One of my favorite pieces of movie trivia is that the famous mine car chase from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was originally planned for Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you read the original Raiders screenplay, you’ll find the scene at the very end. After Indy and Marion recover the ark from […]
Tag: gurps
This month, I go waaaaay back in time to the ice age. And to make it more brutal, I add some Lovecraftian monstrosities into the mix. The ice age is probably the most ignored RPG setting. There are very few RPGs that focus on it. But… it’s also one of the best historical settings for […]
FASA’s original Star Trek RPG is underrated, largely because it borrowed so much from other systems. It had a percentile skill system like Call of Cthulhu, a life-path character creation system like Traveller, and a ship battle system that was a simpler Star Fleet Battles. It wasn’t inspirational, but it worked, and it was highly […]
The first adventure for a generation of roleplayers was Bargle’s underground lair. Featured in the 1983 red box set, this D&D solo adventure did a fantastic job of teaching rules, introducing bizarre monsters (the dreaded rust monster!), and even giving characters a compelling emotional reason to delve into a dangerous dungeon — the murder of […]
Pulp RPGs are cursed! I’m not an RPG historian, but I’m fairly positive that is a 100% true statement, at least for me. Every pulp RPG I excitedly purchased had an ill-fated ending. I was crushed when I realize the TSR Indiana Jones game only let you pick between seven characters to play. You better […]
One-shot adventures are a great opportunity for GMs to try something new. Without the pressure of setting up an ongoing campaign, GMs can take more risk on setting, genre, and available character types. The stakes can also be materially higher in a one-shot. No one cares if the world comes to an end after a […]
Horror RPGs appear to be going through a resurgence, at least according to my own convention statistics. It’s easy to fill up a game of Call of Cthulhu with excited players these days, even at a small convention, and my GURPS Horror historical crossovers do well too. As most horror writers will tell you, the […]
One of my favorite H.P. Lovecraft stories is “The Temple”. It’s a straightforward but moody account of a German submarine crew dealing with one horrible problem after another – a cursed item, an engine malfunction, mutiny, madness, suicide, and then finally its lone survivor staring straight into The Impossible. It has all the hallmarks of […]
This month, it’s off to Heroic Greece with The Honey Tree of Pelion, a GURPS adventure that challenges the PCs to assuage angry gods, perform mighty physical feats, and save a city from the hubris of its king. As I hearkened back to my love of Clash of the Titans to write this adventure, I […]
Harry Potter has a special place in my creative consciousness not only because of my love for the books and movies, but also because I got to design and produce the very first Harry Potter videogame (a whirlwind of a production that I’ll save for another time, but all-in-all, fond memories of the insanity). A few months […]
