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Happy Birthday H.P. Lovecraft: Can NIGHT SHIFT Do Cthulhu?

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Guest posting by Tim Brannan Today, August 20, would have been H. P. Lovecraft's 136th birthday. Lovecraft has been part of my gaming DNA for almost as long as D&D has. Maybe not quite as long, but close enough that it is hard for me to separate the two anymore. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, all that wonderful old weird fiction eventually found its way into my games. You can see that in my other blog, The Other Side. You can see it in the kinds of games I talk about. And, of course, there is Call of Cthulhu . I have played Call of Cthulhu on and off for decades. It is one of the great horror RPGs, full stop. If I want the classic experience of investigators slowly uncovering truths humanity was never meant to know, watching their sanity fray while something impossibly old stirs beneath the earth, it remains an obvious choice. But sometimes I want something slightly different. Sometimes I want the Mythos, but I also want witches (ok. I always ...
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Alignment in O.G.R.E.S. Addendum

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Additional Thoughts on Alignment  In case you all haven't seen it, Tim Brannan has been doing a super fun exercise with the O.G.R.E.S. games over on his The Other Side Blog dealing with conversions of old characters of his from other RPGs to the O.G.R.E.S. systerm. We talked about including those over here directly, but since they do include other companies' copyrights, we figured keeping them separate from our official channel is probably a good idea.  Still, I can point you to where they are, so check them out ! The reason I bring them up is that Tim does something interesting with Alignment in there. It's not something I believe he's thinking about, but it's intriguing nevertheless, and actually ties into something that I worked on with Troll Lord Games for the Reforged Castles & Crusades and Amazing Adventures lines, where Alignment has been re-termed "Disposition."  Art by Bradley K. McDevitt. Used by Permission.
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Alignment in O.G.R.E.S.

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 Alignment is a hot button issue in modern games. It is a core part of characters in O.G.R.E.S, and indeed, the corruption system for spellcasting does not properly function without it. It is, then, important to look at what alignment is, how it works, and most importantly, what it is not  and how it is constantly misread and misinterpreted by many in the gaming community - particularly those reactionary to traditional old-school gaming tropes. 
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The Intent of Supernatural Attacks in O.G.R.E.S.

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 Supernatural Attacks in O.G.R.E.S. Art by Bradley K. McDevitt. Used under license. Some questions have come up recently (even in my own gaming group) that highlight something about supernatural attack, about which I was apparently not clear enough in the rules. That, or it's there and just easily overlooked. So here it is. 
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Grýla, The Christmas Witch for NIGHT SHIFT

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 We watched the newest Christmas movie, " Red One ," the other night. It is silly but fun. It had Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, and J. K. Simmons as Santa. But the surprise was Kiernan Shipka, as  Grýla, The Christmas Witch .  When she played Sabrina, Kiernan Shipka encountered Grýla before, so seeing her take on the mythological witch was fun. I have also encountered Grýla here before. And given that I already did Santa , I thought Grýla for NIGHT SHIFT would be fun, too. Thorsteinn1996, CC BY-SA 4.0 Grýla 8th level Witch Strength: 17 (+2) Agility: 13 (+1) Constitution: 16 (+2) S Intelligence: 14 (+1) Wits: 18 (+3) P Persona: 9 (+0)  HP: 51 Alignment: Dark AC: 2 Attack: +1 Fate Points: 1d8 Check Bonus (P/S/T): +4/+3/+1 Melee bonus: +2 Ranged bonus: +1 Saves: +4 against spells and magical effects Witch Abilities Arcana, Supernatural Senses, Spells, Arcane Powers, Arcane Powers Immunity to Cold, Charm Person, Shapeshifting Spells First Lev...
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Santa Claus and the Friday the 13th Christmas Special for NIGHT SHIFT

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I have been working a lot on NIGHT SHIFT  and Wasted Lands  lately, so I see everything through this lens.  So when one of my friends on Facebook posted this idea, you know, I had to run with it.  It is not too far-fetched, as the images of Santa and Father Christmas come to us from the legends of Odin wandering the land in disguise, giving gifts to children. So, for NIGHT SHIFT, imagine this: It is December 13, but it is also Friday the 13th (like today). A group of kids is back from college and getting ready for Christmas. They all get together and talk about how they all nearly died at Camp Crystal Lake one summer. The memories and the date summon Jason Voorhees to start killing again. I imagine a sad and angry Santa Claus (I mean, if Jason is real, why not Santa).   "I knew those children, Freya!" he told Mrs. Claus. "Billy. Susie. Ann. They were on the Nice List most of the time. They were all good kids!"     Mrs. Claus watched him fo...
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Thirteen Parsecs Books Ready to Ship

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 New pictures from Elf-in-Chief, Jason Vey. Palettes of Thirteen Parsecs books have arrived and shipping will be starting! Palette of Thirteen Parsecs books Thirteen Parsecs covers Thirteen Parsecs interiors With present speeds, travelling to the 13 Parsecs to the Solar Frontier will take 100s of thousands of years, if not into the millions. Thankfully, Thirteen Parsecs the RPG is much closer and backers will be getting their copies much sooner than that! Not a backer? That's fine, you can still get copies at our store .  https://www.elflair.com/13p
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