Casting Shadows

#RPGaDay is the brainchild of David "Autocratik" Chapman (Dr. Who RPG, WILD RPG, etc) and co-hosted by Anthony "Runeslinger" which for the past 8 years has been striving to help frame the month of August as a scene of positivity and sharing about Roleplaying Games. Each of the 31 days of August has its own prompt to serve as a spark of praise about this hobby we who have made it a part of our lives would like to share. The prompt for today is Scenario.

Read this entry (with bonus material?) on the Casting Shadows Blog: https://wp.me/pTI80-2ZV

Podcast Version: https://anchor.fm/runeslinger/episodes/Episode-6-Sky-Riders-and-the-Mist-Pirates---A-Venus-Chronicles-Serial-ekp4b9

Using Star Trek Adventures as a point of reference, this episode looks at stepping a way from the skill of making judgement calls without oversight (using fiat) and toward the enjoyment which arises from the use of tools which challenge how and when you can interact with the objective truths of the campaign~

Building on a blog post from 2011, this episode looks at three barriers that can be overcome to clear the road for more proactive play. 

Based loosely on a blog post from November of 2010 called Corruption - the other white meat, this episode explores notions of character change, largely through the example of moral corruption. The concept is connected to games like Pendragon, the old World of Darkness series (particularly Vampire and Wraith), and to Leagues of Gothic Horror and its meaner cousin Leagues of Cthulhu. This episode builds on notions expressed in the preceding two episodes (Episode 7: On Facilitating Fear and Episode 8: Can I Play SANs Madness...?)

Broaching the subject of rhttps://anchor.fm/runeslinger/episodes/Episode-3-1---Alien-RPG-series--part-1-e16obdpoleplaying games focused on emotional reactions of self-protection, we take some broad examples such as Call of Cthulhu and FFG's Star Wars Roleplaying to get things going. We look at two shades of this disquieting emotion: Horror and Fear. We look at how our two example games invoke it mechanically, and what we as players can do to facilitate more than a hat tip to the reaction the character is experiencing. This episode covers a lot of ground, digs up a few graves, kicks in a few doors, and perhaps opens some old books that should stay closed, but all of that is being done in the spirit of sharing how we actually play~

Episode 3.1: Embracing the Alien

Have you ever been suddenly contacted in the middle of your night to play a game? My friends have grown to expect such things. What follows in this episode is an Actual Play recording from June of 2019 where I thrust two trusting and clever players into the toxic mists of an alien world in the role of Venusian Lancers - bearers of the Lancers' Lightning Blades and famed Riders in the Sky! Come with me now to an age of danger, betrayal, and high-flying adventure, in a Venus that never was, but should have been~

Like the previous episodes so far, this was drawn from thoughts from the distant past, but which have not been shared widely and publicly until now. That's right, the release date of both the article and podcast are the same - October 7th 2020 - but reaching back in time to the mid-eighties and a small town where playing an RPG was pretty much the only good thing. 

This practical post of three specific tips for villains in an RPG was originally posted in response to a blog Carnival prompt on 'How to think like a villain.' Using examples from Actual Play which are accessible on the written blog, this post lays out simple means of getting into the heads of characters in your setting and seeing where that takes you in terms of villainy~