Celebrate #Epimas2020 by Giving Games!

I hope you all are staying safe and celebrating any holidays you do while respecting COVID-19 guidelines! I want to share some fun and interesting games with you as part of the #Epimas2020 bundle that I’m a part of. I hope you like what I share! The bundle ends in three days!

To tell you a little about Epimas, it is a created holiday season bundle run by Epidiah Ravachol, who I am lucky enough to have known and worked with over the years. The bundle was originally conceived as a way to share games with friends or new players and expand the hobby while maximizing use of the PDF format. You gave a bundle, you got a bundle. This year, it’s on itch.io and while the give/get format isn’t yet feasible on the platform, there are 69 designers contributing to this amazing bundle you can gift a friend or colleague to help them explore so many amazing games that soon, they’ll be inviting you to play them!

This is the first year I can really participate in the bundle, and may be the last. I’ve wanted to be a part of Epimas since I first started in games years ago and saw it, because it demonstrates something I really love – games as a gift, as a way to grow the hobby, as a way to try new things, and as a way to spur new creation when inspiration strikes after checking out so many amazing games. I am so excited to be a part of it, so in the last few days of it, I wanted to recommend you check it out!

This year’s bundles are named in a trend with Santa’s reindeer, starting with the overarching Dunder & Blixem bundle, which covers all games offered in the bundle. The others are Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dasher, Dancer, and Prancer, which break down the bundle into smaller bundles of games. I am in the Vixen bundle with Turn, alongside these others! Note that I haven’t played most of these games, but I’ve read the reviews and some of the text from a few and that’s how I’m compiling my notes.


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Behold, Products! The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide

P.S. Sorry for the borked links earlier, I still haven’t mastered WordPress.

I recently had the pleasure to read and review James D’Amato’s Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, which is currently available online for purchase! James contacted me for the interview, but in true Beau fashion I took forever to review it (sorry!).

Full disclosure: I was given a free review copy and I think James is pretty rad.

Photos in this review are by Brie Beau Sheldon.

A book with a black cover and orange and pale green text that says The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide.
The book itself, The Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide, by James D’Amato.

I approached the review in a weird fashion, to try to get a full perspective. The book itself is basically a tool to help you build the background of your character for RPG play. Some elements of it seem to trend towards games with levels, but I think this could be used for most roleplaying. It uses die rolls for randomizers at times, but also a lot of it is pick lists and freewriting to flesh out the character.

The way I approached this was to have three separate sessions of exercises (there are so many included in the book)! with three different people, and each of them had their own individual characters, while I kept the same character through the whole test. Each of the character had varying levels of previous information – mine, for example, was made up on the spot! I also spent a fair amount of time looking at the book

The interior of a book, on a section titled Old Haunts.

The book itself has a fun orange, black, and greenish color scheme and is relatively well organized. I will note there are a few spaces where the text contrast is not as comfortable for me to read, but aside from that, the book is pretty clear to follow and read.

The biggest comment I’d have about this book? The questions were often wonderfully open. I am not good with constraints on my creativity – I like a lot of free space to wonder along. There is guidance for a lot of the questions, plus the random rolls, but enough of the questions allowed me to explore where I wanted to go.

The inside of a book with the section title Pocket Dimension.

I really appreciate James’s thoughtfulness in providing subjects that range from death to relationships to magical objects and places – it feels like there’d be something here for basically everybody! Special love for the “Damn Merlinials” exercise, too. The exercises vary in complexity, with some including random rolls resulting in skipping forward sections, and others just simple fill-in-the-blanks, and some even have a combination of methods to answer all of the questions.

Overall, I think that it’s really useful tool for someone who wants to create deep, complex characters with a lot of history, flavor, and support for their perspectives and beliefs.

The inside of a book with the section title Magic Mirrors.

A note on pronouns: One thing that I didn’t like in the book is that all of it uses he or she pronouns, even when it’s quite clunky. This was also noted by all three of the other players I tested with. I do know, however, that James didn’t want this in the book and he even consulted with me on how to address it, and I wrote a statement to his publisher. I appreciate James’s intent a lot and wish his publisher had followed it. I bring this up because I know I have many nonbinary readers and the use of binary pronouns from one of our own can feel a little jarring, and I want you to know that James had the best intentions, but couldn’t push it through. That’s basically the only major issue I ran into with this book though!

I’m including the full text of the responses to the prompts I played through, but they only include the answers to the questions – for those you’ll need to get your own copy of the Ultimate RPG Character Backstory Guide by James D’Amato on Amazon or at Barnes & Noble!


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Designer & Devourer Episode 1, 200wordRPG, Punch, and Upcoming Interviews



ETA 4/16/2017: FYI, the recording for Designer & Devourer Episode 1 has had the hiss removed, so hopefully will be easier listening. Brie learned a skill!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/8779339



New podcast, I think?

Note: This is my first time recording a larger piece and my first podcast, so please understand I’m new! I hope to use some music in the intros sometime in the future, possibly? But here’s it!


Designer & Devourer is a 15-30 minute audio episode with my thoughts on upcoming games, design, and game theory, plus a semi-relevant personal or internet-sourced recipe. This week I talk upcoming interviews on Thoughty, the #200wordRPG contest, and my Great Grandma’s punch recipe.

Check out Charon, my entry for the 200 Word RPG contest here on Google Drive.

ETA: forgot to include the links to the Kickstarters I mentioned!

FAITH
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/burninggames/faith-the-sci-fi-rpg-core-book-miniatures
The Sword, The Crown, and The Unspeakable Power
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wheeltreepress/the-sword-the-crown-and-the-unspeakable-power

Great Grandma’s Punch Recipe
a fun substitute for Ambrosia (according to a similar internet recipe!)

1 bottle ginger ale, 7Up, or Sprite
1 large can pineapple juice (not frozen)
1 small can frozen orange juice (don’t add water)

Pour into a large punch bowl and stir slowly until the orange juice is fully mixed in, adding lime sherbert or vanilla ice cream.
Top with maraschino cherries if desired, or an ice ring made with pineapple juice and cherries (use a silicone bundt cake mold!).

Thank you for checking out Designer & Devourer! Please share around!


This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

DesignerandDevourerBrieCSbrianna.c.sheldon@gmail.com

Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure Review (part 2)

Today is the second part of Mike Evans’ Hubris setting book review! See the first part here.

We’ll continue with the chapter on the Wizard’s Spellbook (spells and Patrons). It has tables for spellbook constructions, options for Patrons from both DCC and Hubris (including the Charred Maiden, Floating Island of Terror, Spider Goddess, and Twisted One), and then spells.

The Summon from the Void spell is pretty… uh. Yikes. There’s some really cool stuff going on but wow, it’s mega gross, and reminds me why I am not a magic user.

There are unique spells for the various Patrons, which come with every level of creepy and gross and twisted nature that the others have, some going even farther like those of Charred Maiden that involve the Patron who is known for eating children and the spells that bring the twisted corrupted spirits of the children to life.

