Tag: Spirit

17 #RPGaDay2020 Comfort

I briefly mentioned a heart-warming RPG fusion on Day 7 Couple. Part of how I fused Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories and the Changeling games was to apply a comfort filter, dramatically downplaying the many dark aspects in Changeling. A Studio Ghibli like version of the Dreaming allows for the Ryuujin role from Ryuutama to fit nicely, in this case being a helpful Fae/Chimera. I love the Discworld, another guiding idea is: do the opposite of what the Lords and Ladies would do. 😉

Fusing games can result in a confusing mess, a familiar comfort blanket ruined, so to speak. Thankfully, so far this fusion has gone well. I think partly because I’ve played lots of Changeling tabletop, so I am familiar with the darkness of the game. Additionally, the wife and I spent many years immersed in Fae plot at Lorien Trust LARP, which massively ‘borrowed’ from Changeling.

This Tuesday, we will have another session walking along the cliffs and gaming; not like a LARP, but a pleasant walk and talk. I am planning a picnic. I look forward to the next adventure of our comfort blanket.

Street Fighter RPG

I‘ve briefly pondered running Honobono (heart-warming) style SFRPG sessions. Chibi versions of the World Warriors are of course Super Kawaii. My wife is not interested in learning the SFRPG combat mechanics, planning a fighting career, etc., but she did like how cute the fun tile-matching game Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo is. 🙂

Another game direction I’ve considered is the Respite Realm I mentioned for Day 13. Maybe a game borrowing heavily from Spirited Away, besides spirits, fighters come to rest and learn. Does a warrior trick the young girl in to lending them one of Yubaba’s trinkets, resulting in a Bison like threat to the Mortal Realm?! Hmm, almost something here. 😉

Other Peoples’ Answers

A great blog post about other cosy games, check out Charles Etheridge-Nunn @charlie_en

https://fakedtales.com/2020/08/17/rpg-a-day-2020-part-seventeen-some-cosy-games/

John M. Kahane @jkahane1

https://jkahane.livejournal.com/2171058.html

Heather Fey @slapjellyfish

 https://ko-fi.com/post/Comfort–RPGaDay2020-Q5Q522ENW

Anthony Boyd @Runeslinger

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2020/08/17/rpgaday2020-day-17-investigate/

Sue Savage @SavageSpiel

https://savagespiel.blogspot.com/2020/08/rpgaday-comfort.html

Geek-Life Balance @cybogoblin

https://geeklifebalance.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/rpgaday-2020-comfort/

Craig Oxbrow @CraigOxbrow

https://thewatchhouserpg.blogspot.com/2020/08/rpgaday2020-buffy-17b-comfort.html

@PPMGamer

https://www.ppmgames.co.uk/2020/08/17/rpgaday2020-day-17-comfort/

Melestrua @Melestrua

https://melestrua.net/2020/08/17/rpgaday2020-day-17-comfort-how-often-do-should-you-push-yourself-out-of-your-comfort-zone/

Phil Viverito @philviverito

https://www.theseoldgames.com/2020/08/rpgaday2020-17-comfort.html

Kehaar @DissectingWrlds

https://clarkythecruel.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/rpgaday-17-comfort/

Insomniac @1nsomniac13

https://1nsomniac.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/rpgaday-2020-day-17-comfort-rpgaday2020/

This is a non-exhaustive list; I still have many posts to read today, so I might be adding more links. I’d recommend searching the hashtag and judge those great answers for yourself: #RPGaDay2020, some people use #RPGaDay.

13 #RPGaDay2020 Rest

I think that the Rest prompt has resulted in many outstanding responses, plus @Runeslinger’s interesting answer whilst following his own path. Definitely check out at least some of the links below, most are quick reads, and whilst Complex Games Apologist provides a long video, it has the normal high standards for that channel.

Respite Realm

Whilst the following was designed with Street Fighter in mind, it could be an interesting addition to any fantasy/mystical setting; divine spell, magical item, blessing (curse?), etc. I partly drew inspiration for this idea from the film Spirited Away, but gave it a martial arts focus for my SFRPG game. For the Ryuutama-Changeling game with my wife, I am planning a visit to this type of realm that will probably be more like the bath house in Spirited Away. I have continued to experiment with this idea for my Flow Fighters game, as the idea changed after I studied more psychology and worked in social services, but I kept the SFRPG version simple, but that is for another day.

