October Horror Movie Challenge: Queen of Bones (2023)

 Another pick by my wife. Now, typically when she picks the movie, I get a veto power if it is under a certain IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rating. She doesn't like to look at the ratings beforehand. This one did not have very good ratings at all, 4.6 on IMBD and no rating at all on Rotten Tomatoes; neither a good sign. But we watched it anyway and really liked it. This in a large part due to the performances by  Martin Freeman and Julia Butters. 

Plus, it is a perfect Witchcraft Wednesday movie.

Queen of Bones (2023)

Fearful or religious men (often the same thing) have always feared women’s autonomy. History has shown that whenever a woman becomes too independent, too willful, too curious, too powerful, someone slaps the word witch on her and decides she needs to be “saved.” That’s the heart of Queen of Bones, a quiet, moody folk horror film that takes place not in the 1600s but in 1930s rural America.

Martin Freeman plays Malcolm, a widowed father raising his daughter Lily (Julia Butters, who’s fantastic) and son Samuel (Jacob Tremblay) in a house thick with secrets. At first, Malcolm seems decent enough, even tender in his grief. But as Lily begins to change, both in body and in strange, supernatural ways, his love curdles into fear. We slowly realize that he’s not just haunted by what happened to Lily’s mother… he’s terrified his daughter might become her.

That dynamic drives the film’s tension. Lily starts having dreams, visions, and odd encounters in the woods. The line between puberty and possession blurs. Is she cursed? Chosen? Or simply awakening to her own power in a world that can’t tolerate that? By the time the third act arrives, the answer feels almost inevitable: Malcolm would rather destroy her than let her become something he can’t control.

It’s not subtle, but that’s fine, it isn’t supposed to be. Queen of Bones plays like a postscript to Robert Eggers' The Witch, set 300 years later but fueled by the same fear: that the feminine divine, if left unchecked, would upend the patriarchal order. It’s witch panic dressed in Depression-era grief, with dust, silence, and old ghosts in every corner.

There’s a scene late in the film, no spoilers, where Lily finally confronts what her father did to her mother. It’s devastating, not just for the violence but for the certainty behind it. Malcolm truly believes he’s doing God’s work. That’s what makes him the monster.

What I loved about this film, and what I think most critics seem to have missed, is how subtle its magic is. It’s not a jump-scare movie. It’s an awakening movie. The horror here isn’t in the witchcraft, it’s in the control. Freeman gives one of his best performances as a man eaten alive by righteousness, and Butters is mesmerizing as Lily, teetering between innocence and fury.

This isn’t The Witch, no. But it shares the same DNA: a girl’s coming-of-age framed as an act of rebellion against divine tyranny. The difference is, this one suggests the witch’s power was always there just waiting for her to claim it.

Queen of Bones might not be perfect, but it’s important. It’s quiet horror with something to say about generational trauma, religious oppression, and the terror of becoming yourself. The final moments hit like a benediction and a curse all at once.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Let's be honest here. 

I you can't see the RPG potential here I am not sure you are reading the right blog. Generational witches are a topic I discuss frequently here. Like obsessively so.

I wonder what Lily's life would have been like after the movie? She would have been 23 near the start of WWII, in her 40s when the Beatles came to America, her 60s when the 80s began and so on. Interesting. 

For NIGHT SHIT, it’s a modern folk-horror story transplanted to a rural, Depression-era America where witchcraft is whispered about in sermons. A perfect slow-burn scenario: something ancient stirs in the woods, and the townsfolk are eager to call it Satanic. The PCs could arrive as outsiders—teachers, doctors, or priests, only to discover the true evil that resides within the house. Or a perfect Call of Cthulhu game that doesn't involve the Mythos. 

For my Occult D&D ideas, it is a good example of how witchcraft is inherited via bloodlines, and there are witch families.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 25
First Time Views: 23

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Chill

The depth of my love for Chill knows no bounds.  

I am continuing to focus my Fantasy Fridays on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror, and less on these games being a “D&D Replacement.”

And for me, no game sits more firmly in that sweet spot of horror and urban fantasy than Chill.

Chill was my first RPG after D&D, and it has stayed with me ever since. I still remember flipping through the Pacesetter box and realizing this game wasn’t about dungeons or dragons, it was about the dark places just outside your door. It’s a game about the things you whisper about, the shadows you hope never notice you, and the brave (or foolish) people who stand up to fight them.

The Core of Chill

Across its three editions, the spirit of the game has remained intact. The secret society of SAVE, the Societas Argenti Viae Eternitata, provides players with an immediate reason to join the fight against the supernatural. The Unknown itself is the real adversary, a collection of folklore and fear that resists easy definition. Unlike Call of Cthulhu, Chill does not end with despair. Unlike World of Darkness, it does not try to make the monsters alluring. Most importantly, it doesn’t require the “epic heroics” of D&D or Pathfinder. The Unknown is terrifying and often lethal, but it can be fought.

The tone of play always reminded me more of Kolchak: The Night Stalker than Lovecraft. Later, when shows like X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Supernatural came along, they felt like they could have been written as Chill campaigns. It is a game about mysteries and folklore, about investigating hauntings and cryptids, and about facing the terrors that slip into our world when no one else will. The monsters are not just stat blocks to be defeated; they are creatures that feel like they have stepped out of legend and into your story. More importantly, each monster was special. Even when it was just a "monster of the week" it still meant something. From vampires and Wendigos to Elizabeth Bathory herself, the creatures of Chill are more than just stat blocks. They feel like they crawled out of real-world legends and onto your gaming table. 

What You Can Do With Chill

Chill is wonderfully adaptable. I have used it to run Buffy-style adventures before there was a Buffy RPG, Kolchak investigations, and even material that began in Ghosts of Albion. It thrives in the modern day, but it also works in Victorian gaslight, or the occult revival of the 1970s with its bell-bottoms and Ouija boards. The mechanics are approachable and lean toward story, so it is a natural fit for short Halloween one-shots as well as longer campaigns.

One of the joys of Chill for me has been bringing recurring characters into it. I have created versions of many of my characters for many systems, but Chill has always felt like one of the most natural homes for them. Characters in Chill are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger, and that is exactly the kind of story I have always enjoyed doing.

Why Chill Stands Out

What makes Chill endure is the way it carves out its own place among horror RPGs. Call of Cthulhu leans into inevitability and madness. World of Darkness often leans into seduction and corruption. Dungeons & Dragons calls for epic heroics and high fantasy. Chill stands apart. It is a game about people who could be your neighbors, co-workers, or friends, suddenly forced to confront the shadows that lurk behind familiar walls. Victories are rare, but when they come, they feel earned. That balance of fear and fight is what keeps me coming back. 

It gives you ordinary people with extraordinary courage, standing in the dark with nothing but a flashlight, some folklore, and the hope they can survive until dawn.

Chill is available in both the 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition rules.  The mechanical differences are minor. Chill 3rd Edition is a bit better organized and presented. 

The Early-Middle Years Campaign

If Little Fears is a childhood belief made into rules, then Chill feels like the story of what happens when those childhood terrors never really go away. It is a game for the middle years of life, when you are old enough to understand that monsters should not be real, yet still young enough to feel the raw shock when you discover they are.

