Double Chuckers

I was so going to write November's blog post at the end of November, but things sort of got away from me again. (Ah, the social whirlwind that is the life of a games designer!)

This year really hasn't let up, which means I'm feeling a wee bit worn out. And, while I swore back when I started keeping (a bit more) up to date with this here blogging malarkey that I wouldn't combine posts, I'm going to combine November and December's ramblings or I suspect they'll never get done.

Anyway, it's New Year's Eve and a time for reflection. So, here goes:

Egyptian grammar continues to be pretty much a complete mystery to me. I'll swear the academics have made half the tenses up just for the hell of it, because I certainly don't remember them from French, German and Latin classes at school. (Granted, those are a very, very long time ago now, but even so...) As a result, my translations remain in baby talk for the moment, but I'm hoping that the penny will drop at some point. My tutor, bless him, has just accepted that I will rename hieroglyphs that have been badly carved (rave Godzilla being my favourite of the entire year). In spite of his continued bemusement as to why I ask him to do these things, he not only gave me the translation for "Do not read from the book!" but also helped us to have accurate Ancient Egyptian charms in a supplement (The Shadow Over Providence). Classes continue next year, and I look forward to the ongoing challenge.

There's been a fair few books released this year that had my dabs on them. After a while, you sort of forget what came out when, so I think, in the end, it was 10 books in either physical or pdf (or both), plus consultation on at least 3 more from licensees. And that's just the ones that made it onto people's real and virtual shelves - there's over half a dozen more that are still in the production pipeline that I also worked on either as a writer, editor, developer, or some combination of all three.

And then there were the award nominations: Origins and ENnies, for both my work at Green Ronin and Chaosium. And some awards as well (Call of Cthulhu for the actual win!). It is nice to receive recognition - a lot of people put a lot of work into making these books and that pat on the back means a lot, if for no other reason than it makes you stop for a moment and think "Yes, we have done something pretty cool, haven't we?" And then it's back to the grindstone to get the next thing out.

Conventions: phew, yes. There were more than a few of those this year. OrcaCon (US), CarcosaCon (Poland), DNI Fantastyki (Poland), UK Games Expo (UK), mini-Kraken (Germany), Ropecon (Finland), Necronomicon (US), Kraken (Germany), AetherCon (virtual), and Dragonmeet (UK). Sadly no Steampunks in Space this year due to illness, which was a real disappointment as it's always a fun one.

There were quite a lot of interviews as well this year: Bayt al Azif, AetherCon, The Rolistes, live on Finnish day-time TV (a distinctly surreal experience), several Scandinavian podcasts, and one for the Finnish equivalent of the BBC! I'm pretty certain there were others as well, so apologies if I've forgotten any. As I mentioned at the top, this year has been something of a monumental blur...

Running things: I continue to be allowed out to run games and workshops both in the local area and further afield. Things kicked off with the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set launch in January (in association with the lovely folks at Travelling Man Newcastle, Meeple Perk and the Boutique Beats Bakery) and it never really stopped. Somewhere along the way was Free RPG Day and running things at both stores, along with a workshop at Meeple Games in Durham and numerous games at Meeple Perk. And then there's the embroidery talks and workshops, as well. It's always great fun to escape the writing hovel and talk to actual people, and share my love of games and embroidery with others. 

Looking to the Future: as some of you may have noticed, Chaosium now has the licence to produce a Rivers of London RPG. I spoke to Ben (Aaronovitch) at a book signing in Newcastle a little over a year ago about the possibility and, after a lot of work behind the scenes by my colleagues James Lowder and MOB, and Ben's agent, John, the announcement was made at Dragonmeet. It's met with a lot of positive feedback, so now the job of developing the system begins in earnest. I'm line editor for the project, as well as remaining as associate editor on Call of Cthulhu, so next year is likely to prove even busier than this one. As a fan of the books, I'm very excited about the whole thing as it's something I've been wanting to do for a while. Daunting? Yes - but I'm putting together an excellent team, and I know they'll do a good job. And Ben knows his stuff when it comes to gaming, so collaborating with him is going to be very interesting.

On the Cthulhu front, there's a lot on its way. All I can say is watch this space (as well as official channels) as to exactly what, but there is much goodness in the pipeline: some old and refreshed, some brand spanking new.

