Tag: 12 Days of Christmas

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 2, Orks

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Second Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Two orks choppin’,
And dread Cthulhu dreaming ‘neath the sea.

A horde of green orks with a yellow sky

With characteristically good timing, TRF decided to go into Warhammer 40k role playing in a big way this summer, just as Fantasy Flight was announcing that they would be losing the license to play in Games Workshop’s playground. While this means there won’t be more content coming in their numerous and varied lines of grim dark sci-fi tabletop experiences, it hasn’t stopped us from enjoying the brutal combat of Only War or the brutal intrigues of Dark Heresy, and perhaps before long the brutal profiteering of Rogue Trader, all brutally of course.

And speaking of brutality, nothing embodies the concept more clearly than our friends the Orks. These often cartoonish foils for the Imperium of Man give players something suitably over the top to combat with their machine gun rocket launchers and chainsaw broadswords. So thank you Orks for your generous contribution to our role playing landscape this year. We’ll be sure to put your Christmas card in a red envelope so it gets to you faster.

We encountered Orks in Only War: Jungle Death Worlds are the Worst

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 1, Cthulhu

Megan # # #
On the First Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Dread Cthulhu dreaming ‘neath the sea.

Cthulhu rises in the ocean, towering over a ship

As the holidays approach, we wanted to continue a TRF tradition we began last year, spending the 12 Days of Christmas celebrating things we love in RPGs. This year our carols focus on our favorite monsters, creatures, and adversaries to bring into our games. Next year, I’ll finally figure out how to make the whole song about dice.

So many of the games we love to play are based on Cthulhu Mythos, so I’m not sure how much of an introduction he really needs. We started out the show trying to cram him and the mythos into everything we did, now we’re giving him a little more room to breathe. Cthulhu has been through many iterations as he has come more into public awareness, from Kawaii Cthulhu to Political Cthulhu, but hopefully we’ll never be foolish enough to stop fearing him. If we do, I’ll be sure to run a game that culminates in the party seeing him, in all his indescribable  glory and watch as their sanity finally slips away.

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 12, Call of Cthulhu

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Twelve Cthulhu’s calling,
Eleven Strange cyphers,
Ten Sandpoints pillaged,
Nine scary monsters,
Eight prior worlds,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

A man tries to shoot himself in the head as a shoggoth tries to grab him

Well, how can you have a podcast about mythos horror gaming without playing Call of Cthulhu? You can’t: so here it is. We’ve played 6E and 7E now, with Horror on the Orient Express stretching past 12+ episodes already.

This granddaddy of investigative horror gameplay has made a huge contribution to the history of gaming and continues to offer the same promise of thrilling child and appalling botches that has made it a hit across generations.

Listen to our Call of Cthulhu Episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 11, The Strange

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Eleven Strange cyphers,
Ten Sandpoints pillaged,
Nine scary monsters,
Eight prior worlds,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

A view of the Strange with pieces of different recursions peeking into it

We have had a lot of fun putting our own little twist on The Strange. This weird setting of infinite possibility has served as the playground for some of our favorite characters and whacky situations. Whatever happens, we’ll always have Prague.

The great thing about The Strange is that it can take you anywhere you want to go, so naturally we crammed Cthulhu in it. He felt right at home.

Listen to our Strange Episodes
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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 10, Pathfinder

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Tenth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Ten Sandpoints pillaged,
Nine scary monsters,
Eight prior worlds,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

A fighter stands confidentally while in the background a group of goblins run through Sandpoint

Who would’ve thought it’d come to this: we played Pathfinder. After a year of staying away, we dared to run Rise of the Runelords, and we had fun doing it. We’re still doing it, and may well be doing so for the rest of our lives. Well, maybe not. We have to get back to 7th Sea at some point…

Pathfinder is popular for a reason, and we’ve had fun delving into that power fantasy as our heroes smash their way through goblin hordes and giant tribes.

Listen to our Pathfinder Episodes
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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 9, Fear Itself

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Ninth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Nine scary monsters,
Eight prior worlds,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

An eye peeks through a hole in a door and is full of fear

While not the first Gumshoe game we tried, Fear Itself may very well be the scariest. We’re not hardened wet work artists or seasoned investigators of the unnatural for this outing: we’re regular people with ordinary lives. So basically, we’re screwed.

When you throw in the Book of Unremitting horror, and Megan’s love of tormenting Aser in one-on-one games, Fear Itself has quickly become a TRF favorite.

Listen to our Fear Itself Episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 8, Numenèra

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Eighth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Eight prior worlds,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

A view of the Obelisk of the Water God with much of the landscape showing

The first game we decided to play after the podcast started, Numenèra has been one of our favorite systems since we created our first characters. We’ve run a whole campaign in the Ninth World since then, transitioning from a published adventure to a story of Megan’s own creation. In a real sense, our growth as a podcast can be tracked through this one line of episodes: from a single-track recording of our play through of Devil’s Spine through a multi-track recording of Megan’s own dungeons.

Finding the sort of sweet spot between rules light story gaming and tactical-focused adventuring that we find particularly appealing, Numenèra has brought us a world that is easy to dive into and provides wonderfully strange landscapes and technologies to explore at every turn.

List of our Numenèra Episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 7, 7th Sea

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Seventh Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Seven heroes slashing,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

An image of Avalon with the queen and two men near the sea

The best part about growing the podcast has been discovering new people to play with and the interests they bring to our little assembly line of madness. When Patrick from our Tuesday night gaming group brought up the possibility of running 7th Sea for us, we couldn’t say yes fast enough.

A game that feels very much ahead of its time, 7th Sea entertained us with its focus on dramatic action beats and story. It’s a setting we’ll be returning to in the future, count on it.

Listen to our 7th Sea Episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 6, Fiasco

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Sixth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Six Fiascos foiled,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

Text reads

Ah Fiasco, what can we say about you? It’s the game that introduced us to a lot of TRF’s first additions to the cast, in games that are sadly lost to history. Perhaps equally important, it emphasized to us the ability for rules-light, GM-less games to create colorful stories that are simultaneously absurd and yet oddly memorable.

We’ve played a couple mythos-related play sets through the history of the podcast, and are always interested in finding more that might generate an episode or two in the future.

Listen to our Fiasco episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 5, Trail of Cthulhu

Aser Tolentino # # #
On the Fifth Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Five TPKS!
Four ships still flying,
Three Green Boxes,
Two Draculas,
and a Final Girl fleeing to safety.

 

Man standing in the gloom looking at a corpse

There’s actually only ever been one total party kill on TRF: the scenario Castle Bravo for Trail of Cthulhu. As to be expected from Brian, Phil and Aser though, it’s not achieved by half measures.

Using the core clue mechanic central to the Gumshoe system to guarantee narrative progress, Trail of Cthulhu ensures that your intrepid band of investigators will make it to that payoff at the end of the adventure where the true horror of the situation can finally be revealed. Whether the PCs found all of the other clues along the way determines how well that last scene plays out for them: in Castle Bravo, we found most of them.

Listen to our Trail of Cthulhu episodes
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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