EPISODE NEIN: Jeek and Ye Shall Find

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Trapped on a dinosaur-infested desert island in the Hollow Earth (possibly), our heroes engage a squad of Nazi soldiers and scientists, fresh off their U-boat transport, in order to steal (or trash) their "weather control" device.

Dick (Kevin's ex-G-man-turned-private eye) and Freya (Clare's photojournalist) casually questioned the two captured scientists, Mikel and his assistant Hans. After initial resistance, Mikel decided he owed no loyalty to his now-deceased paymasters and sang like a canary.

Admitting he had no idea how the U-boat had ended up in "the hollow earth", he explained that they had been sailing into the Atlantic to test the weather control device, with the plan to eventually disrupt shipping lanes. However, before they even got to test it there was a violent disruption in the sea and they arrived here.

Mikel believed everyone had debarked from the U-boat, except possibly a few engineers, and he also said he had no idea where the map had come from or why it was written in English.

Studying the gorgeous, detailed map, we all realised that we had no idea where we were on it, so as pretty as it was, for the moment it was useless.

The map*

Pete got a giant-sized copy of the map printed for us to fawn over and study

Rather than sitting around waiting to become velociraptor chow, we headed off in the jungle, following the stone path/road that the blue-skinned natives had disappeared down in pursuit of stray Nazis.

Buck (my explorer) took point, followed by Dick, the two scientists (with bound wrists) and Freya bringing up the rear.

Freya pointed out that the road design resembled that of ancient structures seen in South America, rather than the more classical Roman designs of Europe.

We cautiously followed the road for an hour before suddenly ahead of us an enormous feline creature crossed the track ahead of us in the shadow of the overhanging branches. 

Approaching the site, we found it had left a large paw print, about lion-sized, in the mud.

Now even more alert, but getting a bit tired and hungry, we continued until the road curved to the left and Freya heard human voices, conversing in a language she couldn't fully understand. 

While Dick stayed back with the prisoners, Freya and I advanced around the corner to discover a village of Asian design, built around an old crossroads, populated by people who appeared to be from both South America and the First Nations.

The village

Cautious, but friendly, they approached us and Freya - our linguist - was able to explain who we were.

We learned that the village was concerned for a missing young girl, Jeek, and we agreed to help her brothers, Hom and Ket, track her down.

Dick was introduced to the tribe and Freya clarified that Mikel and Hans were members of a "hostile tribe" and our "prisoners of war". They were put in the care of two sturdy matrons and, after a hearty meal, the rest of us headed off towards the ruins that Hom and Ket believed Jeek had been heading towards.

Following a gentle slope, and passing through a sudden monsoon, the entrance to the ruins was easily found, but Hom and Ket refused to go further into the crumbling, overgrown structures because of something they referred to as "the guardian".

Foot prints that could only have belonged to Jeek were spotted, but then - as other prints crossed her path - it became clear that she had started to run and eventually we lost her trail.

Advancing towards what was left of the old buildings, mostly reclaimed by the jungle, we all realised that through the main arch there were strange lights, the sounds of machinery and the faint smell of engine oil.

Entrance to the ruins

Before we could even make it to the archway, we stumbled across a family of enormous land crabs. The The trio of baby crabs scuttled away but mummy and daddy crab weren't so easily intimidated and violently defended their offspring.

Working as a unit**, we managed to - eventually - kill both of these armoured behemoths, and then made our way into the roofless ruins. 

There we discovered the source of the lights was some kind of mystical energy field over one of the main buildings, which is where Freya spotted the ancient, dried-up trail of what might possibly have been a giant slug.

TO BE CONTINUED...

* The map, and illustrations, and adventure come from a new game called Terra Incognita (a Hollow Earth/pulp game using the 5e Dungeons & Dragons mechanics), which Pete has been investing in. 

** For anyone who's kept up with my game-related waffles of late, it should be clear that I'm not a massive fan of dice pool systems and have found OUTGUNNED Adventures, for a game that presents itself as pulpy and rules-lite, to actually be surprisingly crunchy.

However, this month, Pete introduced us to some new talents that allowed our characters to work better with each other. For instance, if Clare failed a roll, she could pass dice on to another player (in our case, Kevin) while I could receive a bonus to my rolls if I saw another member of the group succeed (again, in our case, Kevin) .

Thus, our combats (although these rules can be applied to all skill checks, not just combat) became much more regimented and disciplined as we were all helping each other towards our joint goals.

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Seth Skorkowsky Reviews OUTGUNNED Adventure

Well-known and respected RPG YouTuber Seth Skorkowsky has reviewed OUTGUNNED Adventure, from Two Little Mice, the pulp-emulating system the Tuesday Knights are currently using in Pete's ongoing "weird science" campaign.

In his well-argued, half-hour piece, Seth gives a succinct summary of the game's ambitions, its style, and its mechanics, highlighting what works and what doesn't for his group. 

OUTGUNNED? No! Out Diced!!!

My newly arrived dice pool for Pete's OUTGUNNED Adventures campaign

Any excuse to buy more dice, right?

A contributing factor to my analysis paralysis the other day, when faced with a wall of beautiful new dice, was that I knew I'd already ordered nine "red blood splatter" d6s from the Dice Shop and they were on the way.

These have a specific gaming purpose. 

As I've made clear several times on this blog, one of the major issues I have with "dice pool mechanics" in roleplaying games is that they slow everything down when you're counting or collating or whatever you have to do with them.

Therefore I'm generally a fan of a single or double dice roll where you just look at the resulting number and "wallop" you've got your result.

The Tuesday Knights' current campaign is OUTGUNNED Adventures from Italy's Two Little Mice, which runs purely on dice pools. 

In recent sessions I realised - just after everyone else - that I was having issues with the "pips" on my six-siders and wasn't exactly as quick as I would have liked at picking out dice with identical numbers of spots on their top face.

Thus, it struck me that I needed dice with actual numbers written on them rather than spots. I had odd six-siders with numbers in my collection, but I really wanted a unified set of nine dice (the maximum size for a pool in OUTGUNNED).

