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
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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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
TRF’s Twelve Days of Christmas

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What’s Cool on Kickstarter

Megan # #

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

The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game
Numenera is one of my favorite games to run and to play, and now there’s a card game to go along with it. Made by Lone Shark Games, The Ninth World is a skill building game set in the world of Numenera. It looks like a ton of fun, and a great new way to explore one of my favorite places.

A sample character card for Nlixa, a learned nano who rides the lightning

“The Ninth World is a competitive card game for 2 to 5 players, designed by Paul Peterson, Boyan Radakovich, and me, with graphics by Shane Tyree and the artists of Numenera. The team at Monte Cook Games is also deeply involved in making this game what it is today.

Our game is set in the Numenera universe, where heroes explore the nine kingdoms of The Steadfast, each a very different place to adventure. They discover strange relics of the past, trying to discern which are powerful cyphers and which are just weird oddities. And they fight creatures of all shapes, sizes, and limb arrangements. Outside of the Steadfast is The Beyond, a wild and remote realm. And there are even places beyond The Beyond, awaiting your discovery.”

Continue reading What’s Cool on Kickstarter

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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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A Rune Awakening 7: Megan Hates Hold Person

trfadmin # # # # # # # #

Bruthazmus the Bugbear charges forward, you can see his necklace of elf ears swinging in the air

As the party ventures deeper into Thistletop they manage to overcome some obstacles by cheating! I mean…using spells.

Featuring Aser, James, Jonn, Landan, Megan, and Patrick. Music by Kevin MacLeod, “Battle of Five Armies.”

Direct Download!

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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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