So disappointed Sinn Feinn has become an Anti-Trans party...

"Baronet Clifford Barker has hired you to gain access to the Oately Towers find out if the rumours are true, and retrieve a book the Necromancer 'borrowed' from Barker more than a year ago."

"The infamous fortune-teller and necromancer 'Black' Otto Oatley has not been seen about the Smoke for a number of months. Rumour has it that the senile sorcerer has passed away, therefore leaving his fortune- both magical & mundane - in the hands of anyone brave enough to break into his tower.."

Preview of my next Swyver's project - "Black Hearts & Baronets"... (1/2)

#OSR #Swyvers #RPG @lukegearing.bsky.social

Get Rebel Scum on itch! I own it, it is well worth your time.

9thlevelgames.itch.io/rebel-scum-2...

Cant think who...

Puberty delaying drugs have been used for both CIS & TRANS young people for 30+ years. They are safe, most of the world agrees they are safe and its hardly the hyperbole you spout. All they do is prevent unwanted symptoms of puberty until such time as a puberty is decided upon by the individual.

My Labour MP, Mary Glindon, Is a know Transphobe but never has the courage to even reply to my emails on trans issues. She did, however, clearly state she was against the full decriminialisation of abortion. So yeah, they are all anti-bodily autonomy. Its disgusting.

Good Law Project are supporting Trans+ Solidarity Alliance in their Mass Lobby on the 25th June (1-4pm) - taking place inside Parliament. Don't worry if you don't hear from your MP, come along anyway, and TSA will try and arrange you a meeting!

Share this widely!!

Steps and links below:

YouTube video by QueenVagabond Princess with a Cursed Sword Play Through

Forgot I did a playthrough of Anna Anthropy's 'Princess with a Cursed Sword' Journalling RPG the other year. It was meant to get released by a Queer AP channel as a series of playthroughs, but sadly not enough people signed up to make it happen.
w.itch.io/cursed-sword

youtu.be/0mmFLnvuYSs

...and it may end up not being the modern-adjacent setting that Wraith originally presented either. I'm still not certain on that... the mileu has a habit of getting away from my original conception when I create a setting! 😅

Anyone who has made it this far in my ramblings got any thoughts? :P

Settingwise, theres lots of good stuff in Wraith, but I think I'd be making some changes, my current home game is already very different from the setting as it was originally presented, but I think I'll specifically be adding elements from recent works like "Death Stranding" and "Gideon the 9th..."

I'd massively be simplifying the powers from Wraith. They seem to have a lot of redundancy, and rather than tying power to experience and numerically defined abilities, I'd like to tie it to 'strings' - connections to the material and spirit world- perhaps as some sort of meta-currency...

Now I *love* FitD and PbtA, but I also don't like the 'playbook' system that much. However there are rules and design elements I'd like to take for the design of this game. Particularly elements like 'Strings' from 'Monsterhearts,' I think would be the bedrock of my game...

based partly on the newer 'V5' rules, which take the classic WW rules and push them a lot closer to the Narrative ideals WoD seemed to promote without really 'getting there' in the system itself. However I *still* think its a bit overly complicated.

I want to write a new 'Wraith adjacent' game...

Wraith demands a lot from the players, and the focus really should only be on the Shadow and the Psyche, how they play off against each other, and the emotional focus of Fetters and Passions. In my opinion, the WoD system is just too bloated to handle this well. My current campaign uses a hack..

Still, despite being around the time other experimental, lighter, games (such as Everway, for example) gaming was still very much mired in the increasing mechanical complexity that dominated RPGs in the 90s and 00s. WoD games were no exception. This is particularly vexxing with Wraith...

Back in the 90s, White Wolf made a big deal of being narrative focused games. The GM was even rebranded 'The Storyteller' and, yes, the games did attract a more narrative sensibility and many more queer and female players as a result but It was still beset by the usual M.hobos and rules lawyers...

Some people argue its unplayable, but maybe its just a bit demanding for a lot of people? Personally, I think its fantastic and engrossing, with some amazing writing, but it suffers from the problem all White Wolf games, and their successors, suffer from - excess mechanical complexity.

For those that don't know, you play a bunch of dead folk, trying to navigate the afterlife and potentially wrap up (or obsess over endlessly) the 'fetters' and 'passions' of your life.

The twist is that everyone also plays the 'Shadow' - the twisted inversion of a wraith - for the adjacent player

... on the other hand, I may attempt a full on RPG!

I've been running a 'Wraith: The Oblivion' game recently which I'm really enjoying, its in depth, emotional and heart-felt, as Wraith can only be, really.

Of all the Old World of Darkness games, its probably the most interesting in play...

Other than updates for SWFC, I don't think I have any immediate RPG project plans as I'm currently writing a short sci-fi story about DNA-based information storage for a competition...

Don't know what my next RPG project will be, but it will probably be a little less ambitious than the last one

"The Gardener's friend" ^_^

It's when you start building an I tricate scale model with accurate rigging that you should *really* be worried...

Huge fan of VoV... In fact In running it this Thursday!

The inspiration for this was the Hanseatic League, and especially the London 'Steelyard' - which essentially functioned as a giant shipping warehouse, embassy, and an extension of the leagues power.

The Hanse functioned as a trans national guild/corp/syndicate in Europe for around 400 years.

Strong Wine & Fine China - A Swyvers Supplement by QueerEncounters A Location for heists and hijinks for Luke Gearing's 'Swyvers' RPG

I don't tend to post much about myself, but I recently wrote an RPG supplement for the amazing Swyvers RPG by Luke Gearing and you can get it now on Itch.io for a song and a prayer (or £6 if you're all out of songs.)

queerencounters.itch.io/strong-wine-...

Reminder, asking for 'sex as recorded at birth', in the vast majority of situations, is an act of institutional violence against trans people. It is not acceptable. For those who can't stomach reading another report by an anti-trans actor designed to hurt trans people, here's a thread analysing it

In the face of this horrific attack on equalities from Labour, important to note what we still have:

Stock did not leave Sussex because of a policy. She left because she couldn't stand colleagues' and students' free speech, their opposition to her bigotry. Governments cannot take this power away.