Gods Of The Fall. Unmasked. Predation.

Awaken your divine spark, claim a dominion, and become a god in a fantasy world in which the heavens smashed upon the Earth like a vengeful star.

Or find yourself trapped in the dark and dangerous world of the Cretaceous Period. First you'll have to figure out how to survive using the tech you brought from the future—modern weapons, advanced science, and bioengineered dinosaurs. Then you can worry about the asteroid that history says wipes out most life on earth.

Or drift to the edge of insanity. They'll say you're dangerous. Insane. That you suffer from Dissociative Mask Disorder. Your parents and the doctors and the press and the military—they can’t believe what’s happening. They can’t believe what you can do. And they wouldn't believe the price you pay.

What does it all mean? On this improbable day (at least, improbably 3 out of every 4 years), we launched a freaking crowdfunding campaign. Check it out! 

Worlds of the Cypher System Kickstarter: Explore all new worlds and play in any genre with the award-winning roleplaying game system behind Numenera and The Strange.

Breathing Life Into Your RPG Encounter

The job every GM faces is to immerse the players in the make-believe world of your setting. You can do that in lots of different ways, but in an article I posted at MCG titled Breathing Life Into Your Encounter, I focus on a few strategies for bringing a specific scene to life for your players.

For example, I stress how when your player characters enter an encounter, don’t hide what’s important about the encounter behind less-important minutia. For example, if PCs exploring a ruined cathedral enter a chamber containing a two-headed wolf sleeping in the nave, lead with the wolf. Don’t start out describing the room’s dimensions and the number of windows. Those details can come afterward.

More? Check it out the entire article here, which lays it out in "5 Easy Steps" :).

Time Loops or Evolution Over Time in Recursions

Figuring out if time flows--or loops--in Strange worlds seeded by fiction can be tricky.

How does time flow in recursions seeded by specific fictions—does a recursion evolve and generate history, like on Earth, or does it remain static, like a novel on a shelf?

The answer is both. Some recursions remain static—true to the narrative that seeded them into the Strange. No matter how often a recursor visits, they never seem to change or vary from the fiction they’re based on.

Others evolve, deviate from their original fictional basis, and generate history of their own.

Want some examples? Check out the full blog entry here: Beyond the Book: Recursions—Static or Evolving?

Washing Machine Fixed

I disassembled the washing machine, removed a sock clogging the water pump, plus a couple more socks in the basin beneath the main tub (future clogs waiting to happen), and reassembled the whole thing. 

Now it's working again! Moral of this story: 

Don't overfill your washing machine, people! 

(Alternative moral: Appliance repair is in every one's reach, thanks to the internet!)


How can I take apart my washing machine, you're probably asking? Watch this video:

Perfect Toy For A Nine Year Old

"Perfect Toy For A Nine Year Old" is my story in this new sci-fi meets Cthulhu anthology Tomorrow's Cthulhu. Check out the full anthology here!

An excerpt:

“Dad, this is boring.” Margaret flopped down on the couch next to Charlie.

Charlie Tokarev looked away from the program they were watching: mustachioed fish explored a land of robot dinosaurs across three walls and the ceiling of the family room. He hadn’t been paying close attention because the show was boring. But his daughter picked the program, so he’d pretended to watch. Charlie gratefully wiped the fish away with a wave of his hand. A green forest, wet with rain, rustled to a phantom wind all around them.

“Then choose something you like,” he said.

“But I’m bored!” Margaret dropped her head back to stare straight up at the ceiling and the digital clouds scudding by.

Charlie swallowed a sigh. When she didn’t get enough sleep, Margaret got cranky. She’d spent the last few days at her friend Zoey’s house and probably slept only a few hours the previous night.

“Tell you what, pumpkin. How about we talk about your birthday next week. I want to get you something special. How old will you be?”

Margaret didn’t immediately respond, but that was a good sign.

“Nine,” she allowed.

“Nine! Nine is a very important number. I think you deserve something extra special for turning nine.”

“What?”

“Something from the printer. Something real.”

-----
Read the whole story, and many more in Tomorrow's Cthulhu!

Ebooks to Paper

For several years, I purchased mostly ebooks and audiobooks (at least when it comes to fiction--I've always preferred my game books in print). But after seeing how much Batgirl continued to enjoy print books after being an early ebook supporter, too, I tried an analog paper book about 6 months ago. And you know what? It was magic.

Since then, I've stepped off the ebook revolution bus. I've been reading mostly paper novels, as I did before there was such a thing as ebooks; witness my already overflowing shelves, pictured above. Anyway, reading in analog has continued to be amazing. I recommend it. If you've found yourself reading less lately, try a paper novel for fifteen minutes. Nothing is quite so relaxing and stress deflating as reading a solid, physical book.

Of course, this is just one annecdotal report. It turns out, though, there is quite a bit of evidence behind the idea that reading paper books has advantages over e-reading.

(Aside: You know what goes great with paper novels? Light, my friends. Like this little clip-on book lamp. Instead of putting reading lamps behind the couch, behind my favorite chair, and next to the bed, I just clip the lamp to the book. I know, I know, lots of you already do this. I USED to do this years ago. But I got out of the habit; lost my old clip-on lamp. This is just a reminder to those of you, like me, who may have forgot some of the joy reading print can bring.)

