A Weekend In The Country

I'm always on the lookout for murder mystery games. We do like a nice murder mystery in this house so, naturally, it would be nice to extend our gaming in that direction. In the past my wife's written a couple of those murder mystery evenings, and they've been quite fun, and we've done  couple of commercial ones too. We actually went out to one a few weeks ago at a posh hotel, and had a great time, even if the solution turned out to be the most obvious suspect.

Anyway, aside from 'Cluedo' (which is a tedious waste of time) we've tried 'Rear Window' (where the mystery is really whether a murder has been committed at all), 'There's Been a Murder' (which is a great little card game) and 'A Taste For Murder' (a role-playing game that takes a bit of time and effort and gets quite dark, but is actually quite good). But the other day I came across another role-playing game - 'A Weekend In The Country'.

Strictly it's what seems to be called a journalling game, in that it's really designed for one player and you use the mechanisms to generate a story framework which you flesh out in writing. You can (and people do) run it with multiple players, but everyone is working together; there's no GM.

The setting is fixed (but see below). You are a famous detective. You have been invited to spend the weekend at the country estate of Lord Adler. Needless to say he is quickly murdered, and it's up to you to solve it. The suspects are fixed - his wife, Lady Adler, a friend, Lady Blakeley, another guest, Lord Entwhistle and Lord Adler's valet, Mr Cooper. 

The game is run using cards, a D6 and (believe it or not) a Jenga tower. Each of the suspects is represented by one of the court cards, and has a different suit (Lady Adler is the Queen of Hearts for example). The other 48 cards are dealt out into five piles, each representing a location in the house - Study, Bedrooms, Attic, Servants Quarters and Kitchen. To be honest they are arbitrary and are just used to colour the story-telling. The Jenga tower is set up to one side.

You play a series of turns. You choose a deck (location) and draw a card. You then find it in a chart in the rules, and read off the brief piece of text corresponding to it, note it down and then flesh it out a little. For example you may find a broken locket on the floor, or a bloodstain on the wall. Or Lady Blakeley will try and warn you off investigating the case. The higher the card the more intense the occurrence or find. Having documented your find, and out the card to one side, you roll the D6 and have to remove that many blocks from the Jenga tower.

If the Jenga tower topples then randomly determine a suspect. They are murdered. Their card is flipped over.

You keep going like this, but watch the hand of cards you are building up. At some point you will accuse one of the suspects, and your case is made up of the best five-card poker hand you can make from the cards you've drawn. So obviously the more cards you can draw the better. And, also, the higher cards with their intense encounters, are better as well.

You can accuse a given suspect if your hand contains a card of their suit. So, for example, to accuse Lady Adler, you need at least one heart in your hand. This is where some creativity is required; you have to assemble the deductions that led to your accusation by using the five clues the cards represent.

The accused then tries for an alibi or their innocence. They take their own card, and draw one card from each of the five piles. You make up the best five-card poker hand from the six cards they now have. If it beats your hand then you've made a wrongful accusation. That suspect is turned face-down and can't be accused again. If your hand beats theirs then they confess and you have won.

You lose the game if all of the suspects bar one are turned face-down - either through being murdered or by being wrongfully accused. The remaining suspect is the killer, but escapes.

The fun of the game is taking the bits generated by the mechanisms and creating a story.

Anyway, I tried a few runs to get the mechanisms sorted, then Catherine and I gave it a go yesterday.

We skipped the Jenga tower. One, because it was late in the evening and we didn't trust ourselves to be any good at it. And also because it's down in the garage and it was dark. But I'd found a couple of non-Jenga variants online for the Threat of Murder, and we went with one of those (a second deck of cards - you draw 1D6 each turn and if a Joker turns up there's a murder. Draw the next card to determine the suit of the victim).

We set the game in the classic Agatha Christie 1920s, and unironically called our detective Joe Bloggs. He was a former police sergeant who was simply too clever to be a copper at that rank and had gone private. 

I knocked up a couple of tables that told us where Lord Adler was murdered and how. They helped kick-start the story. 

In the first game Lord Adler was found defenestrated. We discovered that someone was blackmailing Lord Adler just before Mr Cooper was found with his head smashed in in the same room Lord Adler was hurled from. Lady Blakeley was very vocal in casting aspersions on Joe's abilities, and we also had a note from Lord Adler suggesting that someone might be out to get him. A maid reported that she overheard Mr Cooper threaten to expose Lady Blakeley for something as well. Not long after Lady Adler was also murdered in her boudoir. 

With only two suspects left we had a pair of 10s, and went for an accusation before one of them was murdered. We accused Lady Blakeley. She was having an affair with Lord Adler and he'd promised to leave his wife for her. However he'd gone back on that promise, and in a fit of rage Lady Blakeley had pushed him out of the window. Mr Cooper knew of the affair and was blackmailing Lady Blakeley. He confronted her after the murder, as he'd suspected she'd done it, so she killed him as well. Lady Adler also probably worked out what was going on and, as she was on a roll, Lady Blakeley did for her as well. She drew a poor hand and (not even a pair) and confessed.

So we won. But it was a short game and we wanted another one.

In the second game Lord Adler was found in an disused bedroom, poisoned.

We quickly found that he'd been using cocaine, but that someone had laced it with poison. We followed several clues and lines of inquiry - some marks of blood in a hallway, and a revelation that Lord Adler had changed his will and was possibly leaving a lot of the money that would have gone to Lady Adler to Mr Cooper instead. But the most promising line of inquiry was the rapid realisation that Lady Adler and Lady Blakeley were in a secret and intimate relationship. We found several clues that suggested that was the case. We had a fairly good hand building up with which we could accuse any of the suspects though, but before we could get the last card Lady Blakeley was found drowned in the lake in the gardens.

