Caradoc

Bretonnian Squire Lineman - front view

Bretonnian Squire Lineman - back view

Bretonnian Squire Lineman - side view

Bretonnian Squire Lineman - off Centre front view

Bretonnian Squire Lineman, the latest of my painted Bretonnian team. That's four down, I've been a bit slower with these than I hoped for, but getting them done one at a time...

#bloodbowl #gamesworkshop

Blitzer, from the back. Number 8, with a Grail motif. Painted in red and blue.

Blitzer, from the side. Number 8, with a Grail motif. Painted in red and blue.

Blitzer, from the front. Number 8, with a Grail motif. Painted in red and blue.

First Blitzer finished for my Bretonnian team...

I'm happy with how these are coming together!

#gamesworkshop #bloodbowl

Going to try using a wet palette again. Didn't enjoy the first attempt, but it's hot (27 degrees c at 9:30pm), and the paint dries quickly...

It was like a well planned bank robbery, where the final words before everyone bursts in were: ‘in, out, and no one gets hurt’.

Then they crash through the door & one member of the heist group pulls off their balaclava and shoots a security guard, then rounds on the hostages.

Played Mouse Guard last night. Great fun trying to recover from the injuries sustained in the last session and find some clues as to what is happening in the little town of Barkstone...

Ran Star Wars a few nights ago, the players had a plan for a military style covert op, then one of them decided to go guns blazing for no real reason. Everyone else in the party was in shock.

We'll pick up next session with the mission under threat...

Guild of Merchant Explorers player board, early in the game.

Played Guild of Merchant Explorers today. This has a nice balance between simplicity and ease of play - and thought. It’s a nicely weighted game that I finished wondering why I don’t play it more often. Solid game!

Viticulture, with the Tuscany expansion.

Played Viticulture with the Tuscany expansion today. We all went after different strategies but ended up tied for victory. It came down to the third tie break rule. Very good game I enjoy a lot.

Thunder Road Vendetta. Showing the main board - a road, and the various players vehicles racing down it.

Played Thunder Road Vendetta today. Great game, very thematic. Somehow the big rig raced away from the smaller buggies and bikes. Nearly made a dash for the win, but flew off the side of the map and was totaled.

Minigames! Marginalia! Manuscripts! Funding now

And drafting is just rondel style action selection, which is just worker placement, which is just roll and move, which is just lane battlers… 😜

This session grew into an unplanned focal point, and I think I now have the motivations and reasons a bunch of disparate setting elements and adversary actions (over the course of our year long campaign) have taken place, and how they might coalesce together into a climactic sequence. Loved it. /fin

In all honesty, I don't plan much for these sessions beyond an idea of what the characters adversaries might might want to achieve - then roll with pitting that against what the characters choose to do. 2/

Corsairs cover - a sky ship sailing toward a floating island.

Tonight I ran a session of Corsairs - my game of sky ships and floating islands.

The characters lost allies, but gained knowledge (though they don't know it quite yet - suspect it maybe, but not know it...) of why they have been outnumbered and hunted by a powerful enemy from the first session. 1/

Coming soon: Veritable Tales: An Illuminated Manuscript Party RPG Create your own illuminated manuscript and play role-playing minigames set in an interconnected medieval period.

Every Zine Quest has been a chance for me to experiment and to get my games in print (that wouldn’t happen otherwise). GMless with a huge dice pool, world building, solo, inventory management, shared (pregen) character. And now a party game!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/sun...

I'd recommend EOE - it feels to me like the most grounded in the heart of the setting of the 3 rules sets - but I have never loved force users etc, so take my advice for what it's worth - you may value other aspects of the setting over those I do.

I think EOE would suit an Indi style game the best.

I really enjoy the FFG system, it throws out some funny results, but I think if you lean into only rolling for things that add to the story (or are a risk) then it works well. I like the fact results are not binary, and that players are involved with dictating what advantage and triumph looks like.

FFG.

It has been pretty amazing. I started running the Mask of the Pirate Queen campaign from FFG, but the characters went off script early doors. Much for the best. We leaned into it, it’s been a long haul, and heavily inspired by Andor (well, current events tbh, just reflected by Andor).

It's Star Wars... it's the Rebel Alliance... partisan action is the base line.

On the opposite side (the side of evil) - It's been interesting to run the Empire's attempt to oppress the government and people of Saleucami, I've basically taken my cues from the US government. Anywho...

Before anyone asks: they have spent the last 8 months of campaign time building a rebellion against the Empire, and the Rebels only caught wind of it after a severe battle.

Also - why were 'a random smuggler and friends' co-opted to lead a strike against the shielding station of the Death Star 2.0

a man with lots of guns written on the bottom Alt: John Wick saying "Guns, Lots of Guns..."

A few sessions ago the characters in the Star Wars campaign I'm running survived a bloody battle. Tonight they were offered the opportunity to lead a Rebel spec forces attack against the Imperials - it's time to gear up, it's go time! The next few sessions could be the final battle for Saleucami...

Love those illustrations! Vey evocative. I love illustrations that kind of anatomise aspects of the subject. Outside of old science journals I think I first saw this sort of thing in a Myst novel, and loved it.

A poster for A4 2B D6 - a Malaysian RPG magazine. It reads "A4 2B D6 represents the main things you use to play RPGs - paper, pencil, and dice. However, it's missing one crucial piece - your voice. Find out how to pitch your piece below." and includes a QR code to a Google Form.

Hey hey I'm making another zine! A4 2B D6 will be similar to eraserflag (A5, 36ish pages) but specifically focused on RPGs this time. We're looking for pitches from other Malaysians writers, designers, and artists who love RPGs, so if that's you, please submit a pitch here: forms.gle/Zf4G8LQjayxW...

Our campaign started back during Covid, and our characters had to regularly create reasons to be out during the lock-down we experienced here. Obviously we played online, but it was a great experience, and I'm glad it's a setting we regularly revisit.

My friend runs a campaign setting for us in Vampire 5th ed, which is set in Melbourne, Australia in the present day. We play 20-30 sessions and then switch out for a different game for a time, but yeah - it's been great - he does an excellent job of creating a 'Melbourne' themed Vampire setting.

Man, a post about writing, and I lead with an erroneous 'an' in the first line - proof read before hitting post people - proof read self!

Curiously, this post garnered quite a few reaction back when I posted it, including a few emails literally telling me how grateful I should be, and that artists (creatives) only usually get compensation and recognition after they are dead. I wish I were joking.

Fuck that.

3/ Fin.

If you are starting out as a freelancer in the industry, or are hoping to be one, this blog post is for you. If you are an old hand, I hope some of the commentary rings true, these are my experiences - if it doesn't ring true, share yours.

2/

Counting Beans, Take Two... One chapter closes, another one opens… Well, not quite closes, but one chapter submitted, and I hope it is written well enough that I don’t need to revisit it, much….

Back in 2019 I wrote an blog post about pay rates in the RPG industry. A perennial topic. The rates may have changed by a few cents per word (or not - what you read on social media and what's contracted is often very different).

Here it is regardless:

open.substack.com/pub/caradocp...

1/

Played a session of Mouse Guard last night. Things didn't go so well for our little patrol as we encountered an owl, and tried to drive it off (with as much success as you might imagine). Was great fun though. Lots of learning, and the rules are sort of scattered throughout the book, but worth it.