Hence, my Dice Shop order.

I felt the blood splatter was appropriate as there does seem to be a lot of violence in our campaign.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Traveller

Loved this book so much that having worn out my original copy, I bought a second

I've spoken many times about one of the greatest roleplaying campaigns I was ever privileged enough to take part in: Nick's legendary multi-season Traveller game that began during our years together at school.

However, it wasn't Nick that actually introduced me to this beautifully streamlined games system, but rather Steve Grover, the teenaged mentor who'd opened my eyes to the delights of RPGs years before.

But just because I saw myself as a "bit of a writer" and was slinging dice with some wildly creative and incredibly smart people didn't mean my own contributions were that great or original.

I have a vivid memory of one of my earliest Traveller characters being called Boba Fett and being, essentially, the mysterious bounty hunter from The Empire Strikes Back (which was the freshest bit of Star Wars at the time).

The other day I was sorting out my old Traveller books and came across my original copy of Judges Guild's The Traveller Logbook (a brilliant collection of blank forms and random tables), which contained a character sheet for a PC that had totally slipped my mind: the imaginatively named Zephod Beeblebrox of America(!!!).

I definitely had "problems" with conjuring up sci-fi names back in the day (not saying I'm any better now, but these days I can do it "ironically").

The fact that old Zephod has a big red "X" over his sheet suggests he died during some escapade, which I have no record of.

However, his scrawled backstory - which mentions "being stranded on Jupiter for two years" - suggests this was a more Earth-centric game than the traditional Traveller set-up.

While I may have spent a lot of pre-secondary school years scratching together underground lairs and haunted islands for my friends to explore in Dungeons & Dragons, I think the elegance of Traveller's mechanics allowed for simple solo play more.

Hell, even rolling up a character in the original rules was pretty much an adventure itself... with PC death being a real possibility before you even grubbed up a seedy mission to earn yourself some credits. 

Sadly, I can't find any records of these chaotic, freeform Traveller games I ran for myself, although I suspect most involved shooting bad guys and trying to look 'Boba Fett cool' while doing it.

Then, Nick showed Pete, his brother Steve, and I how great a Traveller campaign could be.

Of course, I still played a borderline psychopath with a gun fetish, but mainly I enjoyed simply being in a group of gamers who were all invested in the wonderful universe our gamesmaster was weaving for us.

When Monopoly Becomes Handcrafted Art

As some of you may already be aware, a group of us play an almost monthly game of Monopoly - with every game utilising a different themed board from Pete's ever-expanding library of Monopoly variants.

This week's game was something a bit different though: we were using a Monopoly set that Pete had designed and constructed himself a quarter of a century ago, based upon his favourite annual sporting event: the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race (as captured in the classic Steve McQueen movie from 1971).

Last month Rachel, Clare, Pete, and I played the official Le Mans Monopoly set, but Pete's was in a different league, drawing directly from his decades of experience attending the event.

You can read all about it, and see plenty of photographs of Pete work of art, at our Monopoly Club blog here.

On her internationally renowned Three Beautiful Things blog, Clare wrote of the evening:

"Pete brings his own homemade Monopoly set and it's a stunner -- unique, handcrafted and thoughtfully built to a Le Mans theme with the finest artwork early 2000s clipart CDs can offer. It's very nostalgic, and with his own added context, much more interesting than some of the official sets we've been playing."

EPISODE EIGHT: Gunfight At The Blue Man Corral

The set-up

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Travelling from Bermuda to Mexico on a tramp steamer, our heroes are caught up in a storm and end up shipwrecked on a mysterious island where the sun seems frozen overhead. On the tropical island there are hungry flesh-eating dinosaurs and, of course, Nazis!

Hidden behind an ancient stone wall, down a slope from the forest treeline, our heroes - my explorer, Buck, Clare's photojournalist Freya, and Kevin's former G-Man, Dick - spy a collection of German soldiers on a beach ... behind them is a U-boat.

Some of them are helping a couple of scientists set up a strange electrical generator device with a peculiar dish on it pointing to the sky.

Elsewhere a couple of guards with vicious Doberman Pinschers were tormenting a handful of primitive locals that had been corralled into a makeshift pen. As far as we could tell these locals, dressed in basic animal hides, were blue-skinned, simian-faced humanoids.

Scary German guard dog

Finally, off near the ruined huts that had presumably once been home to the locals, an officer had set up a table so he could spread out a strange map for study. Apparently he couldn't make any sense of it.

Freya overheard the scientists discussing the bizarre device they were working on and managed to translate the phrase "weather control device".

We cooked up a basic plan between us and then Buck slipped back into the treeline, found a good sniping position and opened fire on the so-called weather control device.

It sparked, causing chaos amongst the Germans huddled around it, with several turning to see where the bullet had come from.

Dick opened fire with his brace of pistols from behind the wall, while Freya bravely slipped round the back of the Nazi encampment to free the locals.

She charged at the jerry-rigged "prison" and managed to bring it down with a single, stylish kick. 

In the ensuing battle the air was thick with bullets from both sides. Dick got winged a couple of times while I methodically sniped from my hidden location - at one stage severely wounding three Nazis with a single shot!  

German bodies were dropping left, right, and centre.

The ape-men swarmed the last guard, pummelled him into the ground and then chased others fleeing into the surrounding forest.

Mid-combat (NB. the 'dinghy' counter is actually the 'weather control device'

The scientists cut their losses and bolted towards a dinghy on the shore to take them back to the U-boat, but Dick managed to bring them down, while Freya took the dead general's map... but quickly realised she wasn't going to be able to decipher it either.

In the aftermath of the battle, we dragged the scientists back into the trees, with the idea that Dick and Freya would interrogate them about whatever was going on. 

We all took a look at the map but it meant nothing to any of us at first glance... except that, maybe, the writing was similar to that we had seen in Atlantis.

Unfortunately, by the time we made it back to our original location in the forest, our last surviving crewman, the injured Bob, had succumbed to the ravages of passing velociraptors. 

