As some of you may know I’m running a few games at Edinburgh’s Conpulsion 2015. This is Scotland’s biggest gaming convention, and I’m ashamed to say I’ve never been. I’ve got some great news – thanks to Red Scar Publishing‘s Marc Langworthy (a fellow blogger, writer and convention survivor), I’m running a playtest of the Modiphius Entertainment‘s Mutant Chronicles adventure, The Purging of the Crucible from Red Scar Publishing. Only at Conpulsion!
I’ll do a future review of my Conpulsion experiences in a future blog article. Below are some summaries of the games I’m running and some of the background.
Saturday Afternoon (3pm-6pm): The Purging of The Crucible
I’m honoured that I’m being allowed by Modiphius and Red Scar Publishing to run this playtest game.
Although I’ve known of the Mutant Chronicles series for many years, I’ve never actually played the first or second editions, or Doom Trooper. I do own Warzone: Resurrection. I picked it up at Q-CON last year, but haven’t played it yet! On the strength of what I’d read I decided to back the Modiphius Kickstarter for the 3rd Edition. I may also watch the movie. Oh, and as part of the Kickstarter, I’ll also be in the books somewhere as an NPC…
The Solar System is a roaring mayhem of death and war. The surfaces of the inner planets have been swept clean by the violent onslaught of the Dark Legions storming hordes of Nepharites, Razides, Pretorian Stalkers and Undead Legionaries. In the enormous cities of the far and distant future, heretics devoted to the destruction of humankind stalk the dark backstreets and gloomy alleys spreading their teachings of greed, jealously and war.
In the late 21st century a growing madness of plagues, wars, terrorism and environmental collapse led to the rushed terraforming of the colonies by the major corporations, an exodus from Earth and the final cataclysmic nuclear war. It takes hundreds of years to re-establish life as we know it on the inner worlds of our solar system. Imperial, Capitol, Bauhaus and Mishima now rule from their homes in the steaming jungles of Venus, the caverns of Mercury, the deserts of Mars and the many orbitals and asteroid homes of the solar system. Luna City is a vast neutral sprawl, many hundreds of years old, built up and over the first colony and mines.
A fateful exploratory mission to Pluto unleashes an ancient evil force ‘The Dark Symmetry’ upon the thinking machines of man. As technology fails (and even fights back), mankind is beset with conspiracy and corporate intrigue from within. Dark things gather on the edges of the colonies and whilst corporate war consumes the greatest armies of man, the Dark Legion’s citadels rise up throughout the worlds of the solar system and terrifying armies march out to consume all. They were defeated long ago, they will not be defeated this time…
As the Dark Symmetry’s malign influence on humanity grows, the Brotherhood with their strange powers, arise to unite the corporate armies as one and fight back.
Set in the time of the First Dark Legion War, The Purging of The Crucible is a dark tale of survival and technological torment created by Red Scar Publishing for Modiphius Entertainment and their Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Roleplaying Game.
The best of intentions are the stuff of nightmares.
Exclusively at Conpulsion for the first time ever – this playtest game will take four players and plunge them headlong into the world of the Mutant Chronicles, as also featured in the Warzone and Doom Trooper games. It will may give players the chance help shape the final adventure and perhaps even the Mutant Chronicles universe.
System: Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition (4 players)
Other games I’m running are:
Saturday Morning (10am-1pm): For a Mouthful of Water
I’m usually a bit reluctant to buy or run post-apocalyptic games, but I was pleasantly surprised by Mutant: Year 0. There’s going to be a review of it in a future blog article.
Of course the world ends. It was always just a question of time. When it’s all over, Earth is still. Nature invades the ruined cities. Winds sweep through empty streets, turned into graveyards.
Yet life remains. In the Ark, a small settlement on the edge of a dead town, the People live. You are the spawn of humanity, but not human anymore. You are twisted funhouse images, mutated freaks. Your bodies and minds have incredible powers, but you are unstable. Fragile. None of the People are over 30 years old.
Except the Elder. Your leader, but not like you. One of the Old People. He has always warned you: Stay on your guard, stay in the Ark, or the Rot will get you. Or worse. So far, you have obeyed him. Chased off every stranger who came close to the Ark. Few dared to go out into the Zone. That is what the Elder calls the outside world.
