A player's view of Kakabad

In lieu of a post about contemporary gaming, what with the sunny weather, afternoons in the pub, and the odd barbecue - and for anyone not in the UK, we get so few really sunny days these must be seized upon - I thought I'd dig out some old player maps and let you see how one of my players interpreted our journey across Kakabad in pursuit of the Crown of Kings.

  Khare

The Baklands

Mampang

Preparation for a jungle expedition... delayed

I was busy making my own version of a very familiar map, and adapting the encounters for Advanced Fighting Fantasy, when my brother invited me down the pub. Ah well, hangover cleared, that gives me time for a bit more polish then...

Why I play Advanced Fighting Fantasy... #43

"This A4 sci-fi comic, with 20 pages of strip and a six page text story, displays a penchant for the twist ending and poetic justice. The tales of killing, cloning and interrogation are written as if by someone who takes life very seriously. It’s impressively drawn by Bolt-01, with grey tones by Richmond Clements and backgrounds that convincingly evoke the worlds in which the stories penned by Andrew Bartlett are set. 7/10."

In a past life I had a short crack at writing small-press comics. This was the review of one of them from Comics International. And this sums up my problem: 'written as if by someone who takes life very seriously'. And I do, to my own detriment. I'm always in danger of draining the fun from things, for intellectualising (and politicising) the things that I enjoy, rather than just enjoying them.

Fighting Fantasy (Advanced, or otherwise) operates as a necessary corrective to my tendency, when running games, to strive for too much 'realism' and too little of the fantastical and 'adventuresomeness'. I'm just the kind of Games Master who would ruin a Star Wars game by beginning a campaign with this:

"Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.

Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo.

While the congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict...."

Fighting Fantasy is Steven Spielberg to my George Lucas.

Ruins of a Future Past

Sometimes, you see an image and the GM in you thinks, 'There's an adventure site!'

Well, this article, in Creative Review, about Danila Tkachenko’s photographs of Soviet-era ruins is full of them. 

This kind of thing so makes me want to run a post-apocalyptic campaign - something that I've never done. I have Other Dust, Mutant Future, Barbarians of the Apocalypse, and, of course, I could turn out a D100 or Advanced Fighting Fantasy based post-apocalyptic game too. Mind you, I think I'd have to work hard not to let my natural tendencies take over and end up with a campaign that has all the joy and vitality of The Road!