As for conventions, I'm off to Bellevue again in just over a week for OrcaCon. I'm not expecting to do quite as many conventions as this year, but then I wasn't expecting to do quite so many this year either!

So, as the old year fades and the new one begins: be safe, be kind, and enjoy your games, and may the New Year bring you peace, happiness and contentment.

See you on the flipside!

The Twelve Months of Blogmas

So, for once, it looks as if I'll actually successfully complete a New Year's Resolution. Yes, I have indeed managed to produce a blog post for every month of the impossibly long year of 2018.

Bearing that it mind, it seemed sensible to do a round up of what I've worked on over the last twelve months. I can't tell you about all of it, but I can drop subtle hints for some of the stuff that I'm not at liberty to mention properly. I used to do an annual summary a few years ago when I worked for Modiphius just to remind myself of the break-neck pace of production on Achtung! Cthulhu, but I haven't done it in a while, so it will be interesting to see if this year was indeed as busy as it felt.

So, Call of Cthulhu and other Chaosium stuff first (in no particular order):

Scritch Scratch (Free RPG Day; published)
Masks of Nyarlathotep (published)
Call of Cthulhu Starter Set (published)
Terror Australis (published)

Children of Fear (in the production queue)
Secrets of Berlin (in the production queue)
Shadows Over Stillwater (in the production queue)
A Cold Fire Within (in the production queue)
Flotsam and Jetsum (the next organised play campaign; in the production queue)

Cthulhu By Gaslight for 7th Ed (we're still beavering away on this one)
Sekkrit Projekt 1 (no, I'm not telling you anything more than that; in development)
Sekkrit Projekt 2 (and I'm not telling you anything else about this one, either; in development)
Sekkrit Projekt 3 (short scenarios taking only 1-2 hours; in development and testing)

Women in Tabletop Gaming Month interviews (on the Chaosium blog)
After Dark convention scenario (which does now have a player-awarded subtitle, but I'm not saying it here as it sort of gives the game away)

Others:

Aldis: City of the Blue Rose (Green Ronin; published)
Shadowtide: A Blue Rose novel (game stat editing; Green Ronin; available electronically)
Other Blue Rose editing (nope, nothing to see here... yet!)
Holding On: the Troubled Life of Billy Kerr (playtesting, rules proofing; Hub Games; published)

Conventions:

OrcaCon
Mini-Kraken
UK Games Expo
Free RPG Day
Continuum
Necronomicon Discord Charity Fundraiser
Kraken
AetherCon
Steampunks in Space
Dragonmeet

(Funny - I could have sworn we were at more than that...)

Things definitely began picking up pace towards the end of the year after I finally managed to finish Children of Fear, although most of this year has been editing, proofing and development work. I am getting to write some new material for Cthulhu by Gaslight, so it's nice to have that change of pace again from persnickety error spotting (which I am pretty good at, by all accounts - probably something to do with reading DNA sequences manually from X-ray films and automated sequencer printouts in a previous life).

There were also a few podcast appearances (The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, Geeks of Cascadia and the Miskatonic University Podcast), as well as a short series of videos Mike and I did for Masks of Nyarlathotep over on Chaosium's YouTube channel. There were a couple of other podcasts who asked if I was available (usually!), but then I never heard anything more. Ah, well.

I also had to turn down involvement in several projects this year. It's not something I like doing - as a freelancer, there's always the fear of famine rather than feast when it comes to work, meaning it's a real struggle to resist over-commitment - but there really are only so many hours in the day, especially as I also delivered four historical embroidery talks and one all-day embroidery workshop, all of which take an inordinate amount of preparation for either an hour's talk or six hours of stitching (writing up requirements lists, producing worked examples and preparing take-home instructions).

So, yes, turns out it *was* something of a busy year after all. And next year is shaping up to be more of the same, starting with a launch party for the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set next weekend, followed closely by our first full convention of the new year in a couple of week's time (OrcaCon), where I'll be running two games and appearing on five panels!

It's also been a very rewarding year in terms of feedback from players and Keepers and the ongoing development of strong working relationships. I've met some wonderful people, run some very entertaining games, played in some very entertaining games, and visited some wonderful places in order to do so. I see no reason why 2019 won't bring more of the same, and I sincerely hope it does.