We picked up a couple more clues and were able to assemble a straight. We accused Lady Adler of the murders. Her husband had found out about the affair and was going to change his will to cut her out. She poisoned his cocaine. Unfortunately with Lord Adler out of the way, Lady Blakeley was putting pressure on Lady Adler to make their relationship public. But Lady Adler couldn't bear the scandal. The lovers argued by the lake and Lady Blakeley was pushed in, hitting her head. Lady Adler left her lover to drown.

Lady Adler failed to mount a defence and confessed.

In fact the cards we had would have allowed us to build just as strong a case against Mr Cooper - he had debts and had found out that he was now a major beneficiary of Lord Adler's will. He could have killed Lord Adler simply to get hold of the money. But we liked the story of the doomed lovers better.

We enjoyed our session and, of course, it's a game where you get out of it what you put in. From reading around it's fairly easy to create new settings for it; you just assign locations to the five decks and stick to the one suspect = one suit format (assigning each a court-card, since it gives them a head-start on building a good alibi hand). Some creative reinterpretation of the clues might be needed, but it's not hard.

You can buy the game as a PDF download HERE

And there's several sessions reported HERE with details of the card-play to show how the mechanisms work.

The Score

Last year I wrote a post about a fast-play RPG called The Score, which enables 1-6 players to run a collaborative heist story in 15-20 minutes. It's tremendous fun, but at the time we were playing the beta-test version.

Since then the game has gone on Kickstarter, and I liked it enough to back it. The other day my copy arrived. Here it is.

I loved the box-file packaging; nicer than a box of cards that open with a flap for sure. And what's packed inside it?

You get 40 cards, a pad of character sheets and two A4 rules sheets. One is the main rules, with a full example of play. The second is an expansion containing hints of how best to play the game, as well as a number of variant setups to simulate different styles of heist story. There's a surprising amount covered on that second sheet.

The cards are gorgeous quality, and consist of 28 skill/location/object cards, five Act cards, six quick reference cards and one blank/spare skill card (for if you want to add your own). If you look closely at the back they're also, in the grand tradition of a good heist, marked. Doesn't make a lot of difference to the game, but it's a nice touch.

So how do you play?

Each of the main game cards shows a particular skill, as well as an object of interest and a location. You start by taking 18 of these cards to form the game deck, then pick three at random and decide which one object and one location will be the subject of the heist. You then assemble your crew. Twelve cards are dealt as evenly as possible between the players, and these are each character's skills. You write down you skills and between you come up with names, backgrounds and the core story for why you are after the particular object.

The skill cards are then shuffled back into the deck, and four cards at random are removed, leaving a deck of fourteen cards, some of which will be skills possessed  by the players and others that aren't. Without looking at them the cards are split up into five piles of varying sizes to make up five Acts.

The game then starts with Act 1. A card is drawn and the owner of the skill narrates (briefly) how they are using that skill to further the heist. If the skill drawn is not one possessed by the team then a player narrates how that skill would be of no use in this heist anyway.

When Act 2 starts the narrative shifts as (with all good heist stories) the plan goes off the rails. In this act if you draw a card possessed by the team, the owner narrates how the opponents are preventing them using it, whereas if it's a skill the team don't have someone narrates how it's actively being used against them.

In Act 3 the plan gets back on track, and that runs like Act 1, and Act 4 covers more setbacks and runs like Act 2. 

Act 5 is where it all happens; the team's skills work for them, but skills they don't have work for the opposition. Act 5 is where the heist succeeds or fails, depending on whether the last card drawn is one the team has or not. But even a failure makes a good story, and there's an option for a player to sacrifice themselves to allowed a failed heist to succeed.

Whilst you can't change things that have been narrated, you can put twists on them; for example in Act 2 you could determine that the security around the object is too tight for the team to get past before a skill drawn in Act 3 reveals that one of the security guards is in fact a member of the team in deep cover. It's a story-telling game; anything is possible.

Our family loves a good heist story, and this game really captures the feel of them. It's fast. It's silly. It's fun.

The Score is available from Tin Star Games here in Australia, as hard-copy (as above) or a simple download.

Christmas Games

I hope you all had a great Christmas! And especially hope that your figure, rules, books and gaming collections were expanded in a way that was satisfactory to you.

I only got one game this year, but that's fine because really I have too much of most things these days. However my wife got a few new games, so we had plenty of stuff to try out over the break. 

First up was Calico, which Catherine decided to buy with some birthday money she had. We got this out on Christmas Day. As you can see, it has a cat-theme, and was therefore designed for Catherine.

In Calico you are making quilts, using a selection of hexagonal tiles which come in combinations of six patterns and six colours.

Grouping together sections of the same colour allows you to add buttons. Grouping together sections of the same pattern attracts cats to your quilt who will sleep on it. Both of these things earn you points.

Attracting a real cat doesn't earn you any extra points, although the first player is the person who most recently petted a cat, so Aloy got some frantic attention early on ...

Each board also has three bonus score tiles, which look complicated, but aren't. These reward you for setting up combinations of patterns and/or colours around the particular scoring tile. You can score for the combination in just colour or just pattern, or go for the extra points of doing it with both pattern and colour.

Part of the way through the game, and I was feeling confident.