The following chapters include the gods of Hubris. I admit, and this is just personal preference, I wasn’t super enthused about this section. I think it’s because I don’t typically play or enjoy the narrative of clerics. There are plenty of useful things I think a lot of people would enjoy – various cleric invokations, information about the god’s alignment, holy symbols, and weapons, which are cool. The gods have names like “The Corpulent One,” “Yelsa, Goddess of Sex and Violence,” and “The Heathen Below.” I’m sure a lot of people would enjoy this if they’re into kind of twisted morbid deities, but it’s not really my jam, primarily because it’s focused on clerics.

In the following chapter on GM Tools and Tables, I think that the Demigod creation charts are really cool. You roll for the demigod form, holiday, altar, blessing/curse, followers, temple, cult leader, and what they are a god of. There are things like “God of the Never-Ending Kaleidoscope Nightmare” and the bodies include things like “twitching fingers for nipples” and “eyes are mouths and mouth is an eye” and some things that are way more unsettling. A couple of these did genuinely make me uncomfortable and upset (like some of the altars that included harm to animals and stuff), so I’m not including many details here.

There is a nifty table on “Bandits, Brigands, and Rapscallions” that has gangs, encounters, and bandit leaders. I like the City District Generator, too, which has some fun plot hooks and I think would be a great kickoff for anyone trying to get a game started quickly or pick up a game that’s slowed down.

Hive Mind
The Diseases of Hubris are so, super gross. Blighted Eyes is so gross and cringey, involving yucky things happening to your eyes. The Ghost Pox is very haunting (pun intended), but Hive Mind (bees take rest in your head) is so vile and probably going to give me nightmares just from reading it. Also, the Whistler’s Lament is terrible – and possibly could annoy the entire table completely.

There’s a brief table for grave digging, which I think would be pretty useful in some campaigns. Another table – probably more widely useful – is the NPC generator. It has a lot of variety, and a lot of unique qualities for NPCs. I really like random tables for NPCs, in part because it can make life way easier for GMs. 

This section in general is loaded with cool tables – planes of Hubris, what happens when you make camp (like waking up with fungus growing on you), herbs you might find (like ones that let you climb on walls), taverns and inns (one has a pickled rat brain eating contest), vials (you could grow a beard! Or barbed skin!), villages (including one that’s built on mummified bird legs!), ruins (featuring living statues and demons of lies, strange black obelisks and pink spider webs), and a way to label years.

The section on Magic Items has a fancy table for random stuff but also has a list of other items both attached to gods and otherwise. I almost talked about what some of them do, but I think that would be almost too spoilery, for lack of a better term! Some of the named items are: The Armor of the Horned Blood Crab, The Six Sinister Skull Bracelets of Facious the Cruel, and The Despicable Clay Jug of the Maggot. Yes, that last one is just as gross as it sounds!

Demon Contamination
The Monsters section is pretty fun. There’s a table on contamination from demon possession, which has some gross stuff and some interesting stuff, and includes a table called What’s on Their Festering Dead Body? And it is obviously ridiculous (in a good way). One of the options is a “Convulsing Sphincter Muscle of an Ox,” and another is a “Bladder of a Badger” that you can drink from (ew). I’m annoyed that the Face of a Scorned Lover is gendered, because, come on. There’s also “Ulcerated Stomach of the Three Pronged Goat,” which is for carrying items, so, gross. Fun grossness.
The monsters include such fun things as barghests (one of my favorites), dinosaurs, fae (with some random tables), malfactorum (anthropomorphic beetles), carnivorous mermaids (YES), skeletons what use guns, and wooly mammoths. They all sound really cool and I’d love to see some of these in play (especially the mermaids!). 
Mermaids!
I am not covering the Adventures section because that’s something I prefer to leave for GMs and players to discover on their own, so you’ll have to pick it up to see!

Overall, I think that Hubris is pretty fascinating! If you’re looking for a setting book with lots of material that will give plenty of substance to a twisted, gross campaign with plenty of vile monstrosities, Hubris is a good option! There are plenty of new environments, magical effects, story hooks, and choices for character building that I think give a lot of leads for both short play and longer campaigns.

I hope you liked reading about it! Check out Hubris here if it seems like your kind of thing. 🙂


This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!

To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure Review (part 1)

(This is part 1 of two, part 2 will be released on Monday, January 9, 2017.)
The introduction to Mike Evans’ Hubris is a vivid, almost technicolor cover that reminds me of the covers of old, used paperback sci-fi and sword and sorcery novels I saw in my childhood, covered in dust, wiped with an 80s brush. This is a good thing.
Gorgeous cover!

Inside the pages I find similar evidence of the weird nostalgia of gritty dark adventure, like the monsters of Beastmaster and from those stories I shouldn’t have read in the back of the bookstore. These days I typically stick to lighter materials in my gameplay, but fuck knows that in the back of my mind those things still creep. What makes Hubris appealing? The visceral nature of it, for sure.

Hubris uses Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) as its main mechanical structure, so I had to wiggle my brain a little since I’m not super familiar with the system. Thankfully, it’s relatively simple and nothing interfered with my ability to examine the game’s setting and structure. There are lots of random tables, which I looove.

The art of the book is black and white or grayscale, and not only is it great to look at it but it’s well suited to the content of the text and theme of the book. I enjoyed just scrolling through looking at the images – the artists (Alex Mayo, David Lewis Johnson, Jeremy Duncan, Angie Groves, Doug Kovacs, Jason Sholtis, and Wayne Snyder) did an excellent job capturing the “feel” of Hubris from my reading. There are a few spots where I (as an editor and proofreader) might have changed a few things textually, and some layout hiccups, but they’re minor and don’t disrupt reading, I don’t think. Overall the book is really well put together and easy to read!

The setting summary and flavor text of Hubris includes a lot of “appealing” concepts (by which I mean, oh, god, no, please! (wait, yes!)). A few bits from the setting summary itself:

“Legend states that Hubris was created from the fetid corpse of a long-dead god.”

“The Black Queen rules the citizens of the Floating Island of Terror from her throne of bones and dreams terrible machinations for Hubris.” (*swoon*)

“There are no easily recognizable heroes in the world.”

“Your epic tale will be forgotten in days as the dangerous world continues on without you…”

Yep. Yep.

Lovely world map!
The maps in Hubris are really nice! They have the kind of tight feeling that I enjoy in this Tolkien-esque kind of map, but it’s clearly readable. They also immediately draw in my interest with the small icons of the locations. You know, places like “Ruins of the Deranged Elephant Emperor” and “Lake of the Flayed” and “Bleeding Mountain that Pierced the Sky.” The kind of places you really wanna go, but kind of wish you’d never heard of.

In character creation, Hubris includes no elves, dwarves, or halflings. I was kind of surprised by that as I’m so used to them being standard in a lot of settings, but it was cool to see. There is a list of occupations with weapons and goods, and I admit I laughed when I read that the chimney sweep child has a broom (as a club) as their weapon. There’s also gems like the heathen carrying a bucket of dung, a nosey neighbor with a rake (as a club) and a rooster, and a rabid raven fanatic. (There’s also later a “disgusting torturer’s kit.”)

