by guyeatsfood

Ice Station Zeta Alex – a One-Shot for Stoneburner

I’ve started doing this more – sharing prep notes for one-shots. This time it’s for Fari RPGs game of space mining dwarves, Stoneburner – a rules-light solo-friendly game you’ll be seeing on Unconventional GMs soon! 

As always, it’s up to you how complete this prep is for you to run the game yourself; a combination of this and watching the Actual Play on youtube should give you a head-start though, and it might be useful for what prep could look like for your game. I started by using Stoneburner’s great random tables, and then filled them out as best I could. The scribbly map and notes are below – an essential first step in any one-shot prep!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Aging like fine wines: Why TTRPGs last forever

As I write this, I’ve just returned from Kraken, a baroque gaming retreat in the wilds of Brandenburg, and I’m reflecting on the games that I played. One highlight was a game of Hillfolk that I finally got to play in, run by the designer, Robin Laws. I backed Hillfolk when it was on Kickstarter, so it made me think about how long ago it was – 2013, as it turns out. 11 years later I actually get to play it.

And then I considered some of the other games I’ve played at the con, and their year of publication. Pendragon (2016, although a new edition is imminent). Feng Shui 2 (2015). Night Witches (2015) – again, I backed this, but haven’t had a chance to play it up until now.

What’s my point? Well, these games have been sitting around for a while before I’ve got round to playing or running them – and I’m very glad I have. A lot of these games have had fairly light support from their publishers, and of course following Kickstarter fulfilment a lot of games effectively end their lines. It’s easy to write off games as “I’ll never get to play this” and either ‘archive’ (put on the inaccessible shelves) or sell them.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

The Empress’s New Clothes – a Feng Shui 2 One-Shot

I’m just about ready for Spring Kraken, one of the highlights of the TTRPG gaming calendar, and so I thought I’d share my prep for one of the games I’m running there. This scenario was the very first one I ran for Feng Shui, way back in (I think) Continuum 2018, and sad to say my original notes are lost in the mists of time and changes of laptops / cloud storage. So I’ve reconstructed it!

For this scenario, you’ll want all the PCs to pick archetypes that are native to the Ancient juncture – they start there, and then transition for the finale to cheesy 1999 Hong Kong, for out-of-time comedy effect! I used the Secrets and Clues approach from Sly Flourish to prep and give some revelations to the scenario – let me know how you think they’ve worked out!

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

“To Do It, Do It” – TTRPG Workflow

As I write this, I’m deep in prep for my games for two great conventions – Spring Kraken in Germany, and Seven Hills in Sheffield. As it stands I’m running 8 official games between these two conventions, but Kraken being what it is I’ll bring a few extra games to fill any light sessions too. That’s quite a lot of prep. 

Alongside this, I keep reading about people who are planning on running a one-shot for the first time, who sometimes never seem to get going. How do you manage to actually get the prep done? And what does ‘done’ even mean? Here are some best practices I use, which might be useful for you.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Review: Stronger Scenarios – Adventure Crucible

There’s recently been a few books published about gamemastering, and I’m all for it. So much gets written online in a haphazard and sometimes contradictory way (as a visit to any forum will attest); it’s great to see people with genuine experience put down their thoughts in an organised manner. This is what Adventure Crucible does, a short chapbook available in print from All Rolled Up, and online from Drive Thru, in which Robin Laws gives a surprisingly deep dive into adventure structure and prep.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

The Forlorn Hope – A Cyberpunk Project

Tales from the Forlorn Hope is a classic old-school not-D&D adventure book, of the kind we used to see all the time back in 1992, the year of its publication. Written for Cyberpunk 2020, it has eight adventures, centred around the titular Forlorn Hope bar, where cyberpunks and solos can hang out and get work. I’m very fond of these old adventure books – I think it was Dungeon magazine that got me hooked on TTRPGs before I ever played them – and I’m looking for a gaming project. And it just so happens to be Seven Hills soon, with a theme of PUNK. So, here goes:

I’m going to run all eight adventures, using eight different cyberpunk systems.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Guest Post: Wearing the Mask(s), by Neil Gow

A first for the blog today – a guest post, by esteemed friend of the Burn, Neil Gow! He’s written below about setting up a one-shot of Masks, the ultimate game of teenage superheroes Powered by the Apocalypse. Neil’s a fantastic PBTA GM – I did a multi-table Masks game last year with him – and as a player in the game he’s writing about, can confirm how well it all slotted together. Check out more PBTA posts on here too!

A Short Game of Masks: Getting It Right

I love a good game of Masks – it’s easily the most satisfying superhero game I have played, understanding that the really important parts of any superteam are not the ‘What’ of an encounter, but the ‘Why’ – emotions, relationships and complications are far more important than how many feet someone is knocked back. Sadly, the traditional short one-shot of Masks tends to deliver half of that experience. You get the build up of some awesome interplay, but rarely any pay off. So, when I had the chance to run a double-slotter (a ‘long shot’ if you will…) of the game at the Revelation convention in Sheffield, I was determined to make it count! So, how did I prepare?

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Step By Step Prep: Ghost Mountain (Index Card RPG), Part Three

Well, after blogging about my initial steps to learn a system in Part One, and fully prepping the session in Part Two, I’ve actually run the one-shot of Runehammer’s Index Card RPG (ICRPG) for the Unconventional GMs channel. As promised, I’d like to take a look at what worked well, and what I’m not so sure about, after the action. The session itself is scheduled to be released in March 2024 – so for now you’ll just have to subscribe to the channel if you want to follow along!

Reviewing and revisiting our sessions is something that I think we don’t do enough of in the hobby, whether it’s just self-reflection while writing up a session report, or doing something like Stars & Wishes at the table. It’s a fantastic tool to improve your play experiences in future, and great to get other perspectives on it from your players.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Keeping to Time – GMing to a Schedule

We’ve got nearly 25 episodes of Unconventional GMs recorded now, all Actual Plays of less than 2 hours – and a frequent question I’ve got is how to keep it below that. While we did it as a creative constraint and because we got frustrated with Actual Plays that took half an hour to get going, it’s an interesting one to consider, and I think both me and Gaz have run enough times to have some hints and tips to help this.

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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by guyeatsfood

Dungeoning Done Right – How To Run Dungeon Crawl Classics One-Shots

I’ve had a chance to start running a few games of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) and its derived games recently – a one-shot of Weird Frontiers for Unconventional GMs, and a “vanilla” DCC at MORPCon in Manchester. It’s a system I’ve always enjoyed playing, but except for a couple of 0-level funnels, I’ve not run it before. And it’s an awful lot of fun. 

While you’re reading this, I should tell you about my Patreon. Patrons get access to content 7 days before they hit this site, the chance to request articles or content, and the chance to play in one-shot games, for a very reasonable backer level of £2 per month. If you like what you read, want to support the blog, and have the funds for it, please consider supporting here. Telling people about the blog, and sharing links/retweeting is much appreciated also – thanks!

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