Sir Bubba-Clyde Johnson

RPGs.

I have been getting into a lot more RPG stuff as of late. (watching it, playing it, MAKING IT) it's crazy. I think it's the stories that really get me, really draws me in. The twitch streamed RPG shows Critical Role, High Rollers DnD, 'Dice, Camera, Action', and the Acquisitions Inc. crew keep me checking the calendar to see what day it is. The shows are so good and different and awesome if you can follow them (each episode is no less than a half-hour and usually met or exceed the 3 hour mark.) I've tried watching some other RPG/DND shows but for some reason those are the ones that I can watch consistently and with wide-eyed anticipation.

In my down-time I started playing Final Fantasy 5 again for the 30 bajillionth time to hopefully finish it for the first time but my heart really wasn't in it. While playing that I got an idea to make an RPG to play with some people I know so I got to work on what I jokingly titled...

It's a play on the 'Tomb of Horrors' module which is (as I understand it) a ridiculously hard and unforgiving setting designed with traps upon traps with expert players in mind. I've never played it and don't think I would play it because it seems designed to make you rip up your character sheet. Speaking of which, there is a video of a group playing ToH for child's play charity and they were getting new characters every few minutes which made for good entertainment as well as white noise for when you're working.

I used the ToH and Fighting Fantasy novels as a theme and (hopefully) built a card-based-combat-survival-horror-tabletop-RPG-that-is-accessible-to-total-noobs-and-old-people-and-also-for-no-money. The premise is that a group of strangers ends up in a house which (surprise, surprise) is haunted and they have to find and stop an occultist before they summon bad stuff. It's a bit basic, I'll admit and it's been done a zillion times by a zillion other people who are undoubtedly better at it than I am but I wanted to make something that gives that sense of doom and mystery/puzzle solving that you would get from a good game or Netflix series (seriously, Stranger Things on Netflix is really good if you haven't seen it). I'm aware that there are plenty of games and systems published that are perfectly streamlined to handle new players and GMs but I don't know them and I think by the time I acquire them, learn them, and prepare to run them everyone I know personally will be uninterested. What I came up with compensates for time, learning curve, player availability, and kids. I have yet to playtest it but it ought to be fairly short seeing how it's basically a dungeon with 3 or so floors and a handful of mandatory bosses/puzzles. The characters, combat and 'ability checks' are all made using a deck of cards with the jokers added to 1of 4 stats which spell out S.W.A.G. I needed to remove the dice element for simplicity (You do something,You DRAW) and convenience (Little kids and small, easily swallowed dice is a bad idea). An added constraint (partially arbitrary) is that when the deck runs out, it gets re-shuffled and the 'DOOM' clock is moved ahead. The goal of the game is to get out before midnight when the house is consumed by the evil being summoned somewhere on the grounds. On Friday, or at the latest Sunday I'll run this and tweak some things for later use (as if this could wait until October).

Now for the random flailing:

Stranger Things is awesome, if you haven't watched it yet. It's like R.L. Stine and Wes Craven co-wrote a Netflix series  using John Hughes' typewriter. I have questions about the ending but it was a good season 1 (fingers crossed).

Jessica Jones, Daredevil seasons 1&2, are good as well if you haven't already seen them. Waiting on Luke Cage and Iron Fist to come out to.

Steven Universe is back and brings a smile to my face when they reference anime and stuff.

So, quick personal backstory, on Thursday I fell asleep near the end of episode 57 and just thought “meh, I’ll watch the post on Monday.” Friday comes and I see all this speculation and fan art about Gilmore and the Rakshasa and what have you and I’m immediately concerned that I slept through the biggest cliffhanger since the last cliffhanger. A few nail-biting days later and I’m hitting refresh on the gns site waiting the vod to go public. I scrubbed through to the second half and watched until the moment came about 5 or ten minutes before the end when Vax and ‘Gilmore’ are up on the balcony in the middle of the night. Vax gets stabbed and almost poisoned right at the end of the episode. Now I’m anxious for Thursday, I wanna know what’s gonna happen.

Everyone wants to know where’s Gilmore and when did the Rakshasa disguise himself as Gilmore etc. and I’m sure all that will become apparent AFTER they deal with the Rakshasa.

As the title says, all I want for the next episode (58) is for Vax to Disengage, and Alert everyone else. I know he doesn’t have armor or his daggers, he may not even have his magic boots on but surely he still has the earring in. If he has the earring in, I think he should Disengage and start yelling JENGA through the earpiece to (hopefully) get everyone woke and running to his aid. Depending on how high up he is, he may jump off the balcony to the ground like with the Briarwoods and tuck/roll at the bottom (he still has 2 luck to my knowledge). As long as he isn’t restrained or ‘Hold Person’d he should be able to break away and get some help. I don’t see the Rakshasa running away and losing his best opportunity to take out Vax alone so he’ll try his best to revenge kill him before anyone gets there but so long as Vax can get a quick word in, the party should be able to save him or (worst case scenario) revive/ avenge him. Just my thoughts.