Adventurers typically take a lot of chances, push themselves to extremes. For anyone pushing themselves so intensely it is important to listen to our bodies, to know when to rest, to heal; something that has been a struggle in my own life. Most fantasy settings allow rapid healing, Street Fighter is no different, but typically there are no rules regarding training, so there is no guidance about respite. For my chronicle inspired by Mortal Kombat: Conquest, characters ran the risk of training too hard, plus aggravated damage was a more common occurrence, so I added several Spirit Respite Realms. Tokens blessed by a God of Healing, allowed a party to visit one. There are health deities all over the world, different spirit traditions, so this can be a way to add a variety of diverse cultures from anyway, in to one convenient location; a chance to be creative.

For my game some Respite Tokens are gifts that are linked to a particular realm, whilst some tokens were universal, allowing a user to visit a random Respite Realm. Characters could learn about particular realms that suit different specialist needs, but that is beyond the scope of this article. 😉

By using a Respite Token, the party needs to meditate and then they can cross over in to the Respite Spirit Realm; this takes between a few minutes to an hour; intentionally slow to prevent this being used as easy get away method. 😉 I made a Respite Token party sized for the convenience of game play, maybe in your game you’d prefer each PC to use a token each.

Whilst visiting a Respite Realm, a character could heal aggravated at quadruple the normal rate! Time passes in the Respite Realm at the same rate as the physical world; so this is not much use for quick tournaments. Additionally, if they stay long enough to be fully healed, then the characters well feel rejuvenated and regain all lost Chi & WP.

Visiting a Respite Realm can help with psychological healing, soul damage, or other esoteric problems, but I’d advise against any quick fixes for something as complex as the mind or soul. The spirits in this realm can provide assistance, guidance, etc., but their answers might be cryptic at first, or they recommend something extreme. I think this is an area best discussed between the player and the GM/group; certainly not a way to take a character trait/arc/story away from a player.

Being of the spirit world these locations might provide a chance to learn more esoteric matters, or a character may: offer their services, make a request, bargain, and so on. Spirits should not be taken lightly by mortals, so whilst asking the spirit to open a portal to somewhere else in the physical world to travel about faster is possible, a spirit might be offended being treated as a fast travel hub.

Other Peoples’ Answers

Complex Games Apologist @CGApologist

Bob Freeman @OccultDetective

https://bordermengames.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/rpgaday2020-day-13-rest/

Geek-Life Balance @cybogoblin

https://geeklifebalance.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/rpgaday-2020-rest/

Anthony Boyd @Runeslinger

https://castingshadowsblog.com/2020/08/13/rpgaday2020-day-13-couple/

Heather Fey @slapjellyfish

https://ko-fi.com/post/Rest–RPGaDay2020-F1F321UCM

@PPMGamer

https://www.ppmgames.co.uk/2020/08/13/rpgaday2020-day-13-rest/

Kehaar @DissectingWrlds

https://clarkythecruel.wordpress.com/2020/07/13/rpgaday-13-rest/

Charles Etheridge-Nunn @charlie_en

https://fakedtales.com/2020/08/13/rpg-a-day-2020-part-thirteen-short-and-long-rests-are-a-dull-mechanic/

Paul Baldowski @deesanction

http://thedeesanction.com/rest-rpgaday-13/

Sue Savage @SavageSpiel

https://savagespiel.blogspot.com/2020/08/rpgaday-rest.html

John M. Kahane @jkahane1

https://jkahane.livejournal.com/2170102.html

Phil Viverito @philviverito

https://www.theseoldgames.com/2020/08/rpgaday2020-13-rest.html

The Kind GM @TheKindGM

https://thekindgm.wordpress.com/2020/08/13/rpgaday-2020-day-13-rest/

Melestrua @Melestrua

https://melestrua.net/2020/08/13/rpgaday2020-day-13-rest

This is a non-exhaustive list; I still have many posts to read today, so I might be adding more links. I’d recommend searching the hashtag and judge those great answers for yourself: #RPGaDay2020, some people use #RPGaDay.

G is for Granny Weatherwax

Thinking about characters, for both fiction and role-playing games, and in particular Mage: the Ascension. A chat on facebook linked the article below, plus:

Dustin Daugherty: I consider Granny Weatherwax a Kami, a static magician possessed by the Spirit of No Nonsense.

Saucy Dryad

Esmerelda “Esme” Weatherwax, most commonly known as Granny, is one of the most compelling characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
granny

More than that, she’s one of my favorite characters in all of fiction*.

While there are a multitude of witches in Discworld, Granny is known to be the best, the most powerful, the one everyone else looks to. Not that she’d lay such a claim.

