Where's All The Roleplaying Stuff Then?

Photo by Nika Benedictova

When I launched this blog last November (with a hefty backlog of material preloaded) it came with the implicit suggestion - if not an outright statement - that Cowboys, Capes, and Claws would be largely a roleplaying game blog.

Well, that was the idea in my head anyway.

There have been general roleplaying posts, but primarily the blog has been - to date - film reviews and trailers, comic book news, wargames bits and bobs, and some coverage of TV shows and my meandering health issues thrown in for good measure.

Those who read my old blogs will know that sometimes I'd tack gaming material on the end of my film reviews (e.g. monsters and magic items that had appeared in the movie, translated into my own old school mechanics), but there has been none of that so far here.

And I'm very conscious of that absence of "added value".

The big thing - and this has been alluded to in most of the gaming-related posts I have published here - is that I simply don't know what system I want to focus all my attention on these days, what game I want to run for the Tuesday Knights (my gaming group).

The strongest contender is Twilight Sword, the anime and video game-inspired fantasy roleplaying system coming soon from Two Little Mice.

The full game is due to be released to backers of the crowdfunder (such as I) in the next few months.

However, a beta PDF of the core rules - largely absent the setting material, which will be in a second book (all part of the crowdfunding campaign) - has been delivered. And I like what I've seen. It's simple, and seemingly elegant, but I'm still not sure if it offers everything I'm looking for in a game.

But then again, does any rules set?

I tried kludging together my own RPG system a few years ago, to cover everything I wanted in a game mechanically, and it turned out to be a Frankengame with an ease of accessibility somewhere in the region of Phoenix Command or Advanced Squad Leader.

While I knew how it all worked and how each subsystem meshed with the others, it would have been a nightmare to explain to our group - especially as we generally lean towards the more "rules casual" approach to gaming.

The rules and themes of Twilight Sword are quite different from my usual offering, but that just needs a mental adjustment upon my behalf, as I'm sure the players will adapt without thinking or complaint - as long it's clear what they need to do.

Therefore, I don't want to start "tinkering" - coming with scenario-specific houserules, new magical items or monsters - until I have the full game in hand (the actual books, rather than the PDFs) and have probably played more than a handful of sessions with "rules as written".

That said, I'm also lining up at a small number of back-up offerings, in case I decide Twilight Sword isn't actually what I'm looking for. The last couple of times I tried to run games at our table (
Shadowdark and Villains & Vigilantes) both crashed-and-burned because I wasn't happy with the way things were shaping up.

Therefore, I really, really want to be certain that the game I choose is the right one before I present my next campaign to the Tuesday Knights.

I have a great deal of lost trust to regain. We only meet up 10 or 12 times a year, so each session is precious and can't (in my mind) be wasted on something that isn't going anywhere.

And this, gentle reader, is why I haven't written anything system-specific on the blog yet. Because I don't have a system to write to.

So, bear with with me, please keep reading the silliness I post (and commenting when you feel so inclined) and one day... hopefully in the not-too-distant future... there will be useful gaming material on the blog.

Along with film reviews and trailers, comic book news, wargames bits and bobs, and some coverage of TV shows and my meandering health issues thrown in for good measure.

Twilight Sword On Track To Ship End Of July

Today's livestream by theTwilight Sword authors

It sounds as though Twilight Sword is still on track to ship at the end of July.

In the latest email update for backers of the crowdfunding campaign for the anime and video game-inspired fantasy RPG from games' publisher Two Little Mice, it was stated that:

"Currently we're wrapping up the Starter Set, which should be ready in a couple of weeks. Soon after we'll go back to finishing Lands of Radia, which will be released around the end of May.

"Once the books are ready and typo-free, we'll send you all the Cards, Maps, Sheets, and the rest of the digital aids. We'll make another update next month to give you additional information about the soundtrack, the Alchemy Module, the Solo Mode, and the 3rd Party License."

Although there was little to add at this stage, in today's livestream by the games' authors, Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola, they stressed how proud they were of this game and how different it was to their other products, both in design and appearance.

As well as reiterating the planned shipping schedule for Twilight Sword, Rico and Simone added that they were still in the last round of playtests, which would allow them to work further on - for instance - balancing the monsters, but emphasised that the game was "mostly" finished.

Kokkoros! Art by Daniela Giubellini

A pleasant surprise in this week's email update was the inclusion of a link for backers to the 202-page beta PDF of the core rulebook for Twilight Sword.

While this is nowhere near a finished product, it is very advanced and eminently readable.

That said, I very much doubt I'll be posting a full review of the game until I have the hard copy in hand.

Not only is this beta release not the final iteration of the game, but also I'm no fan of reading massive PDF files on my laptop.

At first perusal though, the mechanics of Twilight Sword appear delightfully simple, but with a vast amount of applications, specific effects and modifiers.

I suspect it's a system that's easy to grasp initially, but then will take a good length of time - and actual play - to really grasp all its nuances.

There are definitely some idiosyncrasies and foibles of the setting and system that I'm going to have to put my thinking head on for if I'm going to run Twilight Sword for the Tuesday Knights (which is the intention).

I am, however, convinced that once the physical game has arrived - along with all the extras I invested in through Backerkit - and I've been able to study it all carefully and see how the various elements interact, it'll all fall into place (fingers crossed).