As Dick and Freya got ready to work (good cop, bad cop) on the wounded and scared scientists, Buck began to dig a grave for Bob.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE TUESDAY KNIGHTS!!!

Today is the 18th anniversary of our gaming group, the Tuesday Knights. Our first meeting took place in the dining room of our old house on August 19, 2008, when I ran the debut session of a Castles & Crusades campaign for Nick, Pete, and Clare.

This was the first role-playing game I'd actually run for over a decade. I'd bottled out of running games several times since I'd come out of hospital in 2005 and was still very anxious about whether my health (both physically and mentally) would be up to the challenge.

In retrospect, one of the biggest mistakes I made in those early days was getting distracted by the "new shiny", switching systems to Labyrinth Lord and then grinding the game into the ground, so someone else had to run something instead.

If I could travel back to 2008, I'd tell my younger self to have faith and stick with Castles & Crusades. Who knows, if that had been the case, would we still be playing that campaign now? How incredible would that be?

In the 18 years since that fateful day, our pool of potential players has blossomed, while Pete, Clare and I remain the consistent core. We were joined by Kevin, who has become another constant around the table, Steve, Simon, Meredith, Erica, Mark and, most recently, Mark's daughter, Rebecca.

While other demands on their time have seen Nick, Steve, Simon, Meredith, Erica  and Rebecca step away from the group, and Mark has temporarily had to retire on health grounds (but is very keen to return), we still manage to corral a solid core of four people for our monthly sessions.

Despite the collapse of that original campaign, I did manage to run a three year fantasy campaign using Heroes and Other Worlds (a modern reworking of the classic GURPS-adjacent Fantasy Trip system), which ended with the destruction of the world.

Pete ran a number of Top Secret espionage games, Meredith presented us with a wholly homemade World of Warcraft adventure, Simon saw us right up to the gates of Castle Ravenloft in his 5e D&D Curse of Strahd campaign (which went 'online' during the COVID pandemic), Clare's run some memorable indie one-shots, and the other year Mark scared the bejeebers out of us with his self-penned Call of Cthulhu rural horror adventure.

In between these I've tried to run some other games, but they've invariably crashed-and-burned because of my insecurities, self-doubt, and limited attention span.

I'm hoping that, after my two recent debacles (with Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) I've finally learned enough that when I'm next allowed to sit behind the gamesmaster's screen I'll be able to keep the train on the tracks.

However, our most enduring game has been Pete's "weird science" pulp adventure campaign that started as a 1950's "Atomic Horror" campaign using GURPS, then time-slipped to the 1930s for an epic Hollow Earth Expedition run, before, at the end of last year, switching systems again to Outgunned Adventures for more Indiana Jones-style shenanigans.

We are currently - as of last night - eight sessions deep in this second season of Pete's long-running campaign.

And through all this, my rock and number one cheerleader has been my wonderful non-geeky wife, Rachel, who may not get the delights of roleplaying games, but understands how important they are to me.

Every month she cooks our group pizza, serves up drinks, and joins in the pre-game banter as we all catch-up on whatever is going on in our lives.

Last year's gaming plans were largely scuppered by my back problems (which turned out to be osteoarthritis), but as far as interfering with my hobbies that's behind me now (see what I did there?).

This year has seen us return to the rhythm of regular gaming which will hopefully run for the foreseeable future.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Following The Whispering Road Made Us All Both Storytellers and Gamers

Back at the tail end of 2018, the Tuesday Knights (our tabletop roleplaying gaming group) did something unusual: something that goes against my zealous protection of our precious, limited gaming slots. We played a one-shot. And I really enjoyed it. I mean I really, really enjoyed it. 

I'm still quite adamant that while we are bound to "one gaming session a month" (meaning a maximum of 12 a year, and we rarely achieve that for sundry health, family, and work reasons) I would rather play (or run) something with the potential to become an open-ended "forever campaign".

However, let's flashback to December 20, 2018, and see what I wrote in my gaming log:

This week's RPG session with the Tuesday Knights could, possibly, have proved to be a game-changer.

It was our first exposure to a so-called "storytelling game" - Brent Newhall's The Whispering Road - and I was anxious about getting my head around playing a game devoid of such traditional mechanical trappings as character statistics, hit points, armour class, experience points, equipment lists etc

Instead, our character's were made up of a number of traits (some were personality quirks, others minor abilities or powers) and a "need".

Further taking us out of our comfort zone, there was no definitive setting for the game and it didn't even require a gamesmaster!

Clare, whose game it was, took the role of "Architect", meaning she framed the story and set the scene, while Pete was nominated as "Driver", making it his job to ensure the story kept moving and we didn't get bogged down in rules discussions or non-gaming distractions (not, it turned out, that he needed to worry about that because we all quickly got on board with The Whispering Road).

Beforehand, via our super-secret Facebook group, Clare had nudged us to create a setting for the game: and we cooked up a snow-bound Medieval land (which in play veered between Celtic and Norse) where saints and demons walked the land, and everyone had a pet mouse as a companion.

Our characters were:

• Ceitlen (Pete) - first born daughter of the chieftain, guardian of the clan's symbolic magical shield, whose motivation was protecting the shield and what it stood for (ie. the community);
• Torg (me) - third born (second son) of the chieftain, a trickster and troublemaker, who wanted to prove that he could be as good a hero as Ceitlen;
• Glau (Kevin) - a miserable farmer, gifted with a magical spade and the ability to see the future, who just wanted the snow to stop;
• Master Mouse (Erica) - the custodian of the clan's mice, and a mentor to all, who wanted people to listen to her advice;
• Sister Prudence (Clare) - a nun and fanatical follower of Little St Therese (patron saint of mice), who sought to stem the rising tide of secularism in the village.

After everyone described their typical day in the village, the story began with Glau coming to the chieftain with dire warnings that the snows were getting worse.

The village was whipped up into a frenzy, and, led by an army of mice to clear a path, headed up into the mountains to find the cause of the supernaturally worsening weather.

After being ambushed by dire wolves (not common in these 'ere parts), the bulk of the village were sent home for their own protection, leaving our small group of heroes to carry on.

