2025 Reading Challenge 12 Plague Ship
Thanks to Ian Cooper, the design lead for Questworlds who ran a brilliant playtest of Pioneer Space, his Rocket Punk genre pack, and introduced me to Andrew...
2025 Reading Challenge 11 Ancillary Sword
I was looking forward to coming back to the Imperial Radch universe having read Ancillary Justice when it came out and enjoying a unique and thought-...
2025 Reading Challenge 10 Down and Out in Paris and London
I’ve got a few George Orwell books on my reading list. Still, this one is new to me. I’ve often been fascinated and appalled by how society treats the lowest...
2025 Reading Challenge 09 Generation X
I picked up and first read Generation X as a disaffected youth looking for a job. I'd left university and was taking on various McJobs, whilst trying to find...
2025 Reading Challenge 08 The Wasp Factory
A writer who is still close to my heart, Iain Banks with or without the M left us on 9 June 2013. A massive gap in British literature and a small one in my...
Feb 25, Why is a Raven like a writing desk?
So more goodies coming out from The Raspy Raven members. Active Campaigns Nothing this month but congratulations to Jerod and Craig for successful campaigns...
2025 Reading Challenge 07 Berlin Game
Not exactly hitting “The Wall” but Berling Game was a struggle, I’d envisioned a slightly more modern and action-packed version of The Human Factor, but it...
2025 Reading Challenge 06 The Day of the Triffids
I’m convinced I’ve read this book before, the John Wyndham classic is ingrained in us, or is it? I found myself discovering a fairly new story of grim post-...
Jan 25, Why is a Raven like a writing desk?
Each month I’ll share the goings-on of various members of my Tabletop Roleplaying Game Discord, The Raspy Raven. The majority of these folks are solo RPG...
The Mean Arena
A play report for a very special Forged in the Dark game, based on the 2000AD strip, The Mean Arena, this time the game is in Watford, Hertfordshire, where...
2025 Reading Challenge 05 The Human Chord
Not The Human Torch, as my wife called it, this is a blast from the past, 1910. Written by Algernon Blackwood, he of The Wendigo. The Human Chord by Algernon...
2025 Reading Challenge 04 The Human Factor
The Human Factor is a cold war spy novel by Graham Greene. It concerns a leak in M16’s Africa section. Things are quickly complicated by love, loyalty and an...
2025 Reading Challenge 03 The King in Yellow
Robert W Chambers described The King in Yellow as “…a work of cosmic horror fantasy that explores the sinister nature of human curiosity.” The King in Yellow...
2025 Reading Challenge 02 Zona
Book two. I’m not 100% sure what exactly it is, it feels at its heart like a love letter to the film Stalker. It’s entertaining, heart-wrenching, insightful...
2025 Reading Challenge 01 The Honjin Murders
I’m reading a book a week in 2025, there are no rules apart from finishing it and it also has to be a physical book. This is mainly a TTRPG blog, so I’ll...
Let me tell you a story part two
Scene Five They come. The cops. Nasty and Nastier. They saying nothing grab Leigh, leaving Donnie on the floor. Marched to a hole in the stone floor, bricks...
Let me tell you a story Part One
Our Discord has recently started a new community area - Story Games. The first of these is Lovecraftesque from Black Armada Games, by Becky Annison and Josh...
Project Cassandra
The first game of Cold War season on The Raspy Raven, what better way to kick off than psychics in 1960s Berlin. Project Cassandra A bit of background, it...
Heroes are made by the paths they choose...
A few months into my attempt to run five players through a play-by-post game of Alteregomania, the Gumshoe One-2-One adventure that shows Super Heroes in...
Concrete Cow 24.5
We are heading down the motorway at 8 am to visit Milton Keynes Premier TTRPG Con Concrete Cow. Concrete Cow I’d missed Owlbear and the Wizard’s Staff due to...
Play-by-Chat 0
I was struggling to find a second session to finish off a Trail of Cthulhu game, The Dance in the Blood by Graham Walmsley. I offered the players two...
Swords of the Bosphorus 1
I’ve just started a new campaign, run by Martin. It’s a fantastic take on Swords of the Serpentine, using Martin’s knowledge of the Byzantium Empire circa...
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Game or Gamer you’ll miss. This is an odd prompt, but I’ll make a case for Golden Heroes. Golden Heroes It’s probably more accurate to say, “The game I...
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Person you’d like to game with. I will go with KARTAS (Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff), I don’t mind if it is Ken Hite or Robin Laws, but one of them has to...
