Welcome to the fist entry of the Blog of Irregularity -1, a space where you can peer into the crooked mind of yours truly through my inane ramblings about gaming. And in true chaotic fashion, it has taken me almost two years to finally post something, despite the glut of gaming I've enjoyed over that time. But no apologies, because you were clearly warned in the blog title. Anyway, Gary Con X (pics) has come and gone, so I've filled my time with plans for the coming year, to fill the void of the inevitable post-Gary Con hangover, the subject of this entry...
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Planet of the Apes franchise, I will be running the first stage of my Planet of the Apes 50th Anniversary Game, Escape From Ape City (recounting action from the original movie) on the 50th anniversary date of the world-wide release of the original movie, Tuesday, April 3, 2018, at the Board Room, 514 Main St, Middletown, CT. (Click here for more details.) In addition, I will be running the full game on the following Saturday, April 7, 2018, also at the Board Room, 514 Main St, Middletown, CT. (Click here for more details.) The game uses Bolt Action miniatures rules, which are very easy to learn, and the full game consists of four stages: Escape From Ape City, The Forbidden Zone, Assault on Ape Management and the Battle For Ape City. Come celebrate 50 years of apes with me!
Gary Con goers note that I will be bringing the Planet of the Apes 50th Anniversary Game and the Little War of the Worlds games events back in 2019 to Gary Con XI. I'll also be running the board game The Three Musketeers: the Queen's Pendants in celebration of the 175th anniversary of the publication of the novel, in addition to the Knight's Errand event, using Dungeons Deep rules. See my Gary Con XI Events page for more info.
Despite the time-requirements of the new projects that I'm developing, The Dungeon Deep Fantasy RPG will be my primary focus in 2019. I have some new rule changes to institute, some Ability rules that still need to be written and some additional playtesting to do, in the form of a campaign, which will begin with the aforementioned Knight's Errand adventure. Once these tasks are done, I can look towards publication and a possible Kickstarter, so stay tuned for campaign updates and pics here on the Blog.
On the new project front, The Great Robot Menace of 1939, a mashup of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic and the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow film is in the planning stages. It will use Castle Falkenstein rules by R. Talsorian for the RPG stages and War Rocket rules by Hydra Miniatures for the miniatures stages. The project is in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the release of the Castle Falkenstein game, the 20th anniversary of the release of the LoEG comic, the 15th anniversary of the release of the Sky Captain film and will be run at the Board Room, as well as at Gary Con XI.
The trick to the Great Robot Menace project will be not railroading the story with preset stages, but I'm going to explore using a number of non-linear stages (ten maybe?) that connect in a sort of choose-your-own-story way depending on the success of the charact...er...Dramatic Personae in each stage. Speaking of which, looking at the timeline of the League as compared to the year in which the Sky Captain film is set, 1939, there are only three active League members at that point, so rather than try to write a story about their supposed adventures in that down time, I'm working on the premise that Mina was made aware of a plot in America and put Orlando in charge of assembling an American League (no certain name as of this writing) to deal with the menace.
I'm developing Great Robot Menace as an eight-player game, with eight main Personae, eight backup Personae (in the event of early deaths), plus support Personae, such as pilots for the miniatures stages. While researching main Personae, my only parameters were that they should not be a cartoon-character, like Popeye, and had to be from American literature published between about 1850 and 1939, following the precedent set in the League, which had various incarnations composed of characters of the current literary era. I found few novels that fit those parameters and that had characters that fit the mold, as much of the fantastical, science-fiction and horror tales in America at the time were found in the comic, comic strips, pulp novels and radio shows of the time, so in the end I was able to sample a bit of each medium and have assembled the following roster: Kent Allard (aka The Shadow, originally of radio fame), Hugo Danner (a predecessor to Superman, from the Gladiator novel), Wesley Dodds (aka the Sandman, a loosely-related predecessor to the Neil Gaiman character, from an early Golden Age comic), Flash Gordon (originally of comic strip fame), the Green Hornet and Kato (both originally of radio fame), Olga Mesmer (aka The Girl With the X-Ray Eyes, another predecessor to Superman, from a comic strip in a pulp magazine) and Doc Savage (of pulp fiction fame).
I also plan to develop an Alien board game for 2019, for the 40th anniversary of the release of the original film, possibly using the hidden identity game The Thing: Infection at Outpost 13 as a template, with the addition of combat rules from Leading Edge's Aliens: This Time It's War game, which are easy to learn and use. One of the challenges of this project will be sourcing proper miniatures, but I have good leads on plenty of great terrain. Look for more on this project later in 2018, with playtesting at the Board Room and an event at Gary Con XI.
Many of these projects will be play-tested on the Second Saturday Games days that I'll be holding on the second Saturday of every month, at the Board Room, 514 Main St, Middletown, CT, starting up again in April, 2018. I'll still be running board games as well, but now on the same second Saturday, likely every other month and starting with The Castles of Mad King Ludwig, on Saturday, April 14th. (Click here for more details.) And, as always, follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/dndgeek if you're interested in event notifications and pictures.
Finally, I may move this to a real blog site at some point, but that is a task for another day. (Edit: And that day is today...hooray! -JmC) That's all for now, but I will be back to talk at you some more...well, whenever...