I stumbled upon an old ruin (Torg, as a "rascal", had more traits than anyone else and these included a couple of doses of "dumb luck" as well as being the group's "magic-user"), from where we headed to an ice cave that actually turned out to be a frost giantess called Midhilda.

Before we knew this, she had rolled a giant boulder at us, which had crushed Ceitlen's shield and shattered it in to three pieces.

While the others were determined to talk to the giantess, Torg transformed into a mouse and started to scuttle up her leg, with a typically Viking-esque bloody plan in mind to kill her (thinking he would be saving the village that way and proving himself).

However, Master Mouse called out to him to stop because they had discovered that she was simply looking for her giant boyfriend Jordmund.

Unfortunately, giants' sense of time isn't the same as ours and we discovered he'd passed through this area hundreds of years ago.

During the conversation, she also revealed that her oversized enchanted sword had been shattered, and Torg suggested that he could magically repair it using one of the fragments of Ceitlen's shield.

Ceitlen, already upset over the loss of the shield (despite Master Mouse explaining to her that it was only a symbol and she was still protecting the community), was initially not happy about this.

But then she came round to the idea and tried to claim it as her own, much to Torg's annoyance. He lost his rag, which - in turn - freaked out the giant (who couldn't handle extreme's of human emotion) and so Master Mouse and Sister Prudence had to calm down Midhilda and Torg.

Assisted by a small coterie of mice summoned by Prudence, Torg then wove the pieces of shield and sword together with some colourful sorcerous hand gestures, and went on to proudly explain that this was also forging a bond between the frost giants and our village.

And, boy, was he feeling smug about all this... right up until the point where Midhilda declared that her new magical sword would be named after Ceitlen.

Torg's jaw hit the floor (and everyone - including me - around the table roared with laughter).

In return, Midhilda handed Ceitlen with a large fragment from her old broken sword, which could be reforged into a new shield.

We all returned to the village, satisfied that our story arcs had been achieved, the magical snows had eased, and Midhilda had opened a new pass through the mountains for us.

Writing up the adventure primarily from Torg's POV and my recollections, I haven't really done the evening's game justice.

It was a surprisingly layered escapade, with everyone's actions dictated by whether they were satisfying their own character's needs or those of others in the group.

When you're not spending 20 minutes on a fight sequence, it frees up time for character development and The Whispering Road was all about co-operation and working together to achieve our goals (even when they were pulling us in opposite directions).

Although I'm not a fan of listening to "actual play" recordings, part of me wishes I'd recorded the evening on my phone to release as a podcast.

From the initial group world-building, through the speedy character creation, right up to the hilarious climax of the story and the satisfying denouement, this really was a game unlike any we've played before.

I've always been fascinated by the simple idea of characters who are related by blood somehow, and the dynamic of Pete's Ceitlen  and my Torg unfolded brilliantly as both of us tried to one-up each other: Ceitlen with her strength and charisma, Torg with his tricksiness.

Unintentionally, as Kevin pointed out, this developed into a perfect Thor/Loki dynamic.

The whole adventure was contained to a single, two-and-a-half hour session, but - because the game was structured into scenes (with prompts for The Architect) and acts - the story we freestyled together really felt as though it came together like a movie.

I backed The Whispering Road on Kickstarter, in early 2014, on behalf of Nick and Clare, thinking it might make an interesting introductory RPG for my godson Alec (it's inspired by Studio Ghibli films, which Clare is a great fan of, and doesn't revolve around killing things that look different to you and then stealing their stuff).

Little did I realise that it would actually serve as The Tuesday Knights' introduction to the weird and wonderful world of Story Games!

I was so impressed by The Whispering Road and the story-crafting techniques the game subtly deployed throughout, as well as Clare's first stint at running a roleplaying game for adults (as opposed to her children).

There were simple dice-rolling mechanics for resolving conflicts (for instance, in a fight the roll would say whether you won or lost, not dictate a blow-by-blow account of the battle), complementing the system's aim of creating a thematic narrative, driven by the characters' needs and desires.

We weren't restricted - or bound - by the rules, in fact they encouraged our creativity and communal storytelling skills.

What's happening to us? Are we becoming New Age gamers? Are we waving goodbye to the Old School Renaissance and becoming Story Game aficionados?

I think it's a bit early to be binning all our d20 rulebooks, but I can definitely see us returning to The Whispering Road.

The evening ended with talks of a 'sequel movie' to our adventure, but, as much as I really liked all the characters the Tuesday Knights had cooked up, my mind was racing towards other settings and environments I'd love to explore via the game's very open mechanics.

It was a shame Simon was unable to make our final gathering of 2018, as it was a grand send-off to another fine year of gaming.

The First Rule of Monopoly Club Is...

Le Mans-themed Monopoly

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host a (supposedly) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is an insatiable collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the three-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Looney Tunes to Stranger Things, Indiana Jones to The Simpsons, and Ghostbusters to Jaws.

This week we were playing on a Le Mans-themed board that Pete had purchased earlier this year at the actual Le Mans endurance racing event in France.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories (and defeats) but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit this blog's little sister site: Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

Why I Embrace Random Character Creation in TTRPGs

The Adventures Of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks

"I didn't pick my superpowers, they picked me"

- Superhero Girl

Careers have been made in the comic book industry by being able to dream up new and imaginative superheroes and villains, yet "point-build" roleplaying games expect players to do this - sometimes at a moment's notice - right there at the games table.

In this article about my general preference for random character generation, I have leaned into superhero RPGs for the most part as this is where I have largely encountered this issue.

The out-the-door epic scale of some comic book heroes, compared to the street-level 'normality' of others, also helps make my point about emulating genres, even if in an exaggerated manner. 

Sometimes a player will arrive with a preconceived idea for a character, but more often than not - especially if, for example, the players are not totally au fait with the superheroic oeuvre - there's be a lot of umming, ahhing and staring off into space before he or she cranks out a thinly veiled clone of an established, popular character.

This mental constipation can also lead to further frustration and ultimately taint a player's opinion of your campaign before the first adventure has even begun.