My finished quilt. It all went a bit wrong towards the end, when (naturally) I needed tiles of particular patterns and/or colours and they stopped appearing from the bag. That's my excuse anyway. I came last.

Maya won it, by managing to get maximum points of all of her bonus scoring tiles.

I think Maya got a score that was almost equal to mine and Catherine's combined. 

The game has a special 'Master Quilter' tile you get to hold as a trophy if you win. You are then obliged to have your photo taken.

Catherine and I then had a go at another of her gifts - a word-game called 'A Little Wordy', from the people who brought us 'Exploding Kittens'.

This is a fairly simple two-player game. Both players draw eleven letter tiles from a bag and secretly construct a word, of any length, from them, making a note of it. You then hand the tiles you drew to your opponent, and take it in turns to guess what word they might have constructed using them.

So here's my word (FONT) and my notes on what I know about Catherine's word - it ends in 'E', it's not GLEE or EXILE, it contains an 'L', it doesn't contain an 'H' and it's more than four letters in length. But how do I know all that?

I knew those things because on your turn you can either guess the opponents word, or activate one of eight clue cards that are dealt out at the start of the game, and which require the other person to give you certain pieces of information about their word. Each card you use gives the other person victory points, however (as does incorrectly guessing their word). And the winner is the person who not only guesses their opponent's word, but concedes the fewest points doing it.

It's a quick and simple game, and we enjoyed it. Catherine also played a few rounds with Maya whilst I cooked Christmas dinner.

Our neighbour joined us for dinner, and we played a couple of games afterwards. The first was Kitttins, which is a very quick and simple game involving the stacking of cat meeples into shapes determined by a drawn card, and was another of Catherine's gifts. It's very much a dexterity game.

Here's a winning stack. You play a round until someone completes the pattern shown on the card. The first person to win three rounds wins the game.

That entertained us for a while, but we decided to get out something more cerebral, and opted for 'Rear Window'. Since our neighbour hadn't played before we left out the murder, so it was a simply a matter of me (the Director) leading the players to the correct solution with no subterfuge involved. They still failed to guess the correct occupant/attribute selections, though, although to be fair my inability to convey that the lady in Apartment D was an Athlete contributed to this.

So that was Christmas Day done with - our neighbour went home, we did two video calls to family in the UK and our son and his wife who are currently in Indonesia, and then went to bed.

Maya had asked to play the buddy-cop RPG Partners at some point over the holidays. This is designed for two players with no GM, but we decided to do it with three - Maya and Catherine would actually play and I would manage the mechanical side of things, tracking who led each scene, making notes and drawing cards and random words.

They created a detective series set in a shopping mall called the Sunnyview Retail Village, and called 'Village People' (the theme song was Village People's 'Hot Cop', naturally). Neither of their characters were actually official detectives - Catherine's straight shooter was a retail worker in a department store, whilst Maya's wild-card ran a cat-grooming service (yes, MORE cats) and operated MLMs on the side.

The mystery was the death of the mall's head of security, who was found drowned in the ornamental fountain in the main atrium. Naturally the police were investigating in the background, but we ignored that - our two intrepid amateur sleuths were also on the case and quickly uncovered a sordid network of affairs. However despite them looking to be the key to the murder, it actually turned out to be the victim's hairdresser who had killed them (albeit accidentally) with the motive being something to do with the upcoming prestigious 'Clippies' awards, and some illicit back-street hair-dressing operation that the security guard was threatening to expose.

And so onto the final game of the holiday - Scattles. Some friends of ours had recently been to Europe on a camping trip and had mentioned a game that involved throwing a baton at a group of skittles. Catherine tracked down a set (in the local Target, so not much detective work required) and bought it for me.

It's fun - we played for a good chunk of Boxing-Day evening (until the mosquitoes woke up)

The rules are simple. You throw a wooden baton at skittles set up about six feet away. They are numbered 1-12. If you knock down one skittle then you score its value. If you knock down multiple skittles then they are worth one point each. Knocked down skittles are stood up again, at the point where they ended up, so over time the targets get spread out. You win when you reach exactly 50 points. If you exceed 50 points then your score is reduced to 25 points and the game continues.

Sometimes our game was interrupted because of the appearance of (you've guessed it) a cat.

You can see how the skittles are getting spread out here.

Anyway, I think we all won at least one game.

Phew! So that was it for Christmas Day and Boxing Day for us. I added five new games to my 52 Games total for this year.

How did your days go?

52 Games - Game 71-75

The Score

The Score, from Tin Star Games is a neat little story-based RPG described as 'the fastest, slickest, coolest RPG ever made'. It is currently in beta test so, having read about it a fair bit on social media, I thought we'd give it a go. After all, it's a game about heists, and there's nothing the Kobold family like more than a good heist movie*

The players are members of a crew looking to pull off a heist. The deck of 18 cards allows them to do this in under 20 minutes, if you're quick. Here's some sample cards:

I don't plan to go into a lot of detail about the rules, since the game hasn't been released yet, but basically the cards drive everything. You use them to set up the location and target of your heist, assign skills to your characters and then to actually run the heist itself. Essentially to run the heist you have the cards in a deck, interspersed with Act cards that set the tempo of the heist itself. In some Acts things go to plan, but in others the cards are used to show the plan going off the rails. Generally everything comes good in the last act, although it is possible for the heist to fail. The real prize is the story you generate along the way.