And with that, dear reader, I wish you a safe and prosperous New Year. Be good or, as my late Great Aunt used to say, if you can't be good, be careful. (To which I add: or just don't get caught!)

Almost All Done Bar the Shouting

Well, here we are in December, so that means it's time to write November's blog post. But first, I need to remind myself what I wrote in October's ramblings...

Right: sorted. The thing with writing my blog post just after the previous month has finished means I have to remember what I did and didn't say, and what accidentally may have slipped in as a preview. I was pretty well behaved about that last time around, so that's all good.

November, as pretty much every other month this year has been, was another busy one: editing, proofing and art direction for more Call of Cthulhu goodies (including the upcoming Pulp campaign A Cold Fire Within by Christopher Smith Adair), helping out with style guidelines, writing reviews, attending conventions, and - of course - learning more hieroglyphics.

The main convention for November (Dragonmeet just snuck into December again this year) is Steampunks in Space: a marvelous gathering at the National Space Centre in Leicester. Full of all sorts of steampunk shenanigans, it's one of the few non-games cons I get to go to now. (Although saying it's a non-gaming con isn't strictly true, as I do run Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks there during the weekend.)

As always, we had many highly entertaining demo games, from regulars coming back for another installment in their ongoing adventures, to complete novices just wanting to learn what it's all about. Even more wonderful this year was the three generation family who came along to chat to us about how much fun they'd had with the game when they tried it a couple of years ago, and the gentleman who'd played in a demo game at Ludorati in Nottingham over a year ago who'd tracked us down to get hold of a copy of the book!

Speaking of games cafes, Newcastle now has it's very own one: Meeple Perk. Not that I've had chance to actually play any games there yet, but it's in a very convenient location, meaning that I get to pop in on my way home from hieroglyphics on a Wednesday night for a fortifying cup of coffee. The proprietors - Drew and Rhi - are long-time gamers and lovely people, and the cafe is very cosy and welcoming. Watch this space for more about them next month. (Probably...)

And that's probably all I can really say about work for November - there are some very interesting things bubbling along just below the surface, but apart from turning my hand to some exploratory research for the updated edition of Cthulhu by Gaslight, there really isn't anything else I can tell you for... reasons. (Some because they haven't been announced yet, others because they're really only vaguely formed ideas and hopes at this stage.)

Until next time...

Transatlantic Tea Party

We're back from Indianaoplis now (mostly awake, but not entirely), and I'm pleased to report that we had a fabulous time. Not only did the game sell well, but we also met some fantastic people.

I got to run an impromptu demo for two very lovely non-gamer steampunk ladies, who were so taken with it that they bought the game! As Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks was partly written with these kind of ladies in mind, I was absolutely thrilled to bits.

I also got to discuss the potential for Space Mounties with two smashing Canadians, chat to the fantastic Liz Spain (whose Incredible Expeditions is currently on Kickstarter - please do go and take a peek!), and finally got to meet one of our first and most enthusiastic supporters, the wonderful Donna Prior.

Not only that, but we set ourselves a little cosplaying goal over the course of the convention. As the tagline for the game is "Tea! Cake!! Adventure!!!", we decided that we'd have to find ourselves two very special cosplayers...

Tea! Cake!! Adventure Time!!! With Jake the Dog...

And Finn the Human!

Yes, we know it's daft, but we're very proud of ourselves, and both lads were quite happy to indulge our silliness.

Indianapolis Ahoy!

(Photo courtesy of Shadow Caver, www.city-data.com)

It's time for the tea and cake to make it's way Stateside for the next week, as Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks makes its debut at Gen Con, one of the biggest gaming coventions in the world.

We're very excited, as it's nearly two decades since I was last there with Nightfall Games and Wizards of the Coast. It may have moved cities, but I expect it to be just as hectic and entertaining as ever it was!

And don;t tell anyone, but there are rumours that the infamous tea-pot fez will also be making an appearance...

Sky High!

Never ones to rest on our laurels, we are very pleased to announce that the first supplement for Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks is available from RPGNow.

