This is the second part of our exploration of Scarred for Life, the fantastic series of books about growing up in the dark decades of the seventies and eighties. Gen X-rated popular culture shaped our imaginations and informed our gaming.
57:30 Library Use. Judge Blythy joins me in the Room of Role-Playing rambling to look at Unexplained magazine. I make a mistake – it didn’t last for 115 issues, it was 157!
1:33:0 Advert. Frankenstein’s RPG podcast – I appeared on a recent episode about Magic/ PSIonics and Investigation in SF role-playing games.
1:34:0 I’ll Get mi Coat. Closing time chatter about Agon, Delta Green and a brief mention of the UNIT campaign.
The platty jubes weekender! Cod bless ya!Benjamin Smith GM, looks over the GODSWALL“I have in my hand, a piece of paper …” yeah, yeah, whatever GROGSQUAD Assemble! Paul, Dave, Ed, Jim, Pookie, Bud, Mike and Steve.Traveller – a raft heading to the surface … The Vargr’s head stuck outside of the windowDoom, Fortune, Momentum and other bits flying across the table for Conan.The accidental spoons incidentBed time reading … the incredible Cults of CthulhuThe Priest of Honen and Hotath meditating was a lot cooler in my head than it looks here (by Julian Haley)Making the way around the Trade Hall with Old Scouse Roleplayer
GROGMOOR GMs gather to put the swords and the sorcery into Barbarian’s of Lemuria’s epic six table adventure. Sam Vail’s heroes gather to defeat the demon hoards (“Turn around and look surprised”)Dave Paterson brings Frankenstein’s RPG to life.Doc Cowie amasses the Light Bringers against the hoards of Chaos in Gods War.He donated this amazing trophy in memory of Mike Hobbs (won by Jeremy this year). The award was made and sculpted by Fenris Games and painted by Roy Duffy. Fantastic.Armchair Adventuring with Daily Dwarf and BlythySteve has brought his Potion of Sobriety rolled from a table, apparently at random.It’s the old school and essential scouser Neil Benson.Bushido returns with Asako_SohRob demonstrates a strange fist mutant in Troika!How long is that cheese?The g-men of Lake Front City relax after bringing the hoods and the unions under control. (strictly non-alcoholic, obviously)Bud scares the bejesus out of these Call of Cthulhu playersThe FitzgeraldWhere is that potion of sobriety when I need it? Playing Paranoia online, into the night.Kong was much bigger and more impressive in my head
Dave Paterson hosts Frankenstein’s RPG with Dirk, Blythy, Paul and Ian
Welcome to another extra all about this year’s GROGMEET. This time it includes a live recording made at Fan Boy Three.
Frankenstein’s RPG podcast has been pulling together the best bits of role-playing games this year to produce an epic monster of a game. We got together to decide which would be the best supplement to support the game.
In November, the GROGPOD will be featuring GangBusters, the TSR role-playing game of the roaring twenties.
In preparation, MOBTOBER is a short season of gangster films, a mini-film festival at my house, that you are invited to participate and follow online.
Elsewhere people with more stamina and stronger stomachs are participating in the October Horror Challenge, a more seasonal list. This is a similar challenge, but with a more leisurely pace. Instead of watching a film every day, I will be watching 10 films in 20 days and will write about them on the Dirk Malcolm world of film site.
Why have crime RPGs had such a continuing appeal from Lankhmar to Duskvol?
Heists are a standard adventure for most RPGs, but its difficult to find an RPG that reflects the daily paranoid grind of the fictional mobster: the moral descent into personal oblivion, the need to maintain networks, manage heat from rivals and settle scores. In the realm of genre emulation GangBusters and FGU Gangster! offer little to support this kind of play. The 1980s RPGs were more on the side of the authorities trying to break up organised crime. Of course, we had other ideas and were keen to play the mobsters. Recently, Blades in the Dark offered innovative mechanical features dealing with these matters. It will be interesting to explore some of the tropes of the genre more closely and consider how they might be brought to the table.
A couple of points to note as you study the list: this is not meant to be definitive. I’ve tried to avoid the obvious and focus on films that I haven’t seen before, or in the case of Miller’s Crossing and The Long Good Friday, films that I saw so long ago that I’ve forgotten about them.
Gangster films tend to gather cult status as they are not only ingrained in geek culture, the cliches and tropes appear in mainstream culture through advertisements and are referenced in music, television and every-day discourse.
The second criteria that I have adopted is related to gaming – what are the gameable elements of these films? What are the characters, situations, plots, structures and setting details that lend themselves to RPGs? How do they create the points of contact within the fiction and how can they be used in constructing scenarios?
As I have been pondering this list there have been a number of great suggestions made by the GROGSQUAD over on the discord server and twitter. There’s always the thorny genre issues to mull over, “is it a gangster film or a crime movie with gangsters in it?” In this list I have selected films that attracted my attention and seemed to fit into what I was looking for in a mobster movie. If you don’t think it qualifies as a mobster movie, that’s okay, because this is my list.
Here goes, this is when I’ll be watching the films and where you can find them online.
6th: Miller’s Crossing (1990) – Disney Plus (Star)
8th: Gotti (1996) – You Tube
10th Free Fire (2017) – Prime
12th Scarface (1932) – You Tube
14th New World (2013) – Prime
16th Underworld (1927) – You Tube
18th The Mission (1999) – You Tube
20th The Penalty (1920) – You Tube
22nd The Long Good Friday (1980) – You Tube
24th Boondock Saints (1999) – You Tube
Watching these films is going to be great, but it will be even better if you can take part in the discussion over at discord, on twitter or the Facebook group. If you need the details, then let me know and I’ll send them to you.
This should be a good exercise and will get us all in the mood ready for the trip to LakeFront City in November.
Armed with no more than 2 dice a pencil and eraser we are delighted to have special guest Ian Livingstone on Episode 50.
Also in this episode, the return of face to face recording in the Las O Gowrie. Judge Blythy talks to Dirk about his experiences of Fighting Fantasy and reveals his thoughts of the rules. We also talk of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Troika, and Quarrel and Fable.
Please note that ‘Download’ is now part of the Player
The GROGNARD files returns with the Return of Call of Cthulhu with the return of Lynne Hardy. This time she faces the Keeper’s Screen to reveal her Arcane secrets. She talks about her contribution to the Dying Earth Role-Playing Game, Cogs, Cakes and Swordsticks, the game she designed, and more news about upcoming Chaosium releases that we can look forward to in the coming months.
In the introduction, I refer to it as Episode 47, it’s not, but what are numbers. I have never understood our bizarre numbering system. This show note counts as Errata. We delve into Different Worlds Issue 19 which was a Call of Cthulhu special and features errata, essays by Sandy Petersen and Lyn Willis and more.
The Post Bag returns with comments from listeners. If you are interested in hearing more from The God Learners podcast, you’ll find it where you get your podcasts.
We share a hoary old story about a trip to Morecambe, where nothing really happened, but it was character forming.
In this episode we discuss Lynne’s formative years in role-playing and how she started work with Chaosium with a pitch for this richly detailed and horrific campaign.
Tristan Narbrough is a GROGSQUAD member who currently lives in Japan, he tells us about his first, last and everything.
Blythy is back from the wilderness and in fine form talking about different Cthulhu mythos settings that we have experienced.
As the Final Score recedes (great result between Arbroath and Queen of the South) it’s time to grab a Tizer and sit down to an episode all about Dr Who.