And this, for me, is what makes Villains & Vigilantes' random superpower generation system so wonderfully appealing.

Anyone can pick up their dice and within 20 minutes to half-an-hour have the outline of a unique character, ready to play.

It's quick and easy, but there also remains an element of choice - so the experience doesn't go to the other extreme and the player feels totally at the mercy of the gods of fate.

Under normal circumstances, that is playing the "rules as written" in the 2nd Edition Villains & Vigilantes of my youth, each player character gets 1d6+2 rolls across his choice of the five tables of superpowers (powers; devices; magic/psionic items; skills; and magic/psionics) plus a random drawback from the "weaknesses" table.

The player must discard one of his rolled powers and if he wants to drop his "weakness" he has to scrub off a second of his random powers.

Now, of course, the observant among you would have realised this can mean a character ending up with only a single superpower.

Back when we were running our superheroes as a play-by-(snail)-mail game at the dawn of time, we addressed this very issue in our introductory material:

"Whenever someone rolls up a character and then moans: 'But I only got one power! What use is flight?' ... stop and think. If you woke up one morning and suddenly found you could fly would your first reaction be: 'ohhh, boring, wish I could fire blasts of super-heated energy and fry people's skin off..."

You just have to look at classic TV shows like Heroes, No Ordinary Family or Misfits or the original X-Men comics to know that people with a single superpower can thrive in a superhero milieu if enough effort is invested by the writer/player into developing the character's personality and backstory.

On the other hand, game-wise, this striving for realism is often more an ideal than a true reflection of the game as it relies on the other players not having rolled up Superman, Dr Manhattan, or Captain Marvel.

Comic book superteams usually represent a broad spectrum of power levels, but there has to be some degree of compatibility and synergy between team members in a game - no one wants to be the Wonder Twin stuck back at Titans Tower, while the team are off facing Deathstroke or Brother Blood.

This, again, ultimately comes down to discussions between the player and the Gamesmaster.

If he genuinely believes his character is unplayable (or unable to gel comfortably with characters generated by the other players), it's quick and easy to start the random generation process again - rather than endure the mathematically complex juggling act of point balancing, min-maxing and optimisation that goes into "points-buy" character builds.

I've played several different supers systems over the years, but the most memorable characters I - and my peers - have created at the table have all come via the random generation process (e.g. my Acrobatic Flea, Steve's Silverfist, Pete's Hurricane & Brutus, and characters from other V&V games, such as Dave's Nightgaunt and Mark's Copernicus).

I guess my issue is with the idea of "wholly designed characters", and this pretty much applies to any genre, probably because I was introduced to gaming via "old school" Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller.

Both of these systems employed - very different, but no less inspirational - random character generations methods.

I really admire the random "story path" method of character creation in Traveller (yes, your character used to be able to die in the process and, no, they no longer can), but also the fantastic 'group' method of random character creation in Beyond The Wall & Other Adventures from Flatland Games.

This clever folk fantasy system sees your party creating its home village as part of the character creation process, as well as weaving meaningful connections between all the player-characters which, in turn, influence their starting statistics and abilities.

Meanwhile, I have friends who draw Tarot cards to stimulate ideas for their character's personalities and I don't see random generation as being any different.

When it comes to superheroes, all the major teams (such as Justice League, Avengers, Watchmen, Teen Titans etc) feature characters with a broad range of power 'levels' and abilities.

It's only certain structured teams - such as the Fantastic Four - who could be seen to have roughly equivalent power levels.

But the FF are the exception, not the rule, as this "style" of team also tends to share a common origin story as well.

Generally I find that point-buy systems, without a degree of randomness, don't gel for my tastes and style of gaming.

The whole idea of artificial balance is ridiculous and fails to simulate either 'real life' (whatever that means to you, of course, in the context of sci-fi, fantasy, and superpowers) or the comics, novels, films, TV shows etc that your games seek to emulate.

Let's strip this down to ridiculous basics: Players A and B each design 100 point characters; Player A just uses the 100 points and takes no weaknesses, but if Player B takes "heavy smoker" for a bonus of 10 points or "terminal illness" for 50 points, why should Player B's character then have more powers and abilities than Player A? It makes no sense.

I'm not saying character's shouldn't have weaknesses (in fact, as with V&V, I like the risk of random character weaknesses), I'm saying I don't see how the 'reward' for taking them in a point-buy system reflects any degree of verisimilitude.

[Footnote: I strongly recommend you check the highly entertaining Adventures Of Superhero Girl, from 2013, by the talented Faith Erin Hicks, for a wry take on the idea of superheroes with real lives. I can't praise it highly enough - just read and enjoy!].

EPISODE SEVEN: 'Relaxing Cruise' Ends In Cretaceous Chaos

SS Endeavour

After escaping the sinking of Atlantis, Onyx's seaplane - The Wave Hopper - needed serious repairs and so we headed for Bermuda for a rendezvous with our old friend, The Governor (who we'd previously rescued from Nazis and dinosaurs... it's a long story).

We also sought some much needed rest-and-recuperation at The Explorers Club, although they had other ideas.

Oynx decided to stay in Bermuda to oversee the repairs [as Mark, her player, is currently unable to join us for our monthly games] and so, after some socialising with the muckety-mucks of the British colony, we took a supposedly easy job from our sponsors at The Club.

Our task - which was described to us as "taking a relaxing cruise" - was simply to sail to Mexico to collect some Mayan artifacts from the Yucatan Peninsula and then transport them back to New York.

We'd been booked passage on an old tramp steamer, the SS Endeavour, under the auspices of one Captain Redgrave, a most amenable fellow.

Captain Redgrave

Unfortunately - and yet not wholly unexpectedly - not long after we set sail a mysterious swell started buffeting the ship, rising to a violent storm that tossed the Endeavour about so much that eventually all the crew and passengers were knocked unconscious... leaving the ship to drift.

When we all awoke the next day, it was about noon, the sun was directly overhead and everything seemed to have calmed down.

Conversing with Redgrave, though, we soon discovered that the ship's compass wasn't working, and when Buck (my explorer) checked his own that wasn't working either. We even went to the effort of making a third, basic, compass... but to no avail.