(Note: I am fully aware that Hubris contains some terms and subjects that are or may be problematic (g*psy, prostitute), so please don’t think I’m ignoring them. This is my note that they do exist and I’m aware of them.)

There are also additional races with specific occupations available: Avarians, Ekrasks, Half Demons, Murder Machines, and Mutants. The phrase “Murder Machine” as a race does amuse me, especially considering one of the available occupations is “Tinkerer.” These are also doubled as classes, along with the additional human-only occupations of Alchemist, Blood Witch, Druid, and Shadowdancer, as add-ons to the base DCC classes. I am not commenting on everything – just stuff that sticks out.

Blood Witch
I admit I nearly shit myself while reading the Blood Witch class because of the Blood Walk ability:

“A blood witch can play a dangerous game and jump through a living creature that is the same size or larger than herself, traveling through their blood and can emerge from another living creature on the same plane of existence.”

Like. Fuck. Yes. This is totally my kind of ability, and it’s so gross. To be honest, I said to John (husband) that it is one of the coolest abilities I’ve ever seen. A+. (Oh, and the Familiar ability is really cool and gross, too. You’ll have to see the book to find out why!)

One of the interesting things about the Druid class that I liked a lot was the Animal Shape manifestations, corruptions, and misfires. They include things like worms burrowing out of the druid’s skin and reshaping the druid to the new form, the druid’s head turning permanently into the chosen animal, and a tree growing out of the top of the druid’s head, respectively. Nice.

Druid
I will note my one big complaint is the general nonconsensual nature of the Half Demon race. This is such a stupid stickler for me, I know it pisses people off, but I’ll always dislike it (and I’ve written articles about the use of this in half-orc backgrounds). However, I know a lot of people dig it and it doesn’t bug everyone, and I get that it’s evil demons, and not just women getting raped (but rape is legit bad for anyone, regardless of gender, so). But, consider this my registered gripe. Aside from that, the race is pretty cool.

Murder Machines are just… like, dude. I can’t even register how cool and fucked up they are. They’re basically humans melded into armor and made into… murder machines. They also have something called a “Swiss-Army Hand.”

So the Mutant has this thing… It’s a cosmetic mutation, and I’m just gonna… share it:

“Your teeth fall out and in their place grows: 1) fingernails; 2) worms; 3) open sores; 4) small gasping mouths; 5) small writhing tentacles; 6) tiny, infant-like fingers.”

You’re welcome (from Mike, probably).

The Mutant powers are so disgusting I am still just kind of grossed out but they’re so inventive and brilliant I’m amazed. I laughed and gagged. Amazing. (Stomach maggots. Worm infested skin. Plague skin. Acidic belch. Ooze-like body. Ant colony. Boneless.)

As we move along through the gear and services things, it’s pretty standard and useful (including a great Quick Start Gear option!), but I have to make a vote that we stop with the “prostitution” tables in games… or at least not make them about how likely you are to get an STD. It’s just kind of a bummer and negative. I love having sex workers in games! But I like them to be done respectfully. This is not exclusively judging Hubris either, this shit is everywhere, but it’s in my read while I’m here, so pointing it out. Other people might like it! Not my jam.

Next up we hit the Territories section. I love that Mike specifically talks about how the Void of Hubris (kind of the post-life plane) has a lot of room to explore whatever the Judge (the GM) wants to explore. Pretty cool! I like that, and I also like that in the basic “Lay of the Land” options it’s a chart (d100) that works with a d100 chart of encounters and descriptions of locations.

The Territories section is a really good read and has a ton of material that could support a really significant campaign without ever risking boredom or repetition. I’m just going to cherry pick some of my favorite bits of the flavor text for the settings and items from their d100 lists here for you all!

“Devastating sandstorms, raging gigantic beasts, harsh environments, and a psychotic empire is all that stands in the way between an adventurer and unimagined riches from a long forgotten age.” (The Blighted Sands)

“Grove of weeping willows, used by a sect of extremist druids as their outpost. They are preparing for war against the heathens that destroy nature.” (d100 table, Bogwood Swamp)

Note: There is a list of what the mushrooms of the Bogwood Swamp do that is suuuper cool, but I think it would ruin a player experience to learn about all of them in advance!

“The petrified remains and shell of the gargantuan turtle, Slathereth the Destroyer, rises out of the Bogwood like a jagged mountain.” (Locations, Slathereth, Bogwood Swamp)

“The constant gathering and release of energy has caused the veil of reality to become weak in the forest and it is not uncommon for those in it to have strange visions, become warped or monstrous, or even be transported to another area of Hubris, or teleported to another reality entirely.” (Locations, Wrath, the Crystal Forest, Canyons of the Howling Red Rock)

“Vineyard with grapes that have the faces of humans, young or old. The grapes scream when they are squeezed.” (d100 table, Great Plains of Unbidden Sorrow)

FYI THERE IS AN ENTIRE TOWN THAT IS BUILT ON THE BACK OF A GIANT METAL DOGGIE THAT BREATHES FIRE. It’s called The Roving Nibbleton. 

The Roving Nibbleton
“Strange mechanical ruins that stagger the imagination, gigantic reptiles and insects, altars of blood, druidic cults, moss-covered zombies, ancient stone temples of complex design, and plants that feed off living creatures’ life-force await all who are brave or foolish enough to enter the Unsettled Expanse.” (The Unsettled Expanse)

“A Tyrannosaurus Rex with a head-mounted laser cannon rumbles through the forest.” (d100 Encounters table, The Unsettled Expanse)

On Monday, January 9, 2017, the review will be continued! Keep an eye out. 🙂




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To leave some cash in the tip jar, go to http://paypal.me/thoughty.

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Shadowrun: Anarchy Review

My very, very long Shadowrun: Anarchy Review is HERE!

Shadowrun: Anarchy
First things first

I won’t be commenting very much on the fiction in the book because I don’t typically read it and I’d rather focus on the game, but I will be looking at flavor text in character descriptions and so on. I haven’t yet played the game for logistics reasons, so this is purely a review of the mechanics, art, and characters. I intend to eventually read the Seattle background but I have set it aside for this review to get the things out that people will see first and most often.

I have only played Shadowrun 3e, and only built characters for 3e and 5e. I’ve been playing tabletop RPGs since I was 15, text-based since 11, and my first TTRPG that I recall playing was Shadowrun. I’ve played indie and story games since around 2011, and I’ve been writing on Thoughty about games, doing interviews, and occasionally writing reviews for like, 4 years I think. Maybe longer? I bounced blog names a couple times. I’ve GM’d and played, and I’ve worked on some tabletop games which you can read about here on my work page.

With that out of the way…

Shadowrun: Anarchy on first glance is a true family member to 5e, having beautiful art, lots of graphics, and fiction first. The art fits just fine! The graphics we’ll get to. The fiction… let me explain here that I don’t like fiction on RPGs, for the most part. I like fiction within RPGs – specifically, if you look back to like, Shadowun 3e where the interactions between The Smiling Bandit and Harlequin were interspersed in the rules and flavor text, that kind of thing I like. Unreliable narrators having interactions between bits of important information just really felt like the game to me.