Atlantis: City in the Clouds takes you to that marvellous miracle of the steam age, Her Majesty's Flying Steam City Atlantis. Hovering far above the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantis is the pride of the British Empire, ranked alongside India as one of Her Majesty's greatest treasures. Home to myriad businesses and personalities, Atlantis (better known as "The Cog" to its inhabitants), is the perfect place to explore new horizons and seek high* adventure.

The sourcebook contains:

• Insight into the history and construction of Brunel and Stephenson’s engineering marvel, HMFSC Atlantis
• Details on the layout of the city and its environs, including notable businesses and personalities
• A full-length adventure of sky-high intrigue set aboard The Cog
• Six pregenerated characters ready for you to pick up and play
• Even more Attributes to help build your own adventurers in the Empire of Steam
• Thrilling steampunk art by Kit Cox

So grab your Earl Grey - it's time for High Tea!*

 

*And when we sasy "high", we really mean it!

A Spot of Tiffin

Tomorrow should be a very interesting day for Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks, as we're off to Hartlepool's Historic Quay for Tiffin on the Trinc!

Picture courtesy of IAIN, the International Association of Institutes of Navigation.

HMS Trincomalee is a beautiful old girl, with quite the history. A Leda-class frigate, she was actually obsolete by the time they'd finished building her, leading to her spending most of her life either mothballed or acting as a training ship. She is now the oldest British warship still afloat, thanks to her unusual teak construction (most warships of the time were made of oak).

Lovingly restored over the last twenty years or so by a charitable trust, you can imagine how excited we are to be running taster demo games on board this gorgeous ship, surrounded by fellow steampunks and probably quite a few bemused members of the public!

The historic quay opens at 10am, and Tiffin on the Trinc officially opens at midday, with legendary graphic novellist Bryan Talbot firing the noon-day gun. If you can make it along, we'd love to see you!

Time Flies...

It's been a busy old week here at the Cake Factory, with lots of social media promotion for the game, as well as the paper version making its debut on Modiphius Entertainment's stand at the UK Games Expo.

So far, there have been over a thousand downloads of our free preview version, and the full game was at No.6 in the download charts (I would make a Prisoner-themed joke, but it wouldn't quite work seeing as only the first full chapter of the game is free), and is currently sitting at No.33 in RPGNow's Top 100 games. Not bad after only a week, eh?

And last night, way after this humble author's usual bedtime, I was chatting to Dan and friends at the Harboiled GMshoe's Office about the game and its influences, the Victorian space race, dinosaurs as player characters, how to handle supernatural elements and whether or not you could play at superheroes with the system. Dan is a very gracious host, and asked some very challenging questions which I hope my sleep-addled brain managed to answer fully and coherently!

Drum Roll, Please!

If you're going to do something, it's best to make sure you do it properly. And I'm very pleased to announce that, after a few years of polishing, refining, and stalking some wonderful artists (in the friendliest way possible, of course), myself and Modiphius Entertainment are pleased to announce that Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks is available for your delectation and delight from those fine purveyors of all things gamery: RPG Now (click on this to go straight to its sales page).

With lovely artwork by his High Tea-ness, Dr Geof, additional squiggles by my good husband, Mr. Richard Hardy, and beautifully laid out by that dedicated gent, Mr Michal Cross, we do hope that you'll find the game as much fun to play as it was to write and test.

I'd also like to thank everyone who helped with that testing and supported us during the early days - I think I managed to get all of your names into the Acknowledgements!

Mecha Chickens Not Included

When I'm writing for conventions, I often like to have scenarios that are linked to the place the game is being run. Lincoln was no exception and I did quite a bit of research to try and find a local hook for the story. Providence was again smiling because George Boole, the father of Boolean logic (and therefore of modern computing) was born in Lincoln and ran several schools there. The castle at Lincoln is also fascinating, having been used as a gaol during the Victorian period. And then, of course, there was The Lawn...
After a bit of cogitation, the seed for the scenario developed under its own steam. I also like to make sure that if I'm writing a detective style scenario, I have several people who could have done it. That way, I can reuse the scenario, giving it a slightly different twist each time. It worked very well for a scenario I used to run for Pelgrane Press at conventions; every time it aired someone different was the murderer, so you could actually play the same game more than once and still get something new from it. The Lincoln game was constructed to have three possible outcomes, all based on the same core background.