In this sense, Chill is the perfect start to a “middle chapter” of a larger horror Lifespan Campaign. Dark Places & Demogorgons can cover the later childhood and early teen years. Monsterhearts or Buffy can cover the chaos of all the teenage years, but Chill is where the players step into early adulthood. Bills need paying, jobs need doing, but there are still nights when something crawls out of the dark, and it is up to you to stop it. Adulthood in Chill is defined not by power or responsibility, but by resilience.

Characters are rarely specialists or superheroes; they are people in over their heads who choose to fight back anyway. That resilience is what makes victories against the Unknown so satisfying. Chill is about holding on to courage, even when everything around you insists you should not. 

A starting Chill character is a fragile thing, but it is assumed they have what it takes to survive. 

Larina Macalister, nee Nichols, for Chill

So we have been moving through the years. In this, I am opting for the Chill 2nd Edition timeline, circa 1992. Larina is 22 years old. She has been living in Scotland for a couple of years now. She was an exchange student from the University of Chicago to St. Andrews University. She graduated with a degree in library sciences and early medieval history. She is currently a GA at St. Andrews. While here, she met, fell in love with, and married Eric Macalister. An Irish ex-pat living in Scotland. She later learns he is on the run because he is a former IRA sharphooter. I had watched Patriot Games when I came up with all of this in the late 1990s. In fact, this setup is all based on a WitchCraftRPG game I played with her. At the time, I worked out conversions in Excel for Chill, WitchCraft, and AD&D. These Chill stats are some of the oldest I have shared.

While I am basing all this background on Chill 2nd Ed, I am going to present her newer Chill 3rd Edition stats below. 

This Larina is fresh out of her undergrad days and working on her MA. She married, but life is not all marital bliss (she will be divorced and back in America by the time she is 25). She works with her friend Prof. Scot Elders and his wife, and her best friend Heather.  At some point, Larina learns that Elders worked for S.A.V.E. She is brought in, but she isn't trusted since her training in "The Art" has been haphazard and largely self-taught since she was 13. 

S.A.V.E. wants to evaluate her, but they had their own troubles in the early 1990s. 

Larina Macalister
22 years old, American citizen (married to an Irish citizen) living in Scotland on a student visa.

Larina in 1992.

Attributes

Agility AGL: 60
Strength STR: 50  (Injury: __)
Stamina STA: 55

Focus FOC: 80
Personality PSY: 70
Willpower WRP: 75   (Trauma: __)

Dexterity DEX:  60
Perception PCN: 80
Reflexes REF: 70

Sensing the Unknown STU: 40

Skills (Specializations)

Movement 30
Prowess 25
Close Quarters Combat 25

Research 40, Academics (E+30), Occult (E+30)
Communication Empathy (E+30), Deception (B+15)
Interview 38 Academic (E+30), Counselor (B+15)

Fieldcraft 30
Investigation 40 Relics (B+15)
Ranged Weapons 35

The Art

Communicative (PSY)
  Attunement: Follow the Strings
  - Telepathic Empathy (B)

Incorporeal
  Attunement: Eyes of the Dead

Kinetic (DEX)
  Attunement: Schematic
  - Hidden Hand (E)

Protective (FOC)
  Attunement: Disrupt
  - Blessing (B)
  - Line of Defense (B)

Sensing
  Attunement: Third Eye
  - Clairvoyant (B)

Edges and Drawbacks

Attractive 1, Highly Attuned 1, Pet (cat) 2
Hunted (Shadow Girl) -2, Marked -1, Reluctant to Harm -2

Drive To understand The Art and The Unknown

History

1975: Visited by ghosts and other spirits (gains Incorporeal ART)
1983: Develops Kinetic and Sensing Arts
1989: Travels to Scotland
1990: Recruited by S.A.V.E., same year married Eric Macalister
1991: Begins MA program at St. Andrews.

--

New to 3rd Edition are Focus and Reflexes. Also, Luck is now gone.

Her stats are pretty high for a starting character, but not high if you consider the Lifespan Campaign. She was seeing ghosts at 5 or 6, had control of various Arts by age 13. Because of this, she is largely self-taught. Her magical aptitude is a mile wide, but only inches deep at this point. 

I am bringing back the Shadow Girl, who, she had forgotten, from Little Fears. Maybe this creature is Larina's Never Was? And something happened in either DP&D or Monsterhearts that has caused her to decide she can use her Art to harm anyone. She hurt someone and has not gotten over it. 

Herein lies the most significant issue surrounding the Lifespan Campaign: moving characters and their abilities/powers from one game to the next. It can be done, but it is a challenge. Or, more to the point, a challenge to do it and not break some of the fundamental tenets of the game. Larina above should almost be a threat to S.A.V.E., not a consultant. Part of this balance also influences the narrative structure. What is real for that game world? You have to strip all that out and build your own world where the games fit.

Final Thoughts

Chill is not just another horror RPG for me. It was my first real step beyond D&D, my second RPG ever, and the one that showed me roleplaying games could be more than fantasy adventures. They could be mysteries, ghost stories, and urban legends made real.

Whether I’m reading the battered Pacesetter books, the sleek Mayfair volumes, or the modern 3rd edition, the heart of Chill never changes: ordinary people, extraordinary courage, and the eternal struggle against the Unknown.

For all the years and all the editions, that is why Chill remains one of my all-time favorites.

Links

• Chill,
• Cryptworld, 1st Edition clone
• 2nd Edition
• 3rd Edition
• My Chill Reviews,
• 1st Edition Pacesetter
• 2nd Edition, Mayfair Games
• 3rd Edition, Growling Door/Martin Carron
• Frightshow Classics Adventures
• My adventures, Golem and The Nightmare
• Other Reviews,
• The Children of Chill (Cryptworld, Majus, RotWorld)
• Chill 3rd Ed Quickstart - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
• Characters
• Megan O'Kelly (Spirit of '76)
• Wayward Sisters (Supernatural)
• Fran & Miriam, the Vampyres
• First Edition
• Third Edition
• Willow & Tara

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Little Fears

It is October! You know what that means around here. For all of October, I am going to focus my "Fantasy Fridays" on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror and less on these games being a "D&D Replacement."

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

When was the last time you were really, really afraid? Most people would say childhood.  Little Fears is exactly about that.  Little Fears is a game of childhood fears.  The monsters are real; they hide in your closet and under your bed. The scary old lady down the street really is a hag. But don’t worry. You are protected by Belief, and items that seem mundane or meaningless to grown-ups can help you.   Little Fears is based on a simple system, as befitting its nature of school children fighting monsters that adults can’t see. 

Little Fears also has the notoriety of being one of three RPGs that one of my FLGS will not sell openly.  You can order it, but they don’t stock it.  I disagree, but I respect their choice.