But the safe days are over. Food is running scarce, and the fight for what’s left is turning violent. You hunger. Factions are forming, bosses on top and slaves on the bottom. In the middle, fixers who try to turn a profit from anyone and everyone. And the Elder is dying. You’re on your own now.
It’s time to venture out. To explore the Zone, to search for artefacts, for knowledge. To build, grow the land, seek out others, create a new civilization on the ruins of the old. Seek your origin. Maybe, one day, you will find Eden of the legends, the Old People’s haven in the middle of hell. That’s where salvation and truth await, the stories say.
Maybe it’s all bullsh*t. It doesn’t matter. You have no choice. This is the beginning.
This is Year Zero.
In a post apocalyptic future, a group of mutant PCs search for fresh water in the ruins of the Ancients, vital to their survival and those within the Ark.
System: Mutant: Year 0 (4-6 players)
Saturday Evening (8-11pm): Straffar Gatan 39
The first adventure using the beta test rules for The Mutant Chronicles, set in Luna City.
Straffar Gatan 39, a rundown tenement in the Nines – a particularly nasty part of the Perimeters. Dispatch has received multiple calls from residents reporting screaming on the third floor. Dispatch receives calls like this all the time and they mostly go unanswered, but after the sixth call a Patrol unit was dispatched….
System: Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition (4-6 players)
Sunday Morning (10am-1pm): The Truth Is Out There
Marc Farrimond, local Edinburgh gaming svengali created this RPG. Based on the making of movies, this uses a fun system for running various types of games. Check out my article on RPGs – Cinematic Style if you’re unclear on what I’m talking about. Marc regularly runs this game at Q-CON and it’s hugely popular, so hopefully it’ll be as popular at Conpulsion.
Have you ever watched a movie and wondered why the characters on the screen have a tendency to do things that no sane person would ever consider. People investigating strange noises in an abandoned house, or splitting up and exploring the area, even though they know that something is going on? Well, these are the clichés that we as viewers come to expect – even if they do make us groan out loud.
Welcome to Cliché, a roleplaying game with a difference. Cliché uses a narrative driven basis for its simple mechanics and will offer you hours of fun and entertainment without being bogged down with dozens of complex rules, tables or charts. Cliché is also completely dice-less meaning you can play more or less anywhere!
So what is Cliché? Many game systems use a complex formula of math to work out who goes first, how the player hits someone, or even things as simple as opening a door.
Cliché offers something far simpler, that retains the playability of a roleplaying system, and is driven as such by the actions of the players and the way that they respond to situations. Cliché is a game of modern cinema, and the use of clichés adds to the fun and can keep even the best Gamesmaster on his toes.
Cliché uses at its very root, the idea that an expression can allow a character to do something that will affect the outcome of an encounter.
Got your torch? Got your gun? Well, gear up because there’s something very wrong in Edinburgh Below… A game of monsters, magic, and mayhem – Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets the X-Files.
System: Cliché: The RPG of Making Movies (4-6 players)
Saturday Evening (3pm-6pm): A Prayer for St. Nazaire
I’m a big fan of the Modiphius Achtung! Cthulhu setting. I ran A Prayer for St. Nazaire at Q-CON last year and also at Dragonmeet – both were well received as Call of Cthulhu games, but I’m trying Savage Worlds this time at Conpulsion. In a future blog article I’ll compare how it ran with both systems, plus review the game.
Discover the secret history of World War Two – stories of the amazing heroism which struggled to overthrow a nightmare alliance of science and the occult, of frightening inhuman conspiracies from the depths of time, and the unbelievable war machines which were the product of Nazi scientific genius – and how close we all came to a slithering end!
Play a huge range of classic wartime heroes such as Russian political officers, German U-Boat commanders, British commandoes, RAF pilots, US rangers, Washington investigators, London journalists, Hollywood starlets, and resistance fighters from all across Europe, who must all unite in the battle against the darker side of World War Two. Play a full campaign leading from the opening shots of the War in 1939, through intrigue and adventure in Occupied Europe, the siege of Berlin in 1945, and finally the cold wastes of Antarctica in 1946!
March 1942: A small commando force are dropped behind enemy lines to silence a Nazi listening post in the Loire valley. However, there’s more to Batz-sur-Mer than meets the eye.
System: Achtung! Cthulhu (Savage Worlds, 4-6 players)
See you on the other side!
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