Casting spells, art by Daniela Giubellini

TWILIGHT SWORD: My First Champion

As promised in my last news update on the upcoming Twilight Sword RPG, using the recently released (to backers) character creation document, I have made my first Champion: Elean Starlight, daughter of former Champion Staghind Starlight.

I've long thought that Twilight Sword sounds like the perfect way to pool all my memorable characters - and previous adventures - from a lifetime of gaming into one place. And this is my first attempt to do that.

I'd originally thought I'd opt for someone with an isekai-style origin, but this seemed too good an opportunity to tie my old D&D character Staghind into this new world.

Now to go through the character creation steps:

NAME & ORIGIN: Elean Starlight, Heir.

"You are the heir of an ancient Champion or a hero of legend. You had no choice in your own destiny, and you always felt different."

KIN: Huma - the predominant humanoid lifeform in Radia, the huma are superficially elves.
KIN FEAT: Reroll a single failed Ability roll. This Feat can only be used again after a Rest or a Quick Rest.
DISTRIBUTE ABILITY SCORES: Either through points allocation or use of a standard array. I opted for the latter as this was my first run-through of the system.* 

• STRENGTH: 7 
• AGILITY: 9
• VITALITY: 7
• PERCEPTION: 8
• WILL: 8
• KNOWLEDGE: 6
• CHARISMA: 5
• STEALTH: 6

HEARTS & STAMINA: 17 ❤️ and 3 🔷
WAY: Way of The Wild

FEAT: Aim (Can use her reaction to aim. Gains Advantage to the next attack she makes this Turn using a ranged or thrown weapon).
STARTING GEAR: An old bow, an old short sword, padded armor, 12 arrows, and a torch. 3D6 (I rolled 9) Green gems (?).

Obviously, there are still bits and bobs that need to be clarified, such as the damage weapons cause, what difference do "old" weapons make, how much damage armour absorbs, what form does the currency take, how does Advantage/Disadvantage work in this game and so on.

But this introductory, early look at Twilight Sword has filled me with a great deal of optimism. I may have spotted three or four typos in the text, but these looked like they were probably down to translation issues and will hopefully be picked up in future edits.

And, personally, I felt there needed to be some consistency in the breaks between paragraphs (although that might just be the old sub-editor in me), but otherwise - at first look - it appears as though Twilight Sword will be a thing of great beauty.

The character creation process was quick and simple. In fact, it would have been even quicker with a print copy of the rules to hand, as then I wouldn't have had to keep switching - like a bumbling, technology-challenged old man - between the PDF and the document I was writing in.

Even with my own incompetence, it only took, maybe, 10 or 15 minutes... as I already had my mini-backstory in mind. 

I'm eagerly looking forward to the full beta PDF release at the end of this month. 

* As I understand it most tests - including combat - involve rolling a d12 and scoring under (or equal?) the relevant statistic. 

Elean Starlight

Good News/Bad News On Twilight Sword PDF

Way of The Wild

Game publishers Two Little Mice announced today that they would be unable to meet the previously stated April 7 release date for the beta PDF of their highly-anticipated, anime/video game-inspired Twilight Sword roleplaying game. 

However, all is not lost, as the release date has only been pushed back a couple of weeks, so - all being well - backers of the game should be receiving their PDFs in the second half of the month.

Not only that, but we were treated to a 35-page PDF of the first chapter of Twilight Sword, which includes the Champion creation rules, the five core Kin (species/races), Ways (classes), and Feats, which this update says is "[m]ore than enough for you to start making your very own Champions!"

I've only skimmed my PDF so far, but it looks absolutely gorgeous and, after the holiday break, I hope to get down to creating my first Champion.

I'm already excited to see in the "origins" section of character creation that there are, at least, two options that lean into possible isekai backstories for your Champion.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Life and Humanoid Ducks In Roleplaying Games

Part of the reason for my passionate support for Darcy Perry's wonderful DuckQuest roleplaying game - and why I backed several of his anthropomorphic duck-related miniatures Kickstarters - stretches right back to my earliest days of gaming.

In the late '70s and early '80s the bulk of my long-form (rather than random one-shot) gaming was with Gublin, a friend who lived five doors down the road from me.

Although created for a specific Dungeons & Dragons adventure at our local gaming club, my enduring character from those days was a female half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user called Staghind, who enjoyed a storied adventuring career, before becoming a queen of her own nation and retiring.

At some stage in her life she adopted an anthropomorphic duck called Quincy as one of her many children and he taught her Quack Fu. Or she was taught Quack-Fu by a master and then she adopted Quincy. My memory from those days is like Swiss Cheese!

My ideas about humanoid ducks were entirely shaped by reading Steve Gerber's bonkers Howard The Duck comics, rather than RuneQuest (which officially introduced ducks into the roleplaying consciousness).

This is also why I have a copy of this issue framed and hanging on the wall in our lounge with other key comics from my years of collecting and reading. 

Not just because of the incredible impact it had on me as a nascent comic book reader, exposing me to the gonzo possibilities of the medium, but also for the influence it had on me as a fledgling gamer.

Whilst my anthropomorphic duck gaming ended rather abruptly with Staghind's retirement, the concept endured with the help of one of my mum's delightfully random fandoms.