“Mistress Weatherwax is the head witch, then, is she?’
‘Oh no!’ said Miss Level, looking shocked. ‘Witches are all equal. We don’t have things like head witches. That’s quite against the spirit of witchcraft.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Tiffany.
‘Besides,’ Miss Level added, ‘Mistress Weatherwax would never allow that sort of thing.” 

She’s strong and forthright and comfortable in her heavy, hobnailed boots.

“She strode across the moors as if distance was a personal insult.” 

In a religious debate, she cuts to the heart of it.

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Prelude – Secret Rage PBM 5

This continues on from part 1 PBM Thanks & Secret Rage.

I’m off to visit Richie this weekend, and to go to GollanczFest. So there will be plenty of time to discuss the ways I plan on running the Chronicle, and see if Richie has developed or changed any of his ideas. It is also possible we will play a session or two.

Here are the next few pages of the comic prelude that I showed in my last post:

Batjutsu Secret Rage p3

Batjutsu Secret Rage p4

Batjutsu Secret Rage p5

Batjutsu Secret Rage p6

The next part is PBM Prelude 6.

Disclaimer: This is a fan project for a friend, not a commercial product. Vampire, World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade, etc., are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc.  “Portions of the materials are the copyrights and trademarks of White Wolf Publishing AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit white-wolf.com.”

Prelude – Secret Rage PBM 4

This continues on from part 1 PBM Thanks & Secret Rage.

Where and when to start a game are typically essential questions. When I worked at KJC Games I took the long-time running fantasy game Quest and added in role-play with moderation. Since the game had been running for so long, and some customers knew nothing about role-playing, there was a lot of discussion about the best ways to implement such a dramatic change. In hindsight there are so many things I’d like to have done differently, but given the scale of the operation and time pressure, at least it mostly worked out well. So when I proposed this campaign I knew I would need to treat it as another professional undertaking, and not ignore lessons I had previously learned due to being too caught up with enthusiasm.

Years before when I had run my two big Vampire PBM games I had written out very detailed backgrounds, as well as spent a lot of time discussing things with the players. The Elder Night City PBM game had even more background than the Methesulah game, in part because I was merging R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk with the World of Darkness (WoD), plus the WoD timeline had moved forward by many years. Although two players were replaced, since they lacked the time to play, surprisingly the final sixteen players eagerly read everything and put a lot of effort in to their turns 🙂

The previous bit of nostalgia was at the forefront of my mind when working on Secret Rage. Since Richie and I know the World of Darkness so well, at least I didn’t need to write a synopsis of the cosmology and numerous powerful organisations. This brought me back to the essential question, instead of having the character be somewhat established, why not set the game before the spirit even existed, or better yet at the birth of the spirit. This was somewhat inspired by a local role-player who decades ago was somewhat infamous for setting his D&D games at level 0. The joke became that in the next campaign the players would be playing the grandparents of their characters, with the goal being to make sure their family got born. Then the next campaign their grandparents’ dogs.

Since Richie is an artist, and a lover of comics, I had the idea of making the prelude a comic. I am not much of an artist, and I need to be careful about my ever present wrist RSI, so I accepted that I could not make it high quality. As spirits are more abstract than mortals, I thought this simpler approach could even turn out to be something distinct. Whilst I cannot use speech recognition software to draw, I can use things like https://pixabay.com/ for free artwork, and a few minutes with GIMP https://www.gimp.org/ isn’t a problem. Apart from using a few Werewolf glyphs I decided it was best to avoid using any official artwork, which is a shame since the WoD has some amazing art.

#SecretRage 0

Batjutsu Secret Rage p1

Batjutsu Secret Rage p2

Next time, more of the prelude.

Disclaimer: This is a fan project for a friend, not a commercial product. Vampire, World of Darkness, Vampire the Masquerade, etc., are registered trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc.  “Portions of the materials are the copyrights and trademarks of White Wolf Publishing AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit white-wolf.com.”

Spirit Choice for Secret Rage

This continues on from part 1 PBM Thanks & Secret Rage, the 2nd part is Spirit Game – Secret Rage.