That is, unfortunately, not the dealio in Shadowrun: Anarchy. I am sure the fiction is fun and great – but I don’t really have interest in it. I hope you do! But the fiction does you no good if you don’t like the rest. Covering art, then layout, then mechanics, then flavor text. Basically what you see first, whether you can even read it, what’s inside, and how it’s dressed up. (click thru)

The Art

I’m not doing a full numbers breakdown of the art in SR:A because 1) I don’t think it’s as valuable as it seems and 2) I don’t think it’s entirely necessary. The art in the book is still majority men or masculine, but there are a greater number of women or femmes than I expected to see. There are a number of androgynous people, but I was incredibly disappointed to see zero androgynous or nonbinary styled characters in the pregens. Getting close to gender binary parity is great, but this issue is in the forefront for me of late and I still can’t fathom why – I never have been able to – we don’t see more androgynous characters, especially in identity as opposed to simply presentation, in Shadowrun. I mean, y’all. Y’all.

Also, most of the time we get this:

But then we got this:

But let me be clear, my problems with the second piece here are mostly that it seems somewhat disjointed (kind of literally, but if it had a caption talking about an articulated spine, I’d be cool) and I was just kind of bummed out by how it felt in comparison to the other (frankly badass) art. This is the only piece that really stood out, but I wouldn’t be a cranky critiquing feminist if I didn’t point it out.

The Layout

The layout overall has a couple of hinky bits. Foremost, shaded boxes. Shaded boxes are not something I’m a fan of, and everyone who has talked about layout with me probably knows that. One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard thus far, that I agree with, is that the shaded boxes on the character sheets are bad news bears.

There is also shading/coloring on sidebars and callout boxes that could be done away with for readability and to make it possible to print. I’ll say this one time: If I cannot print a character sheet, it is functionally useless to me. Bonus note: If you make it a fillable form downloadable as well with the game that can also be printed and legible, I’ll love you forever.

Most of the rest of the book is bog standard Shadowrun/80s-90s-esque layout, from what I can tell. There are some more rounded edges, but that’s not too different. Standard two-column, as following.

There are also, of course, tables. I personally love tables, but the tables in SR:A leave me wanting because they don’t have any dividing lines. Some people like them without, they flow more easily. For me, they’re less readable, and I also just don’t really dig the look. Gimme something that looks directly ripped out of Excel and I’ll be cool. Example of current tables follows!

Also, the text is super, super small. Like, I have to zoom in to read it clearly a lot of the time, and I have no issues with reading up close most of the time. Perhaps it’s better in print? But we should be designing for digital too. I also don’t know if it works well with screen readers, as I couldn’t figure mine out. That’s something that should be clear!

Aside from those things? I’m sure someone with more graphics and layout experience could nail down further problems. Those are the ones that hit me. Moving on!

The Mechanics

First, a quick note on the way the game works in Shadowrun: Anarchy. Anarchy is not a game with a GM running the show and the players taking on roles within that show. Anarchy is about collaborative narrative storytelling (it’s a thing!) and there are things that they’ve done great about this, and things that may be confusing for people who haven’t done it before. I may be translating the rules incorrectly, but if you like what I’m saying, just play it that way, it’s just a damn book.

SR:A institutes turns, effectively letting each player take a turn playing their part of the scene. From what I can tell, there are no rules preventing other players from acting within that scene, but they would most likely need some input from the lead player in those scenes. From there, we can see each player narrates within their turn their actions and their interpretation of the situation. Cool! Now, I’ve seen some people get stuck on Talk Time. Admittedly, I kind of hate the term, and would prefer something like “free play,” but that’s just being a jerk about semantics.

Talk Time itself makes sense. When things are going down or it’s too hectic, let’s stop with turns for a minute and get shit done, right? However, from the comments on the Prototype review and the forums I’d seen it interpreted that you can’t interact freely at all outside of Talk Time, and regardless of how it was originally intended in the text, I read it otherwise, and it has been clarified since then in the text under Turns and Narrations. Specifically, it says that “Other players may have things to say during a narration–their characters may react somehow, or players may offer commentary, ideas, or observations–but the primary thrust of the Narration should be directed by the player whose turn it is.” Which, I mean, yeah? That’s just being polite. However, I see why they had to write it out. Hooray, rules to help solve social play problems!

For framing of the next mechanical bits, you use six-sided dice (d6s) in dice pools, scored individually – 5 or 6 on the die is a success.

Character generation is not complicated, in my opinion. There are definitely a crapton of characters to select from if you want to just quick start, as the section for pregenerated characters is massive (but I have some thoughts later). The game suggests you select a contract brief (scenarios for quick play), but if you want to build characters first or play without a contract brief, I’d just go to it. For a new GM or a new group, you might find the briefs useful, at the very least to learn useful structure for a general shadowrun.

Characters use some stuff that seem kind of “eh, maybe,” while others seem absolutely essential. The perceived essentials are: Personal Data, Attributes, Skills, Shadow Amps, Karma, Qualities, Weapons, Armor, Gear, and calculating your condition monitor. That’s a lot of words, not as hard as it sounds. The things I’ve noted as seeming optional are Dispositions and Cues. These don’t have a lot of mechanical impact, and I can guarantee for a lot of people they’ll be dismissed. However, you’re playing a narrative game here. That makes a difference.

If you look at the character sheet for Ms. Myth (one of my favorites), you can see how these things might be useful for 1) new players, 2) players new to narrative games, 3) players with a new character, 4) players who are unfamiliar with Shadowrun’s world, and/or 5) players who are just plain tired and need some good ideas on a slow day.

This is a moment where I remind people that just because you don’t need a thing, does not mean no one needs a thing, or would benefit from it.

Character creation goes through these items, however, pretty smoothly. Don’t be fooled by the early character creation section like I was at first, go straight to page 61.

To create a character, you:

  • Choose what type of character you want to play, name them, and create a character “theme” (basic description)
  • Optionally create “tags” (helping define your character)
  • Choose a game level (this is how many points you’ll get based on how hard or advanced a game you want, and should be chosen as a group)
  • Choose a metatype (Are you a little troll? Yes. Yes you are.)
  • Determine whether you’re Awakened or Emerged (you can be one, the other, or neither, and they basically mean you can do magic, you can do matrix junk with your mind, or neither)
  • Assign attributes (Strength, Agility, Willpower, Logic, Charisma, Essence, and Edge – I still kind of hate Edge, I miss when Karma was able to be spent for some of the purposes Edge is used)
  • Choose skills (general and specialized, the latter of which gives you bonus dice in appropriate situations)
  • Select Shadow Amps (encompassing all augmentations and magic, including technomancers and casting spells – there’s a list with some examples but there is a lot of freedom to define them. Also, there is essence loss! If your augment has essence loss, you get a penalty on your dice pool for magic- and healing-related tests.)
  • Figure out Karma (This functions as experience points, so you can obtain both points in attributes, skills, get Amps, change qualities, and get gear, weapons, and armor once earned)
  • Define some qualities and their effects (like edges and flaws for 3e, which I was super happy to see, though kind of took a bit to understand the differences between them and edge)
  • Choose your weapons (weapons have various ranges and impacts)
  • Choose your armor (armor is basically an add-on to your condition monitor, and gets marked off before you get hurt)
  • Sort out your condition monitor (has both stun and physical damage)
  • Get some gear (including Contacts)
  • Create cues (basically little phrases to help inspire your play, from the Cue System, which I haven’t bothered to read up, sorry)
  • Make a character background (personal data like size and gender – which they call “sex” in here and it made me really annoyed – the history of your character and how they behave, and dispositions that you can use to flag your actions in-game)

It sounds like a lot, but the individual actions don’t take very long themselves. There’s characters to choose from, and there’s not a lot of trouble in making your character, but this is way more than a lot of indie and story/narrative games. You will need to set aside more time for this game than you would, say, a Powered by the Apocalypse game – by a significant margin. That doesn’t mean it’s not a good game. Just different.