I ran the new scenario twice at Lincoln over the weekend, first for a group of experienced roleplayers and then for two newcomers (ably assisted by some more experienced hands we've gamed with for years in an LRP capacity). The version used for the first session was one of the two slightly more complex iterations of the story. There were quite a few technical challenges to running it that were beyond our control, but all in all it went well and proved that the idea was a sound one. The players quickly came on board with the system and seemed to thoroughly enjoy decorating their cakes before we got going. Not that the cakes had anything really to do with the story, but it was a fun thing to do (there was multi-coloured icing sugar, hundreds & thousands and silver balls!).

For the second session, I reverted to the first and much simpler version of the tale. The two young ladies who joined us were absolute naturals and really jumped into the game whole-heartedly. The technical difficulties of the day before were overcome by a change of venue and there was much hilarity, especially when the group decided that a well educated giant mecha chicken was probably responsible for all of the shenanigans in old Lincoln town. Well, that, or Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss. It wasn't, more's the pity, but it was a rather fun idea. Again, the group neatly solved the puzzle with minimum hinting from me.

The highlight of this game for me was that one of the young ladies wanted to set up her own group at home to play it because she'd enjoyed herself so much. You can't ask for more than that.

The Asylum

Some days it feels as if we're all living in one, but The Asylum is a fantastic steampunk convention that will be taking place in Lincoln over the weekend of 10-12th September 2010.

We'll be running Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks at the Asylum (possibly in a prison cell, no less!) on Saturday & Sunday afternoon. Each session will be for between 4-6 people. We'll also be selling a newly updated and expanded version of the game for a very measly sum at the Dicken's & Rivett stall (who will also be selling PixiePunk Designs jewellery). Jon Hodgson's wonderful design will be on the cover, lovingly tweaked by Terry Lightfoot.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that Saturday's game may also have an extra special touch to it. At the very least, I'll be baking something delicious to take along. After all, gamers (especially Victorian steampunk ones) need cake!

New and Improved!

Yes, we too have succumbed to the whole new and improved fad. We've listened to our play testers (thank you!), added in a few of the tweaks we were saving for the final game but thought you'd enjoy anyway and put the whole brand-spanking updated version of the free game on the website for your perusal.

Not the best date in the world to pick for the rerelease, maybe, but there you go. We're British and we have an odd sense of humour ;)

The Continuing Adventures of...

It all went a bit quiet again, didn't it?

Since the free version went up, I've been beavering away on ammendments, additions and setting.
The section on HMFSC Atlantis is being massively expanded (it was always bigger in the full version, but its going to be a lot bigger than I'd originally planned to make it a really useful setting) and I've been tweaking a few rules based on some of the feedback I got from the play-test and from the forums. There's also a big chapter on Victorian trailblazers and nutters to act as imspiration and drop-in characters and there's a bit at the end with stats for all the major characters mentioned in the game to date (the whole chapter currently runs at 36 people and there will be at least the same again for Atlantis). I've also included some sample attributes in the character creation section.

I'm currently toying with ways to advance characters (possibly optional, depending on what your view is on that) and I'll give everything a test at Conpulsion in Edinburgh at the end of March. I'm officially running one game on the Sunday morning, but I will be about for a games on demand type thing. If you're in the area, please pop by to say hello.

Now to finish writing that scenario!

Now Available...

The free version of the game is finally up! Apologies again for the delay, but it can be found here at our fledgling website.

Bear with us on the design of that, like the game its still a work in progress...

The Thief of Time

You know what its like; all your best intentions go to pot because real life gets in the way. Not just real life, extra research on something you're not overly fond of (hello, 19th century politics!). I had hoped to have the free version of the game up about two weeks ago, but events (and 19th century politics) conspired against me. Still, to be honest, that extra two weeks has allowed me to put a final bit of polish on the basic game, add in a few things that I hadn't intended to originally (but actually make the narrative flow much more smoothly) and tidy up a few rough edges. It was hard not writing a (mostly) definitive guide to women's fashion of the day, but that may well make an appearance in the full version somewhere.

Looking at it, I think one of the things I'm most pleased with are the timelines. There's a huge amount of information in them and hopefully they'll act as a spark of inspiration for people sorting out their own adventures.  If not, we are planning on writing scenarios as well as the main rules.