Once I was of working age (and writing nonsense for the local paper), my mum somehow became a massive fan of the late '80s kids cartoon Count Duckula, so I used my salary to ensure she had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and annuals (as that was the only merch available at the time).

These days duck characters can be found roleplayng games such as Dragonbane (from Free League Publishing), where they are called "mallards", and Twilight Sword (yes, this was a deciding factor in me backing this game).

In the latter game the duck kin are also known as "mallards" and were available, in print form (as a set of cards), as an early bird sweetener to entice backers to get the ball rolling on the crowdfunding campaign.

I hesitated and missed out on this bonus "kin", but understand it will still be available to all backers as a PDF. I can't NOT have ducks as a playable race in my version of Twilight Sword!

CAMPAIGN AUTOPSIES: Will I Ever Learn?

Photo by Giancarlo Revolledo on Unsplash

When the Tuesday Knights came into being I was the de facto gamesmaster, running a deliciously vanilla fantasy campaign in my homebrew setting of Tekralh.

However, I don't feel my gamesmastering chops really began to take form until May 2014 when Pete handed me the reins of his nascent Chronicles of Cidri campaign.

Pete had been running this, for a few months, using the old The Fantasy Trip rules, but I updated that to a retroclone of the system, Heroes & Other Worlds.

I have to confess that the mechanics were rather too "dice pooly" for my liking, but they really worked well in the context of our campaign.

I ran Cidri for the better part of three years, building up to a delightfully OTT apocalyptic climax.

This campaign remains my personal gold standard, a target I now wish to aim for again - and hopefully excel - when I'm finally allowed to return to the head of the table.

The Tuesday Knights' membership has changed a lot since those days, we've lost some people and gained more members, which means tastes have changed as well, but I still feel these "revelations" hold water and I really should adhere to them.

I wish I'd had the foresight to conduct an autopsy on our Cidri campaign when it wrapped, dissecting my thoughts on why it worked, but I think I was just basking in the adulation of my players... and so it never crossed my mind to attempt the kind of surprisingly perceptive analysis that I had with these earlier efforts that hadn't worked out.

As will be clear by now I've started work on my latest attempt to run an "open-ended" campaign for the Tuesday Knights, but this time with a new rules set (Twilight Sword) and a superficially-familiar fantasy setting.

This will actually be my fifth or sixth attempted campaign since the Tuesday Knights first started gaming back in August 2008.

So, what went wrong with my previous games?

TEKRALH I: The first game I ran for the Tuesday Knights started as heavily houseruled version of Castles & Crusades (with a large dose of Hackmaster and Arduin) and it worked really well to start with...

Until, for no readily apparent reason, I decided to switch horses mid-stream and changed the rules system to a by-the-book version of Labyrinth Lord. The characters were severely de-powered and the game turned into a meatgrinder of TPK after TPK.

Within a few sessions all the fun that we'd had at the start of the campaign was sucked from the campaign. Eventually, I had to pull the plug on the game as it wasn't getting anywhere.

When we started the players were giving me nice backstories for their characters, with plot hooks etc, but by the end I was lucky if they'd give their characters names as they knew their life expectancy had become so limited.

MORAL: If it ain't broke don't fix it.

KNIGHT CITY I: Next up was my Villains & Vigilantes campaign, set in Knight City. This was driven almost entirely by the naïve dream of trying to recapture the magic that Steve, Pete, Nick and I enjoyed with our original V&V games back in the '80s.

Almost from the start things went wrong with this campaign due to the simple fact that we weren't all singing from the same hymn sheet. It wasn't anyone's fault in particular, but when we were teenagers we were all (except for Nick) avid comic book readers and had reasonably similar tastes in comics and superheroes.

Thirty years later, tastes had changed and the sort of scenarios I wanted to run (e.g. dimension hopping, cosmic stuff) didn't sit comfortably with some of the players, who were expecting more straight-forward supervillain bashing.

There were also problems with the rules (from the clunky combat table at the game's heart to the peculiar diversity of character's random power sets), but ultimately these were just the straws that broke a very unhealthy camel's back. I think we could have overcome these if everyone had had contiguous ideas of where the game should be going.

MORAL: Make sure everyone is on the same page.

TEKRALH II: I thought I'd found a winner when I came across D101's Crypts & Things (a sword & sorcery variant of Swords & Wizardry) as I thought this kind of human-centric adventure game was the way to go.

The simple problem with this very short-lived campaign - and it had nothing to do with the rules - was I had just discovered A Song Of Ice & Fire!

I was in the grip of Westeros-fever and spent all my time thinking about developing the wider world, quickly losing sight of the intimate adventure I should have been running for the players. 

This would have been fine if the player-characters were all high-up members of House Stark or House Lannister, but they were actually 1st Level D&D proto-adventurers and tunnel grubbers.

Instead of developing scenarios or stocking dungeons I was researching medieval legal systems, clothing, cuisine, bartering etc My eyes were fixed on the horizon rather than the gamestable in front of me.

MORAL: Intimate, not epic.

SHADOWDARK: I only ran this for one session. The players told me afterwards that they loved it, but something about it just didn't click with me.

At the time I was working on my overcomplicated Frankengame monstrosity of assorted houserules all stapled together with my own ideas from decades of gaming.

As it happened, "my" system and Shadowdark shared some similar ideas. It's just Shadowdark did them more elegantly, more streamlined. So I should have been happy!

