[ERRYBODY POAST] What are you playing/running RIGHT NOW??

[HippopotamusDundee]

Running a campaign called Wild Seas Under Heaven, a 5th Edition D&D game about a band of pirates in Mythic China struggling to survive and take advantage of the consequences of the Mandate of Heaven being withdrawn.

Running the Bloody Sun, Shattered Sword campaign that I've posted about on here before - a creepy and evocative Japanese Dark-Fantasy game something like a cross between Princess Mononoke and Mushishi.

Playing in a 5th Edition D&D campaign run by a friend of mine who is a first-time GM, and occasionally providing co-DMing assistance when more than 6 or 7 of his players show up (he's mad). My character is a good-aligned Cleric of Death whose religion preaches that it is their duty to ensure that the undead and the wicked do not walk in Life.

Playing in a system-light Call of Cthulhu campaign based loosely off Beyond the Mountains of Madness, that is currently on hiatus. After the death of my first character, eccentric intelligent officer Lieutenant Archibald Davies, due to over-use of Mythos witchcraft and a resulting bullet in the skull, I'm now playing an Ainu whaler and survival expert called Petennouk.

[Steerpike]

Running the Bloody Sun, Shattered Sword campaign that I've posted about on here before - a creepy and evocative Japanese Dark-Fantasy game something like a cross between Princess Mononoke and Mushishi.

Glad you got this up and running! You'll have to tell us how it goes.

[LD]

>>Playing in a system-light Call of Cthulhu campaign based loosely off Beyond the Mountains of Madness,

That's a good setting choice for a CoC game-personally I love that novel and was disappointed when I heard a famous director (del Toro? Jackson?) backed out of producing a movie based on it. Are you playing in the official Chaosium sequel to Mountains of Madness, or is it homebrewed?

[HippopotamusDundee]

That's a good setting choice for a CoC game-personally I love that novel and was disappointed when I heard a famous director (del Toro? Jackson?) backed out of producing a movie based on it. Are you playing in the official Chaosium sequel to Mountains of Madness, or is it homebrewed?

It was del Toro - the studio would only give him the money he needed if they softened the rating, added a happy ending, or included a romantic sub-plot. There was a rumour floating around that the success of Pacific Rim (his last film) meant that the studio who produced it was considering letting him do Mountains of Madness, but nothing's yet been confirmed.

As for the campaign, it's a little of both. The campaign is definitely inspired by the Chaosium sequel (and also the Australian section of Masks of Nyarlathotep) but our GM has taken considerable liberties with adding a framing device grounded in Australian military/espionage history and tweaking things around to his liking.

[LD]

>>meant that the studio who produced it was considering letting him do Mountains of Madness, but nothing's yet been confirmed.

Legendary... which I think is that studio- also is rumoured to have the rights to Mass Effect. Sadly I fear we'll never see either... Or if they do mass effect they wouldn't have the sense to go with the winning combination- do the trilogy of games with a female hardass Shepard rather than the worn out everyman male Shepard hero.

[Steerpike]

It's bizarre that At the Mountains of Madness has not been made into a film. Despite the odd assertions that it's "unfilmable" it's ridiculously cinematic and could be adapted very easily. Alien is about 50% At the Mountains of Madness already.

[Xathan]

It's bizarre that At the Mountains of Madness has not been made into a film. Despite the odd assertions that it's "unfilmable" it's ridiculously cinematic and could be adapted very easily. Alien is about 50% At the Mountains of Madness already.

I never got the "unfilmable" label for At the Mountains of Madness either. I mean, call me crazy, but it feels like it's probably the most "filmable" for all of Lovecraft's works.

As far as I go, I recently wrapped up the 2 year long Dresden Files game I had going with the players finally destroying an original thing, The Realm of Broken Mirrors, (Which they affectionately termed the Negaverse, since it was populated by twisted versions of everyone on earth.) It felt good to wrap up a long running campaign for the second time in my history as a GM.

Now I'm playing with that group in a different FATE game one of the Dresden Players is running. Set in a Space Opera, I'm playing Jeremiah Black, a former bug hunter who has half his aspects and stunts as quotes from the Alien series.