Little Fears is a game of Childhood Horrors.  Simple enough.  As a father, I have been up many nights, sleepily fighting one bogeyman or another.  Thankfully, most bogeymen are terrified of my "huh? go back to sleep" speech cause I have never seen them.  But maybe once upon a time I did.  I am reminded of a Charmed episode where a little girl was being attacked by little bogey-like creatures, and the Charmed Ones, being adults, could not see them.  They had to cast a spell to be more childlike (with accompanying wackiness) to see the threat.  That was the hook I was going to use to get my group to play Little Fears one day.  Turn their characters into kids, and to keep them off guard, I was going to take their Unisystem sheets and give them Little Fears sheets instead, and then not tell them all the rules.  The Little Fears book makes a big issue about kids living in an adult world and not knowing or understanding the rules.  Frankly, I thought it was brilliant, but it never happened.

Little Fears plays like that.  Only more so.  Monsters are defined by the character's fear but also by their belief.  In some ways, playing LF with adults is a bit like playing D&D with really young kids.  They want to be the player AND the DM.  In LF the characters and players can change the nature of the game in overt or subtle ways.

The rules are very simple, really.  The system is a d6 dice pool based on abilities or qualities.  Monsters are built similarly to characters, though they are tougher, generally speaking.  The damage system reminds me of Mutants and Masterminds a bit and is also pretty simple.   Emphasis, though, in this game is not how many monsters you can kill, but how well you role-play the monster you nearly escaped from and lived to tell your friends about (because they have seen the same monster, but have been too afraid to tell you).  Little Fears is one of the most role-play-heavy games I have read in a very long time.  If you only like to hit things with pointy metal sticks or throw fireballs, then this might not be your game.  If the idea of playing something that is akin to "Kult Jr." or "C.J. Carella's WitchCraft Babies," then this is the game for you.

There is an overarching malaise, though, over Little Fears.  I get depressed reading it, I have to admit.  Maybe it is because I am a father and I know how those little kids feel to be afraid, alone, and powerless.  I guess the counterargument is that they are not powerless or alone, really.

The Lifespan Campaign

One idea I’ve toyed with is the Lifespan Campaign: taking characters from childhood through adolescence, young adulthood, and into older years across different horror systems. Each stage of life would utilize a different RPG: Little Fears for childhood, perhaps Dark Places & Demogorgons, Monsterhearts or Buffy for the teenage years, WitchCraft for adulthood, and Kult or Call of Cthulhu for the endgame. I love this approach because each game has a distinct “rule set” that reflects how life feels at different ages. 

Childhood is governed by Belief. Adolescence by Drama. Adulthood by Responsibility. Old age by Fragility. Or something like that. I reserve the right to tweak these ideas.

It’s a long campaign dream, but Little Fears is the perfect opening chapter.

Larina Nichols for Little Fears

Let's try out this idea. I have already established that Larina began to hear The Call of the Goddess when she was six years old. Around the same time, children have imaginary friends. In this universe, that would be the same time a Little Fears game would begin.

Little Larina and a ghost.

My name is Larina Nichols
I am a 6-year-old girl.
My birthday is October 25.

Concept: Outsider/Quiet kid

Abilities

Move: ØØOOOO 2

Fight: ØOOOOO 1

Think: ØØØOOO 3

Speak: ØØOOOO 2

Care: ØØØOOO 3

Traits

Good: I can Fight well when I am angry.

Bad: It’s hard for me to Think when I'm scared.

Virtues

Belief 7

Wits: scared ØØØØØ|ØØØOO calm

Spirit: dark ØØØØØ|ØØØØØ light (whole)

Qualities

I am the smart girl  +2
- I know words the teacher hasn't taught yet. +1
- I love books. +1

I am Curious +1

I am Brave +1

I see Scary Things -2

I don't fit in -1

I feel (Care)

fine ØØØØØØØ|OOO
sore ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-2)
bad ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-4)
cold ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-6)

My Stuff

My "Book of Monsters" +3
- "Names" monsters so they can't hurt me +1 to Armor
- Gives me advice on how to beat them +1 to Fight
- lets me talk to Monsters +1 to Speak

Pendant +2
- Glows when danger is near
- Protects me +1 to Wits

"Dragon tooth" (really some baked clay) +2
- Lucky +1
- Protects me +1 to Care

Questionnaire

My best friend is...Aurora. She is a year older.
The One Grown-up I can Trust is...Mrs. Jess, my 1st grade teacher. I think she used to be a witch.
Once I Lost...my stuffed bunny Jackson. 
He was special because...he would protect me from ghosts.

The One Place Monsters can't get me is...Dad's library. They are afraid of his books and music.
The One Thing Monsters can't touch is...my star pendant. 
I Don't Go near...basement.
Beacuse...the Shadow-girl lives there and she is not like other ghosts.

My biggest fear is...fire. 

A Little About Me
The Thing I like Least about Myself is...kids make fun of my hair and nose.
The Thing that always gets me into trouble is...when the ghosts bother me and I yell at them to stop.
When I get scared I...bite my nails. My mom hates that.

Family
I live in a one-story house with an attic and a basement that's a bit scary. With my mom (Stephanie) and my dad (Lars). I have a kitten named Cottonball who is small, white, and super fuzzy. The ghost of an old woman lives in the attic, but she is not mean and keeps the other ghosts away.

The Shadow-girl lives in the basement. She looks like a ghost, but isn't. She tells me she is going to take me and live as me. Shadow-girl will sometimes do bad things around the house, and I get blamed for it.

Goals

Short-term: I want to be braver around the older kids.

Long-term: I want to get rid of the Shadow-Girl

Secret

Knows her friend Aurora is being abused. She told a teacher, and then Aurora was gone for a long time. 

-

This is quite a good system for figuring out who your character is, or rather, was back then. There are things here I have thought about for Larina that I have never actually explored in other games; her fear of fire yes, but also how she sees ghosts all the time, and her interactions with "The Shadow-girl" a demonic presence in her early life. 

Going through this, I also decided that in a modern game, she would have been advanced a grade due to her intelligence, but was she emotionally ready? AND how does all of this affect the character I would play in Buffy, Chill, or Kult?

As a reminder that it is a weighty game with some weighty issues, I went ahead and put in Larina's secret about Aurora. Larina feels like it is her fault that Aurora was gone for so long. As mentioned above, this game challenges you to confront a range of childhood fears.

Final Thoughts

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition isn’t just “kids fight monsters.” It’s about capturing that liminal space between innocence and terror, where imagination and fear are indistinguishable. It’s a heavy game, sometimes even depressing, but it’s also brilliant in its design and focus.

While it is a game about children, it is not a game for children.  The subject matter of abuse and death can be a bit much for some adults, let alone kids.  So consider this your warning about the issues covered here. 

Little Fears might also be one of the most effective horror games I have ever played. Chill, Kult, WoD, CoC, WitchCraft are all great and I love them all, but Little Fears is different and the power structure between what you can do and what you need to do is such that it is a scary, scary game.

If you want a horror RPG that digs deeper than gore and jump scares, one that makes you feel vulnerable again, this is it. Buy it. Play it. Even if it unsettles you. Because once you’ve cracked open Little Fears, you’ll never look at butterflies (or teddy bears, or shadows) quite the same way again.

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Supernatural (Special Edition)

 This year I have been celebrating various Fantasy RPGs and judging them on their ability to replace D&D. For October I am going to focus instead on Urban Fantasy games with Horror elements to them; something I rather love. 