To this day, I have no idea why I bounced off of Shadowdark so hard, when - upon initially reading the rules - it felt like such a perfect fit for my style of gamesmastering. 

However, I'm glad I didn't drag this game out and euthanised it before people got too invested in the campaign.

MORAL: If you're going to kill off a game, kill it quickly.

KNIGHT CITY II: Last year - before the osteoarthritis in my back knocked me off my feet for more than six months - I started a new V&V campaign (this time with some houserules to avoid some of the issues we'd encountered mechanically last time).

I provided the players with pamphlets before hand introducing the setting and - hopefully - suggesting the style of game I was hoping for.

But, once again, it didn't take long to realise that we had four players all pulling in different directions. This meant, for instance, that the opening scenario - which should have taken one or two sessions to wrap up - was heading into its fourth month when I had to retire from the field.

At its core, the problems with this iteration of Knight City were exactly the same as before, even though the make-up of the group at the table was different.

Superheroes are such a broad genre that they can mean diametrically different things to different players, no matter how well you think you've spelled out your personal vision.

And a central element of that clash of ideologies lies at my own feet. Over the decades (I've been reading comics since I was a wee nipper, and a collector since I was a teenager), my personal beliefs about what makes a good costumed crimefighter have become so embedded in my psyche that I'm not only unable to clearly explain my "vision" (surely everyone else sees superheroes the same way, right?) but I get frustrated when my players don't automatically share the same "vision"!

Just because it's a beloved reading and viewing genre for me doesn't mean I can run it as an open-ended, forever campaign. In fact, I'm probably too emotionally invested in the genre for me to brook any deviation from my perceived "one true way".

To top that off - again ignoring my mistakes from previous failed campaigns - I'd gone full "Game of Thrones" on Knight City and obsessively detailed every borough, with hundreds and hundreds of locations. Most of which, the players bypassed when creating their character backstories. 

It's almost as if I'd totally ignored every single misstep I'd made previously as a gamesmaster and was trying to crash on regardless.

MORAL: Learn from your past mistakes. Pick a game genre that everyone understands.

RPG REVIEW: Hero Kids by Justin Halliday

With the beta release of Twilight Sword drawing ever nearer, I thought I'd share some of my old reviews of "simple" roleplaying games that I really liked... to see if there is any commonality, anything that I might be looking out for in this new game that I'm investing a lot of hope into.

We start with Hero Kids, from 2013.

As the cover states, Hero Kids is a "fantasy role-playing game for kids aged four to 10", and it does exactly what it says on the tin.

The print edition, a compact little digest-sized book, is basically divided in two with the first 40 or so pages explaining the very straight-forward rules and the balance of the book being made up of single-page pre-made player-characters and monsters.

Although the rules are very simple, using only basic math, they are clearly intended to be read by the designated adult who has decided to introduce a group of youngsters to our hobby.

As well as the rules there are some brief pointers on issues to take into account on how running games with young kids are different from the normal 'adult' gaming environment. These are neither patronising nor preachy, just a sensible reminder that some things we take for granted in our games may not be appropriate for youngsters.

After a bit of scene-setting - giving the characters a base of operations and a reason to hang out and adventure together - the book cracks on with explaining how combat works.

The initial level of the game is geared towards combat, to get the players used to the idea of working the dice, co-operating with each other etc

Characters - as well as monsters - have four statistics (melee, ranged, magic and armour) rated on zero to three dice (this game, sensibly, only uses six-sided dice).

These are then rolled in opposed checks.

Characters also have a special ability, some of which are triggered by the actions of friends, other allow multiple attacks etc (for instance, one character, a female hunter, has long hair she can as a lasso to drag monsters closer to her).

All attacks (generally) cause one point of damage, with heroes able to take three strikes before being knocked out (again - kids game: no killing!).

The rules are scaled so that as the players become older, and more confident, additional twists can be brought in to keep gameplay lively and varied (such as introducing skills and exploration).

There's a short section on creating player-characters from scratch - rather than using the pre-made archetypes - and while the allocation of dice for statistics remains straight-forward, the rules are very vague on giving character's special abilities and skills.

The best thing is, obviously, to crib them from the pre-made characters, but then you might as well stick with the pregens.

Written by Justin Halliday, and published by Hero Forge Games, the core rules book of Hero Kids is available in print or PDF format. The PDF comes bundled with an adventure (which includes character cards, stand-up counters to represent the player-characters and their foes, and a grid map to enact the adventure on) and a number of other adventures are available (all with maps and counters, I believe).

The book is gorgeously illustrated with hero and monster art by Eric Quigley, which has a very 'easy-on-the-eye' smooth cartoony/anime style about it.

This eye-candy carries over into the game's great use of props - the stand-up markers (easily cut out and assembled) and the large, gridded maps for movement and combat- which means the players don't have to contest with the "theatre of the mind" elements of the games that some of us older kids play. It gives them something to relate to and means they can see where their characters are and get a better understanding of what's going on in the adventure.

Hero Kids manages to model the core aspects of more adult games in a very simple fashion and looks like the perfect game for young wannabe gamers.

Of course, the most crucial ingredient is finding a patient, and creative, adult to explain the rules and then guide the kids through their first foray into roleplaying.

