TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 2, Night’s Black Agents

On the Second Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
Two Draculas
and a final girl fleeing to safety.

A man garrotes a vampire

Okay, this inside joke between Aser and Megan requires a bit of explanation. What shouldn’t require explaining though is how quickly the TRF cast behind Beyond the Threshold came to love Night’s Black Agents for its unique blend of supernatural horror, techno-thriller action and espionage drama.

Our plucky team of black ops realists have left a trail of destruction from Bosnia to the Bay Area and have been ready to draw down on each other as quickly as the bad guys from almost the beginning. It’s a game that seems tailor-made for TRF.

Listen to our Beyond the Threshold Campaign

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas: Day 1, Final Girl

On the First Day of Christmas
My GM gave to me,
A final girl fleeing to safety.

Final girl cover shows a girl coered in blood with a knife facing a killer in a mask

Since we started recording, the TRF crew have checked out more horror movie RPGs than you could shake a severed limb at. Seriously, who would’ve thought this was a genre in and of itself? Of all the different slasher flick simulators though, none has grabbed and held onto our interest like a grudge from beyond more than Final Girl.

Sadly now out of print and only available periodically through places like Bundle of Holding, this quick-start GM-less game using a deck of cards has been a podcast standby pretty much since the beginning. Get your hands on a copy when you can

Listen to our Final Girl Sessions

TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

What’s Cool on Kickstarter

There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Autumn Cthulhu: An Anthology
I love autumn, so this collection definitely caught my eye. There’s a great collection of authors who are writing Mythos inspired tales with the themes of autumn entwined. They’re also making an exclusive coin to accompany the book!

Cover of the book showing Cthulhu emerging in the background with an autumn tree in the foreground

“Autumn Cthulhu is a new fiction anthology featuring original tales of Lovecraftian horror set in the fall, published by Lovecraft eZine Press! I’ve been fascinated by autumn and Halloween since the age of six. I discovered Lovecraft much later… and ever since, I have felt that cosmic horror was a natural fit for this time of year. Colorful falling leaves, crisp days, rainy afternoons and evenings. A time of endings and melancholy.”

Continue reading What’s Cool on Kickstarter

Beyond the Threshold 6: That’s Not My Problem!

A picture of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco

The team scrambles to get undercover and safe after a disastrous encounter at the Fremont.

Featuring Aser, Matt, Megan, and Phil. Music by Kevin MacLeod, “Hitman.”

Direct Download!

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What’s Cool on Kickstarter

There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

Cthulhu Holiday Ornaments
I have one Cthulhu ornament on my tree, and I can’t wait to add to the collections. These are pretty, made in house, and should get to you by Christmas! This is a short lived project, so get your order in ASAP!

All four ornaments hanging from a Christmas Tree. Each features Cthulhu

“We’re making Cthulhu Holiday Ornaments for your Cthulhumas tree! This is a very simple campaign, with one goal: to put a set of 4 snazzy mirrored Cthulhu ornaments on your Yuletide tree, wreath, or mantle. That’s it! No complicated add-ons or variations, and we’re planning on producing and shipping quickly, so you can have your ornaments in time to enjoy them for the holidays (at least if you’re in the US or Canada – shipping elsewhere will probably cause them to arrive after Dec. 25).”

 

Secret Hitler
You can probably figure out what this game is about just from the name. It looks like a lot of fun and I would love to play it at parties. Plus, you can pledge to get some exclusive Cards Against Humanity cards!

GIF showing all of the possible secret role cards.

“Secret Hitler is a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930’s Germany. Players are secretly divided into two teams – liberals and fascists. Known only to each other, the Fascists coordinate to sow distrust and install their cold-blooded leader. The liberals must find and stop the Secret Hitler before it’s too late.

Each round, players elect a President and a Chancellor who will work together to enact a law from a random deck. If the government passes a fascist law, players must try to figure out if they were betrayed or simply unlucky. Secret Hitler also features government powers that come into play as fascism advances. The fascists will use those powers to create chaos unless liberals can pull the nation back from the brink of war.”

 

Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Locations
Inspiration is always essential as a GM. And locations can be hard to come up with. A book like this, full of great locations (that are system agnostic!) can be invaluable to a GM, to inspire their own locations or save a little work during prep.

A winding stair leads to an entrance that looks like a face with the door in the open mouth

“We RPG game masters have a lot of tools to help us run our roleplaying games. Our monster books and bestiaries give us piles of foes to throw at our adventurers. The various guides for game masters often give us non-player characters, treasures, and story-building tips.

One of the hardest parts of game mastering, however, is coming up with interesting adventure locations for our characters to explore. These locations need to be fantastic, detailed places that capture the minds of our players every session we run. Good locations are hard to improvise and often hard to strip out of a fully-fleshed-out adventure.

Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Locations is a book, available in PDF and print-on-demand, that gives you fifteen system-agnostic fantastic locations to drop into your favorite fantasy roleplaying game. Each location builds on a fantastic theme, such as a mysterious ancient structure under the ice, a cursed castle of a mad king, a fallen celestial fortress, and a dwarven mine that cracked into the tomb of a dead god. Each location includes artwork by Brian Patterson of D20Monkey. Sometimes this artwork takes the form of maps. Sometimes it’s an overlook of a specific location.”

 

Runequest: Classic Edition
Runequest is a classic old school RPG that has gone through several editions and was Chaosium’s first game. And as Chaosium approaches it’s 40th year as a company, they’ve decided to bring back the classic second edition of the game.

4 Runequest books, Balastor's Barracks, Creatures of Chaos 1, Militia & Mercenaries, and Trolls and Trollkin

“Here we are in 2015, the 40th Anniversary of Chaosium as a game company. In a few months Glorantha, Greg Stafford’s fantasy game world, celebrates its Golden 50th anniversary. We feel the time is right to bring the celebrated classic second edition of RuneQuest back into print. Gaming is going through a bit of an Old School renaissance as of late, and we want RuneQuest to be a part of it. We hope you’ll join in on the fun!”

 

Unspoiled! Podcast Laptop Christmas Miracle
Unspoiled is one of the first podcasts I ever listened to, and the one I’ve been listening to the longest. Natasha produces an incredible amount of incredibly entertaining content covering books, movies, and TV in short and in depth episodes. She currently could really use a new computer to help her with her full-time podcasting, and you should check out her amazing content even if you don’t want to pledge!

A finger is held in front of red lips in a shushing gesture.

“My increasingly well-known podcast UNspoiled! started four years ago, on a Macbook Pro and a Blue Snowball microphone that my co-host and I had to fight over to be heard. We continued like that for almost two years, upgrading only the microphones, until one day tragedy struck: my laptop slid out of my hands and slammed into the unforgiving concrete of a Philadelphia sidewalk. It continued functioning just long enough for me to purchase an emergency second-hand desktop Mac, which was at the time already 5 years old. Fast forward to today, and I’m still on that old Mac.

This old girl has served me well, but there are signs that she’s approaching her last legs. I already had a hard-drive failure in October of last year, which cost me months of recording time. Thankfully, my unbelievably generous listeners came together to help me purchase the $500 replacement hard drive, and I managed to soldier on. But even that upgrade hasn’t prevented her from slowing down when faced with some of the newer, more intricate software and online apps that I need to deliver the full range of shows and perks to my audience.

Now that I’m embarking on a mission to podcast full-time, it’s more crucial than ever that I have a machine that can withstand the rigors of intensive, constant, everyday use. Not only that, but having so much production to manage really necessitates a laptop; the sheer number of hours I’m putting in now makes sitting constantly at my desk a painful endeavor. ”

 

Still active!

Würm
What Lies Beyond Reason, a PF adventure path
Lovecraft, P.I.
Age of Legends
Bring Back MST3K
Leonardo
Jellyfish Aquarium
Cthulhu Tales
Yrisa’s Nightmare, A Pathfinder AP
Luma Dice

Fear Itself: The Wickerman

Christopher Lee stands with his arms raised with the WIckerman behind him.

For Thanksgiving weekend we wanted to celebrate the harvest, TRF style. This episode was previously Patreon exclusive, but since we’re thankful for all of you, we’re making it public. Enjoy this retelling of the 1973 classic horror film, The Wicker Man.

Featuring Aser and Megan. Music from Freemusicarchive.org, Port_City_Music_-_29_-_Night_Terrors from ‘Silber Sounds of Halloween’

Direct Download!

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Kobolds Ate My Baby: Thanks-Voring

The head of a Kobold

As a special Thanksgiving episode, listen to the crew experience a Thanks-Voring edition of Kobolds Ate my Baby as a crack crew is sent by King Torg (All Hail King Torg!) to find some succulent babies for a Thanks-Voring feast.

Featuring Aser, Brian, Jonn, Megan, and Patrick. Music by Kevin MacLeod, “The Path of the Goblin King.”

Direct Download!

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Continue reading Kobolds Ate My Baby: Thanks-Voring

Interview with Jaye Foster from 6d6 RPG

Art from the kickstarter depicting seas monsters around a Greek ship with mountains in the background

We had the pleasure of talking to Jaye Foster from 6d6 RPG about the system and their new Kickstarter for Age of Legends. You can learn more about the 6d6 system on their website. We really love the inspiration of this setting and the ease of play of the system. Check it out before the Kickstarter ends on December 5!