This past week, instead of gaming, my son and I worked on characters. I was working on characters for my Urban Fantasy Fridays and he was doing Call of Cthulhu 7th ed. We got to talking while listening to his "D&D Classic Rock mix" when the subject came around to the Supernatural series. We both commented on how this September was the 20th anniversary of the show's premiere (September 13, 2005). We all agreed we had a lot of fun watching it. It was the last show we all watched together as a family, you know, before the kids got their own lives. Liam lamented that there was no Supernatural RPG. To which I corrected him and pulled it out.  He was pretty excited about it, to be honest. 

So we dropped the games we were working on (him CoC7, me Chill 3rd Edition) to recreate the same characters in Supernatural.

Supernatural RPG

2009. by Jamie Chambers. Published by Margaret Weiss Productions.

Supernatural: The Role Playing Game came out in 2009 from Margaret Weis Productions, back when they were adapting a lot of TV properties into RPG form. Like Smallville and Battlestar Galactica, this one used the Cortex System (the pre-Cortex Plus version). That alone puts it in a particular place in RPG history, when licensed games were less about “crunch” and more about catching the mood of the show.

I am somewhat hesitant to review this one. The big reason is that it is long out of print. You can find it on eBay for some really insane prices. The other reason is it only covers Supernatural up to Season 3; so about 20% of the show. There is a lot in the show that is not covered by these rules. Lastly, and this one is hard, it doesn't really *do* anything that other games can also do. The system itself, Cortex, is like a bastard child of Unisystem and Savage Worlds. 

The book is great looking and there is a lot here in terms of use and layout that will later be seen in the Dresden Files RPG. 

So I am taking this one out of my "Urban Fantasy Fridays" proper, but still giving it its own due by placing it in Supernatural's premiere month. 

As you’d expect, this game built for monster hunting, salt, shotguns, and a healthy dose of bad family drama. The book does a good job of introducing newcomers to the Supernatural world, but if you were watching the show back then, it was a nice way to immerse yourself in that universe at home. Characters are hunters, of course, though not necessarily Sam and Dean. You can make your own, or play with archetypes drawn right from the show. Sam, Dean, John (their dad), and Bobby (their other dad) are the only featured NPCs.

Mechanically, it’s pure Cortex: roll a couple of dice based on your traits and hope for the best, with plot points to keep the action flowing. It’s not a heavy system and fits the episodic structure of Supernatural really well, you can knock out a “case of the week” in a session or two. The downside is that it doesn’t dig too deep into campaign longevity; it’s really tuned for one-shots and short arcs rather than sprawling epics. Which is ironic given the show's eventual 15-year-long life. 

Looking back, the game is a time capsule. The series was still early in its run (season three), so it reflects Supernatural before it got truly cosmic. So no Crowley, no Castiel, and sadly no Rowena. That makes it more urban horror and road-trip mystery than angels, Leviathans, and end-of-the-world plots. In a way, that’s a strength, it captures the weird Americana vibe that made those early seasons fun.

It’s out of print now, and not easy to find at a reasonable price. Still, as a piece of the Cortex lineage and a reflection of Supernatural’s monster-of-the-week roots, it’s worth a look for fans. For me, it sits on the shelf next to Chill, NIGHT SHIFT, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, a reminder of when urban horror TV and RPGs crossed streams in fun and exciting ways.

Expanding the Supernatural RPG Universe

I mentioned above Cortex in this version feels like the bastard child of Unisystem (Buffy, WitchCraft) and Savage Worlds (Rippers, etc.) so expanding the RPG options of Supernatural are fairly easy.

I even have a few posts about it already, back when this game first came out.

• Supernatural RPG
• Cortex and Unisystem
• Magic in Cortex, Savage Worlds and Witch Girls Adventures
• Supernatural & Smallville
• Cortex, Part 1

I have used these ideas at varying degrees to make some new characters, espeically expanding the Supernatural universe to include witches and even succubi. 

• Wayward Sisters for the Supernatural RPG
• Cortex: The Hex Girls
• Willow & Tara: Cortex

Each one uses a slightly different type of witchcraft/magic system, and that works fine with me. None is "perfect" as far as I am concerned, but I am sure I could craft one.

In truth if I was going to play Supernatural these days, I would just use NIGHT SHIFT. 

But, I'll give magic/witchcraft one last try for Supernatural/Cotrtex.

Larina "Nix" Nichols for Supernatural

Would my witch be in the Supernatural universe? I have to say honestly, not likely. Witches are generally evil or at least up to no good in Supernatural. And anything she would do in the game can already be done by the witch and future Queen of Hell, Rowena MacLeod. But hey, this is my universe.

Larina Nichols

Concept: Witch (Seasoned)

Attributes
Agility: d6
Strength: d4
Vitality: d6
Alertness: d12
Intelligence: d12
Willpower: d12+d2

Derived Attributes
Initiative: d6+d12
Endurance: d6+d12+d2
Life Points: 20
Resistance: d6+d6

Weapons
Knife d2
Arcane Blast d8, Range: 40 Ammo 6 (Vitality)

Skills
Animals d6, Artistry d4, Craft d6, Discipline d4 (Concentration d6), Influence d10, Knowledge d8 (Linguistics d10, Occult d10), Lore d6 (Demons d8), Perception d6 (Empathy d8, Intuition d8), Performance d4, Ranged Weapons d4, Science d6 (Social Sciences d8), Unarmed Combat d4

Traits
Allure d6
Witch d8 (Telekinesis, Arcane Blast, ESP)
Obsessed (Magic) -d2
Dark Secret (Witch) -d4

Honestly, I like this build. I need to refine the magic system further, but this will certainly suffice. I don't think she would show up on the main Supernatural series. Witches end up in a bad way when Sam and Dead are around. No, if she is going to be a "guest star," then it has to be on Wayward Sisters. Avoids her and Rowena from sharing the same scenes. The group would seek her out for occult advice, not knowing she is a witch. And in proper Supernatural fashion, she even has her own soundtrack to choose from!

I should post Rowena, but she is basically similar to this, only more powerful (as she should be). 

Doing this does make me nostalgic for the show. 

Fantasy Fridays: King Arthur Pendragon

When it comes to legendary role-playing games, few carry the mythic weight of King Arthur Pendragon. Originally created by Greg Stafford in 1985 and in 2016 published in its 5.2 edition. Chaosium owns it again and there is a new (2024) edition out.  I have not picked that one up, so I am sticking with 5.2 for now. Pendragon has always stood apart from its fantasy cousins. Where Dungeons & Dragons gave us dungeons, monsters, and treasure, Pendragon asks us to sit at the Round Table, wrestle with honor and passion, and live out the great romances and tragedies of Arthurian legend. Still, it is an epic RPG and one worth looking into.

King Arthur Pendragon (5.2)

2016. Greg Stafford.

Greg Stafford often called Pendragon his “masterpiece,” and for good reason. He poured decades of study into Arthurian myth, Malory, Chretien, the Welsh triads and built a system designed not just to simulate combat but to embody the ideals and contradictions of chivalry. Over the years, the rules have been polished but never really overhauled. The 5.2 edition (2016) is a refinement of the earlier 5th, cleaning up layout, clarifying rules, and giving new players the most accessible entry point into the game’s deep traditions. I picked up my old 2nd Edition version and it is remarkable how compatible they are with each other. 