Having created the characters, each with their own unique set of skills, you play by turning over a card. The card is assigned to one of the players who then narrates how the particular skill on the card drives the story forward - or doesn't, depending on what phase of the heist you are in. With the last card you get to describe a glorious success or, under some conditions, a total failure. The narration only need to be quick, and with only eighteen cards in play this makes for a fast game. 

We played twice. Our second game fell apart a little; we narrated an end but we got bogged down in the middle by some setbacks and didn't entirely feel satisfied with the story (which was a promising one at the start - stealing stocks and bonds from a safe on the 39th floor of the Wakatomi Plaza Building ...). But the first game was great fun.

Our crew was 'Captain' Rivers, an ex-mercenary scout and electronic warfare expert, Twig, an art-school dropout with a range of dubious skills and some pronouns and finally Pal Sheridan, who claimed to be ex-NASA and who now did technical stuff for a film studio. We narrated how the crew got together and got on with the heist.

And the heist? Our target was, indirectly, the corrupt city mayor, Dorothy Vandermeer, who had embezelled a ton of money, some of which was earmarked to keep an orphanage open. We had to save the orphans! So to do so we planned to raid a reception at City Hall. Mayor Vandermeer would be there with her trophy husband, Greg, who would be wearing a set of ludicrously expensive diamond cufflinks (bought with the embezzled orphanage money, naturally). The plan? Steal the cufflinks and use the money from selling them to save the orphanage.

OK, it's a crap plot, but we were thinking fast.

The Captain did the surveillance on the night of the reception, ensuring everyone got into position, whilst Pal set up some technical stuff that would kick in later. Once inside, the Captain moved to distract the Mayor's head of security, who was an old mercenary buddy of his.

Things went wrong when the team's operations van was discovered nearby, cutting their communications. And there was a further complication when an old flame of the Captain's turned up; the lovely Gloria; she distracted him from his job of distracting the security chief.

However the plan continued. Twig made sure they had the fake cufflinks they'd prepared earlier, whilst the Captain plied Gloria and the security chief with drinks, before discretely nerve-pinching the chief, and leaving 'My friend who appears to not be able to hold his drink' in Gloria's capable and caring hands. A timely fake phone-call took the Mayor out of the reception, only for her to return a few minutes later - only this time it was Pal in disguise.

At this stage the plan required a distraction - a performance by the orphanage choir would draw everyone's attention. But the team's van had been identified as a suspicious vehicle and some of the local streets were closed off; the bus from the orphanage couldn't get through! The plan would just have to go ahead without them.

And it did. Despite the lack of distraction, Twig suddenly dropped down onto the stage on a line, held up the Mayor and Greg at gun-point, took the cufflinks and then whizzed back up to the lighting gantry with the Mayor as a hostage! Escaping through the back-stage area, they accidentally dropped the cufflinks, and the Mayor (Pal in disguise) broke free as well. Twig disappeared into the night as the leaderless security team failed to catch her. The Mayor felt indisposed and slipped off to a loo for a few moments. Pal left the building just as people wondering why the Mayor was so long in the loo saw her come out of her office instead (where she'd been tied up on  a long and frustratingly strange phone-call).

And the dropped cufflinks? The fakes, obviously.

So we got the cufflinks, pawned them and saved the orphanage.

Epilogue One: The orphan choir performed at a party to celebrate the orphanage being saved, with a rendition of Toto's 'Africa'.

Epilogue Two: Gloria and the chief of security got on like a house on fire. He quit his job working for the corrupt mayor, and he and Gloria got married, living happily ever after.

OK, it was a terrible story, but we were playing fast and, most importantly, having a lot of fun doing it.

This is a neat little game that boils role-playing down to it's essence - telling stories - and really captures the vibe of the heist genre. We loved it.

If you want more information about The Score and possibly have a go at beta-testing yourself then you can find the details HERE

And The Score has the honour of being the 52nd game I've played this year! I have officially completed the project.

52 Games - Game 52

*OK, there may be several things we like more, but the point is that we like a good heist.

Partners

My first thing I've ever backed on a kickstarter arrived today. You can read a little more about it in THIS POST.

I am Kaptain Kobold, and I endorse this book.

It's a lovely little book. I think I'll be printing off bits of the PDF for gameplay - the various charts and playsheets - but the physical copy is nice to read and look up stuff in. It's made to resemble a distressed library book - there's even a series of date-stamps in the inside cover - and is a handy A5 pocket-size.

I'm not sure when we'll feel in the mood to sit down and play this, but I'm glad I backed it and love what I got.

YOU Are Elon Musk!

We had a family get-together yesterday and, at Maya's insistence, we played' Elon Musk's iPod Submarine'. All afternoon.

I've posted the game here before, but here it is again. It's pretty simple:

We played with seven people, although Michelle dropped out about halfway through for a nap.

We took full notes of every round, but I'll just summarise each one. It should give you an idea how a full game flows.

Problem 1 - Shipping Container Stuck In Suez Canal

This was an obvious one for someone to choose, all things considered. Solutions included 'Godzilla Deadlift', 'Tesla Magnet' and my wonderful 'Sonic Submarine'. Elon Musk (Catherine) chose 'Aquatic Transporter'. I thought that she was Elon Musk. Everyone else thought that I was Elon Musk and voted accordingly. Round One to Elon Musk.

Problem 2 - 'Cowbell' Video Not Available On YouTube

This came out of our earlier discovery that the classic 'More Cowbell' sketch from SNL is not available on YouTube.

Solutions proposed included 'Online Petition', 'Musk Tube' and a 'Rural Fieldtrip'. Elon Musk (Maya) jumped in with 'Advertising Campaign', but when pressed couldn't suggest what for. We exposed them and they failed to tell us what the problem was, so the players won.