After a considerable time passed, we all realised that the sun hadn't moved, meaning navigation was going to be a major issue. [NB. This is a phenomenon, I believe, we first encountered when we travelled through a portal to an alien world in our July, 2021, game].

Further consultations with Redgrave led to a decision to head nominally west (or where we thought west was), with Buck stationed at the prow using his binoculars to sight land.

There was definitely something - small - on the horizon, but it was blurred by a heat haze.

But, at least, it gave us something to head for.

What no one expected was the sudden arrival of a vicious and hungry plesiosaur!

[NB. This was not our first plesiosaur. Earlier in the campaign, Tessie, Lake Tahoe's lake monster, turned out to be one. We met her in our April 2021 game, when we were in an apocalyptic, 1950s story arc].

It's big rubbery neck and terrifying teeth were tearing crew members apart, even while Dick (Kevin's crackshot ex-G-man) was riddling it with bullets... and I was not. Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was getting some excellent pictures but when a couple of seamen went overboard, she led the rescue efforts.

Buck ran back to his cabin to retrieve his hunting rifle, as Freya threw a line to the surviving sailor in the drink, Bob, and - assisted by a couple of other crewmen - pulled him up onto the deck and away from the dinosaur's wrath.

I think Bob has taken quite a shine to Freya. Let's see how that develops.

By the time Buck returned, Dead-Eye Dick had managed to put a bullet in the beast's brain, causing the dinosaur's corpse to slide back into the water.

The Endeavour had taken a lot of damage, but Redgrave was determined to get it to the island ahead of us that had now come into view.

He powered the engines as best he could, but things were not looking - or sounding - good.

To add to our troubles, a couple of smaller plesiosaurs had scented blood in the water and were swimming towards our sinking ship.

When the engines finally gave up the ghost, Redgrave ordered everyone to abandon ship in the two lifeboats.

Bob and another sailor, Smudge, joined us in one, while the Captain and the remaining crew took the other.

Bob and Smudge rowed for their lives as Dick and I tried to provide covering fire for the Captain's boat as the plesiosaurs targeted it.

The second lifeboat was lost with all hands

Sadly there was little we could do and that lifeboat - and all aboard - were lost to the monsters, but their sacrifice allowed us time to make it to the tropical island.

And what a beautiful island it was. White beaches, palm trees, and noisy wildlife in the tree tops.

Buck spotted a trail through the jungle - and then a line of smoke rising in the distance. We were not alone. 

But for all this death and carnage, Buck was buzzing with excitement as he was putting the clues together. Had his lifetime obsession with finding the "Hollow Earth" finally come true? The compasses, the dinosaurs, the static sun, the Bermuda Triangle.

However, as he led the group down the trail, his sixth sense alerted him to some danger... sadly, too late, to avoid the two pair of [Jurassic Park-style] velociraptors that targeted the weakest links in our party: the two battered seamen.

[NB. We first met velociraptors on a mysterious island in our April 2022 game when the plane we were travelling in was forced to land after a tussle with German agents]

We made short work of these escapees from the Cretaceous Era, but Smudge was a goner. Bob, however, earned the nickname 'Lucky Bob' after he fended one off in unarmed combat and escaped without injury.

The trail led to an ancient wall, behind which we could hear the familiar tones of orders being barked in German.

Peering through a crack, we saw Nazi troopers, a submarine (sporting a peculiar dish on its conning tower) in a lagoon, ancient ruins, native huts, and enslaved local "ape-people" being forced to dig for "something".

"We never seem to get a break, do we?"

- Marion Ravenwood, Raiders of The Lost Ark

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

When Science Meets Fiction, Reality Sinks Atlantis

Photo by Paolo Resteghini on Unsplash

In homage to Pete's recent OUTGUNNED Adventures campaign, in which  our characters found - then sank - Atlantis, I thought I'd share these two videos from geek architect Dami Lee.

Here she uses mathematics and physics to investigate Plato's description of the fictious city, and, unsurprisingly, the numbers don't add up.

But remember, gentle reader, to never let facts get in the way of a good story...

It's A Marathon Rather Than A Sprint: Why I Will Always Champion The "Forever Campaign"

Trawling back through his archives recently, I found myself agreeing with the sage wisdom of Grognardia's James Maliszewski, in his pontifications on a subject near and dear to my heart: the desirability of long-running campaigns.

I've mentioned a number of times on this blog my personal white whale: my dream of an open-ended "forever campaign", which I have long-considered the definitive expression of our hobby (certainly where Dungeons & Dragons-style games are concerned).

Inspired by the early practitioners of our art (from Gary Gygax's Greyhawk via David Hargrave's Arduin to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor), I'd always felt this was how the game was meant to be played.

Characters should live, grow old, and die (either in battle or in the comfort of their own keep) during the run of a campaign, but the world always carries on. Characters have long and storied careers, then retire, raise castles and families, become legends, but the world always carries on. 

The world shouldn't 'end' when a particular adventure ends (unless, of course, it's an apocalyptic adventure such as I concocted for the Tuesday Knights in The Chronicles of Cidri).

Modern campaigns, to me, feel like they have a story to tell and once it's told, it's time to pack things up and move on to another game.

For instance, while I loved playing my human fighter Syr Edvard in Simon's Dungeons & Dragons 5e Curse of Strahd campaign, we knew from the moment we stumbled through the Mists into Ravenloft we were destined to ultimately confront the vampire lord Strahd and try to free the land from his grasp. 

Us and the thousands of other gamers who have - and will have in the future - played through this campaign book, all following roughly the same story.

The details may vary, both in the plot and how the character's react, but, ultimately we all have a single primary objective.

The current crop of campaigns from Wizards are designed to take characters from 1st to 20th level, in a compressed period of time (10 to 18 months of weekly games, I believe), and then those characters go away, and new characters are "designed" (not generated)  for the next book-length campaign.

Ultimately, we are telling the story that Wizards wants us to tell. And that's okay, if that's how you want to play Dungeons & Dragons. And a lot of people do, I get that.