The system is similar to Chaosium's Basic Role-playing system. So it has always been sorta-kinda compatible with Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, though the years and system assumptions have pushed them all away from the BRP standard. You won't be seeing Yog-Sothoth showing up in Wales anytime soon with this game. No Pendragon is for people who want to play an Arthurian game and respect the scholarship that went into this game. That is not to say there isn't magic in this game; Morgan le Fey is here after all as is Merlin, but it is not a central theme. 

The game itself is a fantasy realized epic Britain of the 5th and 6th centuries, with the style of the High Medieval Periods of the 10th to 15th centuries. You can play it as a strict Dark Ages game or a high-fantastical one, as seen in the popular King Arthur culture. You can do "Excalibur" or even the TV show "Merlin."

I am using the 5.2 version of the rules, which if you asked me, I could not tell you the difference between it and the 5.1 version save for new color art in 5.2, some reorganization, and different cover art. While I think the 5.1 art is more evocative of the game, I can't deny that the 5.2 version is extremely attractive. I have not updated to the full 2024 edition at all, but it looks attractive as well. I do have the Starter Set in PDF, though. Maybe I'll pick it up someday.

Character Creation

Instead of rolling up wandering adventurers, you take up the mantle of knights (and occasionally others) tied to lineage, land, and loyalty. The core stats are familiar, Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Size, but where Pendragon shines are the Traits and Passions. Traits are moral-ethical pairs (Chaste/Lustful, Merciful/Cruel, etc.) that don’t just describe your knight, they drive play. Roll Merciful in the wrong moment, and your knight may act against your intentions, because that’s what stories do. Passions, like Loyalty (Lord) or Love (Family), give bonuses when invoked, but can also shatter a knight’s will if betrayed.

Character creation is as much about heritage as numbers. You’re asked: Who was your father? What did he earn? What land do you hold? Your knight isn’t a blank slate, but part of a saga. And unlike most RPGs, Pendragon expects you to play not just one knight, but their descendants across generations, carrying your family name into the twilight of Camelot. Something that obviously appeals to me.

It is assumed that players will be creating characters together to form some sort of cohesive narrative. There is a lot of freedom here and role-playing is stressed over "roll-playing."

The chapter assumes you are going to be a starting Knight, well, Squire. I am taking a different approach for my characters. 

Chapter Three: Family and Fatherland is notable since it details the experiences of your father and grandfather. If you are so inclined, it can be adapted to any Feudal Fantasy RPG. Just change the years to whatever makes sense in your game. 

The Pendragon Campaign

No review of Pendragon is complete without mentioning The Pendragon Campaign. First published in 1985, and then later as The Great Pendragon Campaign in 2006, this massive tome lays out a year-by-year chronicle of Arthur’s Britain, from the final days of Uther through the rise, glory, and eventual fall of Camelot. That’s over 80 years of history, adventures, and story hooks, meticulously tied to the mechanics of the game.

The brilliance of the Pendragon Campaign isn’t just its scope, but its structure. Each year has events, rumors, and opportunities for your knights (or their descendants) to shape the story. Early sessions might be about Saxon raids and border skirmishes, while later ones touch on the Grail Quest, courtly romance, and the heartbreaking dissolution of the Round Table. Players get to live through the entire legend, sometimes gloriously, sometimes tragically, but always with a sense of being part of something larger than their character sheet.

For Pendragon, the Pendragon Campaign is more than a campaign guide or adventure path, it’s the framework that shows the system’s true purpose. This isn’t a game about “beating the dungeon” or “killing the dragon.” It’s about legacy, dynasties, and the arc of myth. And its influence has quietly rippled into other games. Long campaigns like The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1986) or Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu (1984) were the rage at this time and the Pendragon Campaign shines even among these other memorable campaigns.  Even modern campaign design in games like Pathfinder’s Adventure Paths or D&D’s hardcover campaigns can be seen as walking in the shadow of what Pendragon pioneered.

For me, the Pendragon Campaign is a reminder of what tabletop RPGs can do at their very best: give us not just a night of fun, but a saga, a shared legend that lingers long after the dice are put away.

Johan Werper and Larina Nix for Pendragon

The best way to explore a game is through the characters. Thankfully, I have two that are ready to go! Typically, Johan and Larina were never in the same games. I'd play one or the other. I mixed this up a bit with Pathfinder and had them known to each other. I figured it was an alternate universe.  

I am going to do the same here, but with the intrigue of courtly politics I might consider them as clandestine lovers. Honestly I am basing it on Liam Neeson's and Helen Mirren's roles in Excalibur. 

How does a Roman Catholic Knight from the Continent meet up with a Pagan Welsh girl? Easy, I'll just adapt their meeting in Pathfinder where Larina found the wounded Johan and healed him. He feels indebted to her, he gives her access to a world she would not have normally been allowed in. Everyone thinks she has bewitched him. 

Johan Werper

I can't pick up a game like this and NOT wonder how my Knight-in-Shining-Armor Johan would work out. I had decided way back in High School that if Johan had a culture from Medieval Europe, it would be French, but living in England. Pendragon makes this easy for me since the language of the High Court would be French. I will say that he is from Brittany and traces his lineage back to Saxon invaders. 

Johan Werper II

Age: 22
Son Number: 1
Homeland: Brittany
Religion: Roman Catholic
Lord: Johan I

SIZ: 11
DEX: 14
STR: 16
CON: 11
APP: 12

Damage: 4d6
Healing Rate: 2.7
Movement: 3
Total Hit Points: 27
Unconscious: 7

Personality Traits
Chivalry Bonus: 0
Religious Bonus: 0

Chase/Lustful: 13/7
Energetic/Lazy: 12/8
Forgiving/Vengeful: 13/7
Generous/Selfish: 10/10
Honest/Deceitful: 12/8
Just/Arbitrary: 11/9
Merciful/Cruel: 13/7
Modest/Proud: 13/7
Prudent/Reckless: 10/10
Spiritual/Worldly: 10/10
Temperate/Indulgent: 13/7
Trusting/Suspicious: 10/10
Valorous/Cowardly: 15/5

Passions
Loyalty (Lord): 16
Love (Family): 17
Hospitality: 15
Honor: 15
Hate (Saxons): 10

Skills
Awareness: 5
Boating: 1
Compose: 1 
Courtesy: 4 
Dancing: 2
Faerie Lore: 1
Falconry: 3
First Aid: 10
Flirting: 3
Folklore: 3
Gaming: 3
Heraldry: 4
Hunting: 10
Intrigue: 3
Orate: 3
Play (Lute): 3
Read (Latin): 10
Recognize: 3
Religion (Roman Catholic): 10
Romance: 3
Singing: 2
Stewardship: 2
Swimming: 2
Tourney: 2

Combat Skills
Battle: 10
Horsemanship: 10

Sword: 17
Lance: 10
Spear: 6
Dagger: 5
Bow: 5

Distinctive Features
Long Blonde Hair

Glory: 1,500

Chainmail and shield
Silver arm band

Johan is a good fit for this game. I would do him as an alternate reality version and really dig deep into family events to help define who he is in this game. It would really be a lot of fun to be honest. I could even explore the family's past as part of Pagan Europe. That would have been 350+ years before this game though. Still something to think about.