Further to what I wrote previously about the scale of any game that includes something as vast as D&D’s Planescape, L5R’s spirit realms, or World of Darkness’s three Umbras, etc., I appreciated I was giving myself a ludicrous amount of work. Powerful characters tend to have a lot of lore and cultural understanding that would be a key factor in any character choices, and typically large networks of others to manage. This applies to all sorts of high-end campaigns:

  • Epic level character in D&D, GURPS, etc.
  • Methuselah in Vampire, or Archmage in Mage, Deathlord in Wraith
  • Clan Daimyo in L5R
  • Epic level Superteam member like one of the Justice League
  • Daemon Prince in Warhammer’s Slave to Darkness and Lost & Damned
  • Eldar Farseer in Warhammer 40,000

In 1995 I ran a Warhammer Chaos Champions RPG, with the goal of one of the party becoming Daemon Princes. Despite how much we all enjoyed it, two of the players left the area and the game was put on hold. Cue reminiscing about one of those cool campaigns that got away…

Whilst this chronicle is very much set in the World of Darkness, games like D&D’s Planescape, L5R and GURPS have been great aids in working out ideas. All part of my RPG mental-toolbelt belief.

Since an ancient spirit would have vast knowledge of many subjects and treaties with many other spirits, I decided to go with the easy solution of starting the game with the birth of the spirit. This way the player and I will develop a better understanding of the character’s development, and as I’ve written about before PBM is particularly good at handling Time. The time between turns allows for all sorts of details to be pondered, worked out, and dramatic character development.

I made a big list of story/chronicle ideas for Richie to choose from. The idea being that by playing a unique spirit, the spirit’s nature and goals can be designed to cater to the type of game he wants to play. The following is part of the list I sent to him:

  • An Ancestral Incarna, this could be ancient Spirit that goes back to the dawn of the Garou Tribes; these types of spirits are heavily linked to Past Life. They might be closely linked to the dead, maybe even formed by long-dead Garou, or they could be epherma (Spirit matter awakened by a Tribe’s actions), or maybe they came from the Tribe’s Totem but gained importance and independence. This sort of Incarna would be focused on members of a single Tribe.
  • Incarna of Historical Big Moment, this Spirit embodies the idea that big moments are guaranteed/inevitable, and that an individual plays a pivotal role; humans tend to fixate on the ‘big-movers of history’, but this Spirit understands things are more complicated, and it figures out what domino to knock over. Maybe it’s an Ancestral spirit, maybe more linked to the dream realm and Chimera’s brood, maybe this is linked to Storytelling Spirits given its narrative nature, maybe a Past Life Spirit, or maybe it is a manifestation of the Fates.
  • A Wyrm healing Incarna that has hidden itself away and wants to heal the Wyrm by re-joining it! This is likely a super-hard mode campaign, which is saying something given the standard hard mode of the Apocalypse. Maybe the Wyrm is insane because this Incarna spirit escaped, maybe with this piece the Wyrm could heal, sounds like a crazy plan, but the Hydra is crazy 😉
  • A tiny spark of the Balance Wyrm, this Incarna focuses on figuring out how free its parent. However, how to fight a Triat? Especially given the scope of the task. Can the Weaver be persuaded? Can the Wyld be slowed enough to talk to? Could the Wyrm reveal a secret even in its current insane state? As above, super-hard mode, and crazy Hydra.
  • A Weaver Spirit that is a hybrid with either Wyld or Wyrm. In the Wenn Diagram of the Triat there is cross-over, albeit normally in smaller ways and only briefly, cosmologically speaking.
  • Maybe a Spirit explicitly dedicated to a different Supernatural race, maybe in regards to healing, communication, monitoring, or maybe the race’s total annihilation.
  • A lesser Incarna that is a sub-part of the Phoenix Incarna, this would be a big secret since the Garou nation does not know about it. It reveals itself only to Garou who must walk a lonely path to carry out a quest associated to a concept like redemption, rebirth, transformation, etc.
  • The Carer of Gaia’s Word, a spirit that has a secret quest, to protect a secret of Gaia, one that was whispered to her sister Luna. What that secret is, how it relates to the Triat, or to the Apocalypse would be a key part for focusing the chronicle’s theme.
  • Crazy Outsider Spirit Pretending to be a Wyld Incarna: This crazy suggestion could be that the spirit is basically one of Cthulhu Mythos in disguise trying to usurp Gaia, or simply get a place at the buffet of gnosis.
  • Trickster Incarna, super-mega-turbo-hard campaign. It claims to have this big secret, and travels about distracting everything so a subtle plan can be implemented. Likely results in many dead Garou, and other Fera. Maybe the secret is even real!
  • Ninja Spirit, because well ninjas.
  • <Insert TODO Incarna>. The ultimate trick of the Weaver, the Procrastination Planning Spirit. Somehow it will resolve the Apocalypse via a night of cramming. This sounds like the most powerful thing ever! 😉

After a lot of discussion we worked out another spirit idea, which will be revealed in a later blog. Once this was done we were able to determine the chronicle’s focus. I also mentioned that once the game is established I will consider adding new players to the game, partly depending on health, partly workload, and also whether I program some of the game aspects to make it easier to run something even bigger.