Problem 3 - Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar On The Run In Wollongong

This was also based on our earlier YouTube investigations, watching old Mitchell and Webb sketches. It also showcased Cei's inability to understand what a problem of six words or fewer looked like.

Anyway, some of the solutions were 'iPod Police', 'Cigarette Cage' and 'Bluetooth Shelters'. Michelle was Elon Musk and went for 'Sonic Screwdriver' (Cei has been making her watch a lot of 'Doctor Who' because apparently they don't have it in Indonesia, where she comes from). We all spotted she was Elon Musk, and she had no idea what the problem was. Another win for the players.

Problem 4 - Cei Trapped In A Haunted House

This was Michelle's revenge for Cei's obscure Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar problem in the previous round.

The solutions for this were a bit weak. Obviously we felt that Cei being trapped in a  haunted house was no bad thing. I did suggest 'Proton Packs' though. Catherine was Elon Musk and leaped in with the random 'Pringles Tubes'. She was quickly exposed for another player win.

Problem 5 - Too Many Leaves Not On Trees

That garbled english was Catherine's contribution, but we weren't sure if the problem was (i) too many leaves on the ground or (ii) a lack of leaves on the trees. Our solutions covered both, and ranged from '3D Paint' and 'Strong Glue' to 'Giant Earthworms'. Elon Musk (Satvik) felt that 'Intelligent Stitches' were the answer. We weren't convinced and he failed to tell us what the problem was. Yet another player win.

If the problems are obscure then Elon Musk has a difficult time in this game.

Problem 6 - Nothing Blocking Suez Canal

Obviously a problem for the makers of high-engagement memes.

This produced a great set of solutions: 'iPod Submarine', 'Proto-Divers', 'iWall', 'Canadian Pondweed', 'Less Roughage', 'Add Fish'. Can you spot Elon Musk (Maya - again)? Yes, that's right - the 'Proto-Divers'. She failed to deduce the problem, and we, the players, won again.

Problem 7  - Pringles In Tube Have Run Out

Yes, we had eaten our way through the first lot of table-snacks.

Solutions covered 'Multiple Copies' and 'Inbuilt Replicators' to 'Unlimited Refills' and 'Timelord Technology' (Michelle really has watched a lot of 'Doctor Who' recently). Maya was Elon Musk again, and went for 'Transporter Accidents'. She actually came close to guessing the problem though, but  we didn't feel she was close enough, so we called this round a draw. And got more snacks.

Problem 8 - Must Convince Everyone You're Elon Musk

This isn't really a problem, but we ran with it.

I dived in with the unintentionally punny 'Elon Mask'. Satvik played the problem properly with 'Submersible iPod'. Cei tried 'Musk Spray' and was accused by everyone else of being Elon Musk. He wasn't. It was Catherine's 'Genetic Manipulation' that was Elon's contribution. So Elon Musk won this round.

Problem 9 - Time-Travelling Nazis

We tried to switch to simpler problems, to give the Elon Musk player more of a chance. My favourite solution was Cei's 'Inglorious Basterds'. Other suggestions included 'Anti-Time' and 'The Doctor'. Catherine was Elon Musk and chose 'Date Manipulation'. We exposed her, and she failed to pick up on Cei's reference and couldn't quite pinpoint the problem. A player win.

Problem 10 - World Pasta-Shortage

My son eats a lot of pasta, and decided that this could become an issue. 'Soylent Society', 'More Machines' and 'Super Cei' were the bizarre solutions proposed. I was Elon Musk in this one, and went for 'iPod Engineering'. However the discussion hinted that it had something to do with Cei eating, I guessed it was about a food shortage, remembered his love of pasta, and correctly guessed the problem for a Musk Win.

Problem 11 - Porridge On Your Shoe

This was my wife's random contribution. The best solution was 'Tiny Dogs'. I was Elon Musk again, and failed to work out the problem, suggesting 'Bluetooth Collars' and being quickly exposed.

Problem 12 - Space Ghosts

Obviously my 'Space Pacman' was the best solution! Maya proposed a 'Space detective' who would investigate and find out why the ghosts were haunting space and lay them to rest. Cei went for 'Atom Bomb'. But he wasn't Elon Musk. That was Catherine, with 'Solar Sieve'. We worked out who she was and, again, she failed to identify the problem.

Problem 13 - Choosing Baby Names Is Hard

This is a big thing in our family at the moment, since Michelle (and Cei) are expecting. And later this year I will be a grandad!

Anyway, some of the solutions proposed were 'Buzzfeed Quiz' (my favourite), 'Name Bros' and 'Libraries'. I was Elon Musk (again) and opted for 'Techno Fonts'. I was easily exposed, but somehow worked out what the problem was, for a second win as Elon Musk.

So I claimed overall victory, since I'd won as Elon Musk twice by guessing the problem after being exposed. Elon Musk won four rounds, and we had one draw.

Thanks for reading this far, and thanks to Catherine, Satvik, Henri, Maya, Cei and Michelle for an entertainingly stupid afternoon.

Elon Musk's iPod Submarine

 From Tin*Star Games comes this wonderful party-game for five or more people. 

(I know it's been around for a few year - I only saw it today. I've been told we'll be playing it at Christmas.)