Larina Nix

Of course, I had to try translating Larina into this framework. She doesn’t sit easily in Arthur’s world, but that’s half the fun. Larina as a mystical advisor? A Welsh witch standing at the edge of history? She’d never pass as a proper knight, but as an enchantress, wise woman, or secret Pagan counselor to Arthur’s court, she fits perfectly into the tension between the Christian and Pagan worlds that Pendragon thrives on. Plus, it is a theme I love to come back to time and time again: Pagans vs the rising tide of Christian conquest.

When working on Larina one of the first things I run into is how women characters are treated differently than men. Now is 100% it is emulating Arthurian legends and tales, so just like Call of Cthulhu has a Sanity system, this has different rules more men and women characters. Grated you can grab something like Pagan Shore for older versions to even things out, but I want to try this with the version in front of me. Now there is nothing in the rules saying I can't female knight, and there are examples given, but they are exceptional examples. Fine, Larina is a Pagan anyway and wouldn't be a knight. There is a "witch" detailed (such as it is) on page 179. "Witch" is only mentioned four times in the whole book. I mean I know I can grab something from say Basic Roleplaying or Advanced Sorcery, but that is not the point of Pendragon is it? Plus there is no POW score for these characters. 

Larina ferch Lars

Age: 19
Daughter Number: 1
Father: Lars Nicholson 
Homeland: Cymru
Religion: Pagan
Lord: Johan I

SIZ: 9
DEX: 10
STR: 10
CON: 16
APP: 18

Damage: 3d6
Healing Rate: 2.5
Movement: 2.5
Total Hit Points: 19
Unconscious: 4

Personality Traits
Chivalry Bonus: 0
Religious Bonus: 0

Chase/Lustful: 5/15
Energetic/Lazy: 13/7
Forgiving/Vengeful: 10/10
Generous/Selfish: 13/10
Honest/Deceitful: 13/7
Just/Arbitrary: 10/10
Merciful/Cruel: 10/10
Modest/Proud: 7/13
Prudent/Reckless: 10/10
Spiritual/Worldly: 12/8
Temperate/Indulgent: 10/10
Trusting/Suspicious: 10/10
Valorous/Cowardly: 10/10

Passions
Loyalty (Lord): 15
Love (Family): 16
Hospitality: 15
Honor: 15
Loyalty (Old Faith): 13

Skills
Awareness: 3
Chirurgery: 10
Compose: 1 
Courtesy: 5 
Dancing: 3
Faerie Lore: 10
Falconry: 2
Fashion: 2
First Aid: 15
Flirting: 11
Folklore: 4
Gaming: 3
Heraldry: 1
Industry: 5
Intrigue: 2
Orate: 3
Play (Flute): 3
Read (Ogham): 10
Recognize: 2
Religion (Pagan): 10
Romance: 2
Singing: 3
Stewardship: 5
Swimming: 1
Tourney: 1

Combat Skills
Battle: 1
Horsemanship: 3

Dagger: 5
Staff: 5

Woman's Gift
Natural Healer

Enchantments
Enchantment
Magical Healing
Glamour

Distinctive Features
Long red hair
Bright, piercing blue eyes
Larger than average nose

Glory: 1,140

There is no INT or POW stat in this flavor of BRP. So there are not really any rules to cover her proficiency with languages. Plus as Welsh pagan girl she would not really have much of chance to learn languages save via exposure. But I did roll Natural Healer for her gift, so that is her "in" to the courts, or at least how she gets noticed.

For magic, the rules are thin. I mean, with a game that has Merlin as a character an appendix on magic would be nice. I gave her "subtle" magic. So, an enchantment here, magical healing, and glamour. All things that can be explained away with deft skill. She has a knack for healing, so she augments it every now and then with some pagan magic, OR is it just her knowledge of herbs and plants? Hard to say. Likely to get her burned at the stake if it were about 1000 years later. 

I love the idea that these versions of Johan and Larina are clandestine lovers. It would add the proper tragedy to the narrative and game. Plus, it is that nice push and pull between the Pagans and Christians I love to explore.

Why Play This Instead of D&D 5e?

D&D 5e is about heroes exploring dungeons, defeating monsters, and gaining power. Pendragon is about knights struggling with ideals, navigating dynastic politics, and finding their place in the grand sweep of legend. It’s a game of story rather than loot.

• If you want to explore chivalry, honor, and tragedy rather than XP and levels, this is your game.
  
  
• If you’re drawn to the romantic, mythic sweep of Arthurian legend, no other RPG captures it as faithfully.
  
  
• If you want to play not just a character, but a family across generations, Pendragon offers something unique.

In short: D&D tells us what it’s like to be an adventurer. Pendragon tells us what it’s like to live and die as part of the great legend of Arthur. 

That is not to say one game doesn't have something to offer the other. As D&D has grown, it has left its feudal medieval roots behind, if it really had any to start with. Yeah, Greyhawk cosplays as feudal lands, but really the place where D&D was always the best is in its name: Dungeons. 

The game is great. It's attention to historical detail is its strongest feature, but also its weakest one for me since I do like to have a bit of magic in my fantasy. No worries, I have a LOT of FRPGs with magic. 

#RPGaDay2025 Day 30 Experience

 Wow. Experience. What a loaded word.

Are we talking about experience points? Game experience? Play experience? Player experience? Or what it means to build experience over time, as a gamer, a DM, a creator?

All of it, really, I guess.

I have been posting my Witches of Appendix N to tap into the experiences of the creators and first players of the D&D game, while also incorporating my own experiences and influences. 

But today I want to focus on the experience of exploring different games, and what we carry with us when we return to the familiar.

Recently, D&D influencer Ginny Di did a great video talking about what she loved about Daggerheart, and what she planned to steal for her own games. And while she didn’t name names, we all know she meant D&D. And you know what? She’s absolutely right.

The best games we play change how we think. They expand the toolkit. They remind us there are other ways to do party dynamics, relationships, mechanical choices, and storytelling rhythms. And even if we come back to the same rules we’ve always loved, we bring something new with us.

For me, this has been a theme lately. I’ve spent a lot of time working on my Witches of Appendix N project, not just reading the stories that inspired the first generation of D&D creators, but trying to feel what they felt. What was it like to play this weird little fantasy game in 1974? What shaped it? What inspired it?

But I’m not Gary Gygax. I’m not Dave Arneson. I’m not sitting in a basement in Lake Geneva trying to rework Chainmail into a fantasy skirmish. My Appendix N isn’t just swords and dragons and pulp novels. It’s Dark Shadows reruns on PBS. It’s D-grade horror movies from the ’70s. It’s weird occult books I wasn’t supposed to be reading. It’s Led Zeppelin and  Iron Maiden album covers (I am listening to “Number of the Beast” as I write this)  and pages from Fangoria, Starlog, and Heavy Metal taped into a spiral notebook.