So, fingers crossed, it will be going up online somewhere this weekend, all being well. I'll keep you posted.

Monkeying with the Formula

After the playtest in the deep snow of early January, the feedback suggested more information on the social and political set-up might be rather nice. You know, just in case not everyone interested in the game was a science geek (hard as that might be to believe).

So I have been researching, piecing together yet more fragments and attempting to knit another alternative history. Its been much more tricky than the engineering section, which positively lept into place of its own volition.

I had hoped to have a free version of the game finished by tonight; a basic version of the rules (only minimally adapted from the playtest) with a few crumbs of background separated into Cogs (science and engineering), Cakes (social and artistic) and Swordsticks (politics and war) sections. This layout was suggested by Jean and makes perfect sense within the context of the game (thank you, Jean).

However, wading through the politics of Europe in the mid to late 1800s has proved too much for one night. I don't want to sicken myself with it, so I feel that a nice soak in some decadent bubbles may well be in order to revive my flagging inspiration.

Still, by the end of the week, prepare for news  of where you can grab the free version. The general idea is that you'll download it, read it and test it to destruction so that when it does finally make it to a saleable PDF, its worth shelling out some money for!

The Proof Being in the Pudding

The first playtest of the game took place amidst blizzards in the tranquil and very pretty setting of Derbyshire. Sadly, this meant that we were missing two of the expected players, but we did still have a very respectable four victims, ahem, testers.

R. had volunteered to run the game to see if his system design would work, so I would be playing. We had two other experienced roleplayers, N. and J., and a complete novice, A. It had been decided that we wouldn't use the background that I'd written but a more familiar one. This would mean that only the rules were being tested, not all of it. Yes, spot the scientists at work here - we're only testing one variable :)

The background we would be using is detailed here on the Company's home page. I would be playing my old favourite Isabel, N. would be playing Prof Wilson, and J. would be playing Miss Forsythe. As for A., he bravely volunteered to play Wilson's sidekick Lacy. It proved to be rather a different interpretation of the character to the one we all knew and loved!

Character creation proved to be very quick and easy for the experienced players who knew their characters and what would suit them. It was trickier for A. who didn't know either the character or much about table-topping, so we gave him a hand. It still took only about ten minutes to create four characters. Each character ended up with 3 skills, one of which was their primary. All of the skills were given appropriate, fun names to give a sense of character (inspired by Spirit of the Century)

As a final touch, R. asked if there were any features that the players wanted to see during the game. J. wanted a tea party and chickens, N. wanted dinosaurs/giant crabs and I wanted sky pirates. Well who wouldn't? The adventure would be entitled "Crimson to the Core"...

The story opened with the Prof requesting certain maps from Miss Forsythe, who obligingly took Isabel up to Loch Ness with her in order to deliver said maps. The Prof had toddled up to Scotland in his submarine with Lacy and had nonchalantly parked Loch-side. The ladies were subsequently invited on board for dinner, having learnt that the Prof was in search of diamond-like crystals that could be burned cleanly and efficiently. These just happened to be found in Africa, an area Isabel is very familiar with, having been raised there.

Whilst the group were dining, there was a very strange occurrence; the submarine, despite being moored, was apparently moving. At first, thoughts ran to being swallowed by the Monster, but having discovered an anaesthetising gas flooding the corridors, all agreed that we were being hijacked. The characters decided that an evacuation was required, so headed for the handy mole-machine that just happened to be stored in the cargo bay of the submarine.

But all was not safe, as those dastardly Men in Smoked Glasses were there trying to booby-trap the machine! Still, Lacy and the Prof gave them a sound drubbing and the characters soon strapped themselves in ready for escape. Yes, they suspected that the sub was currently being hoisted through the air under a Zeppelin, but the Prof assured them that the machine could withstand such drops if required.

Well, it sort of did. The plummet out of the back of the submarine was rather impressive, if panic-stricken, but thanks to Lacy's primary skill of "Drive 'Owt", the machine landed nose-cone first, burrowing rapidly into the earth. To determine this, A. rolled a single d6, adding +3 for his skill. R. then compared this to a difficulty table (nice and simple) to see if he succeeded, which thankfully he did. Not that the characters noticed, as they were all knocked unconscious by the impact.

