Realms

In 1975 auteur director Luis Zorge created a late night action series of Elizabethan spies and the supernatural.

The Queen’s Men threw historical accuracy to the wind and mixed action, adventure, espionage and horror into something quite unique, before it was abruptly cancelled.

This is the roleplaying game of that series. A multi-layered fiction where 70s genre television re-interprets history and you play an actor playing a historical personality - badly.

Featuring everything you need to tell the story of the making of this classic show:

-Quick and easy rules, based on The Agency -Pick up and play characters and scenarios -Stunt crew strikes, DVD extras, wobbly sets and bad haircuts

A roleplaying game for people who love quirky genre TV, inspired by shows like Department S, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Danger 5 or The Persuaders.

Available now on RPGNow

One of the nice things about prepping for conventions (in this case the excellent UK Games Expo), is it gives you time to focus on a single scenario.

I'd been considering a more detailed introductory scenario for The Filthy Dozen since its release and the result is The Gonnes of Nava Rûn. And yes, this is inspired somewhat by The Guns of Navarone. It's for 6 players, though you can tweak it for fewer. It contains enough side-tracks and random extras to keep your goblins entertained for a few hours.

Download The Gonnes of Nava Rûn

Sometimes things work out weirdly. You spend ages on one game, only for a delay to hit it unexpectedly. So another is unleashed faster than you expect.

The Queen's Men done, but awaiting art. It's from the very cool, David Michael Wright, so it's worth waiting on. He's a talented man, so has a queue.

Meanwhile, I managed to finish off a side project called The Filthy Dozen. A dark and amusing game of goblin commandos, trying to survive in this here army. It's inspired by World War 2 movies like Guns of Navarone and novels like Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Rifles and Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. It take some mechanics from the excellent 3:16 and twists them in new, and hopefully entertaining, ways.

It's full of quirky goblins, comedy and tragedy. It features choices like sacrificing a comrade or your very impressive hat, serving a lord who cares little for you or forging a new path. It has rules for Violence and Other Stuff.

I've been chased about this at various conventions, so I thought I'd give an update on where we are with The Queen's Men.

It's done, or at least the main text is finished. It has also been edited by the wonderful, Scott Dorward, who you may remember from such podcasts as The Good Friends of Jackson Elias. Scott found my typos, corrected the ordering and generally made it a much better text.

I'm very pleased with the results. It is now a fully fledged piece of multi-layered fiction gaming, with rules for cast DVD commentary, lots of pre-gens and comedy 70s haircuts.

So now it just needs layout and art. Which, if all goes well, means a release as PDF some time in the new year.

Once upon a time, back when I was far more active online and busily debating new techniques in rules design and game structure over at The Forge, there were a number of Podcasts which I used to listen to. My favourite was Sons of Kryos. It was a nicely balanced mix of anecdotes of games played, playing advice and general chatter. Jeff and Judd (and later Storn) were personable hosts whose enthusiasm shone through. It had interviews recorded at conventions and dammit, they made GenCon sounds so much fun! So much so that I resolved to visit it myself (I actually got to game with them there in 2008 while helping out on the Play Collective booth).

A few years ago their old site dropped offline, and I feared the archive of this seminal gaming podcast was lost. Then, only a few weeks ago Judd announced that they'd uploaded the early episodes to the Sons of Kryos YouTube channel. You should go and listen, though some elements have dated, they're a wonderful snapshot of a certain era of RPGs in terms of play, culture, ideas and events. I'm glad they're back online.

They never did end up interviewing me about that Larp at King John's hunting lodge though...