Gaming and other Nonsense
“Just the place for a Snark!”
Welcome to a collection of random pages about tabletop roleplaying and wargames, with a bit of science fiction thrown in for good measure. It contains campaign notes and chronicles for various games I've run and played it, design notes for game systems, and designs for armies and characters. Since some of the material dates back almost 30 years, the style may be inconsistent.
Though there is material here for both Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, it also includes Ars Magica, Traveller, Star Wars, Legend of the Five Rings, Pendragon, as well as various home brewed game systems.
Frequent updates on the games I'm currently playing can be found on my blog.
Campaigns Roleplaying Wargaming
Most of the content on here is entirely original. Some of it is based on material published by other people - e.g., game content for published RPGs or Wargames.
For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.
News and Updates
Islands in the Rift
A few weeks ago I started running a Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller game on Roll20. It's set in 1105, in Reft Sector, in the Islands cluster, and involves the players locating and trying to recover a ship left behind by a failed Imperium intelligence mission. I'm putting some background notes and various resources on this site for future reference and general use.
Sessions are being blogged about on a weekly basis.
I'm also playing in a Zweihänder game.
Blender Renders
I've had some free time recently, some of which I'm been putting into watching YouTube videos on how to use Blender. It's a very complete 3D modelling package, but also quite complicated to learn how to use.
However, I've started to figure out the basics, and in the process have started working on some 3D models of various spacecraft designs for my various SciFi RPG initiatives. I'm very much at beginner level at the moment though, so anything I produce is very basic. I'm making everything I do available under open source licenses, and available on GitLab.
I've also tried some crude scenes as well, though drawing natural stuff is a lot harder than engineered objects. Hopefully things will improve over the coming year, and I may try using it for fantasy related things as well (such as buildings and ruins).
Spacecraft Recognition Guide
The main content being worked on at the moment is the Spacecraft Recognition Guide, where I'm putting together a collection of spaceship designs for my YAGS SciFi rules. Starting at the plausible near future, and then working forward in time with an ever increasing level of technology.
I'm making heavy use of Blender to model what the starships look like, and coming up with a starship design system that is reasonably detailed, but hopefully simplified enough that it's usable.
There are more details over on my blog.
The Sinking City
I've started putting down thoughts for a new fantasy campaign, currently titled The Sinking City. There is a full blog article available for initial details. I plan on using this with my high fantasy version of YAGS, which requires that I finish writing the magic system for that.
Other notes are also available for now over on the Eyressia page on this site, and I've added a link in the sidebar as well.
The Spires of Xin-Shalast
I've started running the final chapter of my Rise of the Runelords campaign, Spires of Xin-Shalast. As part of this, I've started a GM's commentary on the campaign over on my NotASnark blog. It won't contain spoilers for what's coming, but will contain information about plot points that have happened so far.
This campaign will take the characters up to 17th level, which is the highest we've been so far in Pathfinder. I've got ideas though for how to take things beyond this if the players want to continue on to higher levels.
Also on that blog are player accounts of Serpent's Skull and Strange Aeons campaigns, along with everything else I play (such as Delta Green).