In other news, my 3 year long one on one Marvel game is coming to a major turning point. The other Player and I share control of the universe, and since we have so many kids of heroes, kids of villains, up-and-coming-kid powers, etc, we're slowly retiring the major players to make room for the new blood - Dr Strange, Tony Stark, and Cyclops have all announced their intent to retire within the next few years for either their own child or a promising protegee, with more doing so in the wings. (Since we use the marvel sliding timescale, things always happen in one of 8 time periods - "Some Historic Period," World War II," "A few years ago," "Not long ago," "Now," "Soon," "In a few years," and "The Distant Future.")

[Steerpike]

The Realm of Broken Mirrors sounds pretty cool. It's basically a mirror-universe type thing, a la Star Trek?

[LD]

It's bizarre that At the Mountains of Madness has not been made into a film. Despite the odd assertions that it's "unfilmable" it's ridiculously cinematic and could be adapted very easily. Alien is about 50% At the Mountains of Madness already.

Frankly, John Carpenter's The Thing is about 50% of At the Mountains of Madness as well :D.


>>I never got the "unfilmable" label for At the Mountains of Madness either. I mean, call me crazy, but it feels like it's probably the most "filmable" for all of Lovecraft's works.
Agreed.

[Xathan]

The Realm of Broken Mirrors sounds pretty cool. It's basically a mirror-universe type thing, a la Star Trek?

Not exactly. I mean, everyone has an evil duplicate over there - basically, the Realm of Broken Mirrors is where everything you could have been exists. However, since there can only be one opposite of you long term, every time you make a choice that eliminates possible people you could have been, new "yous" pop up - and then fight it out, highlander style, since there can be only one. They then absorb the new "yous" that they kill, so they stay up to date on the choices that you are making - and the skills you would have learned, up to a point. So the result of this is the worst, nastiest, most power hungry you that could exist is the duplicate that manages to survive long term - even horrible people have an "evil-er" you over there. Those are the Could-Have-Beens.

On top of them, it's also filled with countless Never-Weres - the children that would have been born if you had had children with an ex you're no longer with, or if you hadn't used birth control at a particular moment. Since their potential is poorly defined, so are they - Never-Weres look horrific. A few were a young woman with a lamprey mouth for a face (the sister of one of the PCs if their parents hadn't split up), a man with a blank face and mouths in his palms and eyes on his wrists (the son of another PC if he had gone "all the way" with his first girlfriend), a person with two faces, melted together in the center of their head, and four arms (the twins the first PC would have had with her ex-fiance if he hadn't cheated and they had stayed together), and...you're getting the idea. Most Could-Have-Beens command a small army of the Never-Weres their Actuality (as they call people from the real would) would have spawned or that would have been family to them, kept in private citadels - the Mirror Shards.

The Could-Have-Beens (which the players took to calling Nega-BLANK, as in Nega-you and Nega-me or Nega-NAME, or alternatively, Cenobites, since many of them had appearances that were semi-inspired by Hellrazer*) want to take over their Actuality through possession and ruin their life. To do so, they have to drive the real you to such despair that you are ready to commit suicide (Thus stopping any more Could-Have-Beens from being possible for you) and then take over before you kill yourself. So when they can break through from the Realm of Broken Mirrors to our world, they spend their time making your life hell so you get to that point...and since they are twisted versions of you, they are very good at it. They almost had one of the PCs and they did get an NPC another PC was dating.

*One PC was ridiculously and hilariously unaware of anything involving Nerd culture, so she referred to them as Xenomorphs, or Xenobites, or Cenomorphs at various points. This is the one who, when faced with an impossible task, said "It's like the Kokomo Maroon" (The kobayashi maru) 

[Steerpike]

That's really cool! Very Barker-esque, in a great way. Have you read China Miéville's novella "The Tain" by any chance?

[Xathan]

That's really cool! Very Barker-esque, in a great way. Have you read China Miéville's novella "The Tain" by any chance?

Thanks! And no, I haven't. I haven't read any Mieville, actually...probably should do that, given how often it comes up around these parts. :P