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Awesome App. As a constant organiser of RPG games on Discord, I’ve selected Hammertime. Hammertime Hammertime does one thing and does it really well, it...
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GREAT GAMER GADGET. Let’s embrace technology and say the Virtual TableTop (VTT). Now I could easily say the internet, Skype, or any other tools, but I’ll...
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MARVELLOUS MINIATURE. Kudos to Morgue Miniatures Fabio Vollono and Julie’s wonderful array of eclectic RPG minis. Perfect for Mouseritter I’ve particularly...
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SUPERB SCREEN. Again, I’m not big on stuff like this, but a mini-screen was appealing for con trips, and okay, I’m not the biggest Mörk Borg fan, but this is...
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DESIRABLE DICE. Okay, I’m not a big dice fetishist, so I’ll keep it simple. If and when I next play 13th Age face-to-face, I’ll put together a very large...
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ACCLAIMED ADVICE. Following the work of one Paul Baldowski, I’ve picked up several gaming approaches that align with what I enjoy and get out of TTRPGs. I...
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PEERLESS PLAYER. Incredible fun sitting back and watching the performance of Mr Spike aka Mike Percival Maxwell, who played a mild-mannered antiquarian,...
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Notable Non-Player Character. I'll go for Meepo, a kobold from Tales from the Yawning Portal, specifically The Sunless Citadel. Meepo We discovered him...
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CLASSIC Campaign. So many to choose from but I'll plump for The Two-Headed Serpent for Call of Cthulhu 7e. The Two-Headed Serpent by Paul Fricker, Scott...
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AMAZING ADVENTURE. Let’s combine the Fabled Lands with Tunnels and Trolls, let’s arm the GM with a Gandalf-sized tome of campaign and adventure information...
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SENSATIONAL SESSION. I’m going to go for something from The Yellow King RPG, the RPG of supernatural horror based on the works of Robert W. Chambers. This...
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MEMORABLE MOMENT OF PLAY. It’s been hard to top the exit of two players from Eternal Lies. Eternal Lies by Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball with Jeremy Keller...
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AN ENGAGING RPG COMMUNITY. There can be only one for me, The Grognard Files. The Grognard Files Coming back to the RPG hobby in 2015, that year or maybe a...
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QUICK TO LEARN. I’m going to go for Index Card RPG, I try and play new games every now and again, but I rarely come across a game where it clicks all at...
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GREAT CHARACTER GEAR. I really struggled with this, I’m not a power gamer and I tend to enjoy RPGs where I am just an average Joe or Josephine, so games...
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COMPELLING CHARACTERS. Heavily influenced by starting the Coriolis Mercy of the Icons campaign, nevertheless, I’m fascinated by the wealth of characters in...
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Evocative environments. Possibly because I’ve only recently played it, but I’m pondering a lot on Coyote and Crow. Coyote and Crow At its heart, it imagines...
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RPG WITH WELL SUPPORTED CAMPAIGNS. Obvious I suppose, but I remember this seemed quite revolutionary at the time, I’m talking about Call of Cthulhu. Call of...
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RPG WITH WELL SUPPORTED ONE-SHOTS. Another easy one, I barely have to get the neurons off the couch, it’s The Dee Sanction, Adventures in Magick and Politics...
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RPG YOU’D LIKE TO SEE ON TV. It has to be Liminal, the incredible urban fantasy RPG from Dr. Paul “Tweedmeister” Mitchener, landlord of the ever popular...
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AN ACCESSORY YOU’D LIKE TO SEE. Possibly it already exists in some AI form but I’d like to have a scenario pdf or document reconfigure itself for different...
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AN ACCESSORY YOU APPRECIATE. There was only one thing in my mind when I saw this, the All Rolled Up from the minds and hands of Fil and Paul Baldowski. An...
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AN RPG WITH ‘GOOD FORM’ What! What! Some debate in RPG circles as to what ‘form’ means, but I’ve gone for a game that no one has nary a bad word to say...
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RPG THAT IS EASY TO USE Being a fan of investigative horror RPGs and in particular Cosmic Horror, I’ve got to go for Cthulhu Dark (possibly in the future...
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RPG With Great Writing. I have to say Trail of Cthulhu brought me back to the hobby, about seven years before I started playing again. The standard of...
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An RPG with Great Art. It’s been a long time coming but I have to put a shout-out to The Borellus Connection and Jen McCleary, but I could have added...