Any Source Is Gameable

 Reposted from Issue #2 of The Neverending Drachenschwanz, an FKR fanzine.

Meta NPCs - Reusing My Favorites Across Game Worlds

I have found, as an evergreen referee, that I'd much rather pilot NPCs than play a proper character in an ongoing campaign. I've mentioned this before, but as I consider today's topic, it is especially relevant. 

NPCs are skeleton keys to the campaign world for referees. They are direct representations of tropes, themes, needs, and wants that you (if you're running a game) want to convey to the players to make the setting come alive. I'd rather spend three hours playing a dozen+ NPCs than a single, titular character. I've learned this over time. It remains my staple experience in adventure games. 

This is brief preamble for my sharing with you my Meta NPCs. That is, my favorite NPCs that show up in just about all of my games regardless of genre or setting (tailored to fit, as necessary). I've lived with these characters in my head for years now, and they always bounce around when I daydream some idea or another. Some were spawned originally in my 5e games, and others elsewhere. All of them have been a blast to drop in and out of my various tables.

Weird West, or Some Hoot-Hollerin' Hijinks for Weird North

Mood Music

Far from the titanium citadels of the Necrothanes, the unblinking gaze of the Blood Moor obelisks, and the shadow of the dinomancer-ridden Dank Tower, a tumbleweed ambles like an aimless toddler across sun-choked plains of brittle soil. The world has changed so many times, shedding its skin like a desert rattler. What is old is new, what is new is old, and nothing is saved from the long finger of the weird. 

Falls of the Colorado Chiquito

Weird North is a setting. It is a cracked world. An old world. A new world. A place somewhere in the acid fantasy dreams of Jack Vance's cat who had to put up with years of listening to the author prattle on just so. Weird North is a cheater's setting, to be entirely honest. It makes sense in consistent meta terms, at least as far as shared history or global effects and parameters are concerned, but it is still a cheat. A cheat, because frankly neither I nor my players really care that everything must make perfect sense. Perhaps some call this gonzo, perhaps some call this amateur. Perhaps, well, perhaps I don't have much vested interest in what most folks think about my mental gymnastics. The Post/Post/Post Apocalyptic genre is a toolkit and sandbox fit for the kings of recess playgrounds and Saturday morning cartoons. It is, at least, useful for my daydreams.

Faction Procedures + Dolmenwood Example

Sandboxes tend to imply factions, but faction play is sometimes a boogeyman for open world games. Should it be subtle, just a thought? Should it be a tracked rubric of needs and wants, like a private rumor table with bonuses? Should it be a complex system of rolls and resources, like a solitaire Matrix game the referee plays behind the screen on off-hours? Well, it ought to be something if merely to add some variability to whatever sociopolitical forces prop up the flavor of the setting. 

d66 Star Wars Background Loadouts Adapted from Edge of the Empire

Like I did for Cairn via Old School Essentials, I've adapted here thirty-six backgrounds selected from the greater Edge of the Empire RPG for use in general Star Wars games (specifically, for my purposes, Galaxy Far Away). If using the latter, follow character creation as normal, including random starting items, but also roll d66 (or choose) to determine a background with a unique beginning loadout. The background is a narrative "career" of sorts and should inform gameplay, but its not a shackle and obviously you can go and pew pew (or not) to your choosing. There are no mechanics or modifiers or any such thing tied to the items listed here. It's all keywords and interpretation. Flavor, yo.

Obi-Wan gets it.

RPGs with Kids, 6: Prepare for RAMMING SPEED

The game: Any Planet Is Earth

The players: Ted, my kid son (playing Miles, two-term expedtionary). Brian, my older brother (playing Chet Lancaster, three-term expeditionary, two-term mercantile). Nate, my kid nephew (playing Blaze, five-term military). 

The situation: Dornami Station, at the edge of a long trade lane, is evacuating due to a sudden solar shift in the system's star, dooming everyone on board with an imminent supernova.

The complication: The player's are dead-broke and want to hijack the expensive med supplies in the storage complex but are being forced to leave by the private security firm running the station.

The scheme: Leverage guile, lateral thinking, and a bit of gumption to score and leave without a bust (or a blast, ahem).

Ben Nicholas - Artstation

Ponderings on Any Planet Is Earth v2

At the time of writing this, I've sold just over 400 copies of Any Planet Is Earth (with about 4,800 downloads). That's small beans, to be sure, in the world of publishing, even in the indie/niche corner of the RPG hobby, but I only ever wanted to release it because it's what I want to run. That said, I am warmed by it's name popping up from time to time on reviews or threads or discussions, and getting messages from strangers and close peers alike who like it a lot and have riffed about with it on their own time. That's neat.

I've had a "second edition" in mind for a while now since it's original release back in June of 2020. My original timeline was a release earlier this year before the arrival of Spring 2021, but then I had another kid and bought a house. There goes 6+ months of so-called free time. C'est la vie.

Jeff Woodman