The Freedom of Modernity
FREEBIE: AMELIA - a modern-day, low-life statue heist scenario
Recently, I’ve fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole with Violence, a lean-n-mean system by Luke Gearing focused on brutal violence, and a number of the modern day scenarios for it (like Glass Men, My Friend Mike, and more).
While I’ve seen systems attempting to do the same broad mechanical things Violence is going for, I’ve never really experienced many scenarios, much less things you’d call “adventures,” in the style of the works by Gearing and Gromb I linked above. These are grimy, brutal characters set in sad and downright disturbing locations. Many of the darkest and most memorable aspects come as brief altercations, odd encounters, and small but white hot details. Mandog, while statted for OD&D, is another scenario in this grimy modern day milieu.
While I wouldn’t bat an eye at a film (Sicario, Blue Ruin, Seven, etc. all feel at home here) focused on drugs, poverty, coercion, sex work, etc., I can’t say I’ve ever much considered these aspects within the realm of tabletop roleplaying - at least not like this. There’s a sort of cartoony, over-the-top version you may see in a superhero game (“Beat up the EVIL drug dealers and save the mayor’s daughter!”), but the darker tone here combined with Violence’s down to earth mechanical approach means it all feels much more real to me (not to say that it is realistic, but that it rings more true to life to me than those more exaggerated/cliche depictions). There’s rarely good guys here and even more rarely is there a clean way out for those who deserve it most.
One of the pieces I enjoy most about Violence is that because you’re operating more or less the real world, it allows us to remove the need for most of the mechanical layers between us and the world. You easily understand what you can and can’t do, how the world will likely respond, etc. because it’s the same world we are all living in - we’re all experts in the lore here because we’ve been studying it our whole lives.
This means that when it comes to writing a scenario, I get to focus entirely on the words themselves, the characters, the odd little details on the edges of the scenes, etc. and have to think far, far less about stat notation, deciding a weapon’s range and damage, creating special abilities or unique relics, etc. This allows me to flow into this really unique headspace where I’m channeling my lived experienced through this dark, grimy Violence filter and pouring a new version of the world onto the paper. It’s really liberating!
So much time in adventure/TTRPG writing is spent on mechanical stuff, it just feels great to get to leave that behind and just write. And I think there’s a reward for the reader and players as well that’s evident when you read these, a sort of life you don’t find in more by-the-books TTRPG fare.
Check out my first Violence scenario below if you don’t believe me and see what you think (and definitely check out the others I mentioned above).
FREEBIE: AMELIA
Harbour Grace’s bronze Amelia Earhart statue sits unattended and unnoticed during the long winter months. Rent just went up—but so did the scrap price of bronze.
Benny is a childhood friend or you both worked at the same gas station a few years back or maybe he’s your second cousin or maybe you even crossed paths during the half semester he did in town at Memorial University before he dropped out. Either way, he knows you and you know him.
Benny wants help with Amelia. He needs help with Amelia.
AMELIA is a 10-page Violence scenario including a rural Newfoundland town, a bronze statue, and one man intent on stealing it. What happens next is up to you.
Download the scenario (including maps) HERE or grab it for free on Itch!
BLOGGING CONTINUES
Over on the MCGW blog, I dug into using social media profiles (Bluesky in particular) to quickly build your own galactic sci-fi setting and embarked on a solo play adventure in Wolves Upon the Coast (expect the next entry on this one very soon)!
Wolves Upon The Coast - Solo Play #0: The Tale of the Free Thirteen
Wolves Upon the Coast - Solo Play #1: The Flesh and the Fruit
MORE COOL STUFF
Rust Wings, the new game from worlds by watt (of Cloud Empress fame), is crowdfunding now! I have done some early development work on this project and will be doing even more in the coming months as the project continues!
Explore abandoned cities on an endless ocean. Rust Wings is a Ghibli-inspired adventure roleplaying game compatible with Mausritter.
“Ghibli” is a super overused (and often misused) buzz term for roleplaying games these days, but watt is one of the creators I feel truly does understand what that means.
Check it out HERE!
The No ICE in Minnesota charity bundle has now raised over $500,000 for Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. The bundle includes two releases of mine: FIREDROP and THERE IS A GOBLIN ON THE LOOSE IN ICARUS STATION. Beyond that, it includes 1,437 more items, and it only costs $10.
Cairn 2e, which I’m a big fan of, recently released a Barebones Edition which removes the implied setting of the original release and removes the art, giving you the most versatile and leanest edition of the game yet. If you (like me) enjoy homebrewing your settings and have the most hackable version of something in your toolbox, this is the edition for you. Oh, it’s free too.
Lin Codega over at Rascal has been publishing daily diaries from her time playing OVER/UNDER back in October. This “game” or whatever you’d call it absolutely floored me and consumed tons of my time, and it’s really cool to relive some of it here and see it all from an entirely different perspective.
Norgad’s latest Mothership module, Roach Motel, is out now. I haven’t read it or played it, but I’ve really enjoyed Norgad’s past output so I’m excited to dive into it soon!
I’m editing Joshua Justice’s latest Mothership project, Last Light Station.
At the end of the only jump lane into the Hekate Sector sits LAST LIGHT STATION. Criminals, Corpos, and those just trying to eke out a living fill the crowded space station. Whether your Crew need a place to recover, a base of operations, or just to lighten their pockets of some credits, Last Light Station is the place to be.
It’s crowdfunding now. Check it out HERE.
Thanks for reading! See ya next time! - Christian