B.Caven

That's a very good shout, especially for the periods between times when not much happens historically

Well I'm glad my little post was able to reunite such good friends!

I've always wanted to run a long term campaign set before and after Dune that follows the novel's themes on historical legacies. It's one of the more interesting elements of the book series that rarely gets explored - how 5,000 years later people are speculating if Paul Atredies was even real, or if he was just a Fremen folk story or tribal leader. There's some nice parallels with King Arthur there. I think it would be fun to have players see their actions fade into historic myth, or witness how the legacy Paul's Jihad changes the universe through the eyes of different characters. Would Pendragon be a good system for that with it's idea of lineage? I imagine I'd need to swap "Honour" out with something like "Legacy" or similar. Anyone have any advice for such an adaptation?

Hello! I'm looking into signing up for the "Write your first adventure" from the Storytelling Collective and I was wondering what content it involved. I'm interested in the class, but I've been disappointed before by other writing courses and it worries me that I can't see a full list of content or activities. Could someone elaborate more on what the course entails? Thanks!

At this point I've been preparing and running Beyond the Mountains of Madness for the past year; I started making notes in early June/July 2021 and I started running the thing in August and September. After a year of play, dropping out of university, reapplying to university and several iterations of notes I am pleased to announce my group has made it! To Australia. Yes it's been a year and we've only made it through the first five chapters, but that's something I wholly adore about BtMoM. It's the only product in the Call of Cthulhu line that gives its narrative and characters a chance to breathe and develop naturally; nowhere else do the players have a chance to become familiar with the rhythm of the game and to settle into a sense of normality only to have it ripped suddenly away from them in a spectacular second act. To that end, I consider it the greatest product in series and the only one to truly capture a sense of dread and true surmounting horror. If you need any advice on running the first five chapters, setting the tone or even prepping the damn thing in the first place, I'd be more than happy to answer your questions!

Update: Somehow the crew got in a friendly knife fight tournament with the polar guides after a miscommunication. Would 100% recommend seizing any opportunity for fun on the boat trip

1. Nah, you want them to be more frail. This is an Antarctic expedition, and it would ruin the tone if your players were faced with the progenitors of the human race and went "so anyway I started blasting" rather than being over-come with awe. 2. I'm currently on Chapter 4 with my group. So far they liked a lot of the character interactions and the "down time" they've had in New York, but it is starting to feel very "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory" and a lot of them have lost sight of that Antarctic as a goal. Some advice I have for the early chapters is the play up the press presence surrounding the expedition - it got to a point where my players were more concerned about making a good impression than loading the boat, and it made them consider their actions more when they ran the risk of loosing sponsors from bad press. Use the early chapters as an opportunity to introduce the personalities of the NPC crew members. You're going to spend lots of time with these chaps, and it adds to the horror to have a cast of beloved characters picked off along side the PCS. Plus, your players are probably going to have to take over one of the crew when their character dies so it's good to let them know how these people work. Don't be afraid to remind them of the stakes, even this early in the campaign. One of the investigators broke his back during the events of chapter 4, and it's made every other player realise their character's mortality. 3. The Campaign takes a darker turn after this so the Crossing the Line is important for adding one last gasp of levity before some of the darker moments set in. If the Investigators don't take part, it also makes the hunt for the saboteur more challenging if the crew comes to resent you for revoking their tradition. There's a great resource of drivethru (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/251994/Cinematic-Environs-Arctic-Lands-Call-of-Cthulhu-Edition?manufacturers_id=2) for CoC in extreme conditions, and one of their new rules is Sanity Loss from Isolation on a ship, in mountains, a desert etc. A homebrew rule I've made is that you're immune to isolation insanity loss if you take part in a leisure activity, and large parties like the Crossing ceremony give a five day leniency period on the sanity rolls. Its worth mechanising things like this to make them feel more relevant.

Hi all! I'm a Film and Media student at a sixth-form college working as a part-time writer for a media magazine. Currently I'm researching an article on representation in the media through the lens of Harlem Unbound; TTRPGs offer a unique immersion and perspective for spectators and consumers so they'd make a unique format for representation. I was wondering if anyone knew of any books or articles on immersion in TTRPGs? Specifically I'm looking out for books on game-theory, if any exist. Thanks in advance!