Direct Download!
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What’s Cool on Kickstarter

There’s many interesting items to be found on Kickstarter, but these are the coolest ones this week.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is a digital version of the fantasy scenario. I haven’t played Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but I really like the look of this game. Particularly the hopping of the miniatures as the move through the dungeon. I like the idea that it’s a digital version of you playing a tabletop game. It keeps the grid and the bases on the miniatures and just looks like a lot of fun. You can play through several different scenarios, and the next stretch goal is to get Battlebards on board to help with music and sounds!

A miniature hops down the stairs in a dungeon

“The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is a digital re-imagining of the classic adventure gamebook written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. Tin Man Games is bringing it closer towards its tabletop role-playing game roots, complete with a rich interactive 3D map, collectable digital miniatures, an updated combat system and the ability to explore Firetop Mountain with multiple characters. This is our first step towards our grand vision for the Fighting Fantasy universe and we want YOU to be part of it.”

 

Cthulhu Tales
I really like the idea of this game, with you trying to explain to the staff of a hospital why you don’t belong there as you tell your story, and the others disrupt you to make you sound less sane. I think it sounds like a fun story telling game, and I would play it in a hearbeat!

Three cards showing Cthulhu, Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth

“Cthulhu Tales is a storytelling card game for people who enjoy the weird tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, love games and have a sense of humour with a touch of darkness to it…

Incarcerated in a sanatorium, you must convince the staff that you are sane by telling the story of the terrifying events that led you there. The other players try to disrupt your tale to make themselves look more sane in comparison, and the success of your tale determines which misguided therapies and medication are administered by the terrifying medical staff. These treatments are the way the game is scored, the player ending with the least amount of treatment is the winner, and is free to go.

Cthulhu Tales is very much a game, rather than simply a guided storytelling activity – it features structured and elegant rules for the telling of the tale, and for Hazard card interruptions. Players use the symbols on the cards to determine whether a card can be played, and its effect on the Narrator’s tale. The die introduces an element of luck into the proceedings – perhaps that Viscous Black Slime was merely a passing detail, or perhaps its arrival was the precursor to something far more sinister and madness inducing…”

 

Yrisa’s Nightmare, A Pathfinder AP
There’s not a shortage of material for Pathfinder content, but new adventures are always welcome. Yrisa’s Nightmare is written for both Pathfinder and 5e, and includes pre-gens for both. I haven’t been able to do any real horror in Pathfinder, so adventures like this make it easy to integrate.

Example of the PDF layout of the AP

“Highhouse Yroden has been cursed. Apparitions stalk the streets, gnolls lurk in the nearby wilds, and a dragon has taken interest in the town. Yet the curse runs deeper still. Nightmares plague the townsfolk’s dreams and madness grips their waking minds. If something doesn’t happen soon, Yroden will be no more. Yrisa’s Nightmare is an adventure written for 5e and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The project includes:

-An adventure suitable for 4-5 2nd-level characters that includes a mix of action, roleplaying, and mystery. You should expect it will take 2-3 sessions (3-4 hours each) to complete Yrisa’s Nightmare.
-A new monster, the Blackclaw Gnoll. These servants of the demonic prince Zalintar Blackclaw are an unholy merging of demon, dragon, and gnoll.
-A fully detailed settlement: Highhouse Yroden. Yroden is stocked full of interesting NPCs and will be released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Additional content for Highhouse Yroden will be provided via an online supplement.
-Five pre-generated characters for 5e and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
-A pile of awesome extras waiting for us to hit our stretch goals. These add ons are focused predominantly on fallout arising from the events of Yrisa’s Nightmare.”

 

Luma Dice
These dice are really pretty, and I love that the pips on each side are different LED colors. You can also change the battery which means they will be usable for as long as you get new batteries.

Rolling the dice. It's metallic with different LEDs for each pip

“Playing games should always be a fun and magical experience. Our job is to deliver you the most exciting dice for playing all your tabletop adventures!

We have turned traditional dice on its head. Each side of dice lights up with different colored lights. The dice itself is carved from a solid block of aluminum and uses an accelerometer to detect motion to turn the lights on and off again when not being used.

Whether you’re into Dungeons & Dragons, board games or just a collector we think you’ll love LUMA DICE as much as we do.”

 

Still active!

Machu Pichu Dice
Würm
DCC RPG 4th Printing
What Lies Beyond Reason, a PF adventure path
Lovecraft, P.I.
Side Quest Pocket Adventures
Fhtagn: Rock Opera of Doom
Braille Dice
Age of Legends
Bring Back MST3K
Leonardo
Jellyfish Aquarium

A Rune Awakening 6: Collecting Ears

Warchief ripnugget rides his war lizard, who has spikes affixed to his tail.

Scrambling to recover from tragedy, the adventurers make their way into Thistletop for revenge.

Featuring Aser, Jonn, Landan, Megan, Patrick, and Tassia. Mysic by Kevin MacLeod, “Five Armies”

Direct Download!

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