Combat in SR:A seems to be appropriately dice-heavy, which y’all know I love.

This isn’t actually that complicated, even though it looks it. It’s all simple numbers you’ll be adding, most single digits, versus similar numbers for the opponent. I like this combo, as I’m sure I’d learn it pretty quickly, which is a really good sign.

There is information on close combat damage, carry limits, unarmed combat, and lots of other stuff – one of my favorite bits is no more counting ammo! Handwaving ammo counts is awesome in my book (ha, my book). It also talks about custom mods of weapons (like knockbacks), which is awesome! There’s a note that I appreciated on making the game more or less lethal. Variety is good.

There are rules on taking and recovering damage, and repairing armor, which brings me to an important point: There are no nuyen in Anarchy. To me this is amusing on a conceptual level (of course there’s no monetary system! It’s anarchy!) but also I think it’s cool on a fiction level, in that everything has a cost – and more often than not, that cost is you.

Initiative advantages like wired reflexes now give you plot points, which are functionally shortcuts or cheats. They give you rerolls or change turn order, or add Glitch Dice (which I will say straight up I don’t understand, but the general idea is that if you roll a one on a glitch die, all goes to hell, if a 5 or 6, you get an exploit and things go well. This may sound fun and exciting to people who like adding additional chance into their game, but it’s not really something I love.), and so on.

Gear is mentioned in this same section (page 47) and is super duper basic. Gear has no specific mechanics, but can narratively help with problems, like med kits and tool sets. Very, very basic.

I don’t have much interest in hacking or cybercombat, but I’ll bet at least one of you do.

There is both AR & VR, where in AR you generally interact like software and icons and stuff, and in VR, you’re living all Second Life. AR doesn’t give any bonuses to hacking, but VR gives a +1 to hacking. With VR you can’t do anything non-virtual, and cybercombat kicks your ass. Hacking is basically a skill test, and cybercombat comes with a fun little dice pool calculation too.

There are additional matrix rules you can dive into on your own.

Spells and spirits and stuff have their own section. One of the most notable things is that there are no longer spell effect limits beyond those narratively defined, except in the case of combat spells, which only last for the time their damage is applied. GMs can apply a negative modifier if someone wants to maintain a spell for a long period of time. Not unreasonable, in my opinion, if you don’t have a jerk GM (if you do, try to find another GM! Look on the internet! Run, little chummer, run!).

There’s information on astral projection (no test needed) and astral combat (use the Astral Combat skill and have a standard combat experience, take stun damage).

Vehicle and drone combat addresses AR vs. VR in regards to how you use the equipment, and there’s info on vehicle movement, just basic stuff, but I’m sure gearheads will be happy to know they’ve been recognized.

There are also additional rules about breathing, environments, and mind control, in case you were wondering. There’s an important note about what an NPC can’t make someone do under mind control:

I mean, if you like doing that stuff, you do you. I’m glad they pointed it out though.

For those not a fan of sharing their GM hat, there are rules about giving GMs more control via plot points and who interprets perception tests. In standard SR:A the player doing the narration has freedom to define a lot of what is seen with a perception test, but with the adjusted version, the control is given solely to the GM and controlled by how many successes are rolled. I really have to say, though, give shared narrative a shot if you’ve got the time and energy. It can be really fun for everyone.

The GM section is a lot of detail that I’d not normally read since I’m traditionally a player. I wanted to highlight two pages that I think are absolutely important.

This page shouldn’t be necessary. But, it is. Just… yeah. Be cool, kids.

If you all thought that someone could put a section in a book called “Asking Good Questions” and I wouldn’t pull it out, you were sorely mistaken. As people know from games like Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, as well as about 80 other indie games, asking good questions is an amazing GM tool – hell, amazing for players, too (“Do you really want to kill that guy? Why? Oh, he killed your uncle? Shit. Let’s do that.”). I like seeing it hard coded into a game, though, because I love questions, sooo much, and for narrative games they are the soymeat in the sausage.

The pregenerated characters are pretty fucking cool on the start, I’ll be honest. I love cool character art, many of them are really interesting. I’ll try to keep this brief.

The Native characters are very cool on the surface, but the conflation of Pacific Northwestern tribes and the Plains tribes in their backgrounds, plus having one of them taking artifacts and putting them in a museum (with jokes about angry locals, even), and Coydog wearing an eagle feather headdress that’s most likely inappropriate for her background are problems! I’m intending to do an extended feature on Natives in RPGs and specifically in Shadowrun with a consultant I’ve been corresponding with, where I’ll explore this, but for now: Chrome Bison is _really, really cool_ but we need to think harder and ask more questions and remember whose stories we’re telling. I know Natives are a huge, huge part of Shadowrun, and I don’t want people to stop making them part of it – but we need to do it right.

Chrome Bison, following, is cool – but cool doesn’t erase responsibility. Chrome Bison would be very disappointed in cultural appropriation, I think.

There may also be other issues of cultural appropriation or misrepresentation here. It’s important to remember that while Shadowrun is an alternate-fantasy-history, the cultures that it’s pulling from are real and existing in the majority of these cases. I am disappointed when I see misrepresentation and negative stereotypes in fiction, and I am doubly so in games where players are supposed to take on these identities.

That being said, there are a ton of characters I love, starting with Ms. Myth.

LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I LOVE TROLL FACES. LET ME. No wait, that is way too much enthusiasm for this, I’ll never finish. But yes, she seems amazing. Borderline is incredibly cool, too cool for me. As mentioned, Chrome Bison, as a troll street samurai, is freaking amazing. Fourth is cool but I wish she’d been nonbinary or androgynous, as the art brought it pretty close to it.

Jinn is an elf brute force decker who is from Istanbul, and his jam is fashion, and I’d love some input from people on his presentation and cultural representation in the art and text at some point. There are TONS of really fascinating characters of so many different backgrounds. I still wish for nonbinaries because I’m a pain in the ass (and because we should be represented in such a world!), but the last one I want to shine a light on is Rose Red.