Night Witches

Last week a friend of mine shared a post on Facebook about the 'Night Witches', or the Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment of WWII. I ended up reading more beyond the article, and came across a reference to a role-playing game specifically written to cover their exploits. One thing led to another; I dowloaded it, read it, found it to my liking and, this afternoon ran a session of it - my first RPG experience in about ten years.

So, 'Night Witches' is published by Bully Pulpit Games, and is based on the Apocalypse World system. Or so they say; I have no experience of it, but although it's a big thick book, the rules seemed short, simple and intuitive, with most of the book taken up with how to implement them and a wealth of background information and colour.

The Night Witches are more properly known as the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, and were an all-female unit. Their job was night-harassment bombing; short range missions designed to disrupt the Germans, with each plane flying multiple missions every night. They fought from mid-1942 util May 1945, and in that time flew over 23,000 sorties. Their pilots ranged in ages from their teens to their mid-twenties. Of the 260 personnel who served, 23 of them were awarded the accolade Hero of the Soviet Union.

Their exploits were all the more remarkable because they flew an obsolete biplane, the Polikarpov PO-2, originally designed as a crop-duster in 1928.

They flew without radios, because of the weight, and without parachutes, because of weight and the fact that their attacks were at such low altitude that parachutes were of little use anyway. Bomb-runs were made at low-level, with the engine off, each plane in a flight attacking whilst the other two distracted the German defences. And all at night.

The RPG builds all of this into a tense game where the characters work their way through the war, flying night-mission after night-mission, whilst trying to stay alive, stay sane and remain human in the days in-between. As well as the enemy and the limitations of their aircraft, they must contend with the mistrust of their own side; those who believe that women can't be combat-soldiers and, of course, the dreaded NKVD, always ready to root out treason and counter-revolutionary thoughts and deeds.

Characters progress through six Duty Stations, each representing a theatre or campaign in which the regiment fought. The first covers their training, and the final station covers their involvement in the final battle for Berlin.

The nature of the setup makes it easy for players to drop in or out from session to session, and it's also designed such that each player can take turns being the GM, giving everyone a chance to bring their own style to the game, and also to play a character.

I found a nice introductory document in the game's free downloads, which does a wonderful job of walking players, and the GM, through the first Duty Station, whilst building the characters and learning the rules. So this afternoon I played through it with my wife, Catherine and daughter, Maya. I was a GM, but the initial stages can be run cooperatively, so all three of us designed and explored our characters, before life on the airbase started properly. At that point my character moved offstage, and I ran the game for the other two.

Another download consists of a series of 36 character portraits, by illustrator Claudia Cangini. we started by choosing one each, as well as a name, and went from there.

This is Catherine's character, Junior Lieutenant Dominika Yavlova. She's a hard-faced, no-nonsense pilot whose main claim to fame seems to be that she once spent a night getting drunk with heroic Soviet aviator Marina Raskova. Trained on crop-dusters on a farm near Novgorod, she enlisted to give the Germans the kicking they deserved.

Maya's character is the youthful Junior Lieutenant Natalaya Fyodorova. People say she looks younger than her 18 years, and they'd be right if only they knew it; she lied about her age and is in fact only 16.  Not a great one for rules.

Finally I fleshed out the beginnings of Sergeant Galina Cherenchikova, a quiet, withdrawn widow from Kiev. There's a few mysteries surrounding Galina; her flying experience may not be all she claims it is, her husband disappeared several years ago, with his body never having been found and she keeps a sharp kitchen-knife lovingly wrapped in oilskin in her footlocker.

The duty station was Engels Airdrome, where training for several units takes place. We assembled, travelled to the airfield, received rations and uniforms (or partial uniforms), and were introduced to the basics of new lives and our aircraft by various senior officers in the unit. Once established I moved Galina into the background, whilst Dominika and Natalya moved centre-stage.

There was already a certain tension with the all-male 218th Bomber Regiment, who were also training at Engels, and who simply regarded the 588th as a bunch of girls flying sewing machines. In setting about to supplement their meagre uniforms, Dominika and Natalya managed to inflame the situation almost from the start. After suffering name-calling and harassment from the men, Natalya decided to steal the boots of one of their sergeants, which she did successfully. Unfortunately whilst not recognised she was spotted, and the 588th were blamed for the theft. Dominika went one better. She planned to slip into their stores and liberate some warmer flying clothes. Hanging around in order to get a feel for the routine of the place she attracted the attention of one of the flight-crews, Junior Lieutenent Sergei Yurlov and his sidekick, the boorish Sergeant Yartsev. An argument ensued which quickly escalated into an all-out fist-fight between the two Lieutenants. It was quickly broken up, but Dominika came off worse, being thoroughly beaten up, despite giving a good account of herself. And, yes, she started it. She received a thorough dressing-down, and confinement to barracks for an extended period, but escaped harsher penalties because the higher officers knew of the tensions with the male unit. Even so, relationships were now strained between the two regiments.

With Natalya sporting boots of dubious origin, and Dominika some cuts and bruises they were assigned to their unit, Section C of the 3rd Squadron. By dint of her earlier enlistment date, the youthful rebel Natalya was assigned the role of provisional Section Leader. The unit of six was fleshed out by NPCs: chain-smoking ex-factory-worker Junior Lieutenant Nina Biryukova and three Sergeants, enthusiastic literature student Kira Annikova, maternal gossip Kotinka Avilova and spindly, bespectacled soldier, Eudoxia Voloshina. Natalya assigned them as pilots and navigators to their three planes, and they headed out on their first proper training mission; a simple mock bombing run.

