If we see the Melter, Mumbles is going to try to shoot him while I try to RUN HIM THE FUCK OVER. Let’s see him concentrate on a spell when he’s got a [vehicle name redacted] crashing through his thoracic cavity! Arr! Full steam ahead!
So far I’ve had players siphon gas, rodents and NPCs out of each others’ fuel tanks; attempt to nobble each others’ vehicles with mi-go brain cases, the aforementioned rodents, and mummy heads; use acid to drop rusty ship hulls on each other; engage in astral combat and attempt to summon Hastur. Oddly I did not have rules in place for all these eventualities. I call it a successful play test…
Also, gmail has started giving me the strangest suggestions for products I might be interested in, based on the content of my emails.
Elsewhere, I went hot air ballooning and it was great, and ludicrously expensive. Still, if you get the chance, do it once in your life. Really.
Then I went for breakfast here. I thought about the potential difficulty of opening a branch in the US.
We didn't talk about anything potentially offensive, and their chocolate was delicious.
If you can't go ballooning today, check out Tokyo Good Idea Development Co, which is almost as good. Via the also day-brightening Tony Dowler. If you can't go to Carcosa today, check out Jason Sholtis' list of 12 things on the blasted lands of the fallen moon, rivalled only by those found near the hovering archipelago. Everything else he does is also arrestingly brilliant.
...and finally, something I've been waiting the past quarter century for: an RPG based on cult classic Monkey! If the contents are as good as the title, I will be happy indeed. And totally derailed on all my other projects. Again.


Can you help me figure out how to run a Barsoom game?
Here's the problem: people get all fired up watching adventure movies or reading books and then they want to play out those adventures in an RPG. Only the book/movie stories are carefully constructed to play out toward a conclusion and the heroes act the way they have to in order to make those conclusions happen and your players probably won't.
No doubt this is all dead obvious. Reading back over it, I kinda think that's how everything's structured. Everything except just-started-up, first level DnD games, perhaps. Still, I wonder if in actual play it would allow us to have those epic adventures, rather than hardscrabble, gold-grubbing, Russian-roulette spelunking. Or if all bets are off the moment you get the allegiance of a big bunch of Tharks and whatever you thought you were doing before, now you're looting Helium.
Problems with this structure: 1. all such goals require backstory, which is railroady. You are saying "we will play this game which is about fixing the air engines." This will annoy a contingent of hardcore sandboxers (unless, perhaps, you say "do whatever you like, but be aware that the air is running out, the water is draining away, locusts got the crops and the Therns got your love interests... so whatever you want but you might want to focus on those things"). 2. whisking the end-goal out of reach will annoy your players unless it's done very cleverly or it's been foreshadowed to set expectations or there's a consolation prize. 3. goods piling up is anathema to capitalism: JC gets to handle aircraft and artillery and kingly authority and all kinds of goodies, but then he lets them go again for the next step. Your players will not want to let them go. Trust me. Which will complicate your later challenges and may lead to some kind of arms race.
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