Those are my experiences. And they show up in every spell I write, every monster I stat out, every setting I dream up. No matter how “old-school” I go, it’s always filtered through who I am, what I’ve seen, and what I love.

And I think that’s true for every one of us.

We all bring our own experience to the table, our own flavor, our own influences, our own emotional palette. That’s what makes the hobby so weird and beautiful and impossible to define.

So yes, learn new systems. Try new styles. Borrow shamelessly. Steal structure from Daggerheart, emotional mechanics from Monsterhearts or Blue Rose, pacing from Call of Cthulhu, drama from Star Wars, or epic deeds from Wasted Lands. Fold it all back into your game.

Because your game, your world, should reflect your experience.

And if you do it right?

It becomes an experience someone else will never forget.

Questions

 What. Confident. Lesson.  What lesson am I the most confident in? I would ahve to say the math lessons I built in my games with my kids. It was great fun.

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Gary Con XVII Afterword

 Back from Gary Con 17! I had an absolute blast. Got to see so many great people. Old friends, fans of the blog and my games, so many great gamers with great stories.  Sales wise, we did really great this year, Thirteen Parsecs was our big hit of course, but we also sold a lot of Wasted Lands. I think word of mouth is finally catching on!

I bought a lot less this year, only picking up the Cthulhu by Gaslight Investigator's book. But there was a lot of great stuff here.

Discovered there are editions of Dungeon! I do not own, Spanish and German. So now I am on a hunt for those.

I do speak both Spanish and German. Just not very well.

I worked on my old-school autograph collection.

I learned the hard way a while back if you want to talk to these guys you need to do it now. None of us are getting any younger.

Talking with Tim Kask is always great. I discovered there is a bit of early D&D lore connected to our Alma Mater, Southern Illinois University, that I plan to explore in depth soon. Talking with Jeff Grubb is always great, this is the first year I thought to get his autograph! So much for following my own advice. 

Jeff Easly and Darlene were there, and they were fantastic as always. I didn't get anything signed from them this year since I do every year. Let someone else in.

I did get a chance to talk to Kelsey Dionne a couple of times and she is every bit as nice and approachable as everyone has said she is. She even knew about my witch book! So I had to give her a copy. They had a great con, I fully expect they sold out of their stock as well.  It is hard not to wish them all the success in the world, really. 

As I said, we did good, but Jason did better with Troll Lords Games. His new Wasted Lands sold out of its first printing and was the star of Troll Lords this year. So expect to see him to be writing for them for a long time to come. 

My oldest went with me and did not but play AD&D 1st Ed. We had a BECMI game one night but we were both so tired we opted to drive home instead. Yeah, I still drive into Gary Con every day. My youngest with with us the last day, but didnot stay, they were picked up by their girlfriend and they spent the day in downtown Lake Geneva while we did the con.

So yeah, we all had a complete blast!

My wife was in England that whole time, lucky (for her) when she booked her trip she flew out of London City Airport and not Heathrow. So she was not affected by the fire at Heathrow, save for her flight being delayed a little.

Looking forward to Gary Con XXVIII next year!

In Search Of...TSR's R.I.P.

 Spend any time in horror RPG communities or the classic TSR communities; sooner or later, the topic of R.I.P. will come up.  But what is/was R.I.P., and why was it never published?

These are the questions I will try to answer on this special Halloween edition of In Search Of...

In Search Of...TSR's R.I.P.

So, what do we know about this game? Very little to be honest.

• It is modern-day horror. 
• Slated to be published in 1991
• Trademark was applied for in 1990.
• Written by Scott Herring [sic], Jim Ward, and Paul A. Linberg [sic]
• At least one accessory, Lost Souls, was planned and another, a set of cards, were mentioned.

And that is really about it. From the TSRArchive, we learned that it was going to be a boxed set with 32, 64, and 96-page rule books. Dice, cards and fold out maps. I am speculating here that the books were some combination of a fast-play Basic set of rules, complete rules, and possibly an adventure. But that is only a guess. There could have been Game Master's books and a creature book. IF we are to follow the clues from Top Secret, it would have been a Player's book (96), a Game Master's book (64), and maybe an equipment book or world guide.

This is only a guess. Afterall they misspelled two of the three authors on the cover. 

Scott Haring is known for his contributions to GURPS, Dragonlance, Mystara, and the Forgotten Realms. His contributions to Top Secret S.I., Agent 13 and Ghostbusters might interest us more here today though. 

Jim Ward was the creator of Metamorphosis Alpha; he also wrote a lot of material for D&D and then would later move on to various publishers, including Troll Lord Games.  In particular to this conversation Ward designed the "Tainted Lands" horror setting for Castles & Crusades. James died earlier this year on March 18, 2024.

Paul Arden Lidberg was one of the founders of Crunchy Frog Enterprises/Team Frog Studios. He also worked on many games and was part of the TSR West group with Flint Dille for a brief time. He went on to create the games Critter Commandos and Duel. Paul died on June 13, 2022.

Now we do know there is a history of TSR padding their product schedules.  David "Zeb" Cook recently stated at Gamehole Con that he would come up with names of products and other writers developers would have to figure out what that meant. This seems slightly more than that, but not by much. You can't even trust the art. TSR catalogs often had concept or placeholder art in place of a product. That is not an uncommon thing really.  The "blue" Rules Cyclopedia cover is a good example.

In the early 1990s we know TSR was feeling the heat from the new kid on the block, Vampire the Masquerade. I have been talking about the effects of that game and White Wolf all month long in my Ravenloft retrospective. 1987's "Lost Boys" and "Near Dark" showed that vampire movies were still popular and there were certainly rumors about the upcoming Francis Ford Coppola Bram Stoker's Dracula scheduled for 1992. Even Chill saw new 2nd Edition from long time thorn in TSR's side, Mayfair Games. The time was ripe for a supernatural game. 

We do know from many sources, notably Steve Winter, that next to nothing was produced for the game, beyond this cover mock-up. There are no files siting on a 5.25" floppy somewhere and no dot-matrix print out of chapter 1 or anything like that. I do think we have seen everything about this game, save for maybe some TSR inter-office notes or emails that likely no longer exist. 

There are two product codes that appeared in the TSR catalogs for this.

• TSR07404: R.I.P. Horror RPG
• TSR07405: R.I.P. Horror Card Game
• TSR07406: Lost Souls

Here is the text featured, along with the art from the cover.

"Nobody's safe. The undead disregard today's best high-tech security and surveillance systems. These demons attack helpless victims as they sleep - their electronic fences and computers buzz through the night. This horror and much, much more fill the R.I.P. role-playing game. This all-new game awaits horror fans with three rules booklets, full-color cards, dice and maps that spin a tale in modern-day terror."

This is our best clue to what the game was going to be about. But it is not the only one.

The R.I.P. Comics

Our best guesses at the tone and tenor of the game come from the R.I.P. Comics produced by TSR a couple of years before.  Two four-issue series were released. And because I care about you, my faithful readers, I scored 3/4ths of them. 

What can we say about the comics?