When they woke, the mole-machine was tunneling away nicely, but with broken dials it was impossible to tell how far down the craft had gone. It then began to break into strange voids, which led to a bit more panic. But only a bit, as they were all Victorians and being terribly proper. What caused more consternation was the greenery in each of the voids...

Finally, Lacy and the Prof managed to regain control of the mole-machine, bringing it to a halt on the edge of a massive, verdant void. Thankfully, the chickens proved that the air was breathable by graciously not dying when the doors were opened. The Prof decided that he must stay and fix the machine, but that the others should explore.

The ladies, accompanied by Lacy, made their way across lush grass, through a mushroom forest and across a pavement of broken dressed stone to reach a mighty ziggurat. The light in the void appeared to be coming from the myriad of magical crystals embedded in the ceiling of the cavern. On the wall surrounding the ziggurat there was a clam shell and trident motif, which caused more consternation and some mumbling about Atlantis as Miss Forsythe recalled seeing the motif in a book somewhere (her primary skill).

The ziggurat was in a bit of a state, which allowed the group entry into the building. The inner walls were covered with the Prof's crystals and an open sarcophagus lay at the bottom of the tomb. The corpse was wearing very silly wingy armour, but the characters were more interested in the sudden arrival of a T. rex outside, which rather interrupted their transcribing the hieroglyphs in the tomb. Thankfully the creature fell asleep, so the characters affected an escape. Which didn't work. Because a clumsy librarian dropped her photographic plates and made a bit of a clatter.

Funnily enough, the T. rex woke up and decided to charge. Its at times like these that you're glad you've brought along a big game huntress who, by rolling a natural 6, managed to peg the brute right in its beady little eyeball, bringing it crashing to her feet in a most satisfyingly cinematic manner.

Not long after the Prof arrived in the mole-machine, alerted by the rather odd noises he'd heard. He and Lacy stripped several box loads of crystals from the walls before disturbing rather a lot of irate mechanical crab creatures. The party were forced to flee in the mole machine, taking out another T. rex on the way. That removed a few of the crabs from the body-work, but one little blighter managed to gain entry, attacking Lacy as he navigated the vehicle back up through the rocks. Removal of the glowing crystal from its back caused the little thing to fall to pieces, which the Prof gathered for later examination.

The adventure finished rather unfortunately in many ways; despite having escaped dinosaurs and marauding mechanicals, the mole-machine decided to re-enter London via Harrods Food Hall. Funnily enough, the Police weren't impressed, promptly arresting the Prof, Miss Forsythe and Isabel as they attempted, rather forlornly, to explain matters. The mole-machine was last seen breaking through the Police station walls, as Lacy executed a daring rescue of his compatriots...

In terms of the rules, we were all surprised by how many failures we had. The system is theoretically skewed more towards success, but that didn't stop some cringingly bad dice rolls from causing some high drama. Still, they came through when we needed them; the first roll of the game was A. rolling "Drive 'Owt" to make sure the mole-machine landed nose first and he got a natural 6! I also got natural 6s both times it was critical to succeed (the dinosaur shot and disarming the crab).

Everyone enjoyed themselves and the game lent itself very nicely to the pulp style of play I was aiming at when writing it. Several useful suggestions were made, too. It was felt that the skills were a bit too broad in their usage and that they needed tightening up to prevent potential abuse, with examples of skills provided that could act as templates for the development of unique ones. It was also suggested that some mechanism for character development could be included. The other suggestions made were related to potential scenario structure, further background information and layout of the contents.

And now, to the corrections, fleshing out the background and writing some scenarios. The game will probably appear in two formats now: a free pdf containing the rules and some historical/setting information and a much larger pdf containing a great deal more detail and setting that will be available for sale (probably via Etsy).

Watch this space...

History belongs to the Victors

She had been researching on the Tinterweb and fondly reminiscing about the days when you actually had to get up and go to a library full of actual books. She liked books, very much in fact, but this whole Aetheric Net thing did make life a lot easier. Especially when she had a history to rewrite.

The research was one of the things she enjoyed the most; the careful sifting through the facts, piecing together the clues, watching as the fragmented reality came together as a coherent whole. Some times the work was slow and painful. At other times, it was exhilarating, with all of the pieces positively throwing themselves into place.