These are blockbuster movies, whereas my gaming interest lies more in the direction of the on-going soap opera, a marathon rather than a sprint.

I look at Robert Wardhaugh's famous four-decade spanning campaign, and the original campaigns I mentioned above, and that's what I want a piece of.

I like the idea of a sprawling, living, setting where the characters create their own story, rather than characters being created for a story.

I, again, cite my own Chronicles of Cidri as a small example of what I have in mind: when I began that campaign (taking over the reins from Pete a few sessions in), I had no end goal in mind, there was no set objective for the characters. A string of events - all driven by the player-characters (knowingly or unknowingly) - led to the final apocalyptic battle and the destruction of the world.

If Clare's character hadn't fallen under a certain curse and then hadn't chosen to trust the untrustworthy Witch of The Woods the campaign - and the world - would have turned out a lot different.

James pulled out a brilliant quote from 'noisms' of Monsters and Manuals:

"We need long campaigns. We need to sit down with the same group of people on a regular basis over the course of years, telling the kind of stories which require concentration and thought and, above all, loyalty; stories which gain their own momentum through peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows, ups and downs and ins and outs; stories in which the events which happen matter because they have a context and a background and an unknown future waiting to be discovered. We don't need the inconsequential frippery of the one-shot; we need time."

However, 'noisms' also wraps up his own commentary on the need for long campaigns, thus:

"Almost everything worth doing, knowing, reading, hearing, feeling or saying in life has the character of being unobtainable via shortcuts except in a form which diminishes both you and it. Why would you expect RPGs to be any different?"

While I have been known to enjoy an odd one-shot as a palate-cleanser, a way to explore new and different rules ideas, I want my players' characters to become enmeshed in their game-world, there to live and breathe, rather than drive one single plot forward at breakneck speed.

In his article, James said:

"A multi-year campaign is, I think, the ideal form of most roleplaying games ... and by "ideal," I don't mean some unattainably lofty goal but rather the most desirable and satisfying version of this type of entertainment."

I realise my time on this Earth is finite, I'm heading towards my sixtieth birthday later this year, and I'm plagued with a host of health issues that fate has foisted upon me.

If I'm lucky I have the time - and energy - left in me for one last, massive, sprawling campaign in the manner I aspire to. 

This is why I remain staunchly zealous (almost certainly to an annoying degree at times) about protecting the Tuesday Knights' precious, monthly gaming slots.

I'm still quite adamant that while we are bound to "one RPG session a month" (meaning a maximum of 12 a year, and we rarely achieve that for sundry health, family, and work reasons) I want to play (or, more crucially, run) something with the potential to become this kind of open-ended "forever campaign".

I'd love to see characters invested in something other than an "overarching plot", putting something back into the game world, be it building a castle or a dam, seizing a crown and struggling with the mantle of rulership, getting married, growing their dynasties etc

There would still be the grand expeditions, the megadungeons to loot, the Big Bads to slay, but between all this the characters would have lives, dreams, aspirations, passions, and growth that might not be measured in experience points, but would certainly make their personal stories more rounded and interesting.

Of course, I realise if I'd just stuck to my guns when we launched the Tuesday Knights, back in 2008, and kept my initial Castles & Crusades campaign going, there's every possibility that I would be running such a "forever campaign" as I dream about. 

But there's no point having regrets over my stupidity back in the day. At least, it was a learning experience. Albeit rather late in life.

I'll let James have the final word on the subject of extended campaigns, quoting one of the founding fathers of our glorious, and occasionally frustrating, hobby:

"Indeed, I'd argue this is the way D&D at least was intended to be played, as Gary Gygax states in the foreword to OD&D: "it is the campaign for which these rules are designed."

EPISODE SIX: Atlantis Found and Lost Again

Professor Kasper Wieloch, the magical trident of Poseidon, and the scary tentacles

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: Having found the lost city of Atlantis, our heroes pick their way through the abandoned houses and temples, dodge traps and eventually find themselves in an underground amphitheatre. There they come face-to-face with their old nemesis Kasper Wieloch, a unit of Nazi soldiers, and mass of giant, squirming tentacles.

And that's when the shooting started. We were on one side of the amphitheatre, the soldiers and Wieloch - dressed in some strange (Atlantean?) robes and chanting in a language we didn't recognise - on the other.

Rising out of the water in the basin of the amphitheatre was an altar bearing a clearly supernatural trident.

Our heroes (at the bottom) face off against a unit of Nazis and a wannabe wizard

As bullets zipped to and fro, and we were able to pick the Nazis off one-by-one, Wieloch strode forward and grabbed the trident. Much to his obvious shock, he found himself bathed in a crackling electrical field that was clearly causing him incredible pain. 

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) took a pot shot at him, but the field encasing the professor also acted as some kind of shield, deflecting Freya's attack.

Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's ex G-man) continued to pepper the soldiers with well-aimed shots, but then Wieloch suddenly underwent some otherworldly transformation as his eyes turned white and his facial expression contorted into something demonic.

Hollering in an alien tongue, he appeared to command the monstrous tentacles to destroy the structure we were all in - oblivious of his former allies.

As the ceiling began to fall, the soldiers scattered... heading our way (the only exit now).

Using my keen, hunter's observation [and a Luck point], Buck quickly studied Wieloch and the "force field" around him, and realised that the electrical screen didn't extend to the trident itself.

Taking a deep breath, Buck remembered the killer shot he had taken in Antarctica many months ago [during Pete's previous Hollow Earth Expedition iteration of this game, back in February 2024] to blow up an Elder God, exhaled and pulled the trigger.

The trident exploded into many splinters, the tines fell apart and the shaft cracked, and almost simultaneously - as Wieloch's power waned and disappeared - the tentacles wrapped themselves around the possessed professor and, with sickening rending, popping and crunching sounds rent his body into a million pieces.

My colleagues traded a few more shots with the soldiers, then I barked over the sounds of gunfight and falling masonry that we might as well make a break for it as there was nothing more we could do here.

