Things from the Flood has arrived!

It is a thing of beauty.



I’ll do a review soon.

#TalesfromtheLoop
#ThingsfromtheFlood

Leicester Group First Tales from the Loop Game

So I was invited to run a Tales from the Loop game for a Meetup group in Leicester. Two of the new players from my Nottingham Dice Cup game the previous week had travelled all the way from Leicester to try the game out. They were keen to play it again and get a few more players too.

This article contains SPOILERS for the scenario ion question.

There are two board game cafés in Leicester but they were unable to host the game for ‘reasons’. Instead one of the players found an upstairs room at the Globe pub in the centre of Leicester we could use instead.

There was also rumours that ten new players had signed up for the game! Crikey! That would be hard work.

I got to Leicester from Nottingham with no issues and walked to the Globe from the Railway Station in very little time, even with my bad leg and stick. The Globe is located on Silver Street alongside Games Workshop, Forbidden Planet, and one of the board game cafés. A great little spot. The Globe itself is a cosy little pub and we had the upstairs room to ourselves. The room was nice and large and had just been renovated so there was a slight smell of fresh paint to the place that wasn’t too much of a problem. The staff at the Globe were very friendly and helpful and I had a great pint of Sunchaser to start the evening off.

Fortunately I had six players turn up, all new to role playing, two from the game before and four brand new players. Lovely.

They picked their character archetypes and I started with the ‘Principles of the Loop’ the char-gen. The previous players kept their characters from the game before so the others made new characters and developed quick relationships between them all.

So we had our Bookworm Matilda, with her magnifying glass and who has a love of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’. She is arguing with her mother over her missing father, though her mother calls him a worthless layabout.
Louise is our Popular Kid with her ever-present can of hair-spray playing Joan Jet’s ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’.  She has been blamed for the batch of missing items in the house. Though Louise’s crazy aunt is locked in the basement, she has all the missing items.
We have a Computer Geek called Monica who’s favourite song is ‘Living in Electric Dreams’ by Phil Oakley. She plays games on her Sinclair ZX81 (maxed up to 128k) while her parents are arguing over nothing.
Our resident Weirdo is G who has an orienteering compass with magnifying glass. His anthem is ‘God Save The Queen’ by the Sex Pistols. He has to finish off his chores, namely mowing the lawn, before he is allowed out.
The Hick is Lars with his tractor playing ‘Freedom’ by Wham! He has been busy laying a brand new patio with his brother Fred at Matilda’s mum’s house.
The skateboarder Troublemaker (and car thief) is Jenny for whom the song ‘Drive’ by Cars calms her down. Jenny’s drunken dad often tries to argue with her, trying to make her do more astound the house. However she sneaks out taking his toolbox with her.

Their Hideout is an abandoned library full of old books. Soft furnishings have been provided by the stolen car seats, a ghetto blaster provides entertainment, there is a science kit with a microscope and ‘acquired’ science equipment from school. In one corner is a vanity dressing table with a selection of make-up and in another is the computer station with lots of devices wired up together. There is also plenty of fresh food provided from the farm. Possibly one of the coolest Hideouts so far!

So this group meet up at their Hideout and all were happy to attend the Steam and Transport Rally at Elvaston Castle. When they encountered Milo and his Silver-liner semi truck stuck in Elvaston Lane, they were the most reluctant group yet (most groups are very happy to have their Kids jump into a lorry cab with strangers). They needed convincing so not only did they get the offer of beer and snacks but Milo also offered to pay them cold hard cash!

So they end up working on building the outdoor auditorium for the Magic Show at the Elvaston Castle show grounds, as Milo wanted his monies worth.  The Kids were also charmed by the robot, A-Fil-08 and were particularly concerned when the scientist mess about with the robot and got it to deliver the Echo Sphere next to the stage. They also took a strong interest on Springthorpe Cottage, the folly that was also an electrical sub-station. They failed to break in at the front door so poor Matilda, being the youngest, was dropped in via the narrow window to open the door from the inside.

Of course what they discovered lead them on the Mystery, exploring the tunnels under the Loop Facility, working out the Echo Spheres, suffering the Loop Surge, seeing the Bigtrak tank, watching the Magic Show, discovering the ‘shady men’ and rescuing the Bigtrak (unlike both Nottingham groups that decided to keep the tank!).

It was a good introductory adventure for the group and they all seemed very happy with the concept of role playing and enjoying playing as Kids in the 1980’s.


The Leicester Group of Players

Hopefully we’ll be playing again soon.
Thanks again to Tanya for organising it and the staff at the Globe pub for being so helpful and accommodating.

#TalesfromtheLoop
#GlobePub
#ActualPlay

Seven Hills Con Report

So finally managed to make my way to a Garrison Con after missing last year’s Furnace due to my broken leg. It was also the first full day that I wasn’t using my crutches to get about though I was topped up with pain meds.

Picked up nice and early, instead of taking the usual train journey I normally take, so we got to the MacDonalds restaurant in time for a quick breakfast before the gaming.

Just caught the trail end of the opening speech and got down to my table ready for running my first game in Slot 1, Tales from the Loop - ‘Heatwaves and Rain-Guns’.
I had six players signed up and ready to go.

I was also using my new display technique for a lot of my images and maps, reducing the number of physical handouts. You can now remotely control a Keynote presentation on an iPad via your iPhone. Not only control but also interact with it, drawing on the slides as they are displayed. So I had my iPad displaying the presentation to the players, I controlled it from my iPhone, and I used my iPad Pro to record and keep detailed notes.  The only things I handed out other than the character archetype sheets and the character sheets were the NPC cards. I like to use them as they are very tactile and the players can hand them around and indicate which NPC they are talking about.