Justin also has a blog dedicated just to Hero Kids, which sadly doesn't seem to have been updated for several years, but was worth keeping tabs on for the latest developments in the game (e.g. there's an expansion on the way with more heroes, more equipment and the addition of pets for the characters).

Early Thoughts on Personalising The Twilight Sword Setting

As a youngling I had this Pauline Baynes map of Narnia on my bedroom wall

With the impending release of the beta PDF of Twilight Sword, I have begun to noodle around ideas for "personalising" the lands of Radia - the game's default setting. 

World building from scratch is one of my weaknesses as a gamesmaster: all my worlds created whole cloth tend to end up as simply reskinned versions of real lands from Medieval(ish) Earth... and not in a clever, Robert E Howard Age of Hyboria way.

I also have a tendency to "Game of Thrones" things up before the first die is slung, by which I mean I overcomplicate and hyperdetail the setting way beyond anything the players will probably ever have any interaction with.

This is because I tend to fall in love with my settings and then mistakenly believe I'm the next JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis or George RR Martin! When all I'm really doing is creating a backdrop for some wonderfully silly elfgames.

Aware of this fault in my planning process, I'm approaching Radia - which we know is inspired by video games and anime - with broader strokes.

At the moment, clearly, I know almost nothing about the actual, 'official' setting, so am just scraping together notes and bullet points of ideas, locations, names (for places and people) etc that - hopefully - veer away from the usual Western/Tolkien norm of fantasy settings.

For the anime influences for Radia, I shall be looking to pick up cues from my beloved Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Record of Lodoss War, and Delicious in Dungeon.

My knowledge of anime is limited (although greater than my knowledge of video games), but I remain firm in my belief that these three serials have the best resources in the pure fantasy (Dungeons & Dragons-inspired) genre.

Beyond anime, I'm looking at established settings such as Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, Neverland, Eternia, and Arduin, and films like Labyrinth, The NeverEnding Story, The Dark Crystal, and so on, rather than my usual inspirations, for example Hawk The Slayer and Lord of The Rings. 

Don't get me wrong Hawk The Slayer remains the definitive old school Dungeons & Dragons movie in my book and Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy is simply the greatest movie of all time, which I ensure I watch at least once a year from start to finish.

But, in my experience, the thing I find about such intricate settings as Middle-Earth and Westeros is that they are 'fragile'. If you mess around with them too much they break and are no longer the setting you fell in love with in the first place.

Now, I know you can say: but it's your game, you can do what you like with the setting, who's going to know?

But, besides the fact that I would know, it's my belief that these settings are so intricately interwoven that if you mess with, or change, one bit it will have a cascade effect further down the line so that something else isn't going to make sense (just look at George RR Martin's anger with The House of The Dragon tv show because characters were cut out who actually have an important role to play in the story at a later date).

Hence, why I'm shifting my focus to loosey-goosey, weird and surreal settings that are governed by more fairy tale aesthetics. I believe these will gel more with my vision - and understanding - of how Radia (and Twilight Sword) is supposed to operate.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. But I hope not.

I'd really like to run a setting that was, at once, familiar to the Tuesday Knights but also fresh and original, and not just another Middle-Earth/Forgotten Realms/Medieval Europe retread. 

And has talking animals.

Honestly, I Can Justify Buying These Two New Games

Remember back in February when I implied that I wasn't going to buy any new roleplaying games?

Well, much to no one's surprise, that pledge didn't exactly last. Although I would argue that my recent purchases may have some degree of utility in my proposed 'anime-influenced' fantasy campaign that I'm hoping to run with Twilight Sword.

In the past week, I have acquired the Pirate Borg Starter Set and the core rulebook (and some add-ons) for the new Conan: The Hyborian Age roleplaying game.

Both are peak examples of modern production standards, although I know already my chances of actually running either are next to next to zero.

These are reference works, first and foremost, because I am fascinated by pirates and I am fascinated by Conan, and always imagine slipping elements of both into my fantasy games.

First off, though, I have to point out, for those who aren't already aware, the Pirate Borg Starter Set is probably the best RPG starter set I have ever seen.

For a ridiculously low cost (when you consider what's included), you get all of this in the solid, deep box:

That's an introductory rulebook, a campaign book, item cards, a pack of character sheets, some reusable character sheets with felt pens, three sheets of card counters, several battle mats and game maps, and a full set of  gorgeous (stylishly simple) dice.

None of these are cheap quality or flimsy. These items are designed for use at the games table. Even the inside surface of the box lids (top and bottom) have useful charts and tables on.

Much of this material, obviously, can be used with other game systems - which is good, as I still dream of running a nautical adventure, even if not with this elegant Mörk Borg hack.

My other purchase - this time from eBay - was an ex-Kickstarter bundle of core material for the, as yet, unreleased to retail new Conan roleplaying game, published by Monolith.

Unlike Pirate Borg, I haven't read more than a few lines of this yet, but from what I've seen it looks a reasonable simple and uncluttered system (especially compared to previous Conan RPGs that were overwhelmed by character feats, abilities, splat books etc).

I already appreciate the use of large text and white space (as you can see from the random selection of pages below), which tells me this should be straight forward for a numpty like me to grok.

As well as the core rulebook, my eBay bundle included a large map of Conan's world in the Hyborian Age, two packs of blank character sheets, and a collection of ready reference rules sheets to use when running the game.