Pursued by the Germans we raced back over the star bridge - Buck carefully guiding his friends where to safely step - and headed towards the exit.

The Nazis, of course, weren't aware of the animated statue trap on the bridge and we heard their screams as they discovered its lethality. 

Further on and almost out, we tried to jump the open pit trap that was blocking our escape, but we were all tired by then and only Freya got out of the six foot hole with her dignity intact. Both Dick and I managed to hurt ourselves in the fall, but mainly it was our pride that took the most damage.

As we pulled ourselves out, the remaining two Nazis came barrelling into the room. One went straight into the pit and so Dick shot the other.

As the violent shaking of Atlantis - probably caused by the monster that had eaten Wieloch - increased, the sea levels rose, and tremendous cracks appeared in the roads and buildings.

We raced to our waiting sea plane, where Oynx (our NPC pilot) was struggling a bit to get the engines started.

Climbing into the plane, we said: "Oynx, take us home." And with assistance from Dick and Freya, she was able to fire up the twin engines and get the plane into the air.

Behind us, the ruins of Atlantis sank beneath the waves. Leaving no evidence that it had ever been there!

No evidence... except the plain, wooden cup Freya had picked up during our initial exploration of the island.

We had otherwise escaped largely unscathed, but Dick had taken a bullet in the shoulder during that final gunbattle that would leave a nasty scar.

Little did I realise, at the time, that that last Nazi had somehow survived and, of all our group, he had sworn a blood oath against Buck Hannigan to seek revenge for his fallen comrades.

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

EPISODE FIVE: All Roads Lead To Doom

Atlantis

PREVIOUSLY ON OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: When we last saw our heroes their aircraft was just emerging from a supernatural storm and in front of them lay the lost island of Atlantis!

As Onyx (our currently NPC pilot) banked the seaplane towards the island, we heard, aft, a loud cracking sound in the air. Looking back we realised the zeppelin had been struck by lightning, but - even more terrifying - it was now in the grasp of indescribably large tentacles that had arisen from the water and were squeezing the life out of the German craft.

Piercing the 'energy shield' over the island, we inspected the ruined and abandoned Greco-Roman city as we came in to land in the calming sea on the far side of Atlantis, parking the plane up on the beach so we could go exploring.

Onyx stayed with the plane - just in case we needed to make a hasty exit.

It soon became clear that the city had been abandoned by its populace - suddenly - a long time ago. The houses were falling down, furniture turning to dust, nature slowly reclaiming it all with encroaching vines.

Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was absorbed by the archaeology, while Buck (my explorer) and Dick (Kevin's former G-man) listened out for German survivors and any remaining natives.

Eventually we made our way up a main thoroughfare to the giant bronze gate barring the sturdy entrance to the central temple.

The door of four faces

As we approached, a poem was seen, carved into a wall, which Freya was able to translate:

"To face the sea, you must
catch the rising wind
follow the lesser stars
fear the darkened depths"

This sparked much discussion as to its meaning. We suspected it was a series of clues to solving any challenges we would have to face, But even the first four words took us a while to get our heads round - until Dick suggested it was "face" as in "confront" rather than "look at".

"Catch the rising wind" was clearly connected to the brass door, which was cast with four identical faces, their lips pursed in a blowing fashion (see picture above).

Using my lighter I detected a breeze from the left mouth and the bottom one, then Dick accidentally set off a pit trap when he probed one of the orifices with a rolled-up leaf. Thankfully, the only thing bruised was his dignity. 

After a lot of mental gymnastics, together with our vast selection of skills and feats, we eventually cracked the code and Freya had to suffer the minor embarrassment of putting her lips to one of the mouths and inhaling until there was an audible click and the door dropped down into the ground.

Beyond the vast bronze door was a flight of stairs heading down under the temple. As it was the only way we could go, we descended.

We quickly realised that the wall-mounted crystals were emitting light, some even set in small brass cages that we could lift off the wall and use as torches.

The further we went, we noticed a panorama of bas-reliefs on one side were telling a story: a boy finds a trident in the sea that grants him magical powers; he attracts a following, but as he older he gets corrupted by the enormous power; his followers rebel against him; the rebels kill the prophet and take the glowing trident to the temple; unfortunately calamity strikes and the temple is attacked by giant tentacles.

If this was a true record of the fate of Atlantis, we were very impressed that someone was so dedicated to their work that they stayed on to record the destruction of the city in stone as it fell down around them!

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, so that we were now at sea level, we found ourselves in an enormous cavern, bisected by a bottomless chasm, and crossed by a single stone bridge - that was adorned by three pairs of armed mermen statues.

The pathway across bridge itself (pictured right) was decorated with a panoply of star-shaped crystals, small, medium and large.

Buck thought he'd understood the "follow the lesser stars" clue, but treading on one of the small stars just woke the nearest merman statue. It swivelled round on its plinth to face Buck and tried to jab him.

Eventually, after another lengthy discussion, Buck and Freya were able to figure out what the patterns were (again drawing on their particular fields of knowledge).

Buck was then tasked with guiding his two companions across the cunning trap.

This was very tense [a LOT of dice rolling for me, with my colleagues' lives in my hands], but eventually everyone made it across - although I did stumble at the last moment and had to be pulled to safety by Dick and Freya.

On the far side of the bridge we realised there were no more crystals, but as we continued down the slope it actually began to get lighter.

Soon we entered a partially-flooded amphitheatre. We were just admiring the clear sparkling water when a massive explosion filled the room with dust and debris.

Emerging from the haze came a unit of Nazi soldiers (about 10 at a quick estimate), just as an altar rose up in the middle of the flooded stage - bearing on it a strangely familiar trident.

However, things escalated rapidly, for behind the soldiers came our nemesis, Professor Kasper Wieloch, no longer dressed in his military uniform but wearing arcane robes instead. 

Framing our vision of this vile man, the horrific tentacles from earlier were flailing around... presumably under his control!!!

It's not looking good for our heroes!

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC*

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

*Unfortunately it appears that Mark will be unable to join us for the foreseeable future. We all wish him the best and look forward to his return to our table as soon as possible.

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.