There had been a good few minutes spent discussing the <Insert TODO Incarna>. I love this idea, and I’ve added it to my vast list of comedy RP ideas to develop; I’ve made a few already for my forever in development role-playing guide, since it previously read like a monotone academic volume.

Next time I will introduce the prelude.

Spirit Game – Secret Rage

This continues on from PBM Thanks & Secret Rage.

I developed the Secret Rage idea by changing the player character from that of following a lineage of Garou, to that of playing a powerful spirit. Making the game about a powerful spirit, something effectively immortal, which can guide Garou, who the player can also play, gave me the idea: “A chronicle to prevent the Apocalypse”. This idea links to the forthcoming new World of Darkness that is in development, which builds upon the old World of Darkness (oWoD), but the end days (Gehenna, Apocalypse, or Ascension) never happened.

The scale of this spirit game is even bigger than my old Vampire Methuselah and Elder PBM games, more like the professional games I ran at KJC Games. Whilst the spirit has vast powers and epic plans, the key is to treat the character like any other, to be propelled by motivations and personal drama. An added benefit with this project is it also allows me to playtest ideas from a commercial PBM project that I’ve been working on for years: Elemental Masters. This game is about the building blocks of reality and the plots of pantheons; I seriously need a better name than this working title, meh.

A few RPGs go in to some detail about spirits, particularly several of the World of Darkness (old WoD & Chronicles) as well GURPS Spirits. Sadly despite the numerous details they present, I still wanted more depth. To be fair to those books, I do tend to go overboard with my ideas, plus the Spirit label is so all-encompassing, so it is no surprise that a collection of predominately enigmatic entities are described in vague terms. One of the strengths of the WoD books is how many ideas they present, whilst not creating a rigid structure to limit possibility. As normal for any GURPS book, GURPS Spirits is filled with a plethora of thought provoking ideas, and plenty of rules options, plus plug-ins to such a powerful system.

When I first read the Werewolf I was reminded of how the game brilliantly compares with Dungeons & Dragons; I’ll justify that statement another time. Manual of the Planes was my favourite D&D book, and Planescape is my favourite setting, so it is no surprise to reveal that Umbra is my favourite WoD book, my second favourite is the Mage Book of Madness.

Spirit Scale

Given the cosmological scale of any spirit world to its setting, any decision made can have far reaching impacts upon said setting. It is common to declare that the ephemeral nature of spirits makes them mysterious to mortals/beings of flesh, which is understandable given that Spirits are not player characters (PCs). The three tiered Umbra (High, Middle and Low) in the old World of Darkness effectively contains every idea and its spiritual impact, so detailing literally everything would be an impossible task. It is up to each group as to the scale of any Umbral impact they want to explore, there is certainly enough information for any Storyteller to launch all manner of games.

Given how many different games I’ve played for extended periods, I’ve gotten to explore the core setting of each game. This is another reason for my obsession with all RPG cosmologies, to explore. For example a very long running game of Legend of the 5 Rings slowly became about the setting’s cosmology; I am quite looking forward to the forthcoming 5th Edition and to see what more they add. As a Star Trek fan, I did consider another name for this campaign:

Tellurian Trek!

Spirit Courts

Another important consideration is the complexity of any Spirit Courts, powerful gatherings that surely would have connections to each other. A design dilemma is how best to present such entities, especially if they are long-lived, and thus would have many ancient relationships to work out; never mind the historical events they could discuss.  The Dungeons & Dragons setting Planescape went in to a lot of detail about the Blood War, which I think really added depth to the D&D cosmology; the machinations of ludicrously powerful entities and Gods is better presented in that setting. Werewolf did a good job of summarising many Spirit Totems and their relationships, and the setting itself is based around the Triat and Gaia.

I believe the vast cosmological scale of is one of the key reasons so many players of the World of Darkness setting preferred Vampire over Werewolf or Mage, and to a lesser extent Wraith, Changeling and Demon. Vampire is a rich enough game; it has plenty of characters, depth and history, without needing the Umbra to be brought out of the shadows. When Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand came out, a few players I chatted with explained that they didn’t like the new layers of plots, and some said they disliked the Umbral tie-ins; there were of course forum posts debating this point. Several players I’ve chatted with who love Werewolf or Mage typically list the vast cosmology as a reason why they do. Of course plenty of players, like myself, appreciate the different games for different reasons.