The Twilight Sword Will Be Drawn on April 7

Way of The Blade, art by Daniela Giubellini

A beta PDF of the Twilight Sword roleplaying game, along with the starter set, will be released - to those of us who backed the crowdfunding campaign last year - on April 7, according to a recent update from publisher Two Little Mice.

The update added that the:

"...BETA will be pretty advanced, with maybe some typos left to find, and some artwork missing. But you can expect the full Twilight Sword experience, including an introductory mini-campaign ready to play."

Work is also proceeding at a pace on the Lands of Radia supplement, detailing the default setting for the game, so that is also expected to be finished soon.

The company - which is also responsible for the ever-expanding OUTGUNNED catalogue of action movie-themed games, Household, Memento Mori etc - calls Twilight Sword its "most ambitious project to date", which has me even more excited than ever for the game's arrival.

The print edition of the anime and video game-inspired, sword-and-sorcery ttrpg Twilight Sword is still on track to be shipped to backers at the beginning of August.

Lumino Inn, art by Donata Poli

Reaching A Turning Point In My Life As An RPG Collector

The arrival this week of the The Planet of The Apes Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and the supplementary ANSA Files marks a major turning point in my lifelong habit of buying gaming books.

If I can stick to my goals, this pair of gorgeous hardback books will be the last I buy that are not directly connected to a game I'm running or seriously planning to.

As beautifully designed and illustrated as these two meaty tomes are, I have no expectations of ever actually running the system (it uses West End Games' old d6 dice pool mechanics, which were never my cup of tea as a potential gamemaster).

I've purchased these purely as a completionist, as someone who has loved - and been mildly obsessed by - the original, classic Planet of The Apes movies since he was a little kid.

Sure, it wouldn't surprise me when I get round to reading them more thoroughly if I don't find ideas, maybe even rules, that I can lift for a future game unconnected with this simian franchise.

But, ultimately, these are resource books and artefacts, not rule books I can ever see myself busting out for the Tuesday Knights.

And - as I said a moment ago, if I can stick to my guns - these will be the last I purchase in this manner, the last I get to just "look at" rather than actually use as The Lawgiver intended.

I know it's a pretty standard aspect of the roleplaying hobby, but it's one I can no longer justify personally either for financial or space reasons (as both are becoming increasingly tight).

Going forward, I intend to keep a narrow focus on Twilight Sword as the game I intend to run next for the Tuesday Knights (although I have a back-up system if Twilight Sword, for some reason, doesn't live up to my expectations. It's a system I already own and have run once for the group, and they really enjoyed it).

Sample page from the Core Rulebook

Sample page from The ANSA (American National Space Administration) Files

Twilight Sword Update

All the crowdfunded shiny goodness of Twilight Sword is on track to be shipped to backers around the beginning of August, however the PDFs of the two main books and starter set could be sent out as early as the end of March.

These nuggets dropped during the first livestream of the year, yesterday, by two of the founders of the game's Italian production company, Two Little Mice, Riccardo “Rico” Sirignano and Simone Formicola.

The game, the company's biggest project to date, is currently going through extensive playtesting to hone the mechanics.

While the land of Radia remains central to the default campaign included in Twilight Sword, the core book has been rewritten to make the game more setting agnostic, so gamemasters can easily use their own settings with the system.

The bulk of the livestream concerned the production of other current Two Little Mice projects, such as Outgunned Superheroes, the latest variant of their action movie-styled roleplaying game.

Without going into too much detail, it was revealed that the company's next crowdfunding campaign, taking place in May, would be another addition to Outgunned.

"Through Dangers Untold, and Hardships Unnumbered..."

It's Valentine's Day once more. Rachel and I both surprised each other this lunchtime with wonderful cards (mine's the Baby Yoda card and I gave Rachel the photo card) and appropriate presents.

I got her the book of Winnie The Pooh book of  quotes, affirmations, and observations as well as the miniature sideboard for her current dolls house project.

Rachel gave me the gloriously illustrated Bestiary for Jim Henson's Labyrinth, which - as well as being a beautiful insight into this world - I reckon could also serve as inspiration for my upcoming (possibly) Twilight Sword campaign.

Here are a couple of the gorgeous spreads from the book, illustrated by Iris Compiet (in a very Brian Froud style, as he was the original concept artist on the movie) with text by S.T. Bende:

Isekai? It's Narnia Business!

Isekai (Japanese: 異世界; transl. 'different world', 'another world', or 'other world') is a sub-genre of fiction. It includes novels, light novels, films, manga, webtoons, anime, and video games that revolve around a person or people who are transported to and have to survive in another world, such as a fantasy world, game world, or parallel universe, with or without the possibility of returning to their original world.

Portal fantasy, also called portal-quest fantasy, gateway fantasy or crossworld fantasy, is a plot device in speculative fiction, particularly fantasy fiction and science fiction, in which characters enter a self-contained fantasy world through a portal, typically within a quest-based narrative that focuses on exploring and navigating that world. Portal fantasy works typically feature protagonists who enter alternate realities, explore unfamiliar landscapes, and encounter distinctive characters. Overall, portals in speculative fiction act as catalysts for narrative movement, worldbuilding, and thematic exploration.