So, the game was to be set in the Empire of Steam, an age of great discovery and advance. And without the work of one man, the age would never have seen the light of day. The timeline would diverge from her own in 1834; Charles Babbage, hater of street musicians, would leave the disappointments of his difference engine behind, and with the assistance of the Countess Lovelace, would triumphantly produce his analytical engine.

Add to this the engineering genius of George Stephenson who, with the aid of the Babbage engines, has effectively created an anti-gravity steam engine. And then there's Stephenson's son, Robert and his collaboration with the greatest engineer of them all, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, at the behest of Her Majesty the Queen (Huzzah!).

And just what are the Hudson's Space Company and Jules Verne up to in the wilds of the newly formed Canada? What about that fellow Edison, with his shifty eye and light fingers? Some chap called Tesla, too, with talk of this new-fangled electricity.

Just don't get me started on what Commodore Perry found when he got to Japan...

Act 1, Scene 3: An Interesting Development

They both agreed that the rules looked simple enough; in fact, with just three stats and a profession to choose, players were more likely to take all night thinking up a name than creating their characters. Once she'd thrashed out the rest of the basics, she knew she'd have to pop in a box or two with some skill suggestions, but that wouldn't be a problem.


In keeping with fun and respected games such as Spirit of the Century, they would encourage evocative skill names, ones that would help to express the overall personality of the character. They would also encourage the GM to support creative skill usage by the players (providing they could flannel for <insert name of relevant country of origin here>).

But what about character progression? Neither of them really wanted XP (despite all the nostlagic coo-ing over Dragon Age and its retro dungeon-bashing hilarity), but both agreed that characters are far more entertaining when they have the space to grow and develop.


So they talked, and after many cups of coffee and some rather interesting maple and pecan galletes, they decided that players should be able to change skills, within reason and as long as they exhibited some imaginative flair. And narrated a montage scene, complete with soundtrack (if necessary; but then a good montage scene demands a good soundtrack, don't you think?).

This may play in to the hands of power-gamery types, but then, power-gamers will subvert anything and everything to their own ends eventually. They intended it to allow character flexibility and enjoyment, rather than the rigid straigh-jacketing of a leopard never allowed to change its spots.

So, not including a small box for a sample character (and the tables yet to be created), the entire rules with examples took up about 6 sides of A4. Possibly not as few as the inestimable Ghostbusters game, but then, she was using Book Antiqua 12, not tiddly-widdly font.

And next, the background; a few more facts to check before monkeying with them, then onwards and upwards into the Empire of Steam and Her Majesty's Flying Steam City Atlantis...

Act 1, Scene 2: Alarums and Diversions

They stared at each other. Which system should they use? Should they attempt to create their own from scratch, or should they avoid reinventing the wheel when so many others before them had tried and, quite frequently, failed?

He had always been a huge fan of the d6 system (West End Games). She usually gave up reading games when it got to the rules (numbers were a necessary evil, as far as she was concerned). What about an adaptation of the new Dr Who system (characteristic + skill + dice roll to beat a difficulty)? She quite fancied pulling little cards out of a bag (she was keeping the idea of sparkly, collectible beads for a sparkly vampire series that will remain nameless game) - nice and unambiguous and great fun when used within the Company and League. Only slight problem there: would people honestly be bothered to cut out all of the little cards? It would be even better if you could use the cake system from Company, except that would involve people baking tiny fairy cakes prior to every game. Highly inkeeping with the spirit of the piece, but something of a faff if you intended to play on a regular basis. Wouldn't do your figure much good, either...


He pointed out, quite succinctly, that gamers love dice. Glancing at her gigantic dice collection, she found it hard to disagree. So dice it would be. But how many and what shape?


(Section deleted as the author's eyes glazed over during the explanation of what the statistics were doing in terms of probabilities and the like. This, she thought, is exactly why she keeps her husband, so she doesn't have to worry about such matters).


In the end, they decided to go for three skills and a single six-sided dice, largely inspired by 3:16 (Gregor Hutton), Over the Edge and Gumshoe (Robin D. Laws). And a difficulty table, but a nice easy one with small numbers.

(And it means she gets to use her lovely steampunk dice that she bought at Dragonmeet)