Rose Red has a fascinating background. I really love the concept, but it is a difficult one. The general idea (for those who can’t see the image or don’t feel like reading the teeny text), she was trafficked as a sex worker, then she awakened, and overtook her boss and became a trafficker herself. It leads to her trafficking her own sister, and then finding salvation through a neo-anarchist group. I have so many mixed feelings about the representation of sex workers here, because it’s good to see them represented, and there is a specific note about how the neo-anarchists welcomed her with no shaming, but it is still a hard line to walk. I’d love to hear the input of any sex workers on this topic, as I can’t speak from experience.

FINAL VERDICT

I really, really want to play this game. There are some issues, yes. And I’m not happy with all of the flavor text. But, I have to be honest: what I have read in Shadowrun: Anarchy feels more like Shadowrun to me than 5e ever did. Maybe it’s because it’s simpler in writing, I’m not sure. But, it’s simpler in mechanics, too, and way simpler than 3e. Shadowrun is my favorite fictional world and while it always could be improved, so could a lot of other games.

Shadowrun: Anarchy could use some better layout choices in regards to accessibility and print use. It could use more attention to nonbinary gender representation, and representation of cultures and races that are unfamiliar (or only stereotypically familiar) to the average white gamer. The mechanics are far more lightweight in comparison to all other Shadowrun editions, and in my opinion mix a lot of the good mechanical bits with a lot of my favorite narrative things. The fiction is supported in some ways by the mechanics with the damage, the complexity of combat and spell casting, and the impact of metahuman races, and the pregenerated characters are many and varied.

I would suggest that, if you have played Shadowrun and you like narrative games, you give this a shot. If you like narrative games but know nothing about Shadowrun or really any trad games, consider trying it out for a one-shot with pregenerated characters. If you’ve only played trad games and you like Shadowrun, consider trying this out – the worst that will happen is that you’ll decide it’s too simple, and that’s not much of a loss.

In general, I think it sounds really fun. I’m trying to find time to get a friend to run for me, and in the meantime, I’m going to continue enjoying the beautiful art and maybe build some characters if I have some free time.

Good luck, chummers!


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The Beast, Reflections

Over the past 22 days I played a card game on my thatlittleitch blog called The Beast (link) by Aleksandra Sontowska and Kamil Węgrzynowicz of naked female giant. I had played a version in beta that had been pretty interesting and fascinating, but I had trouble keeping up with it. I also had trouble keeping up with it this time, but was able to make up for it, which made all the difference.

My experience with The Beast begins here. (link)

Today, I finished the game. I am – for I think the first time – struggling with ending a game. I have always been sad to end games because of the people, but I don’t think it’s ever a game that has made me feel afraid and anxious to be done.  I’ve been thinking about it and there are a few key reasons:

1) This game has the ability to dig into you emotionally and mentally in a way most people might be unfamiliar. If you let it, it keys into dark desires and horrors, and if you take the time to write those out in an exploratory fashion, it can open up a lot of thoughts you might otherwise hide.

2) I played in public. This is not recommended by the book, but I chose to do it as a way to demonstrate what such a game can be, and to show the kind of experience someone could have, even for people who would never play it. It also made it hard to decide how much I would share.

3) Some of these questions get incredibly personal, and I’ll tell you now that I was 100% honest, and pulled all of those responses from somewhere inside me. There is something to be said to being honest with everyone including yourself, especially about things that might be scary or taboo or gross.

4) This game opened me up to a lot of opportunities to express things I haven’t. Talking about pains I’ve hidden or sexual desires I don’t talk about – you don’t just decide randomly to say that stuff. This gives a special place to do it, where you tell the stories, you control the events that happen – and the consequences.

Questions I received while working on this:

1) Is their replayability?

Yes! You’d have to be creative and I’d take a break inbetween but yes, I totally think The Beast is replayable.

2)  What about triggering content?

Most of what actually goes into the content is up to you. There are prompts on the cards, but there is no forcing you into using specific behaviors. I admittedly triggered myself twice, but it was a choice I made to go through something really hard and the reality that it was in my control made a difference. 

With all of that in mind, I have to say I honestly wouldn’t change a thing about The Beast. There’s so much there to explore and so many things to do. In all, I feel like there is a rock in my throat as I write this. I feel terrified but yet so grateful. I look forward to free days with no digging into my soul but yet I will miss them, I will miss the excuse to be bare and open, I will miss something deep to pour them into.

I feel like I’m breaking up with a toxic lover who I had the deepest of intimacies with, and who satisfied me in ways I didn’t think could be done, but hurt me in the same. It has surely be an experience.

I do think I may be giving away my copy of The Beast not because I wouldn’t play it again, but because I want someone else to get to play it, and carry forward something that treated me so well.

Best to you all!


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If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.

Shadowrun: Anarchy Gen Con Prototype Review

Check out a review for the final product here!

Note: Lots of pictures! Lots of words! Sorry!

Hi all!

As mentioned in my previous post a friend picked me up a copy of Shadowrun: Anarchy, Prototype at Gen Con. The book is not long, but features a lot of basic rules and information. I was pretty happy with it, honestly! I started out in more traditional games, but now often fall into games based on basic rules and simple mechanics.

I love Shadowrun, but getting my friends (when I can ever get them together!) to sit and build characters for as long as Shadowrun takes and then play through? Not as easy as I’d like it to be. When I was at Origins earlier this year, I had a brief discussion with someone about the possibility of a rules-light Shadowrun coming out, and since I’m pretty out of the loop, I was surprised and interested. There was little to be found online, and my attempts at contacting Catalyst directly were denied by their email system (though I doubt getting through would have made any difference, even if I was offering promo). Anyway, I had given up on seeing it when Adam Koebel took a picture of the cover and posted it to Twitter, and I lost my shit, so he kindly sent me a copy.

I have THOUGHTS and FEELINGS, so be warned. With a few notes, though: I have only played 3e Shadowrun, while I’ve read the 5th and 4th sourcebooks, I haven’t played (time investment & lack of interest in a priority character build, not many people to play with, etc.). Nonetheless, I’m a fan of the setting, I loved playing 3e possibly too much, and I actually enjoy a lot of the mechanics. I get so excited when I get to roll a handful of D6s (I think I hit 30 once, playing a drugged up elf archer… I don’t know, he was based on Iggy Pop) that the idea of doing it again really got me amped.

Note: This post will discuss the book and rules presented, but will also include some of my general feelings on Shadowrun, cyberpunk, and how the rules matter. I won’t be evaluating it through what’s already available in 5e, as I don’t feel like lugging books and comparing page by page. My bad. Please excuse the cell phone pics, my energy wasn’t here for a photoshoot right now, I’m so sorry.

Everything has a price. That’s a sexy phrase to kick off with. And it’s true – it’s super appropriate to Shadowrun, because the reality of the setting is that money does run the world. Corps run wild with access to power that sounds scary even in the fucked up modern world, and governments are a hot mess. One of the things I always like to note about SR3e is that it does actually address class. Really! Like, class imbalance is something rarely given genuine attention in RPGs, and in SR3 (and I believe other editions of SR) there are costs of living – essentially, whether you pay money for your livelihood or not matters, from luxe high level apartments to literally squatting. It is something I think is often missed, tbh, and something I miss being a vivid element in Shadowrun. I’m wondering if we’ll see that.