With a new vision of C.S. Lewis's Narnia coming to Netflix at the end of the year and the fact that I am listening to the BBC radio play adaptations of The Complete Chronicles of Narnia, I'm entertaining different approaches to hooking players into any future fantasy roleplaying setting I conjure up.

Given that the current hot contender for "game du jour" is the upcoming video game and anime-inspired Twilight Sword, I can't help but be drawn to the concept of isekai (see the definition above if you're not au fait with the term) - although I don't know if it would be appropriate for that particular game (on the other hand it is baked into Break!! as a core character concept).

But, more specifically, my current travels in Narnia have got me wondering about the idea of "child adventurers".

I know these days this is a much more common concept - thanks to the ubiquity of Stranger Things, a whole heap of anime, and RPGs like Tales From The Loop and Kids on Bikes -  but it's an idea that takes me back to the early days of Steve's Villains & Vigilantes campaign in the 1980's, where a core concept was you play "yourself with superpowers".

You didn't roll random numbers to generate your statistics, but rather you and your fellow players 'graded' each other on a scale of three to 18 for the the primary stats of your characters, then you generated random superpowers and bingo! That was how the Acrobatic Flea was born.

But, of course, the big difference between superhero roleplaying games and Dungeons & Dragons-style fantasy adventures is that supers games are generally skewed towards keeping the player characters alive, where as dungeon delvers tend to be fragile, little snowflakes when they are just starting out.

There is a long literary tradition of "child adventurers" - in fact many of my favourite books have juvenile or young adult protagonists (e.g. Philip Reeves Mortal Engines saga, The Wizard of Oz and, of course, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland) - but literary tropes don't necessary work as written in a roleplaying format.

I like the idea of "Earth" men and women traveling to an alien world (e.g Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter books), as it means you don't need to explain everything to the players beforehand and they can explore the world as they go along, and I have no qualms about tooling up imaginary child characters with swords and bows, but what are the logistics of such a starting point?

How would I go about generating statistics for the player-characters? Would the players play younger versions of themselves (as per Villains & Vigilantes) or roll new characters? How would players, particularly those who were parents, feel about putting (fictional) young characters in harm's way?

ASPIRATIONS FOR 2026

Don't Want To Rush These Things: After 19 years, work shall begin on my castle

As we reach the end of January (which seems to have dragged on for about 30 weeks) I thought it was about time to lock in some aspirations for 2026.

HEALTH

Obviously after last year's health debacle (losing about seven months of the year because my legs stopped working properly and being in a great deal of discomfort), I want to get better this year.

More exercise and a healthier (urrgghhh!) diet are key. Hopefully, at the very least, I can bring my blood sugar levels down so I can get the steroid injections in my spine that will allow me the freedom to do more beneficial exercises.

READING

I've already stated that I want to get back into reading more this year (eyes willing), both novels and comic books, as both have slipped in the last seven or eight months.

I'm hoping to dig into my collection of recent Conan the Barbarian pastiche hardbacks, as well as the upcoming new Philip Reeve novel, and a random assortment of other books that either I've purchased for myself or were gifts.

I also have a massive backlog of comics to get through. Even though my pull-list continues to shrink, fresh issues keep arriving every month and I keep getting further and further behind.

My Read Judge Dredd Every Day is going... okay. I read either a story from volume one of the Complete Case Files or fresh material from current issues of the weekly 2000AD or the monthly Megazine pretty much every day. Pretty much.

CASTLE

For my 40th birthday (god, I can't believe it's been that long), Rachel's dad built me a tower that I could then decorate - along the line's of Rachel's dolls house hobby - and while I've collected a lot of "bits" to go inside it, two decades on and I still haven't started proper work on it. 

I keep flip-flopping on the theme of the tower in my mind (sometimes it's a superhero HQ, sometimes it's a U.N.I.T. base from Doctor Who, and sometimes it's even a Dungeons & Dragons-inspired fantasy castle!). This year I really must get on with it.

I'D RATHER BE KILLING MONSTERS

The tabletop roleplaying Facebook group I started over six years ago, I'd Rather Be Killing Monsters, is ticking over nicely, with almost 460 members but I'd really like to kick it up a gear.

I want to make the group more interactive, get more conversations flowing.

At the moment it feels as though there's about a dozen of us doing all the heavy-lifting. I'd like to get more members of the group engaged and talking about their own games, the campaigns they're running or playing in, monster/treasure/trap ideas etc

And, of course, I'd always like to increase the membership.

PROJECT 60

This is the big one for me, my core focus for the geeky projects I want to have in place before I turn 60 at the end of this year. Yes, it includes everything I've set in stone above but the two major things I'm channelling my energies into are establishing a singular roleplaying campaign for me to run - that will have legs - and a (skirmish) wargame with painted miniatures and terrain that I can play solo or invite friends over to play.

The current top contender for a roleplaying game is the anime fantasy Twilight Sword.

When it comes to skirmish games, for a while I was spreading myself a bit thin by embracing several genres and settings, but I've finally decided that I need to concentrate on just the Western game Dead Man's Hand.

I'd hoped to get started on terrain building and painting last year, but my osteoarthritis put the kibosh on that. This year I will make up for that.

TWILIGHT SWORD: One Of 2026's Most Anticipated Games

Two Little Mice's Twilight Sword has ranked tenth in EN World's recent annual community vote to find the most eagerly-awaited games of the coming year.

