Compromise and Conceit

Infernal adventuring…

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An Australian statistician and role-player living in Japan, interested in the theory and practice of role-playing…

Category: Gaming material

  • Mutant Interlude: Visions of the Apocalypse

    And she will come from India with a love in her eyes That say oh how my dark star will rise In rented gear two thousand years we waited for a man But with a whispered plea she’d die for us all tonight. And she will come from India with a gun at her side,…

  • Mutant Year Zero: Fast-paced Post-Apocalyptic Brilliance

    I am up to session 6 of a short campaign using Mutant:Year Zero, a post-apocalyptic RPG from the Free League, a Swedish mob whose games I had never heard of before I stumbled on Mutant. This game is apparently 30 years old – I’m playing the 30 year anniversary edition – and I guess it…

  • Using Direct and Indirect Spells in Shadowrun

    During a moment of sudden frenzied violence in yesterday’s Shadowrun adventure our wizard character Adam Lee deployed an indirect mana attack spell for a grand total of only 2 or 3 points of damage. Immediately afterward our opponent – a russian Shadowrunner mage – dropped an indirect attack spell on me that something like 8…

  • Mutant Year Zero: The Ark

    I have just begun GMing a short post-apocalyptic campaign using the Mutant: Year Zero system. Before adventure begins the system requires the PCs – who play mutants – generate their safe haven, which is called the Ark. This is a brief description of the Ark from which the PCs will begin their adventure. Zone location…

  • Barbarians of Lemuria: Fast-paced Barbaric Fun

    Late last year I ran a one-off session of Barbarians of Lemuria, a simple and stripped down sword and sorcery RPG. The session report for that adventure is here. Barbarians of Lemuria is intended to provide rules for sword and sorcery adventuring in the style of Conan, the Lankhmar series, and Thongor, in a light…

  • Spiral Confederacy Interlude: The Story so Far

    [GM Note: This is not a session report but an update on what the PCs have learnt over the past 9 sessions, and the final plans for how they will end the campaign and what part they will play in bringing together the threads of what appears to be a galaxy-spanning plot by AIs to…

  • Grunt Rules for Traveler

    My Spiral Confederacy campaign is heading towards its conclusion, which means bigger battles and more annoying enemies, which (just as happened in Cyberpunk) inevitably requires rules for handling minions. Combat in Traveler tends to be quick and brutal but it also involves a lot of tricky management of attributes and penalties as the damage grinds…

  • Fate Character: Naevia the Holy

    My group has started a Fate short campaign that we’re calling Magica Romae, a campaign set in the Roman era with light magic. I missed the first session, in Gaul, with undead; my character joins on the second. She is Naevia the Holy, once a Vestal Virgin who finished her 30 years of service with…

  • What a Remarkable Coincidence!

    I have begun a new campaign with a new group, playing The One Ring. This is Cubicle 7’s Middle Earth role playing game, which seems to have been broadly well-received and is certainly a thoughtful and beautiful work. We’re playing on Wednesday nights for about 3 hours, and so far we’ve only managed to complete…

  • VTM Characters: Johnny Falco and the Vampire Queen

    [This is a guest post by one of my group’s players, Eddie, about his Vampire characters] Lady Ashira (Elder) A protecting mother, a lover of beauty, self involved survivor. “ The most beautiful people are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.…