I'd like to say there's a big story here, but there isn't. With Dominika leading the attack, the section passed its first test with no problems whatsoever (something helped by me forgetting a rule about attack resolution which should have made things slightly harder for them*).

Back at the base they were informed that their next test would be a night-bombing exercise with live bombs. They'd have to navigate to the target in the darkness as well. And they'd be under the watchful eye of Soviet heroine Marina Raskova.

Before the test, Dominika set about trying to repair relationships with the 218th Regiment, or at least Lieutenant Yurlov. There was an ulterior motive to this; they had warm flight-jackets in the 218th and she reckoned that if she played her cards right she could score a couple. And talking of playing cards right, Natalya set about organising a regular (and almost certainly illicit) gambling ring, based around poker**. Natalya is nothing if not precocious. She sounded out interested parties and found a quiet venue, but also discovered that 1st Squadron was running a game too, something which will cause issues further down the line. Dominika got her jackets, but only on the promise of helping the 218th find out who stole the boots of one of their sergeants. Later on Yurlov's sergeant tried to make a pass at her, but she managed to arrange an accident that actually looked like an accident, and put him out of the running temporarily.

The regiment was inspected by Major Raskova before their next exercise. I had expected at least one player to arrange some way of meeting her, and getting noticed (such patronage would be worth having) but neither took the well-dangled bait I offered.

The Section's next exercise involved night-flying and live bombs. Natalya was lead navigator, and nearly got the unit lost, salvaging the situation at the last minute. Even so, her aircraft clipped a tree on the approach, causing some serious damage to the undercarriage. Dominika led the attack, but pulled out without dropping her bombs, immediately turning for home. Natalya seized the initiative, and took her plane into the attack, scoring a direct hit, and paving the way for the third aircraft as well. She and her pilot even managed a safe landing in their damaged plane.

The debriefing was tense. Despite the damaged plane, Natalya came out OK, owing to her text-book bomb-run, but Dominika came under scrutiny for aborting her attack. She claimed the bombs didn't release due to a malfunction (which was borne out by an investigation of the plane), but was criticised for not sending her navigator out to at least try and release them manually. Her failure lead to an informal interview with the unit's assistant NKVD officer, who decided that she was telling the truth, but used the incident as leverage to get Dominika to frame an officer of the 218th for her. You've guessed it - Lt. Yurlov.

At this point we called time on the game. They have one training exercise left - a proper attack on German positions. Before then, Natalya has plans to start her gambling enterprise, whilst Dominika is now stuck informing both for and against Lt. Yurlov. And all this whilst trying to get their planes and crews ready for an attack on an enemy that shoots back.

I was surprised how easy the game was to run. I wouldn't say our role-playing was slick, or remained in character the whole time, but with a basic setting and a few prompts the game has begun to deliver a world where characters are teetering on the brink of disaster much of the time (even if they are mostly ones of their own making). It's only a matter of time before incidents which are currently just annoyances will lead to tragedy instead. High point of the session for me was Catherine exchanging insults with Lt Yurlov, until she decided to just punch him in the face, and hang the consequences.

*Actually the rules I missed is fairly critical, since it causes even a successful attack run to have at least one detrimental effect on a crew or plane. These cause complications after the mission, on top of the ones caused by day to day life on the base. I will remember to apply it to future missions.

**I have no idea if poker was even played in Soviet Russia in the 1940s. We'll assume that *some* card game filled the role, and just call it poker.

Envoys of S.A.V.E.

S.A.V.E. - The Societas Albae Viae Eternitata (Eternal Society of the White Way) - were the secret organisation which the characters in the wonderful 1980s role-playing game 'Chill' worked for. Chill was a game of supernatural monster-hunting, with the characters being people from all walks of life united in their desire to seek out and destroy evil supernatural beasties. It was an early game to use a task resolution system which gave degrees of success instead of just 'suceed/fail' or 'hit/miss', and it had creatures with class; many of the monsters could only be thwarted, destroyed or dispelled in very specific ways, and often a mission was about researching those methods after, of course, discovering the nature of your adversary. There's a nice short overview of the game HERE.

I had a great deal of fun with Chill, both as a player and as a GM. As a player I was part of groups which confronted a shape-changing monster from the mythology of Ancient Egypt, zombies in the Louisiana swamps, French werewolves and a descendent of Baron Frankenstein. As a GM I can remember pitting the players against a vampire (of course), a vengeful Saxon ghost in an Essex village, a vampiric plant and a Djinn brought to London from India by an ex-soldier on a mission of vengeance.

SAVE (I'll drop the full-stops) was founded in 1844, which gave scope for setting games in a number of historical periods. Because of my love of Sherlock Holmes, we ended up setting all of our games in the Victorian era. Let's face it, as an era for gaming it has class. And, because the action sometimes demanded it, we used figures. Which explains why I have a few small boxes with various Victorian horror figures in them, none of which have seen the light of day for decades.

Until the other day ...

Having put together my Japanese goblin warband for Battlesworn, it came to me that SAVE would make a wonderfully different opponent for them, and I had the figures ready to hand.

So here they are. This is a a portion of my collection; I can swap other characters in and out as needed. Indeed I am only a couple of policemen away from being able to put together a Scotland Yard force led by Sherlock Holmes. But for a basic game they would do.

The figures are all from Citadel's Gothic Horror range, with a few head-swaps and conversions to make them look less 1920s and more 1880s.

Every warband in Battlesworn need four Fighters, and here they are - hired muscle. They look pretty dubious, but regardless of background SAVE envoys are devoted to the cause of opposing Evil.

