260: I have to pray to the 5God
Hullo
Love
Gencon
Links
Bye!!!!
Announced this week, in time for Gencon, is the first DIE expansion - DIE RPG SCENARIOS 1: BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLES. And coo! Stephanie cover.
You can sign for updates about it here, which includes some more information. I'd appreciate it if you do so - this is also RRD judging demand for the scenario packs, so you filling it in is helpful in terms of them judging demand - and also seeing if folks would be interested in a subscription service to all the adventures at a discount.
This is what RRD say in there...
DIE Scenarios is a series of scenarios for DIE, each one containing a set of unique adventures offering new perspective on what a journey into the realms of DIE could be. We plan to release multiple issues over the next year. Each one will contain three scenarios: one written by DIE's co-creator, Kieron Gillen, and two by wonderful guest authors from around the RPG scene and beyond. Each book will also feature a special guest artist who will lend their vision to the worlds of DIE.
Each issue will be about 36-48 pages long, and will be a US Letter Softcover. We're planning to sell each issue for £12 GBP. If you want to get all four issues, we plan to offer a subscription with a special discounted price of £10 GBP each.
Here's the cover for the first issues, Bizarre Love Triangles. The title is from Kieron's adventure, an 'ex-crawl' where a group of Paragons travel through a region of DIE based on the group's previous traumatic breakups.
Zach has also mentioned the names of the other two scenarios over on the Discord I GO INFINITE and WHERE THE VILE THINGS ARE, who are by two of my fave new designers.
I'm sure I'll say more about Bizarre Love Triangles soon, but it's goal is to try and show how you can actually write a DIE adventure which runs more straight out the box. It works by narrowing the persona generation questions a little so they give specific information that then can be plugged into the encounters, and I think it's going to work really well. It's also great (as adventures always are) for picking over for parts. Also, I just wanted to see if I could write a Hex Crawl, as I've never done one.
All three adventures are written, and I'm looking forward to getting back to the UK and playtesting.
Oh - and DIE itself is now properly released, and available in your local game and comic shops, or directly from RRD
I'm at Gencon. We're on Friday already, so we're getting through things. Here's my schedule from last time. It's been lots of fun so far.
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Immortal X-men returns next week. Here's the preview. I swear, Lucas decided on how to draw Xavier here.
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The human cost of the people policing AI training is actively upsetting
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Forbidden Planet TV have me on to talk about the new edition of the Journey Into Mystery haredcover.
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LA Review of books does a strong dissection of the TERF-y wave of books in the UK.
It's a short one this time - I'm at Gencon, and writing this before I run off to my session. I wanted to get one out this week, as DIE Adventures deserves attention brought to itself by itself, and next week it'd have to compete with Immortal for the top spot.
It has been a trying week. As those who have been following me on BlueSky they'll have seen a slow chain of low level nonsense. Like, nothing utterly terrible, but just a lot of things adding up, and each eating time. In rough order...
- Due to a mistake in the paperwork, the DIE games I was running have allowed 6 players to sign up. DIE is designed to work with 5 players. Rather than kick anyone off, I have to rewrite and reconcedpualise the game I'm running to work with 6.
- My dry cleaner closes 20 minutes early, so I can't get my outfits for the trip. I replan my ardrobe.
- I miss my connection in New York, due to having to wait for my bag, which doesn't come out. I'm told it's been sent through to Indy and will be there.
- 5 hour wait for next flight.
- Arrive in Indy to discover bag actually is still in London.
- All of which means the Wednesday which I needed to rewrite the adventure is eaten away by all the tasks I need to do - get new clothes, etc.
- All of which means I'm up at 6am to finish rewrite the adventure for running at 10am. Which is a lot. I sort out the handouts, and get them on the machines but...
- But the printers refuse to print the PDFs. I have minutes, and the desk helps.
- I get to the game to discover that only half my adventure has printed, so I have to pray to the 5God that I can access the dropbox to get it on my ipad.
It turns out fine. Phew.
Got to dash. Got to get to the game in half an hour. Excuse typos, though you likely are used to that with this newsletter, right?
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Indianapolis
4.8.2023