Kickstarter By The Numbers

87: the number of Kickstarter campaigns I've backed.

6: The number of Kickstarter campaigns I pledged that failed to fund (so I guess I didn't back those).

2: The number of Kickstarter campaigns I pledged that are still in their funding stage.

12: The number of Kickstarter campaigns I pledged that haven't yet reached their promised delivery date (or are within the 6 month grace period I give all KS rewards before I begin to seriously wonder).

67: The number of Kickstarter campaigns I backed that I should have received a reward for by now...

59: The number of Kickstarter campaigns I pledged out of 67 for which I DID receive the promised reward. Not bad, all things considered. The very first one I backed was Diaspora (which failed to deliver rewards), an open-source alternative to Facebook ;).

Strange Revelations: Ten Instant Adventures for The Strange

(This blog was originally posted here by Charles Ryan.)

What’s the hardest part of running a roleplaying game? It has to be the preparation. You can’t just spontaneously say, “Let’s play a roleplaying game” unless someone’s already spent hours preparing an adventure for the group. But what if running a great game didn’t require any more effort for the game master than it does for the players? What if you could get up and running in—literally—just five minutes? Strange Revelations: Ten Instant Adventures for The Strange makes prepping for an RPG no more difficult or time consuming than setting up a board game, while showcasing the wonder and weirdness of the many recursions lying in the Shoals of Earth. This is a must-have for beginning and veteran GMs of The Strange.

These aren’t adventure seeds—they’re complete adventures in an innovative format that requires minimal prep. Run them as one-shots or drop them into your ongoing campaign when you don’t have time to prep your own adventures. You can even run them together as a campaign for months of effortless play!

Strange Revelations includes:

• Ten adventures on Earth and across numerous recursions, complete with maps, NPCs, and all the details you expect. 
• An innovative format for adventures: five minutes of prep gets you started, with no need to read pages and pages of text in advance. 
• An escape from a post-apocalyptic cannibal wasteland, a horror-themed board game that exerts bizarre powers over its players, a medieval wardrobe that opens into a hellish realm, and much, much more. 
• Great advice on running adventures with little or no prep. 
• Beautiful, full-color Show ’Em illustrations to reveal to players during the adventures. 
• Six pregenerated characters that get you playing in minutes. 
• A handy rules cheat sheet to make things run even more smoothly.

Protect Earth from a malefic Lovecraftian entity. Search for salvage on a derelict spacecraft. Set off into the dark energy of the Strange itself to defend the Orb of Worlds. Strange Revelations is a must-have for beginning and veteran GMs of The Strange, and anyone who’d like to play RPGs as easily and spontaneously as board games!

Watch, Drink, Eat, Play

Since Strange Revelations is coming out soon, we thought we’d provide some suggestions for prepping these Instant Adventures to play with your friends or family over the holidays, or whenever. Those of us here in the US have a four-day weekend coming up, usually spent with family and friends—what better time for an RPG adventure or two?

You’ve heard of wine pairings? Well, these are similar. We provide some entertainment pairings, including movie, food, and drink, for each of the adventures in Strange Revelations. (Note: Though we suggest a movie “pairing” with each Strange Revelations adventure, we actually suggest watching the movie ahead of the game or afterward, or, if you must, in the background with the sound completely off.)

Cannibal Wasteland

Movie Pairing: Mad Max: Fury Road
Drink Pairing: Rad on the Rocks
Snack Pairing: Twinkies (fresh even after the apocalypse)

A Shadow out of Innsmouth

Movie Pairing: In the Mouth of Madness
Drink Pairing: Fever Dream Punch
Snack Pairing: Gummy worms

Starfall in Ardeyn

Movie Pairing: Stardust
Drink Pairing: Fallen Angel
Snack Pairing: Angel Food Cake

To see the other pairing suggestions, head over to the main blog article, which this is a snippet of, here: http://www.montecookgames.com/your-game-strange-revelations-pairings/

Lucca Games in Italy

Ciao!

Batgirl and I are headed to Italy for Lucca Comics and Games Festival! I'll be a guest of Wyrd Edizioni, Italian partner who is launching The Strange— The Anomaly, the Italian edition of The Strange! I'll also be accepting the Best Italian RPG Game of 2015 for Numenera, which was translated into Italian and released last year. A virtuous circle, eh?

 I may update this post with pictures as they become available.

For now, though, I leave you with this wonderful boxed version of The Strange :)

PAX Prime 2015

MCG is going to PAX in Seattle! Come see us in room 209. We'll have two, 2-hour long demo games going all day, every day, so come by and sign up for some RPG fun! In addition, I'll be signing in room 209 with Monte Cook & Shanna Germain at the following times:

Friday 1-3

Saturday 12-2

Sunday 12-2

Finally, I'll be around at other times, too, along with Charles Ryan and Torah Cottrill to talk about cool, geeky things (including, of course, Numenera, The Strange, and the Cypher System). So come say hello! 

(If you see Torah, she might just be cosplaying a character from the Numenera Character Options book who Consorts with the Dead, or your favorite Estate Lead Operative, Katherine Manners.)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Strange

Wanna know why I risked leaving my ~18 year gig writing Dungeons & Dragons to join Monte Cook Games, LLC and write The Strange?

Listen:

52: The Bruce Cordell Gambit, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Strange