Guest posting by Tim Brannan   My kids got me into SCP . Or, more accurately, they told me all about it, pointed me toward the Wiki, and then left me standing there staring at what appears to be several lifetimes’ worth of lore. I am very new to SCP. The sheer amount of material is honestly a little overwhelming, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But I am a horror RPG designer. So once I started reading, one thought kept coming back to me: Can I run this with NIGHT SHIFT ? That answer is absolutely yes . Running this with NIGHT SHIFT: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars? I would say yes. In fact, the more I look it over, the more I am convinced NIGHT SHIFT is already a near-perfect fit for an SCP-style campaign. Now, I do not mean in the sense of replicating every scrap of SCP lore or re-creating each Foundation department and classification. The old hands at SCP know that side of things far better than I do. What I have in mind is the game's fundamental structure. You have...

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 ...

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.

 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. 

 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. 

 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...

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...

 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

 It's Tuesday and that means time to see what new release has caught my eye, and today's is close to home. Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Fate Deck Wasted Lands is on its way to becoming my Fantasy RPG of choice. One of the things I love about it is the Fate Point system. Well, Elf Lair Games just released a new set of Fate Cards as a supplement to the game.  From the DriveThruRPG page: This deck of Tarot-sized cards includes 72 special effect cards designed for the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age RPG, but intuitive to use with almost any RPG, especially those designed for OSR or the World's Most Famous RPG. Also included are two double-sided cards with guidelines on using the deck, how it can complement or replace Fate Points or other Player Agency mechanics in your game. Add some dynamic excitement and surprise to your game with the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Fate Deck!  This deck is also 100% compatible with other Powered by O.G.R.E.S. games, including Night Shif...

 In the realm of tabletop gaming, there's a timeless allure to the simplicity and flexibility of old-school rules. As avid gamers, we know the joy of gathering around a table, dice in hand, ready to embark on epic adventures. But what if I told you that the same rules that govern medieval dungeons can seamlessly transport you to the far reaches of space? Enter the realm of science fiction tabletop RPGs, where the classic mechanics of the original white box fantasy game can be repurposed to create captivating sci-fi narratives without reinventing the wheel. So, how exactly do we adapt the classic, original version of the World's Most Famous RPG to suit a futuristic setting? Let's dive into the specifics: Image courtesy of Dreamstime.com Character Classes In White Box gaming, character classes like Fighting Man, Magic-User, and Cleric form the backbone of the game. While these classes may seem tailored for fantasy settings, they can easily be reimagined for sci-fi adventures....

 Well, folks, the Elf Lair Crew has gone our separate ways once again (we're scattered across three states) and are back home, settled, and (at least in my case) fighting off the old CON CRUD(TM). The con was an absolute blast, with tons of highlights, and I'm not ashamed to say that in a very real way, it may have saved Elf Lair Games.  Resurrecting the Cabal Back in my Eden Studios days (which I honestly still have strong hopes will come again one day - I would dearly love to work on some more Unisystem stuff in the future), I hooked up with two of the greatest guys and game designers you could ever hope to work with: Timothy S. Brannan and Derek Stoelting. Many of you follow Tim's blog, The Other Side .  My main role at Eden was to work on All Flesh Must Be Eaten! sourcebooks, of which I wrote or co-wrote three. Derek also did most of his work on AFMBE, and he was a convention organizer and GM wrangler for cons. Tim was heavily focused on the cinematic end of the spec...

 I recently asked my Friday gaming group what they wanted to see in a sci-fi game that most games they've played don't address. Universally they said they wanted to see some sort of mechanic that reflects just how "f***ing terrifying" traveling in space is. As they put it, it's so much more than just space battles. You can get clobbered by an asteroid that you didn't see coming. You can have an explosive decompression from a hairline fault in the hull that nobody saw. Your computers could blue screen and life support goes out while you're in hypersleep.  Space travel is, indeed, scary just at its basic concept. Hell, in the space of twenty years, the United States saw two space shuttles explode from random malfunctions or faults that were overlooked on inspections. Now think about what happens when you're out there for years! So I started thinking how to mimic that idea in an RPG, and what happened was, I completely overhauled the starship rules in Thi...

 The time approaches, folks! With Wasted Lands not only in the bag but now officially in distribution, we at Elf Lair Games are turning towards our next project, hoping to keep some momentum going. This one will be our science fiction RPG and will complete our trilogy of fantasy, modern, and sci-fi games that allow you to play any game you want in any genre and any style, all with a single system.  Coming in May, all of your games can be Powered by O.G.R.E.S.   So let's look at what Thirteen Parsecs: Beyond the Solar Frontier has to offer.  Thirteen Parsecs: Advetures Beyond the Solar Frontier is a tabletop roleplaying game of adventure and excitement in the wild realms of science fiction. Whether it's a pair of FBI agents battling a clandestine alien invasion in the modern day, a far future war between heroic rebels and evil interstellar empires, a gritty cyberpunk dystopia, or a hard science exploration of the nature of humanity, this came can cover it all! The ...

  Civilization in the Dreaming Age Cities, Towns, and Villages Welcome to what I hope will be a regular series of blogs breaking down the Dreaming Age campaign setting, which may in the future be compiled and expanded to form one or more new sourcebooks for the Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age Role Playing Game. This first section will look at the nature of cities, towns, and villages.  It is a mistake to think about civilization in the Dreaming Age as the same as other typical fantasy (and even swords and sorcery) settings. While the descriptions of the regions-cum-kingdoms do mention rulers and major settlements, they are absolutely not true kingdoms or empires in the sense that we think of these things. Nor are there many true cities throughout the world - quite frankly, there are simply not enough proto-humans to support such things as metropolises.  The vast majority of settlements in the Dreaming Age are villages and hamlets with potentially hundreds of miles of unta...