Thursday 26 July 2012

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Authors' Seminar

The good people at Yog-Sothoth have recorded one of Continuum 2012's seminars.

Paul Fricker & Mike Mason, authors of the upcoming 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu recently gave a seminar on what's new and what to expect in the new version of Chaosium's game.

The seventh edition certainly isn't just a simple reprint of what has gone before but has been thoroughly revised and features mechanical changes to the system.

To find out more, listen to YSDC's recording of the event held at Continuum 2012.

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Authors' Seminar

Recorded at Continuum 2012, Leicester, UK. Saturday 21st July, 2012, 9 AM.
Apologies for the occasional sounds of a mobile phone signal. Mike had a dirty, dirty (audio leakage) iPhone on the desk during the seminar.


Mike holds up the new set of Call of Cthulhu rules. Some thinning down of the core book has been made...

Wednesday 4 July 2012

Back to RuneQuest.


Back in 1981 I was introduced to role-playing games by my elder brother Russell and his friend.
At the time I was drawing maps of ancient Greece as I had been going on a Hellenic mythological binge, so I was well up for a good fantasy game.

The game was RuneQuest (Games Workshop 2nd edition box set) and the setting was Glorantha. First scenario was 'Rainbow Mounds' and my character was a Blackfang Assassin as I wasn't keen on Orlanth or Kygor Litor (the only other options for cults).
From that moment I was hooked!



Every Sunday afternoon was a RuneQuest afternoon. We explored Glorantha, making most of it up as we went along, and I went through a new character every other week as I had a habit of killing off my PCs. Russell at the time had his character, Barefoot Bulltamer, living on an epic nine years of real time gaming. Barefoot went everywhere. Tarsh, Sartar, Prax, Pavis, Sanctuary (Thieves World) then onto Pamatela where he discovered that Basmol the Lion was really the Deity trapped under the Block in Prax.

We also explored the Young Kingdoms with 'Stormbringer', Known Space with 'RingWorld', the Mythos with 'Call of Cthulhu', lead an Elf Tribe with 'ElfQuest', and were even knights of Camelot with 'Pendragon'. We always stuck to Chaosium games and we returned to RuneQuest and Glorantha.

Then in 2000 at the Convulsion convention in Leicester we were introduced to 'Hero Wars' (later to known as HeroQuest). This way of gaming in Glorantha, with a more narrative structure, suited us as our games were heading in that direction anyway. There was a paradigm shift with the mechanics of the game system but we soon got over that.

I used HeroQuest with other settings and genres such as Firefly, Dad's Army, Supernatural, Heroes, and The Shield. My con games went fairly well, played over fifteen games per year, but there was always a backlash against them. Some people on the UK con scene would bad-mouth my games, spread their discontent about them and even rip down my sign-up sheets!
So I have abandoned that game system and gone back to an old favourite.

So now I return to RuneQuest.
I have the latest edition from Mongoose, written by Lawrence Whittaker and Pete Nash, and I have a Glorantha 2nd Age campaign planned. I have playtested some of the scenarios with my home group so I now have a scenario ready to run at Continuum 2012. Just some prep work to finish off like artwork, maps and the player characters to generate.
At some point I will swap over to Design Mechanism's RuneQuest 6e once I have the rules under my belt.

I have made up a RuneQuest character sheet in Microsoft Excel that calculates all the base skills, hit points, modifiers, etc.




Sunday 1 July 2012

Last Day for Registrations

Today, Monday 2nd July 2012, is the last day we can accept registrations (with accommodation) for Continuum 2012.

Continuum 2012. John Foster Hall, Leicester University. UK.
Friday 20th - Monday 23rd July 2012.
http://www.continuum.uk.net


If you wish to attend please get your registrations in today as we have to have all room allocations done for the University by the 4th July.

Please visit the Continuum 2012 Registration page for more details on how to register.



If you are just after a Weekend Pass (£35.00) or a Day Pass (£15.00 Sat or Sun, £10.00 Fri) without accommodation then you can still register up until Monday 16th July 2012.
Please note that we have limited passes available and they will be issued on a first come first served basis