I took the players through the ‘Principles of the Loop’ and started char-gen.
We had a young Rocker called Calver, 11 years old with his drums and sticks and his love of ‘Prince Charming’ by Adam Ant. He had a black and gold Raleigh Grifter bicycle with gear changing handle.
Billy Steve is our 13 year old Computer Geek, with his calculator, playing Van Hallen’s ‘Running with the Devil’. His bike was a sensible Raleigh Willow (it’s not just for girls) with handlebar and rear luggage baskets.
Billy’s younger sister, the Bookworm Jill, gets him to carry her encyclopedias for her as she listens to Nina’s ‘99 Red Balloons’. She had a matching Willow though hers was pink instead of black.
The oldest at 15 is the Jerry the Jock with his ever-present football. He is obsessed with the ‘Ghostbusters Theme’ by Ray Parker Jr. He had a Raleigh Chopper bike with cross bar gear changer.
His 13 year old brother is the Troublemaker Jonny with his cigarettes and lighter who listens to Twisted Sister. He had inherited his brother’s old Raleigh Bomber bicycle.
Last but not least we have our Hick, Joe Sudden, with his sheep dog Shawn, listening to Queen’s ‘I want to Break Free’. He had a Frankenstein bike made up of different types, parts and devices.


I started with the background on Derby in the summer of 1984, hot and humid in the middle of a heatwave. With no water to play in and keep cool and inattentive parents, the Kids decided to head off to a secret lake near Gotham (pronounced GOT-ham) in Nottinghamshire. It only a short bike ride away.

The opening scenes from home covered what supplies the Kids were getting together to take with them. Some were organized and had tents, sleeping bags, food, torches, sun screen, insect repellent, etc. The other Kids were just going to wing it with the bare minimum.

The Mystery starts off with the Kids cycling off to Gotham on the country roads (with the Famous Five theme playing in their heads) when they are suddenly knocked off their bikes by a passing black Mercedes car with the private number plate RAV 1. Fortunately the Kids were able to not only keep their balance but a couple of them were also able to damage the car as it sped past them. The car screeches to a halt and the driver shots obscenities at them. During this confusion one of the Kids was able to steal a computer cassette from the car before the driver sped off again.

What followed was run-ins with robots (old and new), a gang of Gotham Hooligans, a rider of a Grav-Hover Motorcycle,  a cool deep water lake (in a drought?), a United Nations task force, rainfall during a drought, and ended with a Roman-candle Windmill.

The game was well received by the players who came up with great ideas and solutions to the Trouble the found themselves in. Though I had to rush the ending a little due to the shorter slot running time.


Players of my Tales from the Loop game.


After lunch was Slot 2 and I was playing in a game this time around. Dragons Conquer America ‘The Mexica Raid’ by Remi Fayomi.  Set during the time of the Conquistador invasion of Central America, we were playing the native Mexica people.
We were a mis-matched group of sacrificial captives held in the Capital city. Rescued from prison by one of our fellows, who was an outsider, we set about trying to halt a Conquistador attack at the coast.
Once getting out the city we were fighting through the undergrowth of the jungle, strange Mexica water spirits, and then finally the Conquistadors on the beach.
We also realised that the talk of ‘Dragons’ wasn’t metaphorical as there were real dragons flying and supporting the Conquistador attack.
We charged the beach to get our goal, a ‘bearded man’ to be a sacrifice for our own dragon summoning ritual, I managed to slay a European noblewoman in the process too.
More confusion reigned as we all got split up, many of us were wounded, at the wrong temple, and managed to summon the wrong godly dragon in our ritual.

A great game though we did struggle with the Mexica names, the Mexica culture, and the nature of sacrifice and bloodletting as part of a way of life. It was good to play outside the usual pseudo-European Middle Ages settings of most fantasy role playing games and the card mechanism is intriguing.
Well done to Remi for running the game.






After dinner in the pub downstairs it was Slot 3 and I was running my Things from the Flood (sequel spin off game to Tales from the Loop) game ‘Computer Cassettes and Crash-test Marionettes’. It would be the first time I was running both this game and scenario. I decided to forego the usual handouts, maps, images, three screen presentation, NPC cards, etc. It was just going to be me and the players with their character sheets. This game was also going to be more macabre.

I had five players, two from this mornings Tales from the Loop game.

I went through the ‘Principals of the Flood’, describing that it is all falling apart and life is boring. We then generated our Teens at the table before the scenario began.

We had Jack the Rocker with his notepaper and pencil. He had been caught at school smoking dope with Jen.
Jen was the Lone Wolf, her only companion is her pet rat, Amy. She had been wrongly accused of smoking dope at school with Jack.
Taylor is the Raver with her spray cans of paint. She had inappropriately invited a teacher, Mr Stevens, to go to a rave with her.
Melissa is a Snob with her loaded money clip. She got in trouble for being absent from school, trouble she couldn’t buy her way out of.
Wolf was the Street Kid with his lock picks. He had been wrongly accused of stealing lunch money from younger kids at school.

The scenario started with a ‘Breakfast Club’ style Saturday morning detention session in the school library. The supervising teacher, Mr Franklin, was too busy playing Doom on the office computer so the Teens were left to their own devices. Left at a loose end there was going to be nothing but trouble.

What followed was strange sirens from the Loop Facility, strange apparitions, weird news about a missing school girl declared deceased after six weeks gone (yet the Teens had spoken to her the day before).
The tension was ramped up and the Teens encountered strange occurrences, crash-test dummies, growing cables, black ichor, and strange tunnels under the school.  Then it took a darker turn though the teens managed to destroy the big bad in the end.

The players enjoyed the puzzles and running through the maze of the scenario.

After that I headed back home to Derby.