Spirit Psychology

Years ago I had written a collection of ideas about spirits for Elemental Masters setting, but I had not fleshed my ideas out enough. Typically for me I had avoided finalising ideas due to constantly feeling that I needed to research more. Finally with years of research and this idea for Secret Rage I was able to finalise ideas. I had been working on detailing the psychology of different types of spirits, also drawing upon computing and philosophical ideas. Exploring ideas such as compartmentalised minds, how an Incarna’s brood relationship works, how I think slumber works, more about a spirit’s relationship with Gnosis, Gaia, etc. My spirit work is not ready for public release, but things are at a good playtesting stage, which Richie and I will explore.

I’ve considered whether to develop this work in to a commercial product, so it is interesting to note that the new White Wolf have the Storytellers Vault.

Next time I go over the spirit choice for the game.

PBM Thanks & Secret Rage

A while ago when I was mostly bedridden several of my friends would skype with me. It really helped to have some extra communication, and thankfully with a wireless headset it meant I could rest in bed. One of my long-time friends is Richie; he’s self-employed working from home, and has a young child, so he’s ludicrously busy, yet he still allocated time for me.

In addition to saying thank you to Richie for his support, I have tried to offer small gifts to show my appreciation. Richie and I first role-played together well over twenty years ago. Due to his busy life he’s not able to game regularly, so I thought a Play By Mail (PBM) game would do us both good, neatly sliding in to his hectic life schedule, at whatever pace he could manage. I wrote an introductory series to PBM here.

Roughly a year ago we discussed playing old White Wolf’s Aberrant game, since Richie’s a fan of comics, but he’d not played that setting yet. Aberrant has a rich Supers setting with mature themes, and lots of world changing powers to explore. Sadly this game never quite got going due to how busy Richie always is, and since I was still struggling with my health I didn’t push the subject. I have managed to offer a few other things as thanks, for example I made this small thing a while ago when he was ill:

BatJanoSandman

More recently I returned to the idea of offering a better present by running a PBM game. As we are both writers I considered proposing a classic style Dungeons & Dragons game emphasising the Hero’s Journey arc. Although this may feel a bit too cliché to many role-players, I think it is worth keeping in mind that there is so much you can do with good old D&D, there are so many settings and styles of gameplay. I also considered a Cthulhu game, given the single player nature of this game maybe doing something along the lines of Groundhog Cthulhu: Live, Go Insane, Die, Repeat. Or maybe going a bit over the top and running a GURPS Infinite Worlds game. I went through lists of other RPGs, even games that I’d not tried out yet. Eventually I settled on a game that I thought was the most likely to get Richie to bite, so I suggested the Gift of Werewolf.

We both adore Werewolf: The Apocalypse; well we adore all of the classic World of Darkness (cWoD). Despite how much we played Werewolf, we still want to play more, both feeling the genius game was overlooked by many gamers, and those who did take an interest in the World of Darkness games typically favoured Vampire. Over the years when I’ve been asked to pick to my favourite cWoD game I’ve always picked the World of Darkness as a cohesive whole, since that was how I always ran the setting. So my friend knows that when I suggested Werewolf, I really meant the cWoD with the primary focus being Werewolf.

After some chats I made a list of ideas for the Werewolf PBM for us to discuss further, and things quickly developed; typically I wanted to do something more and a bit different than my previous games. The initial premise was Richie playing a lone Garou, however, role-playing a lone Garou is a bit depressing; they are primarily pack animals after all. So I proposed a game spanning eons, we could use Past Lives to allow for story that covered such a time period, a chance to explore a powerful historical and social background of the Garou, and it could be about preventing the Apocalypse. The new White Wolf Publishing company are working on a new World of Darkness, one that roughly continues from the classic, without the Apocalypse/Gehenna/Ascension ending. Whilst we are waiting for those products I considered this to be an intriguing idea.

Over the course of a few weeks I played about with the premise and kept coming back to wanting to do something more like my Vampire Methuselah and Elder PBM campaigns. Meanwhile Richie wrote a cool short story, things were a go. I then had a more intriguing campaign idea, one that would take the Past Lives plan to an even bigger level, and take the game in a radically different direction. It didn’t involve abandoning what we’d initially set out to do, and Richie’s story would tie-in.

Next time I’ll go in to more detail about my Secret Rage.

You can check out some of Richie’s great designs at http://www.richiedigital.co.uk/