Episode 270: Nobody Wants to be a Waistcoat
December 1st, 2017 | Robin
Patreon backer Doc Cross pulls his satin bell-cord to summon us to the Gaming Hut to mull the droll possibilities of P. G. Wodehouse gaming.
In the Tradecraft Hut we journey to the shadowy isle of Malta.
The Food Hut documents Robin’s conversion to the cult of Instant Pot.
And finally the Consulting Occultist fulfills the request of Patreon backer Paul by filling us in on the witches of Chiloe.
Want to pose a question to the show? Get your priority question asking access with your support for the KARTAS Patreon!
Snag Ken and Robin merchandise at TeePublic.
In Atlas Games’ wickedly different cooperative deck-building game Witches of the Revolution, you and your doughty coven fight the American Revolution the way it was really fought: with spells aplenty! Resurrect Ben Franklin, cure Paul Revere of lycanthropy and keep those red-coated witch hunters at bay.
The book has been written.The book has been read. Now it rewrites you. Across time it spreads, creating dread new realities. And you’re in all of them. Robin’s epic new GUMSHOE project, The Yellow King Roleplaying Game has concluded its Kickstarter run, but is now available for pre-order at the Pelgrane Store for those who missed it.
In Highway Holocaust you are Cal Phoenix, the Freeway Warrior, champion and protector of Dallas Colony One. Defend this fragile convoy from H.A.V.O.C. bikers with this exclusive hardcover (with dust jacket and book ribbons), the first choose-your-own-adventure-gamebook in Joe Dever’s post apocalyptic series. From the fine folks at FENIX, now available from Modiphius.
Delta Green Game Moderators, take heart! Reinforcements have arrived in the form of the Delta Green Handler’s Guide from Arc Dream Publishing, bursting with operational details, threats and eldritch history to keep your players locked, loaded, and terrified.
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For a modern day Wodehouse, I recommend taking another look at 30 Rock. Liz Lemon has a Jeeves like set of responsibilities, but she executes more at the level of a player character. (And check out that score! It sounds like chaos erupting at a garden party…)
I think you could make a moderately interesting Jeeves-Wooster style game by having the player characters be the security personnel for a sports team* or musical group or the like. The jobs of the protectees don’t require or much reward sense, there’s nothing that says you can’t pick likable players, and it can have that sort of “high consequence for the subject but frankly not much consequence for the rest of the world” style that Jeeves-Wooster books have.
That said, you’re basically talking about “Escort Mission, the RPG”. 😎
* NB: Something like the sports team theme has been done as a show about sports agents several times on cable.
Oddly enough, the following Buzzfeed YouTube vid from October came across my feed today:
https://youtu.be/JoNj0KDuDR8
The gist is that a Buzzfeed writer gets writer’s block (listicle block?), quickly googles her grandfather’s homeland, and ends up famous in Malta. If that’s not a hook for getting a bunch of slackers to somehow become embroiled in bikinis in Malta, well, he’ll, maybe you’d like a share of this Falcon I’ve inherited?
One of the deepest stories of the Boogie Man stories comes from the beloved children’s poet James Whitcomb Riley. Now living in Indiana you are raised in the Riley myth but from 1900 1920 JWR was the leading lecture(stand up comic of the day). Will Rodgers would not follow him had he had appeared in a town. The poem in question is “Little Orphan Annie” and the monster in question is a Gobble-uns. The verse that every child in the US heard from the twenties to the sixties.
A good story teller could invoke terror with the reciting of just these words.n’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
Has Robin looked into the current corruption scandals with the Montreal police? Just recently there was a coup as the Mtl chief was replaced by the head of the (rival?) provincial police. How would you run a game focused on Internal Affairs? What nerd trope does it need?
Dear KARTAS, I very much don’t like Patreon’s new payment structure. Do you have an alternative scheme?
Cheers
Steve
Well, the Patreon problem appears to have gone away (at least for now).
I was a little surprised that Ken went all the way through that thing about the South American witches without mentioning that Alan Moore had used that legendary (in his Swamp Thing run).
Late to the game, but there actually is a Wodehouse-ish game out there. It’s called What Ho, World! It’s Apocalypse Engine, but boiled down to cards. Haven’t tried it yet, though!
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