ABC, Part 2

Categories: Gaming

Read this first. I spent a while pondering this one during my vacation, and I think the system is a modified Feng Shui with revamped templates. Not as many hit points, to get it more gritty — possibly even a wound system. Steal the madness meters from Unknown Armies and turn them into corruption meters and you’re good to go.

March 15, 2005 · 4 min · Bryant

Egoboo

Categories: Gaming

Yeah, someone wrote fanfic about my RPG character. This goes in the hall of fame next to getting asked to autograph one of my books at a con, you betcha. Even if I did have to cajole Ivan into it.

January 23, 2005 · 1 min · Bryant

Write it on a postcard

Categories: Gaming

For the interested: the Whitey’s Boyos character sheet. Comments welcome. Warning: contains language.

January 20, 2005 · 1 min · Bryant

For the eyes

Categories: Gaming

“Whitey’s Boyos” movies and television shows include the following. There are other obvious candidates; if you haven’t seen every gangster flick Scorcese ever made, well, you’re like me because I haven’t seen Gangs of New York yet either. But you know what I mean. These, however, are the direct influences and recommendations. Mystic River: not as good as the book, but still very very good. Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon were on fire. ...

January 18, 2005 · 1 min · Bryant

Library time

Categories: Gaming

The reading list for “Whitey’s Boyos” looks something like this: Black Mass: the canonical book about Whitey Bulger and John Connolly. This is where you get the basic history. Boyos: a gritty novel by an ex-Southie gangster. Not brilliant but pretty propulsive, and for obvious reasons the author has a good feel for the Southie underworld. Street Soldier: in a similar vein to Boyos, but non-fiction. Not as well-written and some have questioned its veracity, but I enjoyed it. ...

January 18, 2005 · 1 min · Bryant

Unavoidable

Categories: Gaming

My Boston Angel campaign will, of course, be called Whitey’s Angels.

January 10, 2005 · 1 min · Bryant

Parlous desires

Categories: Gaming

Green Ronin’s new Black Company worldbook makes me want to run a five session game during which the PCs lose. Gritty fantasy, city under siege, that sort of thing. What can you do before you die?

December 27, 2004 · 1 min · Bryant

Five redux

Categories: Gaming

In a futile effort to save Chris, show off for Brant, and feed my own ego: Texcatlipoca Has Come From The North: a companion game to Huey Long’s Men of Action (original), set in AD 1000 or so in the Yucatan. Brave Byzantine warriors and their Viking allies battle the hordes of the god-king Quetzalcoatl. It uses D20 psionics rules, either Mindshadows or the WotC offering, depending on which is better. No magic. Plenty of Cathars. ...

December 15, 2004 · 3 min · Bryant

Five-pak

Categories: Gaming

Yeah, every now and then we like to dump out campaign ideas we won’t run. 1. Aztlan Chrome — near-future cyberpunk set in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez metroplex. Assume a de facto independent state in that region, extending all the way to San Diego/Tijuana, with very little federal control on the part of either Mexico or the United States. The tech is sufficient for wired reflexes; i.e., money can provide you with a definite advantage in a fight (which is really the core ethos of cyberpunk gaming, right?). The Ciudad Juarez serial killer (original) is on my mind as I think about this setting. So is the five solid hours of Los Lobos I listened to last night. So is The Shield, but I’m not sure if that’s for antagonists or protagonists. Could be either, really. ...

December 10, 2004 · 3 min · Bryant

John Toad Goes to School

Categories: Gaming

This is a short-short piece meant to illustrate some things about my character in Jeff’s excellent [Queen Abby’s Mob](http://web.archive.org/web/20060205002338/http://web.archive.org/web/20060205002338/http://dogsolitude.org:9673/jeffwikwiki/FrontPage/ (original)/) (original) game.

December 10, 2004 · 4 min · Bryant