I love cyberware and bioware. In spite of being someone who cringed at doing basic math for D&D, I have spent hours building characters in Shadowrun, trying to get that Essence score as close to 0 as possible without becoming just a chassis. It’s good to see this recognized in the text even in this smaller book, because this book could be someone’s first book and that’s a core element that needs to be recognized – that your body is not promised to be whole just because you can get replacement parts.

This is a shitty cell phone picture, but deal with it. This is here in part because I just wanted to point out how great and dynamic the art in here is. I always LOVE Shadowrun’s artwork, but for such a small piece (though they may have reused art) I thought it was pretty great.

Speaking of art… as you all know, I’m big on representation in art. As I mentioned in my previous post about this, I was pretty happy about the art representation! Three of the 6 offered characters are women, and I enjoyed all of the badass art in the rest of it as well, especially this. Ork ladies are amaaaazing and totally underrated. One thing I’ll note is that pretty much all of them have cleavage showing, but I’m not super bothered. Considering there is not one identifiable woman listed on the entire credits list I’m not surprised, either.

I’m being forgiving in part because of those abs, though. 

Here’s where we dig into the actual meat of things. The first things the book notes is that the GM doesn’t have sole responsibility for story elements or narrative, and this is considered to be different. That’s actually pretty cool, as someone who prefers to contribute to the story, and I think that the new functionality of the gameplay supports it. In the book, they detail new scene play – which is after some of the basic rules and character build instructions, which can be confusing, but hooray! games with lots of stuff to cover have organization issues! – based on turns and narrations, within scenes. Simplified: Each Contract Brief (basically, campaign or scenario, multiple of which are included in this prototype) includes a number of Scenes. The scenes have varying levels of detail and I think that is a little wobbly, but a GM could probably make good decisions based on the material there.

Turns are called Narrations, which are basically player actions. Every turn starts with the GM, then rotates moving to their left until everyone has the chance to take a turn, then a new turn starts. Basically, the GM starts, and they move around the table to address actions. This may sound terrible to a lot of freeform and indie gamers, but I actually love this. One of the problems with games like Shadowrun for me is that so many players are so into it, which is great! Unless you want to get a word in edgewise without shouting. It directly gives the GM control of the scene, but ensures everyone gets a move in, and it also, from what I can tell, removes the complications of combat initiative entirely.

They further discuss things like plot points (points you earn and can use to alter other players’ rolls, your own rolls, situational modifiers, etc.), etc., and cues.

Cues are a part of character generation and also used in Contract Briefs. They’re basically short phrases or quotes to give players or the GM information that can help them push the story along through Narrations and plot. I like the concept – they’re similar in some ways to Fate’s aspects, but not quite. There are also Tags, which are basically markers for what your character is (hacker, elf, etc.) and Qualities which seem to me to be the equivalent of 3e’s Edges and Flaws (one of my favorite things), and I was so excited to see them included in this, I can’t even tell you.

Character Creation includes your standard stuff: the aforementioned Cues, Tags, and Qualities, as well as Attributes (Strength, Agility, Willpower, Logic, Charisma, Essence, and Edge), Skills, and Shadow Amps, which is the catch-all for spells, talismans, cyber and bodywear, adept powers, critter powers, cyberdecks, programs, etc. There seems to be a lot of flexibility for these Amps and what they do, which increased my enthusiasm, but watch me go and be wrong. There are also still Weapons (addressed later in the book, including details on carry limits, no ammo counting, and similar stuff), Armor (which functions, from what I can tell, kind of like damage absorption and gets wiped off before you start taking hits), and Gear. Gear has no stats. I KNOW RIGHT? I think the way they frame gear in general in the text is pretty cool, as they function very narratively, and this is the one area where the GM might have to apply some pressure to keep it somewhat realistic, as much as that matters in Shadowrun. It also includes Contacts under Gear.

Teamwork tests seem pretty cool! I like teamwork mechanics a lot, and in a game with such high capacity for PvP style behavior and play (which I have seen a lot of), it’s awesome to see this kind of mechanic. They actually function hilariously similar to a mechanic John and I were using for Blockbuster, which is you choose the leader who does the main work, then others roll the skill tests, and their successes are added as additional dice to the roll for the original player. It’s a good mechanic, in my experience.

There are also glitch dice which, honestly, when I read about them in 5e I cringed and kind of moved along. However, written here, they sound better. I don’t know if it’s a matter of who wrote it, how they wrote it, or changed context, but I’m more favorable towards them here than I expected.

I’d like to note that around here in the text (page 26), they have a section called “Troubleshooting” where they discuss how to deal with situations where players are struggling with the narrative-focused play and who are new to improv, and it’s good advice and I liked it a lot. Super glad to see it.

Just in case you thought it was sounding too simple for Shadowrun, here’s the “basic dice-rolling mechanic for all combat,” which, as you can see, is like four different things against four different things. It’s pretty awesome. I mean, it’s really just a bunch of D6’s? Which I probably will never complain about. It’s still your standard 5s and 6s are successes, unless you have an Edge die, which can make 4s eligible, or you can reroll those failed dice if you spend the Edge after the roll.

This might sound silly, but the note in the Attack Limits section about what counts as an attack action: “Want to debate the meaning of Attack action beyond that? Have fun, and we’ll be here for you when you’re ready to play!” just made my goddamn night. This is totally a huge discussion had at many a game table, and their specific note that an attack action is “An action that intentionally and directly damages another living being…” sums it up pretty clearly. Nice.

I like the option here for making the game more or less lethal. While most times I want to go and drag myself through the mud to kick some ass, it’s occasionally nice to have a way more chill session or two when things are busy and I just want to feel like a hero. I actually discussed with Morgan Ellis and a few others today on Twitter why Fate doesn’t work for me for cyberpunk and specifically Shadowrun, and that’s because it’s too heroic, too successful! This option here gives people who waver in preference, or just lean one way or the other, the choice! And that’s super great.

There are quite a few more details I didn’t cover. Like, there’s a section on character death that was interesting. The Spells, Spirits, and Astral Combat section was pretty cool, talking about using your Sorcery test (based on your Skills) with the Shadow Amp spell effect to do your thing. Most of this stuff seems pretty standard issue in regards to damage, etc., from what I have read in previous books. The Condition Monitor section is a little confusing and could definitely use some rewording, and I think they need to clarify their +1/-1 etc. modifier wording, as I – someone coming from 3e and used to using target number modifiers was super confused at first, after having read 5e previously.

I mean, I still miss my exploding D6s, but I suppose I can settle for my handfuls of dice.

My general thoughts? I’m in. I’m planning on picking up whatever official, final book Catalyst releases for Shadowrun: Anarchy, and I actually might bug some friends (PAUL STEFKO) to play with me. 

