Category: RPGs
An ORC Horde
As I recently posted on the ORC Edinburgh site and Facebook page, ORC has a lot of players and the site is the busiest I’ve seen it in a while. I find it a little ironic really that D&D is the most popular game, yet so few want to run it. With that in mind,…
Beta Game
There’s a certain SQUEE!!!! factor to this: I was recently contacted by George Strayton, an Origins-nominated games designer (and also the writer for several TV series and movies: Xena, Hercules, Cleopatra 2525, Transformers, Star Trek, and the forthcoming Xombie movie). He also wrote the script for the Dragonlance movie. He’s in Edinburgh in early May…
Joining the Dark Side
The shadows just got a little darker. Evan “Diamondback” Hogan is a Shadowrunner in the Bangkok of the future. He’s what they call a Street Samurai in the Shadowrun RPG, a cyborg that makes their living as hired muscle and enforcers for Shadowruns. They usually have a lot of cool upgrades, such as cybernetic limbs,…
PC groups – how PCs meet in RPGs
A human thief, dwarf fighter, and an elven mage walk into a bar. The barman goes: “What the hell is this – a cliché?” I was recently asked by an ORC member about how I thought groups of PCs (Player Characters) should get together. To be honest, it is a lot easier than people think.…
ORC: Looking forward, looking back
It is hard to believe that I’ve been maintaining the site at http://orcedinburgh.co.uk for over a year after taking stewardship from Dave @ KOA. I got my renewal reminder from the hosting company the other day. Hopefully I’ve managed to continue the same tradition of keeping the community open to all gamers in Edinburgh. The…
Designing a fantasy city
Designing a fantasy city for an RPG setting is quite a challenge, even for those GMs that have been running games for years! While I’ve described much of a mediaeval-style city or settlement, the ideas here can easily be applied to any setting. Defences This is the easiest place to start for many GMs. Depending…
One year on
I managed to get into gear and complete the Corporate Ties fiction, as well as a short bit of fiction for Vanguard Vengeance, the Cthulhutech game I’m running on Saturday. Once I got back into the flow of things, it was much easier – next year I may have a go at participating in the…
Sanity checks ahoy
I got the new Masks of Nyarlathotep today. Only just had a brief chance to skim through it, but it really is an epic. If I did have one criticism, it’s this: there’s not enough art. Older copies had amazing colour plates, but they’re black and white in this edition, and the remaining art is…
RPGing on a budget
With everything that’s going on at the moment, we’re all feeling the pinch financially: so here’s some suggestions to help you save some cash when it comes to RPGs: RPGing on a budget! In the suggestions below, many involve the internet: if you are using mobile broadband, you may want to check your mobile broadband…
How to GM without going insane
I’ve been running RPGs for a long time. Without sounding too pompous, over time you begin to appreciate that there’s a certain way to running games and preparing for them. So here’s my thoughts on running a campaign or even just a one-shot game. Although this is a sort of “How to GM” article, there’s…