart a couple of times – the playtest rules are available at the link above, and contain far more than just the quickstart – and I thought I’d pick out a few things from it. For a first impression, to be clear, I think it’s really good – it does some things in a genuinely interesting way, and it’s a really good quickstart in terms of introducing both setting and system in a concentric way.

When this first landed, there were plenty of internet commentators giving their opinion of it – but as I’ve repeatedly said, we should judge games after playing them, not before – and for me Daggerheart is something I’ll definitely be picking up, and probably running a lot of. So, here’s four things I like about Daggerheart – specifically, the quickstart.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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by guyeatsfood

Ice Station Zeta Alex – a One-Shot for Stoneburner

I’ve started doing this more – sharing prep notes for one-shots. This time it’s for Fari RPGs game of space mining dwarves, Stoneburner – a rules-light solo-friendly game you’ll be seeing on Unconventional GMs soon! 

As always, it’s up to you how complete this prep is for you to run the game yourself; a combination of this and watching the Actual Play on youtube should give you a head-start though, and it might be useful for what prep could look like for your game. I started by using Stoneburner’s great random tables, and then filled them out as best I could. The scribbly map and notes are below – an essential first step in any one-shot prep!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, 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!

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