HOWEVER

I was really disappointed by one specific part of the book. What’s this becoming a legend nonsense? I know that a lot of the Shadowrun canon and surrounding media make a big deal out of being The Coolest HaXX0r, and that getting nuyen is awesome, but man, that’s not at fucking all what I’d be promoting in a Shadowrun book – especially one called Anarchy – right now. Extralegal individuals who are dangerous, powerful, and able to pit Corps against each other should be doing a lot more than getting excited over some expensive junk and sitting in hell beside The Smiling Bandit. Making it about notoriety, in my opinion, takes the “punk” out of the pulp.

At heart, for me, Shadowrun has always represented people who have nothing taking something, changing the narrative, and resisting the system. Honestly, in the world we currently live in, I can’t imagine taking a look at the world of Shadowrun and saying that these characters would just give up their bodies for a cool name & some money, when instead they could be dismantling corrupt systems of power while on their payroll. 


That aside, I just want to share below my two favorites of the six offered characters, and I hope you like them too! This is Ms. Myth who is a fucking TROLL FACE which is one of my favorite combos EVER and should ALWAYS HAPPEN. You’re welcome. Also, Strider, who is a Dwarf Parkour Adept, which is fucking aces. Her outfit gives me liiiiiiiiiiiiiife. Enjoy!


This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.

Systir Productions and 616


Today I have an interview with Systir Productions, a production team based in London. Amy and Victoria Howell are sisters and multi-award winning creators of ‘The Syndicate’ and ‘616’, the latter of which is currently crowdfunding.


What led you to the film industry?

Vicky has worked in film and theatre for the past 15 years. In fact she trained originally as an actor, then got sidetracked into writing and later to directing, but we’ve both grown up on films of all types – watching horror from probably a much too early age(!) and had often gone over various ideas for stories, but there was a eureka moment whilst back at our mum’s house for xmas 2008 when we just said ‘we should do this!’ Vicky had the industry knowledge and writing experience, Amy had the business experience and the ideas so it was an obvious next step.


What made you choose to work on a webseries?

We started with the intention of making films, to be honest, and the first project we wrote together was actually a feature version of the ‘616’ concept. However, during the course of that script’s development we became sidetracked into the story behind what became our first webseries, ‘The Syndicate’, which again we initially developed as a feature idea. When we wrote ‘The Syndicate’ back in 2009, there were very few webseries about, especially in the UK, but we did stumble across one which was made by the production team behind ‘Torchwood’ called ‘Girl Number Nine’ and this is what introduced us to the concept of webseries. The aspect that appealed to us initially was the ease of distribution and this is what gave us the idea of turning ‘The Syndicate’ into a webseries. Rather than being at the mercy of a distribution company to get your work seen, you just post it online and control the distribution yourself. And we’re really glad we did that, as, if we had tried to release ‘The Syndicate’ as a traditional feature film we could still be sitting around now waiting for a distributor, while, by releasing as a webseries, it has now been seen by almost a million people, travelled to festivals around the world, won awards and put us in touch with Frostbite Pictures who we are now working with on producing ‘616’. So webseries have definitely been lucky for us!


What would you say is your favorite project you worked on, and why?

Your first baby is always special, so ‘The Syndicate’ does hold a unique place in our hearts. It has also brought us a lot of opportunities so we’re also really grateful to it and to everyone who worked on it. We learnt a lot through making ‘The Syndicate’ as well – a baptism of fire in a lot of ways! – and ‘616’ is definitely benefitting from that.


What is ‘616’ about? What makes it worth backing?

‘616’ is a character driven, fantasy/horror webseries in the tradition of Buffy/Angel/Supernatural etc, albeit less glossy as we’re British…! Although it follows in some very established traditions, with ancient evils, magic and end of the world stakes, the concept behind the story, the way this evil manifests, is, so far as we can tell, entirely unique. We’ve watched many a horror film in our time and we’ve certainly never come across it before, so that alone makes it worth backing! Like all the best ideas it’s incredibly simple and you’ll kick yourself when you find out what it is…!


How has your experience been as women in the industry? Do you find any impact on your success?

So far, we’ve been very lucky and haven’t really experienced any overt prejudice or discrimination as a result of being female filmmakers beyond the odd “boys’ club” mentality of the occasional crew member. For the most part our gender has been completely irrelevant and that’s as it should be! We have been known to surprise festival programmers though as, with the nature of our writing, they assume we’re male…

What do you think is the biggest contributor to your success?

We don’t give in. Making low and no budget projects can be like fighting bears uphill through treacle – it’s hard work, it can be slow and frustrating and there is always something trying to stop you, from the weather to needing to pay the rent, but the trick is to just put your head down and keep going.

Thank you so much to Amy and Victoria! Good luck to them on the crowdfunding for ‘616’!

About Systir Productions

Systir Productions is an award winning production team, based in London, and consisting of sisters Amy and Victoria Howell. Amy is a writer/producer with a ten year background in project management and Victoria is a writer/director of over fifteen years experience. They began Systir in 2008 and their first project was a multi-award winning webseries, ‘The Syndicate’, which, due to interest from producers they have now developed into a feature script. The script placed in the finals of the Cascade Pictures Writers’ Couch Initiative in December 2012; semi-finals of the Bluecat Screenplay Competition 2013 and was a finalist for the Bluecat Cordelia Prize for best British script. Systir have also produced three short films, two of which, ‘616’ and ‘Drawn Together’ are live action/animation mix and still in post production – these are due to be finished by early 2014 to be submitted to festivals. The third, ‘6 Shooter’, was made as a competition entry for the Frightfest/Shortcuts to Hell competition 2013.

As a result of taking ‘The Syndicate’ to webseries festivals in 2012, Amy and Vicky met up with Canadian webseries creator Ivan Hayden, who, with co-creators Jason Fischer and Kirk Jacques, was aiming to establish a webseries studio, Frostbite Pictures, to produce high end webseries content. Systir agreed to become the UK arm of Frostbite and are now working on their second webseries, ‘616’, developed from their feature concept/short film of the same name. However, where the original concept was a B movie, effects laden gorefest, the webseries has been developed as a more mainstream, character driven fantasy/horror series in the tradition of Buffy/Supernatural/Grimm etc. ‘616’ is a completely original horror concept, which has never been done – so far as we can tell! – and Systir are very excited to bring the concept to the webseries world. They are shooting just the first three episodes at present as pilot episodes with which they hope to generate production funding for a full series.

As well as writing, directing and producing their own original content, Systir also collaborate with other webseries creators and filmmakers. Most recently, they directed and helped production manage short film ‘Leads and Follows’, a love story set in the world of swing dancing, and award winning comedy horror webseries ‘The Bloody Mary Show’, as well as assistant producing short horror film ‘Anna’.

Systir are currently crowdfunding for ‘616’ and would love it if you could help them out! There are some great perks to be had, so please do follow the link and check it out.

For more information on Systir and their past projects please see their website where you can also watch their first webseries, ‘The Syndicate’. You can also check out the trailers for their short films on the website or on their YouTube channel. If you’re into social media – and who isn’t these days! – follow them on Twitter –systiria and 616series – or Facebook – SystirProductions, TheSyndicateWebseries and 616series, or link up with them on LinkedIn.


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