As well as hired muscle there are two hired guns - Shooters.

The remaining slots are taken up by characters. Firstly, here's the Reverend Philips. Actually I can't recall if he was actually called the Reverend Philips, but I remember a player running a vicar as a character, and this was the figure. I just made up a suitable name. The original was killed by a vampire.

The Reverend Philips is a Healer/Warmage. In Chill every character has a low-level psychic/magical ability. I didn't try to represent this for every character in my warband, but it seemed to suit the good Reverend. I know I could run him as a Priest from 'Knights and Knaves', but at this stage I didn't want to complicate my life with too many classes from the supplement, especially as the Priest has a bit of a shopping list of abilities.

Baron Adler never appeared as a player character. As The Baron he did appear as the villain in a steampunk/Victorian superhero game I ran solo using the Mythic GM Emulator (the results of which are buried deep in the archives of RPG.net), but he was never a SAVE envoy. However I love the figure, and wanted to use him.

Baron Adler is a master swordsman, so is classed as a Brute/Chaos Warrior. The latter classification (taken from 'Knights and Knaves') may seem a bit odd, but it does give him the ability to be unpredictable in a fight, which suits him well. I did consider making him a Brute/Leader. You may agree.

And finally ... Josephine Carfax. I couldn't put together a warband without her, as she was my first, and favourite, Chill character. A respectable lady of independent means to all who knew her, she had a secret life as a burglar, specialising in unique or very rare objects. She had an uncanny ability to size up the value and provenance of antiques and curiosities; think Lovejoy in a frock, with a great big dollop of A.J.Raffles and you have her. In addition she was an expert shot with a pistol. She was a great character to play, although I recall she got into a certain amount of trouble with SAVE for using the missions to feather her own nest with 'liberated' valuables.

Miss Carfax is a Sniper/Rogue. The original figure was a lot more 1920s. I lengthened her skirt (of course, and made her a hat, thus adding a much-needed level of modesty and respectability.

In the next post you will see this gallant band of heroes in action against the sinister Yokai!

Jenny Everywhere

By AgentCoop

August 13th is Jenny Everywhere Day.

Who?

To quote the ever-reliable Wikipedia:

Jenny Everywhere aka "The Shifter" is an open-source, public domain character, originally created by Canadian comic book artist Steven Wintle.

Jenny Everywhere was specifically created when her creators could not find any other truly open source, public domain characters. She is described both as existing in every reality and being able to shift between realities. This gives the character the ability to be inserted into the continuity of any existing or new work, such as various comics or webcomics. The concept may be extended to other media as well.

She is described thus:

She has short, dark hair. She usually wears aviation goggles on top of her head and a scarf around her neck. Otherwise, she dresses in comfortable clothes. She is average size and has a good body image. She has loads of confidence and charisma. She appears to be Asian or Native American. She has a ready smile.

By Steven Wintle
The Original

She's been around since 2002, and has a small, but determined, web-presence. Whilst her lack of specific context is a strength, allowing her to appear in any media and setting, it is also a weakness, as there is not enough core material to really latch onto and give her a strong presence.

Still, I thought that for Jenny Everywhere Day 2015 I'd give her a set of Supercrew statistics, suitable for her inclusion in a world of superheroes.

On the Public Domain Super Heroes Wikia her abilities are described as follows:

Jenny Everywhere exists in all dimensions at once. She has the accumulated wisdom of all her other selves, and she can potentially shape or change dimensional properties. Since she exists everywhere at the same time, she may find herself in any situation, be it riding dinosaurs in the Wild West or arm wrestling Richard Nixon on the moon. For the Shifter, any adventure is possible.

Jenny prefers to get out of dangerous situations without the use of her (undefined) powers. She thrives on the thrill and always plays fair, even if it brings her close to death. The goggles and scarf were her mother's, who was a famous pilot before she disappeared.
So:

Jenny Everywhere aka 'The Shifter

1 - Collective Wisdom
2 - Quick-Witted Adventurer
3 - Shifting

Reroll (Quick-Witted Adventurer) - Outwit
Change Roll to '5' (Wisdom) - Infinite experience
Effect 2 (Quick-Witted Adventurer) - Always finds a way

Despite this Jenny Everywhere being designed for a superhero setting, I have still erred on the side of her being a talented 'normal' - her powers are secondary to her skills and experience. The Wisdom ability represents the fact that she is in touch, mostly subconsciously, with all other instances of Jenny Everywhere in time and space. Thus she can draw on a near infinite reserve of knowledge and experience. Her main ability - Quick-Witted Adventurer - can be run in any way that's suitable for  your setting. She can solve problems and defeat foes with fast-talking, quick-shooting or simple fisticuffs at whatever level of skill and ability you think suits her best. Finally her Shifting ability is the one she uses least and, you'll notice, has no tricks. If you want to run her as a full-on superhero then giver her teleportation, dimensional-shifting or even time-travel abilities. Otherwise restrict her to short-duration. limited effect actions relating to her strange relationship with time and space. That's the beauty of Supercrew; how you define a power is purely for the narrative, and has no mechanical effect on the game. Just define Jenny's capabilities in your game and world and keep them consistent, and away you go.

She has an arch-enemy: Jenny Nowhere. I'll leave you to look her up.

Here's a few more interpretations of Jenny from this thread.

By Valente

By ESCgoat

By Paul Sizer

The creators of the character insist that any work involving her must include the following text:

"The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition: This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, that others might use this property as they wish. All rights reversed."

By mthemordant