• There were two series of four for a total of 8 comics.
• Described as "Comics Modules." 
• Published around the same time TSR had a comics deal with DC.
• Each had some game related content, sometimes Top Secret/S.I. related, sometimes standalone. 
• Flint Dille, brother of Lorraine Williams, was the creative director. 

Flint Dille also wrote the Agent 13, Top Secret/S.I. tie-in media, Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger. 

Now I am being honest here, the comics are not very good. But that is fine, because I am not interested in that. Why I bought these was for the last section of the comics, the game materials. The comic themselves feel a bit like Tales From the Crypt.

In Issue #1 (I will just number these 1 to 8 for ease), has notes for adapting the Top Secret/S.I. part 1 by Scott Haring. This first section details the type of horror game you might want to run. There is nothing particular to the TS/SI rules here, just campaign modes.

Issue #2 shares the same art as the proposed TSR07406: Lost Souls book. This includes the Zombie Hunt game, with rules in the center and a play board on the inside covers, and tokens. Part 2 of our TS/SI aka Role-Play in Peace, section covers some new advantages and disadvantages. Mostly for dealing with the supernatural. They promise more are coming, just write to TSR West.

Issue #3 adds to the Zombie Hunt game with Zombie Rampage. For TS/SI we get some new skills and some Powers as described in the Agent 13 book. This game takes the Chill 2nd edition approach and has the Powers limited to "the bad guys." You know it would not stay that way for long.  Powers here are treated like Skills.  

Issue #4 gives us some monsters. Or at least I would like to say it does. The trouble is the text is small and printed on a color background that is almost impossible to read. I tried a lot of different filters and skill could barely read it. We get Vampires, Werewolves, Frankenstein's Monster and a Mad Slasher.

The Zombie Nation game, a continuation of the zombie games from Issue #1 is written by Paul A. Lidberg.

Issue #5 (or 1 of the second series) features more Role-Play in Peace with some Monster powers by Scott Haring AND a R.I.P. collector card game by Paul Lidberg, which could be the same as TSR07405: R.I.P. Horror Card Game listed above.

Issue #7 (I do not own Issues #6 or #8) includes a solitaire game called The Crypt by Paul Lidberg and a page of a new power (Cause Madness) for Top Secret/S.I.

Now, this certainly begs the question. Was the only material written for the R.I.P. RPG sitting before me right now?

The R.I.P. RPG

It would be folly to try and guess what the completed R.I.P. RPG would have been like, AND would we have called "Rip" or "Are Eye Pea?" But that doesn't mean I can't make some guesses. Especially given some of the Vampire:TM "catch-up" TSR was doing at the time with Ravenloft. For the record, "Are Eye Pea."

Obviously, the biggest, and maybe the most error-prone guess, is that the system used would have been some version of TSR's Top Secret/S.I. RPG. I mean there is no reason to assume it would have been this, comics examples aside, especially since TSR had a history of using a different system for each and every game. BUT maybe with the new Top Secret/S.I. TSR saw a way into modern games. The comics certainly give at least some lip service to this. 

My other "evidence" is the product codes. R.I.P. had the 74xx line and Top Secret/S.I. covered the 76xx numbers. Not that this is solid evidence save for the fact they were all "in production" at the same time.

I think a safer guess is that Vampires would have played a bigger role in this than what little evidence we have. I have stated in the my reviews of Van Richten's Guide to Vampires and Children of the Night Vampires that TSR was well aware of the growing popularity of Vampires and Vampire RPGs. While we know the the production teams were often siloed and unaware of what the others were doing, who knows what would have become of Ravenloft if R.I.P. had been a hit? Would Ravenloft still have been produced? Would we have seen Gothic Earth for R.I.P. instead? 

What can I speculate about this game?

Well, there are certainly tie-ins to the Agent 13 sourcebook. In fact, a 1990s update to that is not just a safe bet but likely the only safe bet. 

The Agent 13 novels are throwbacks to the pulps of the 30s, save without the charm of being from the 30s. I mean, they were throwbacks in the late 80s, but I am not sure they would have fared much better in the 90s. So, the new R.I.P., even if it builds on the mythos of that brand, would need to be thoughtfully updated. The Lemuria origins of the Brotherhood would still be fine. Even the evil takeover of the Brotherhood. Given the 90s, I expect to see more about the Freemasons, the Templars, and plenty of other secret groups. Agent 13 portrayed heroes and villains in terms of black and white. R.I.P. would likely do something similar. While other horror games of this time (Chill 2nd Ed, Vampire, Kult, SLA, CoC) were embracing shades of gray, they were all fairly dark. No one was "pure good," but I do see TSR, especially TSR of the early 90s, trying to push a "PCs are good guys" narrative. 

For monsters, I am sure there will be vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster(s), zombies, and very likely succubi. I would also expect to see all sorts of "high tech" monsters too, like brains kept alive via advanced machinery, "Borg"-like monsters, and maybe even monsters caused by modern problems like global warming and pollution. Would the monsters be well known to normal humans? I can see different campaign modes that allow this or keep them secret. I think our best evidence of this is to look toward Ravenloft for AD&D 2nd Ed. 

One thing that is very easy to guess is that I am sure there will be more skills regarding Occult sciences and powers that "agents" can take. These would be limited, but more skills than the ones seen in the Agent 13 book. Again, I think the model here would be what Chill or SLA Industries were doing in the 90s. 

I would also expect to see a re-print and expansion of all the different types of campaign settings mentioned in the comic. From humor to slasher flicks, to monster hunters to cosmic horror. It is the 1990s, but the X-Files are still a couple of years off (1993), so I am not expecting Governmental and Alien conspiracies just yet. I would expect a group of some sort the PCs could work with. Like ORION from Top Secret/S.I. or even SAVE from Chill.

Given what we saw in Top Secret/S.I., Agent 13, and later in AD&D 2nd Ed Ravenloft, I fully suspect that there was going to be some secretive shadowy organization bent on World Domination^TM, that is, if they didn't already control everything, whom the characters will have to fight the agents of. Whether this takes the shape of The Brotherhood or something more akin to the Dark Powers is difficult to guess. It is likely would be skewed more to the Brotherhood side.

In truth, we will never know. With 2/3rds of the writing team gone, the company gone, and the persistent suspicion that nothing was ever really produced for it there is not enough to go on.

But I think I will see if the idea has any legs all the same. Check back tomorrow.  

Links

• R.I.P. Modern Day Horror, TSR Archive
• Entry at RPGGeek.com
• RPGNet: Can anyone tell me about TSR's R.I.P. game?
• Grognardia: Two RPGs That Never Were
• R.I.P. Comics
• R.I.P. Comics
• Review of the comics
• TSR Was Planning to Launch a Comic Book Company in 1992!
• Crapbox of Cthulhu: Halloween POST-A-DAY, October 19, 2016
• Horror RPGs Historical review: Age of Ravens
• History of Horror RPGs (Part One: 1981-1990)
• History of Horror RPGs: Part Two (1991-1995)
• Authors
• Scott Haring
• James Ward
• Paul Arden Lidberg

RPG Blog Carnival

This post is my last entry for my October RPG Blog Carnival: Horror and Fantasy.. I hoped you enjoyed. I'll post a wrap-up for it tomorrow as well.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!