The Italian games company is also responsible for the Outgunned range of action film roleplaying games, of which the Tuesday Knights are currently playing the pulp iteration Outgunned Adventures.

However, Twilight Sword is a game system I have a financial interest in, having backed its crowdsourcing campaign almost entirely on vibes.

To be honest very little has been revealed about the game, besides the fact that the original games engine (the Created at Twilight system) revolves around a central mechanic involving a 1d12 "roll under" check.

During the fundraising campaign, the designers shared glimpses of  monsters, character sheets, and gaming sub-systems - all of which seemed to optimise simplicity and gorgeous design.

There's a gorgeous, free introductory PDF as well, which is primarily about evoking the desired atmosphere of Twilight Sword with a broad overview of the rules mechanics, setting and the role of player-characters (Champions) in overcoming Despair and bringing Hope back to the conquered lands of Radia.

While this alone might not have been enough to lure me in, my experience with Outgunned told me these people know how to design games, so I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the end of last year I was toying with some ideas for an anime-inspired fantasy setting for my next campaign - having realised that I work best as a gamesmaster when running a fantasy campaign - and was looking at Break!! and Twilight Sword.

Both are beautifully-designed games, but while Break!! feels akin with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (or even Third Edition), Twilight Sword is giving off more BECMI or B/X "vibes" with its seeming simplicity. This better suits where I am at the moment with my approach to gaming and desire to run something where the rules aren't tripping everyone up every other round.

The EN World post points out that Twilight Sword "is inspired by classic video games like The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy", which makes my interest slightly perverse as I've only played Zelda once and have never played Final Fantasy. I'm just not a video gamer, but I find the worlds and mythologies created for these games fascinating.

I also love the fact that Twilight Sword is set on a world - seemingly - without humans, instead elf-like creatures are the dominant species along with anthropomorphic animals (you know I'll be bringing the ducks) and other fantastical races.

This is a million miles away from the human-centric fantasy world I have been pushing in recent years and I'm more than okay with that. I've definitely loosened up my ideas what makes a dynamic roleplaying game setting in the last 12 months or so... thanks, in large, part to watching a lot of Dungeons & Dragons-inspired anime.

Twilight Sword isn't released until the middle of 2026 (at the earliest), so that's when I'll be making my final decision on whether this is the new system I bring to the Tuesday Knights. But I'm very optimistic that this is a shoo-in.

I have a collection of ideas, names, atmospheric suggestions etc stored as notes on my phone for my, as yet undefined, Twilight Sword campaign but I won't know how applicable they are until more information about the game and its setting (the lands of Radia) comes out.

That also means I probably won't be talking much about Twilight Sword - as it is largely a mystery - either here or "in real life" until closer to the actual time it's likely to be in my hands.

One Month In And We're Blogging Strong

    I couldn't find any free images for "monthaversary" because that's not a real thing

 Image by bise eise from Pixabay

It's a month since Cowboys, Capes, and Claws sprang to life, bringing my current views on geekdom (be it RPGs, comics, movies, and so on) to this chill corner of the Internet.

Since "Life Day", we've had a reasonably steady flow of visitors to the site. Sometimes too many for my liking, but generally a decent number of genuine readers interested in the words, pictures and videos I've posted up.

It may sound counterintuitive, but my goal would be to keep the number of hits per day to around 500 at most. I'm looking for quality over quantity. I'd rather half-a-dozen people read my blog each day and left comments, than thousands of bots hit the site and did nothing good.

First month visitors - the pulse of the blog

In this first month 35 per cent of the hits came from the United States while only 11 per cent were from the UK, with the bulk of referrals coming via Facebook.

While I'm generally settled on the design of the site, I've still been tweaking the right-hand column, moving bits up and down to see which placing I find most aesthetically pleasing. I think we're getting close to a final form.  

I'd like to applaud the founding members of my "posse", who kindly clicked on the blue Follow button (now near the top of the aforementioned right hand column of the blog), pledging their public support for my ramblings. Kudos to Jonathan, Erik, Justin, Percy, and Clare.

All new additions are welcome 😉

Heading into the New Year, my goal is to elevate the gaming coverage, while still maintaining a stream of reviews (films, TV, and comics) as well as general commentary.

When I started formulating this blog I never expected to write so much about my health again, but then the whole osteoarthritis issue was rather a bolt from the blue that - literally - took my legs from under me.

The idea for the blog was that I'd be writing about my progress with PROJECT 60 (that is, getting my Dead Man's Hand skirmish game up and running by the time I turn 60 next year, as well as the makings of a solid roleplaying campaign that would have long-term potential) interspersed with 20/20 VISION "events" where I'd tried something 'new' or stepped out of my comfort zone.

These last six months of heightened disability and constant pain have rather put the kibosh on that, but hopefully we're now coming out the other side and I can get back on track with those ambitions. And record them here on the blog.

The work on my Dead Man's Hand project will just have to be pushed back to 2026, when, all being well, I'll be able to work in our garden room on more scenery, assemble and paint up the buildings etc

As to roleplaying games, having been in a bit a funk because of my physical ailments, I'm now much more optimistic about the future and believe I've found a game that could be just right for my ideas. The trouble is, it isn't due to be published until the middle of next year. 

Of course, we still have Pete's Outgunned Adventures to look forward to every month.